Called to Treason, Matthew Chapters 14-16

This episode dives into Matthew Chapters 14-16 and the rich political, communal, and spiritual tensions woven throughout. We unpack the death of John the Baptist, the feeding miracles, Jesus walking on water, debates about purity, the encounter with the Canaanite woman, and Peter’s declaration of Jesus as Messiah. These stories are especially revealing as they challenge Empire, center outsiders, and call followers into risky, justice-oriented solidarity. We get into what treasonous acts we may be called to take up when confronting power, and what it really means to “take up your cross” today.

 

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This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors or omissions.

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2 (40s):
Well,

3 (40s):
To the Queer Theology podcast, I’m Brian G. Murphy.

4 (43s):
And I’m father Shannon, TL Kerns. We’re the co-founders of queer theology.com and your hosts

3 (47s):
From Genesis to Revelation. The Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how tuning

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Each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness, and how they can enrich one another. We’re glad you’re here.

3 (1m 2s):
Today we’re doing a deep dive on three chapters of Matthew, Matthew 14, 15 and 16. This episode feels particularly important right now as it talks about confronting the powers that be in the places we live. And spoiler alert contains a bit of a call to treason in these charged political times. How our faith calls us to engage with society, community, government, and the world around us feels especially important. This episode originally aired as part of a larger series looking at the entire book of Matthew. If you’re interested in checking out more of that, the first episode of the series does a lot of context setting for the whole book of Matthew.

3 (1m 48s):
That episode re aired just a few episodes ago, so you could scroll back for that. The whole series was episodes 4 72 through 4 79. So if you’re looking for those in the podcast app, scroll back to find those. And with that, let’s dive into Matthew chapter 14, 15, and 16. We are back and we are officially entering the second half of this eight part, eight week series on the gospel of Matthew. I hope that you are loving it and not sick of it yet. We’ve covered a lot of ground and there’s still so much to go. Shea and I, Shea was in Los Angeles for a few weeks, so we were in the same place at the same time.

3 (2m 28s):
And we were chatting after recording last week’s episode that like even eight weeks, it feels like not enough time. Like last week’s episode, we walked away being like, oh, there was like 25 more things that we wanted to say about just those passages. And so thankfully inside of Sanctuary Collective, we have some space to discuss, discuss some more and go into, into more detail. So if you are digging the series and you want more of it, join us in Sanctuary collective community to find out all about that. And now let’s dig into part five. Shea, what, what the heck’s going on? Yeah. So today we are gonna take a look at chapters 14 through 16.

3 (3m 12s):
Once again, not enough time. We’re gonna have to go really broad strokes. And I think that this is the fact that we’re talking about going in depth, but also like that there’s so much more to uncover is to me, the really exciting thing about doing Bible study and doing it well, right, is that there is always more to uncover that there’s always so much going on under the surface and, and that each time you encounter these texts, like you’re encountering something different because you’ve changed, because the world has changed because your understanding has changed. And that to me just feels like continually an exciting process.

3 (3m 55s):
And so as we dive in, we start out with the death of John the Baptist. And this is another moment where Matthew takes some from Mark, but changes it significantly. It’s also this really weird passage because like he starts out with a story and then is like, after John was dead, oh wait, I haven’t actually told you any, anything of that happened. And then we like go back in time. He tells that story and then it’s like back to the present. It’s just this like weird, weird little thing. But I do think that the, the important piece about why the author of Matthew is talking about the death of John the Baptist is that he is really linking Jesus to John, that he’s really linking Jesus in the line of prophets and the prophetic tradition.

3 (4m 52s):
And also he’s naming again that like these are prophets who are going up against the politically powerful, that it’s not just about spirituality or belief that it’s actually a direct confrontation of the political powers. And so that’s why we get this kind of strange and misplaced John the Baptist story. Anything about that story that that co that sticks out for you, Brian? Well, it reminds me of reading like my a DHD fused journal where I’m like, oh, wait, hold on. I’m like, I’m skipping all around. One thing that comes up for me is, you know, I know that like James Cohen talks a lot about sort of like the cross and the lynching tree and like Jesus as a, as a, a lynched black man and sort of like drawing parallels between the Jesus story and the experience of like violent, racist, anti-black racism in the us.

