In today’s episode, we answer a question sent through our email. This listener works in a homeless shelter where she finds some of the people she works with and serves are anti-queer. She wants to know how to be kind and warm to the oppressed and suffering when others are hateful and dismissive comments of queer folks. “As a queer person, that can be difficult to swallow. How do I respond to these things in a way that is constructive and kind?”
If you’re a regular listener, you’ll notice that we don’t look at Revelation often but today is an exemption. Tune in to find out how Fr. Shay changed Brian’s mind about featuring this passage and how we queer this text from Revelation. This wild and wacky from the last book of the Christian Bible has a surprising amount of relevance for the LGBTQ community today.
Key takeaways:
- Fr. Shay: first snowfall in MN [0:53]
- Brian: winter, time in NY, and going back home [2:27]
- Email question: on being kind to those who are unkind to queer folks [5:36]
- Take our answers to this question with a grain of salt [6:27]
- Avoid generalizing; see people individually [8:10]
- Protecting yourself while still meeting people with grace [10:34]
- Be curious about the concern underneath the anti-queer beliefs [12:20]
- Queering the Bible: Revelation 7:9-17 [15:25]
- Tuning fork and our work [18:09]
- Revelation is a difficult book [19:22]
- This is not a futuristic passage [20:23]
- The queer elders [21:15]
- We are connected to the struggles that came before us [22:17]
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If you’d like to be featured in future episodes, email your question or Bible passage suggestion to connect@queertheology.com
Revelation 7:9-17
After this I looked, and there was a great crowd that no one could number. They were from every nation, tribe, people, and language. They were standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They wore white robes and held palm branches in their hands. They cried out with a loud voice:
“Victory belongs to our God
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
All the angels stood in a circle around the throne, and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell facedown before the throne and worshipped God, saying,
“Amen! Blessing and glory
and wisdom and thanksgiving
and honor and power and might
be to our God forever and always. Amen.”
Then one of the elders said to me, “Who are these people wearing white robes, and where did they come from?”
I said to him, “Sir, you know.”
Then he said to me, “These people have come out of great hardship. They have washed their robes and made them white in the Lamb’s blood. This is the reason they are before God’s throne. They worship him day and night in his temple, and the one seated on the throne will shelter them. They won’t hunger or thirst anymore. No sun or scorching heat will beat down on them, because the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them. He will lead them to the springs of life-giving water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Photo by Fa Barboza
The post Tuning Fork – Revelation 7:9-17 appeared first on Queer Theology.