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.