The Biblical Origins of Queer Theology – Isaiah 42:1-9, Matthew 3:13-17

What this episode covers

In this week’s episode, we dive into the unexpected Biblical foundation for queering theology. Reinterpreting scripture isn’t something that we came up with — it’s not something new at all! It’s a process and a work that has been done ever since Biblical times. 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. FS: Hello, hello! Welcome back to the QueerTheology podcast. This week we are taking a look at the lectionary text for Sunday, January 12, 2020. We’re actually going to look at two of them today because, well, you’ll find out. Both: [laughs] FS: We’re gonna look at Isaiah 42:1-9 and Matthew 3:13-17, so I’m gonna go ahead and read both of these for you. Neither of them are very long. So this is Isaiah 42:1-9, this is from the common English Bible. God’s servant describedBut here is my servant, the one I uphold; my chosen, who brings me delight.I’ve put my spirit upon him; he will bring justice to the nations He won’t cry out or shout aloud or make his voice heard in public.He won’t break a bruised reed; he won’t extinguish a faint wick, but he will surely bring justice. He won’t be extinguished or broken until he has established justice in the land.The coastlands await his teaching. God the Lord says— the one who created the heavens, the one who stretched them out, the one who spread out the earth and its offspring, the one who gave breath to its people and life to those who walk on it— I, the Lord, have called you for a good reason. I will grasp your hand and guard you, and give you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes, to lead the prisoners from prison, and those who sit in darkness from the dungeon. I am the Lord; that is my name; I don’t hand out my glory to others or my praise to idols. The things announced in the past—look—they’ve already happened, but I’m declaring new things. Before they even appear, I tell you about them. And this is Matthew 3:13-17 At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River so that John would baptize him. John tried to stop him and said, “I need to be baptized by you, yet you come to me?” Jesus answered, “Allow me to be baptized now. This is necessary to fulfill all righteousness.” So John agreed to baptize Jesus. When Jesus was baptized, he immediately came up out of the water. Heaven was opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and resting on him. A voice from heaven said, “This is my Son whom I dearly love; I find happiness in him.” Alright! So queer ’em up, Brian! B: I am just living for these two verses working together or passages working together in tandem. If you didn’t notice, I’m gonna underline some things for you. In Isaiah we hear, “But here is my servant, the one I uphold; my chosen, who brings me delight.” And then in Mathew we see, “…heaven opening up and the spirit of God coming down and a voice from heaven saying, ‘This is my Son whom I dearly love; I find happiness in him.'” Clearly, there are parallels in languages between this voice from heaven in Matthew and this passage from Isaiah, it’s like a harkening back to it. And so, I’m remembering that growing up I heard that you could look at all of these different places in the Hebrew Bible, that “predicted” who of the Messiah would be, the coming Messiah. You could look at the gospels, which were supposed to be this factual, historical documentary style retelling of what happened and you could see all of the various ways in which Jesus “fulfilled” these “prophecies”. Which BTW, lots of the folks that Christi

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