3 (5m 47s):
But I’m also thinking about like, sort of like with that in the background, the death of John the Baptist and the deaths of many people over the past, I mean like millennia, like centuries, but also in the past like decade or so of, of Trayvon Martin and George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and sort of like these moments where people dying become part of like ca like capitalisms to social to more aggressive or more infused social movements, or they become sort of like a rallying point. And I like, I don’t wanna say that like either like John the Baptist or like any of the black people that are killed by police in the US like need quote unquote like needed to die in order to sort of like fulfill some like weird manuscript of like divine manuscript.

3 (6m 35s):
But I’m just like noting that like, just descriptively, this is like something that has happened in the past and continues to have echoes today of like the state is violent. Like the state was, like the state was violent, then the state is violent now. The state kills people, the state then like the state kills people now. And in response to those deaths, people, you know, rise up and cry out to demand a more just world. So that is one thing that that pops up for me. And that is very clear in one of the other gospels. It it’s different in Matthew’s narrative, but in, i, I can’t remember if it’s Mark or if it’s Luke, but where the death or where, where the arrest of John the Baptist is really the thing that like pushes Jesus into public ministry that before that he had been kind of on the sidelines still preparing.

3 (7m 25s):
And so I think that your point is, is really right and, and it’s both, I think that like there are these moments that radicalize us and others, and then there is also a, like a mantle has been dropped and it needs to be picked up. And I think that that that is both like the, the trauma of, of needing to continually be in activism work and also like how deeply we are connected to one another that that the pa that that kind of passing of a torch matters and, and is important. Amen.

3 (8m 5s):
And so we, we run from the death of John the Baptist into the feeding of the 5,000. And this is such a fascinating story because again, we have the author of Matthew who’s trying to make really, really specific points about this story. This isn’t just a miracle story. This is, there are all of these references to things that happened in the story of the Israelites that, that the author of Matthew was trying to say that like, again, Jesus is continuing in this tradition. And so we have echoes of when Eisha provided food after the death of Elijah.

3 (8m 51s):
And so here we have Jesus providing food after the death of John. Again, this sense of picking up the prophetic mantle. Yeah, we have a, a counter picture of the, the story of the manna and the wilderness when the, when the folks were fed in the wilderness, but the then the rule was like, you can’t take more than that day share, right? If you take more than what you need for that day, it’s gonna go bad. But here we have a story where all of these leftovers are collected and saved. And so it seems to be saying like in the new world, in this new world order, hunger is replaced by extravagance. That daily sustenance is replaced by everyone having enough all the time.

3 (9m 36s):
And that there’s an abundance, which I think is just really beautiful. And there have also been people who talked about how, you know, when, when the people were arranged in, in groups of 500, that these, that that number is really important and that Jesus is arranging the people in military companies, which is definitely not something I was taught no. In my evangelical church growing up. Yeah. And so that was a moment for me when I read that and I read that in a commentary and I was like, oh, well that changes things, right? Like again, we have this sense of Rome, the political powers, they’re the ones that are supposed to be providing bread for the people and they’re not.

3 (10m 22s):
And so we are gonna step up and do it. And I think about it makes me think about how often like mutual aid movements have stepped in where government agencies, where politicians, where, you know, quote unquote safety nets that are really never safety nets have failed and, and how much of a responsibility we have to take care of one another. Yeah, that reminds me of like the Black Panthers like a, you know, the way that they organize and also like, not just like, I think for many of us, the image of Black Panthers is like a sort of like militaristic presence, but also like, like providing community safety, providing, you know, food, lunches, meal breakfast for, for kids, like a huge social services network that I was not taught.

