Trust Yourself – Deuteronomy 30:9-14

What this episode covers

Remember how we were taught in church that in order for us to be good followers of God we simply need to follow what our priest or pastor tells us? That we need to do things exactly as what tradition dictates in order for us to be good in the eyes of our creator? In today’s episode, we learn that by simply trusting ourselves, we are able to follow the commandment of God. That the commandment is reachable and is already in our hearts and mouth. Tune in to today’s episode to learn more about it. 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. Good morning! Today is Sunday, July 14th and we are going to be looking at Deuteronomy 30:9-14. I will read to you now. It’s also in the show notes for this episode which you can find at QueerTheology.com/285. Here we go. This is from the Common English Bible. The Lord your God will help you succeed in everything you do—in your own fertility, your livestock’s offspring, and your land’s produce—everything will be great! Because the Lord will once again enjoy doing good things for you just as he enjoyed doing them for your ancestors, and because you will be obeying the Lord your God’s voice, keeping his commandments and his regulations that are written in this Instruction scroll, and because you will have returned to the Lord your God with all your heart and all your being. This commandment that I’m giving you right now is definitely not too difficult for you. It isn’t unreachable. It isn’t up in heaven somewhere so that you have to ask, “Who will go up for us to heaven and get it for us that we can hear it and do it?” Nor is it across the ocean somewhere so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the ocean for us and get it for us that we can hear it and do it?” Not at all! The word is very close to you. It’s in your mouth and in your heart, waiting for you to do it. Shay, I love this so much! FS: [Laughs] Me too! B: Give me your queer take on Deuteronomy. FS: Yeah! I think the thing that resonates with me about this passage is that so often, you and I get emails from folks from all over who are saying to us, “Tell me how I can know it’s okay to be LGBTQ and Christian.” or “Tell me how I know I can do XYZ sexually.” or “Tell me how I know…” all of these things. B: Which BTW, we have answers to all those questions at QueerTheology.com/resources, so check them out. FS: Yes! And I think that like as someone who grew up fundamentalist, or evangelical, or conservative, I understand that impulse because we were taught that we had to find the right way to do things. And usually, it was: we just have to listen to what the pastor tells us to do and then do it, and then God will like us, and we will be good to go. What I love about this passage is that here we have a commandment that’s given to the people. Then they are also told that you don’t have to go searching for it. It’s in your mouth and your heart waiting for you to do it. I think that this passage is telling us: you know what’s right. You can trust your heart. You can trust your gut. You can trust your sense of your relationship with God. You don’t have to go looking for the right answers. You can trust yourself. The challenge then becomes — for those of us who grew up in traditions that we were taught not to trust ourselves and we were taught that our desires were bad and evil and that what we want is wrong — the real test isn’t to go out and find answers; the real test is to learn how to trust ourselves again, to trust our bodies, to trust our guts, and to trust our souls. That to me is the larger message from this passage. Frankly, it’s harder. It’s a lot easier to say, “Okay tell me what to do and I’ll do it.” Than it is to say, “What is it that I want? Who am I? What are my values? What do I think my relationship