Affirmations of a Queer God
This is the prayer we prayed at the end of the sermon yesterday. What stands out to you as encouraging or hopeful? What feels uncomfortable or unreachable? Talk with God about those things.
Affirmation of Faith: Queer God
who came out to Moses
…& other biblical coming out stories
By Avery Arden, queerlychristian36@gmail.com
The love of our queer God unites us into one Body —
not in spite of, but in celebration of our varied gifts and roles
in the story God is telling even now.
As one, let us affirm some of what we believe about the God who is for us
when we are in the closet,
and when we come out,
when we receive our loved ones with rejoicing
and when we strive to understand.
We believe in the God who came out to Moses
from the midst of unburned branches
with a name They had never revealed before —
a name shared with love,
shared as an invitation into deeper relationship,
deeper understanding of the God Who Is
and Who Will Be
the steadfast ally of shunned and shackled peoples.
We believe in the God of Joseph,
who takes tattered lives and weaves them into wholeness.
When Joseph came out to his brothers
as a dress-draped dreamer and faced their violent rejection,
God went with Joseph into slavery, into imprisonment,
and out again, guiding his way into flourishing.
But They also stayed with Joseph’s brothers,
never ceasing to work on their hard hearts,
preparing them for the tearful reunion
where they would embrace Joseph’s differences as life-bringing gifts.
We believe in the God of Esther,
who protected her from being outed unwillingly
in a place hostile to her very being;
and who, when the time came to act,
filled her with the courage and power she needed
to use what privilege she had to save the more vulnerable members of her people.
We believe in the God of Mary,
the teenage girl who faced disgrace
by coming out as full of grace, pregnant with divinity —
yet she did so boldly, joyously,
recognizing the hand of God in the status quo’s upturning.
We believe in Jesus,
whose identity as God’s beloved son
and God Themself,
as Word made Flesh
and Life that died
is too complex for human minds to fathom —
yet Jesus yearned to be known
to be understood by those who loved him most!
He asked them earnestly, “Who do you say that I am?”
but told them not to out him to the world
before he was ready to share his truth in his own time
— And oh, how he’d shine!
We believe that the God who liberated Lazurus from his tomb,
and who overcame death by rising from a tomb of his own,
is the selfsame Spirit
who enters into the tombs we build around ourselves
or shove our neighbors into;
She looses our bindings and pulls us into Her great Upturning.
Amen.