3 (11m 18s):
And so I, I sort of like see echos of that also, you know, we are constantly talking about like, you like just picking up the Bible and trying to read a passage that it is like trying to pick up Shakespeare. Like you can understand the, the words on the page, but like you’re gonna be missing so much of the context and the nuance. And actually sometimes you might totally misunderstand things because like you don’t understand that the, like the the such and structure or the, that actually like, this is a, this is a sort of coded language or a coded joke about something. And I, you know, I I was at a Shabbat morning service a few, a few months ago and the Hto portion was about this, this scene from Alicia and I, I came home and I took, I think I texted you and I was like, oh my God, did you know that in the Hebrew Bible there’s also this story?

3 (12m 2s):
And you were like, yes, Brian, obviously I need that. But it was even news to me that I’m still, you know, I I been, I studied religion undergrad, I had been like, you know, doing this work at re com for almost a decade now, and I’m still learning more stuff. And so this is a, like an is something that you like need to like put some time and effort to sort of like pick apart what you’re reading and also like b an ongoing practice, which I think rather than feeling like, oh my God, it takes so much work, like this is so hard. I look at it as like, oh my God, this is like so exciting. There’s always more to learn. There’s always sort of like more juice to squeeze out of the orange. You can continue sort of like coming back and discovering new stuff.

3 (12m 43s):
And so I, I really sort of like dig this, this work of like finding like, what more can I learn the more that I learn about the historical context or these sort of echoes of the Hebrew Bible or these parallels to Rome, it just sort of makes it come alive that much more for me.

Queer Sociology (13m 1s):
And I can quickly plug, if you’re sort of like digging this podcast series and like, you know, digging these sort of like things are pointing out and you like wanna be able to do this with some other passage, some other book that’s not the gospel of Matthew. We have a, a workshop called Digging the Details that is all about how to sort of like do this process yourself. We walk you through that and you get to sort of like pick pick your own passage. You can find more about that at queer sociology.com/digging.

3 (13m 25s):
Yeah. So with that session, Shane, like, teach me more. Yeah. And I, and I think that your point is, is really well made Brian in that like it’s, it, there’s always more to uncover. It’s a lot of fun. We always encourage people to follow your curiosity. Like this doesn’t have to be a dry, academic burdensome homework assignment, right. That you could like follow the things that that spark your curiosity. But I do think that like approaching the Bible in this way is a fundamental shift for those of us who grew up thinking that, you know, it’s all just gonna make sense, right? We’re just gonna open up the text and it’s gonna speak to exactly where we are today.

3 (14m 9s):
And I just don’t think that that’s the, a good way to read the Bible, which isn’t to say that, that you might not, which isn’t to say that it, that will never happen, right? Like you might open up the text and find a word of encouragement that does seem to speak exactly to where you are at the moment. But it is like a, this is a different posture towards wrestling with texts and it, it is a little bit more work and also I find it to be a lot more fun and a lot more rich than like hoping that some passage is gonna speak to me. That it, it feels more, I don’t know, it just, there’s just more like there’s more meat to it, right?

3 (14m 53s):
Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is really important. And I would also add that like when I do this work, it makes it so that like basically any passage has like something to say about like the present moment and where I’m at because like there’s just like, they’re actually so rich and there’s like so much going on and when you approach them as sort of like three dimensional stories with context and different characters in them in depth, like there’s always a way in. And so actually doing a little bit of work, I think if you’re, if you want the Bible to sort of be like, I don’t know, like a love letter to you or inspiration to you, I actually think that like doing this work makes it more of that, not less of that.

3 (15m 35s):
Yeah. So we moved then from the feeding the 5,000 to Jesus walking on the water, which is kind of a fascinating little snippet. And some of the things that commentators have said is that this is one of the first times that Jesus sends the disciples on ahead of him. Like he tells them to get in a boat and they go and, and then there is, you know, this big piece about Jesus having, being able to walk on water, which again is, is kind of a, a callback to Rome and to power that it was considered that the gods were the ones who had control over nature. And so for Jesus to be able to walk on water is putting him in that place with the gods.

3 (16m 20s):
Yeah. Yes. And that then this, this sense of like, that like Peter’s lack of faith that he got out on the water and sank. One of the commentaries I was reading was like if Peter had actually had faith, like it wasn’t that Peter didn’t have faith and so he sank, it’s that Peter should have had faith before getting outta the boat that he should have just stayed in the boat and like recognized the divinity of Jesus and that Jesus was gonna walk toward him, which I thought was kind of funny. And also like shows how differently you can interpret these texts, these passages, that this is just a small snippet that, that commentators have been like arguing about and coming up with different ideas around for like forever.

