Advent: What Are We Waiting For?

What this episode covers

As you all may know by now, Brian and Shay are taking December to regroup, redesign the website and prepare for the relaunch of the podcast in 2020. We are working hard behind the scenes, so we will be republishing vintage, but some of our best Advent podcasts. As Advent draws near, let’s take a look at how this very important season resonates from a queer perspective. How does Advent and all the happenings in the world make it all seem like we are in anguish waiting, but also feeling like a new dawn is coming on the horizon? Episode TranscriptBrian: Welcome to the Queer Theology podcast! Fr. Shay: Where each episode, we take a queer look at the week’s lectionary readings. We’re the co-founders of QueerTheology.com and the hosts for this podcast. I’m Father Shay Kearns  B: And I’m Brian G. Murphy. B:     Hello there! It’s Brian G. Murphy, I’m one of the co-founders of QueerTheology.com and one of the hosts of this podcast. As you may know, the Queer Theology podcast has been around for a long time and so this year for Advent, we’re digging into the archives and republishing some of our favorite and most popular Advent and Christmas-themed episodes. So we’ve got that coming for you shortly. We also, as you may have heard, recently launched a Patreon campaign to make this work more sustainable. So thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who has donated. It has made a huge difference in our lives and warmed my heart. I’m super thankful and grateful for that. We still have a bit of a ways to go to reach our goal, so if you’re interested in keeping the podcast, and the website, and the articles, and the emails, and all that good stuff alive we would treasure your support. You can go to patreon.com/queertheology to make a pledge. But we are not wasting any time even though we’re not quite at our goal. We’re getting started on the work of re-working this work, [laughs] lots of work words there. So we’re taking December to do some behind the scenes work. We’re regrouping here on the podcast and we’re redesigning the website, so even though these are old episodes we are still hard at work, and we’re looking forward to sharing all that with you soon. But for now, sit back, relax, and enjoy this Advent-themed episode. This week we’re going to break away from talking about one particular text for the lectionary. Instead, just tackle about Advent in general. So Shay, it’s Christmas time, it’s Advent what resonates for you with this time of year in general, and also from a queer perspective? FS:   I’ve been thinking a lot and preaching a lot about: the fact that Advent is really this time of waiting. But not just waiting for happy things, but really that there’s almost this anguish waiting in all of the passages leading up to Christmas in the lectionary. I think that with everything that’s going on in the world, with things that are happening in Ferguson and Ohio, and the marches that are happening all over the country. There’s something really poignant in this idea of an anguish waiting and cry for justice that really resonates with me. I’m so thankful to be part of a church tradition that makes space for some of these uncomfortable emotions, and allows us to sit with our pain and our grief, allows us to rail at the fact that things aren’t the way that they’re supposed to be. Then at the same token calls us to believe that a new birth is possible. I think that phrase “another world is possible”, there’s so much of that that resonates at this time of the year especially as we think about the way that Jesus’ coming brought about a shift in the world. Also, if we have our own awakening and get on board with justice that we can also create a shift in the world. So yeah, that’s what’s been going through my head the last couple of weeks