3 (17m 8s):
Yeah. ’cause mine was, the way that I was taught was definitely like, you might have, you might have faith in Jesus now, but if you take your eyes off of the prize for like one second, you are in danger of like sinking and drowning into the ocean. Right? Right. But even if you do that, like if you, if Jesus will like, still wants to save you, so like, you know, be careful. Right. Okay. Yeah. So we moved then from Jesus walking on the water to again, a really important but also fraught story where it’s basically a giant argument between Jesus and his disciples and the Pharisees all about ritual purity.

3 (17m 52s):
And again, we just wanna keep driving this home over and over again. So this is an intercommunal argument that this particular community, these Jesus followers were breaking off of the tradition that they had once held. And so it’s really important that we not continue to feed into antisemitism by, for instance, making the Pharisees bad guys in all of our stories or in complaining about other Christian groups by calling them pharisees. Like that is just not helpful. It’s not good and it’s not the best practice for this because we’re Christians and like we’re, we like descend from that heritage.

3 (18m 33s):
Like that is the story, those are the stories that we get told. But like the Pharisees, like both now, like rabbinic Judaism now and also the Pharisees at the time of Jesus we’re also like wrestling with a lot of these same questions and answering them in like sometimes similar ways, sometimes different ways. Like I’m thinking back just to earlier the story of the feeding the 5,000 and you were sort of like, it’s a counter picture to the manna that couldn’t be saved. And like Farris said, Judaism and Rabbi Judaism has also wrestled with that story from the Torah of like, what does it mean that like we can’t save up enough and that it spoils and like what type of God does that depict? And, and coming up with new understandings of that as well.

3 (19m 17s):
So there also like if there’s something that like Jesus is annoyed act, it’s also sometimes the case that like the Pharisees were also annoyed in that same thing. They just like were answering it in different ways. It’s also sometimes the case that they’re very true and distinct differences between, between the two of them that are, and that are important not to gloss over, but just like to remember that like we are only told part of the story. Yeah. And I think that brings up the, the, the thing that I wanna discuss, which is like, what does it look like to hold in good tension, differing beliefs? Yeah. And how do we disagree well without demonizing others. And I think that like there’s, there’s a little bit of both ands here, right?

3 (20m 2s):
Yeah. As we’re recording this, the New York Times is coming under fire for it’s like ridiculously months and months and months of transphobic reporting. And their response to op-ed that, or the response to an open letter that was calling them out on their transphobic reporting was to basically say like, I don’t know, we’re just trying to like both sides this thing, right? Like we’re trying to give equal, equal side to trans people and to people that should say that say trans people don’t, shouldn’t exist. And then of course the also the very next day they post an op-ed in defense of JK rally.

3 (20m 43s):
So we can see Yeah, they’re not actually like both sizing it and also on some issues. There are not two sides, right? There is like Right, and there is genocide and, and then there are times when like we are in a religious tradition where we believe one thing and that another tradition, another thing, and that those beliefs are fundamentally incompatible, right? Either you believe that Jesus’, that that the Eucharist becomes Jesus’s body and blood or you don’t like both of those things can’t really be true at the same time.

3 (21m 25s):
And also like we can be in relationship with people who believe different things about the Eucharist without it being like turning violent. So how, how do you wrestle with, with those things? How do you decide what’s a like deal breaker and where, where you can be in conversation with people and how do we do this? Well? Oh man, what a question. I think that that is a question that has been on my heart probably for like, for as long as queer theology.com has existed. I think like the, the sort of, you know, ongoing question that I think that I personally have within myself that we also sometimes hopefully have is sort of like what, like what makes someone a Christian?

3 (22m 10s):
Like what does it mean to be a Christian? And like how do we draw our lines? And I think also this relates to to queerness too, right? Like what does it mean to be queer? How do we draw our lines? Like what is sort of like an essential part of queerness? What is an essential part of Christianity? And also like that like changes over time perhaps that like we understand queerness differently now than we did 10 years, 20 years ago, a hundred years ago. Like certainly the range of sort of like mainstream Christian believes in practice has evolved over time, especially as that sort of has become democratized and moved away from like a central authority in Rome to, you know, the process of affirmation and sort of becoming an individual religion.

3 (22m 56s):
And so I, I think that like, there’s an element of, for me, an element of like, I don’t know everything and I can’t know everything. There’s an element of like, this feels right and true for me. This is something that I want to, like, I like, I wanna act as if this is true and orient my life in this manner. And I think part of it also comes down to sort of like with all that said, like listening to when someone else says, well that’s all well and good, but like the way that you’re living out that belief about what you believe to be true, like is impacting me and causing me harm.

3 (23m 46s):
And so like then what do you do? Like I’m thinking about right? Like evangelical Christians, like really, truly, some of them really truly believe that if you don’t say the prayer and you don’t stop having gay sex, you are going to like burn in hell for all eternity. So it like on some level like makes sense that they then evangelize people and try to get people to stop having gay sex because like they are some people, I think more so people on the pews than the political leaders who are manipulating these causes for power and money and control and prestige. But like, you know, like your grandma might earnestly believe or your grandfather like might earnestly believe or your, your, your brother might earnestly believe just to be true, right?

3 (24m 35s):
And so like then like then what do you do with that? And where do you go from there? Like do you, and so there’s a little bit of like, I think for me, like, like listening to people when they say like, this is harming me. And also like an informed consent model of like, yeah, I hear that you are concerned about the state of my eternal soul. I relinquish responsibility. You don’t, you don’t have to worry about that any longer. So I think that’s perhaps like part of the equation. What would you, what would you add to that Jay? Yeah, I, I think all of what you said is really important and I think too that, that there is something to be learned from often, like the differences that feel incompatible, that teach me something.

3 (25m 24s):
And I’m thinking specifically of like religious differences. And this is both like within denominations of Christianity, but also like in interfaith work that there’s something I I can really learn from learn the ways in which someone else doesn’t believe the things that I do. And that doesn’t mean that I have to like stop believing them necessarily unless you, like you said, they’re harmful. But it does mean that, that it helps me to articulate why about this thing is so important to me and also like what, how it shapes my life and orients my life differently. And I think that that’s really important. Yeah. Like I, you know, I, I know a amongst many progressive Christians like universal salvation, like is an important component of that faith.

3 (26m 12s):
And I on Twitter, someone who is not, who is not Christian, I tweeted something to the effect of like, no, I don’t think that everyone gets to like live in paradise wherever. I, I do think that there is some people who like, like deserve to be and will be sort of like burning in hell thinking about sort of like war criminals, leaders of genocides, et cetera. Like you don’t get off the hook for that. And I, like, in that moment I sort of had to like sit with like, what do I, I don’t have to like, oh, well this other person who’s not a Christian said this, so now I have to believe that. But it did sort of like, it wa it was sort of a moment to sort of like sit with that uncomfortability. And I think the times in which someone has said something that wildly diverges from what I believe are how I think has been really meaningful for me, sometimes it helps me to sort of clarify what I do believe and to articulate that better.

3 (27m 6s):
And sometimes it sort of becomes like a conversion moment. You know, many, many, many years ago, like a, a friend said to me like, you know, like all cops are bastards and police are sites of violence that like, are like a net site of net sources of violence in our communities. And I was like, what? And over time I’m like, like that is a moment where I like did change. But there have been other times when people have said things and it’s like, oh, I hear you. I can unappreciate that perspective. Like that may might add some more nuance to what I believe and I might articulate it slightly differently. But ultimately the kernel of what I, this just sort of clarifies that for me at least, this is, is what I believe. And there are some things right where like, I don’t know if you believe someone goes to hell or you don’t believe someone goes to hell, like, especially someone who’s already dead, right?

3 (27m 50s):
Like they can’t, it’s too late for ’em to get saved. Our thoughts about that doesn’t actually change that. But then how do we like live that out in the world? What, how does that sort of like infuse how we then move through the world? And I think like paying attention like Jesus talked about in Matthew seven, like the fruits of the fruits of your theology. How does that play out in the real world? Alright, so we move from this, we’re we’re Trek and Ray Long to a story that has, we’ve talked about in the podcast before. It’s one where Jesus basically calls a Canaanite woman a dog. And there have been lots and lots of, again, this is a passage where hundreds of thousands of people have been debating upon its meeting over the years.

3 (28m 34s):
I I do think that this is a moment where we see Jesus kind of growing in his own understanding of his mission. And also it’s a moment once again where the author of Matthew is highlighting that outsiders are welcome in this new movement, right through all of Matthew, we have this series of outsiders, the the women who are mentioned in the genealogy, several of whom were outsiders, who who are grafted in to the Jewish community. We have the magi who are the ones who come to see the infant Jesus again, outsiders.

3 (29m 14s):
Now we have this, this moment where Jesus is praising, it takes him a while to get there, but eventually praising the faith of a Canaanite woman. And I, and I think that again that that this arc of towards more inclusion is, is really important to the author of Matthew and should be important to us as, as followers of Jesus. That, that this is a, a moment to pay attention to the people who are normally considered outsiders, who Jesus centers. Yeah. When I first heard about this story, it was very much like, well of course I don’t know, like Jesus could obviously do no wrong. And then I heard sort of a more liberal interpretation of this, where it was like this became a moment where Jesus like learns and grows.

3 (30m 3s):
And then I heard an additional commentary that was sort of speculating that there’s like a little bit of a, like a setup here that like perhaps like that Jesus was always about inclusion and that this exchange between the two of them, like you said, it took them a while to get there, but was like a setup, sort of like setting her up to sort of make the point and sort of that it was like partially for the benefit, not for the benefit of, but it was sort of like, like a little like a dog and pony show for the audience that was there, which I don’t know what to make of that, but just sort of like, it’s got, it’s got me noodling. Yeah, for sure. So after this encounter with the Canaanite woman, we have another feeding story feeding up the 4,000 this time.

3 (30m 50s):
And we’re, I’m gonna gloss over the next couple of things because many of the things that we talked about earlier are repeated. So we have this feeding of the 4,000, we have then a bunch of people who come to Jesus looking for a sign. And then we have Jesus kind of pushing back against the people who are looking for a sign. And he said something to his followers about, about yeast, like, don’t, don’t concentrate on the yeast. And the disciples misunderstand what he’s saying to them. They don’t take it as a metaphor, they take it literally and they say to him like, but we didn’t bring any bread.

3 (31m 34s):
We forgot the bread. And I’m just like so struck by this passage because it, for me, it’s, it’s a, it’s like hysterical, but it’s also like, can you imagine Jesus’s annoyance? He’s like, I just fed a total of 9,000 people and you ding-dongs are like, we forgot the bread. Like, are you not paying attention? Yeah. And I, but I think that also, like that’s kind of the point, right? Of like, there are all of these moments where things have worked out, when things have been good, where we’ve been provided for, and then we immediately go back into that kind of scarcity mindset of oh shit, we forgot the bread.

3 (32m 20s):
And I, and I think that that’s like Jesus is getting at something very human with these folks, but also like we have a very human response too in that. Yeah, I think, you know, I I I wanna hear someone say that like when, when times are bad, it’s sort of our human nature to think that they will never get bad, they never get good again. And that when times are good that it’s about like they’re about to turn bad and it’s, and like all the goodness that we, we just experienced is about to go away. And so I definitely sort of like see that human impulse that I know I experienced like playing out here as well. Yeah. And now we’re, we’re heading into the very kind of final section of these chapters. And it’s important to note that this is the exact center of the gospel of Matthew.

3 (33m 6s):
So we’re at the dead middle of Matthew’s narrative of Jesus’s story. And we have a really fascinating encounter between Jesus and Peter in particular. Jesus asks his disciples, who do people say that I’m? And they come out with this like range of things. Like some say that you’re John the Baptist resurrected, some say that you are Elijah, some say that you’re Moses. And then Jesus asks them, who do you say that I’m? And Peter comes back with, you are the Messiah, the Son of God.

3 (33m 48s):
And then it’s after that that Jesus gives Peter the keys to the kingdom, says, anything you bind on earth will be bound. Anything you unloose will be unlost. But this is what strikes me as really fascinating about this portion amidst all of the flowery language. It’s also after Peter’s declaration of who Jesus is, that Jesus starts to talk about, okay, like now we’re heading to Jerusalem, we’re, we’re going to the center of power to confront the powers that be. And I think that this is fascinating because it strikes me that it’s only after Peter says something treasonous, right?

3 (34m 35s):
Peter has just now said, you are the Lord, not Caesar, you are God, not Caesar like this. This isn’t a theological statement. We’re not entirely a theological statement. This is a political statement and it’s a political statement that could get you killed. Like, yeah, this is treason. And it’s only after Peter commits treason that Jesus says, okay, now we’re heading to Jerusalem. Now you’re in this like now, now we’re gonna go on our real work, which is to confront the powers directly and we’re gonna travel there and we’re gonna go together. And it’s also right after this that Jesus says, take up your cross and follow me.

3 (35m 20s):
Mm. And so this is not a, like, I, I think that we have been so conditioned to read this text taxed with like the end, Jesus’s end in mind as if Jesus is the only person that was crucified and he wasn’t right. Like crucifixion was the thing that Rome did to anyone who committed treason. Anyone who tried to go against the powers that be anyone who tried to be a rebel. It was public because it scared other people and made them get into line, right? Like it was a public execution to quell rebellion. I think about like the Hunger Games, right?

3 (36m 1s):
It’s like this is what was happening. So when Jesus says to Peter and the disciples take up your cross and follow me, he’s not talking about like, I don’t know, be miserable or like suffer. He is saying, okay, now we’re confronting the powers that be. Are you willing to go with me even though it’s gonna get us all killed? Right? That’s the question. Yeah. And so for me that makes this passage, this isn’t, again, this isn’t just like some trite theological thing about suffering for Jesus. This is like, what are the crosses you are being called to take up today?

3 (36m 41s):
Like what treasonous acts are you being asked to participate in? Are you willing to participate in, to bring about the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven? And that to me is a much more challenging question. It’s a much more uncomfortable question. And I think that is the question that we’re being asked to wrestle with and like that’s how this text is still speaking. Yeah. I’m seeing this text and I mean, I’ve seen this text, this passage, you know, whole new way a few to times over the course of my life. And this is one of those sort of like another revelation moment where it’s not like you’re going to be burdened with this for the rest of your, like being gay is just sort of like a burden you have to live with for the rest of your live long days.

3 (37m 24s):
Right? Or what will you give up? It’s like act as if you’re already dead. Like, and like you like taking up your cross is like, okay, like now that, like now that you’ve resigned yourself to like dying for this cause like, then what does that free you up to do? And like, holy shit. Like I, that’s a big, that is a big charge that like, I don’t know if I’m up for it. I dunno if many of us are up for that, right? But, but I also think, right, like it’s so often this, this passage is you like wielded against vulnerable people, right?

3 (38m 5s):
Like your abusive marriage, the abusive marriage that you’re in, woman is like your cross to bear, your sexuality queer people is your cross to bear. And actually it’s like quite the flip side, it’s like, like being willing to give up all of the things that keep you safe and make you powerful and to like orient yourself to a confrontation with the empire and to like resign yourself to like, oh yeah, this is the thing that’s gonna, that’s gonna kill me. It reminds me of there’s this incredible scene in how to survive a plague. It’s it’s documentary footage of back from like in the eighties and, and nineties, I believe it was, it was probably like, like mid nine, early mid nineties.

3 (38m 53s):
And there’s this clip of Peter Staley, there’s a bunch of like aids and Act Up organizers sort of like planning their next action. And Peter Staley in this clip says like, I’m gonna die from this. Like this is it. Like I’m gonna die from this.

5 (39m 5s):
I’ve felt forever now that I’m not gonna outlive this epidemic that I will, that I will die from this.

6 (39m 10s):
You know, maybe that is

7 (39m 11s):
Our future that we’re gonna watch each other die. It’s, that’s not a new thought. We’ve been thinking that ever since we started the group.

6 (39m 19s):
The way the recent spate of deaths is, I don’t know, it’s, it all seems so much more apocalyptic. Like the story doesn’t seem to have this relationship to effective treatment or a cure anymore. It now seems to have this relationship to death. It iss it ends with everybody dying. We’re the last person alive and Chelsea please turn out the lights.

3 (39m 40s):
And so like there was a bunch of like faggots in the nineties who were like, had death sentences and then that freed them up to do like wild and crazy things to like, so that others might live. And the, the wildest part of all of it is that like some of them ended up living Peter Staley is obviously still alive and thriving and that like, but there was just this sort of like gravity of like, we’re done. But like, rather than being defeated by that, channeling that into like a higher purpose and a higher and a higher power so that like, so that others might live,

5 (40m 17s):
I’d like to close with words written by fellow AIDS activists Vito Russo, when future generations ask what we did in the war, we have to be able to tell them that we were out here fighting and we have to leave a legacy to the generations of people who will come after us. Remember that someday the AIDS crisis will be over and when that day has come and gone, there will be a people alive on this earth. Gay people and straight people, black people and white people, men and women who will hear the story that once there was a terrible disease and that a brave group of people stood up and fought and in some cases died so that others might live and be three.

3 (41m 6s):
Yeah, there’s something there. I I think your point is well made too, because it’s also like, it’s not a surprise that the people that were willing to follow Jesus are the fishermen and the tax collectors and the people with nothing else to lose. Right? Because they didn’t have to give up anything. And I think that’s why we so often see stories in the gospels of like rich people who walk away sad. I, okay, like you’re welcome, you’re welcome to join the movement. This is what it’s gonna take. And people are like, oh actually, like I don’t, that’s that’s not really what I wanted. I wanted to like make a couple donations out of my excess and then go home feeling good about myself.

3 (41m 53s):
And, and so I think that that is like the continued call of like, this isn’t, this isn’t a, a cheap faith, this isn’t an easy answer. And it’s also I think why so many people are much more interested in getting lots and lots of people to pray a prayer and to think of all of their religious, you know, commitment as Bible reading, prayer, going to church because like what is really required is marching upon the halls of power and saying, this isn’t working like this. You’re, you’re hurting people.

3 (42m 35s):
And, and we’re not gonna stand for that. And that is a much scarier and much more demanding and much more, it requires a lot more of us to do that work. And so, yeah, I I think that that for, for anyone with any type of privilege that this call is even harder than it is for people who have already lost so much. Yeah. Jesus is here to make your life easier as a much easier sales pitch than like follow Jesus. It might get you in prison or killed. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think too though, this is also a moment where we have so much to learn from the people that have come before us, right?

3 (43m 15s):
Like I think about those act up protesters. I think about Philip and Daniel Barrigan who burned draft files in Vietnam very much out of a sense of their religious fervor, right? Their, they were quoted as saying better, the better the files than the bodies of children. Like it was very much out of their faith that they went and did this act of destruction and desecration and they paid for it, right? They spent years upon years upon years in jail over many, many different prison sentences. ’cause they kept getting, as soon as they got out, they kept going back and doing more destruction.

3 (43m 57s):
But I do think that like this also really confronts people who are like, well, we, we just need to be respectable. Respectable. We just need to vote democratic. We just need to like do the nice political things that make us good citizens. And it’s like, actually maybe what you’re being called to do is commit some treason and burn some draft files and find other ways to make some holy trouble. And that that’s, that’s what it is to take up your cross. The Queer Theology podcast is just

8 (44m 31s):
One of many things that we do@queertheology.com, which provides resources, community, and inspiration for L-G-B-T-Q Christians and straight cisgender supporters.

4 (44m 38s):
To dive into more of the action, visit us@queertheology.com. You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram. We’ll

8 (44m 46s):
See you next week.

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