When Scripture Queers Itself

Welcome to the Queer Theology podcast. I'm Brian G. Murphy. And I'm Father Shannon T. Elkerns. We're the co-founders of QueerTheology.com and your hosts. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible declares good news to LGBTQ plus people, and we want to show you how. Tune in each week on Sunday for conversations about Christianity, queerness and transness and how they can enrich one another. We're glad you're here. Okay, we'll jump on our Bibles and queer this text. It's called Wisdom of Solomon. It is one of the readings for this week, Flectionary. Shay, I think a lot of folks at home might not be familiar with this particular book. Can you give us a little bit of context for what it is, why it's part of the electionary, who might or might not have heard of it? And then let's dive in. Yeah, so this is one of the books that's part of the Deutero canonical texts. It's part of the Roman Catholic tradition. So if you've been attending a Roman Catholic church or if you've been a part of that, this might be in your Bible. If you ever pick up an NRSV translation with Apocrypha, this is one of those texts. Kind of a collection of sayings. Think along the lines of proverbs or Ecclesiastes. It's similar to that. What we know is that it's a Jewish text that was written in Greek at some point and included. And so it's part of the electionary readings, particularly for Catholic congregations, but other folks sometimes throw it into their readings as well. So let's dive in. This is Wisdom of Solomon 6, 12 through 20. Wisdom is bright and unfading. She readily appears to those who love her. She's found by those who keep seeking after her. She makes herself known even in advance to those who desire her with all their hearts. Someone who awakens before dawn to look for her will find her already sitting at the door. Taking wisdom to heart is the way to bring your thinking to maturity. The one who can't sleep at night because he's consumed with thinking about her will soon be free from worry. She herself goes about looking for those who are worthy of her. She graciously makes herself known to them as they travel. She comes to them and each of the ideas that they think. The real beginning of wisdom is to desire instruction with all your heart. Love for instruction expresses itself in careful reflection. If you love wisdom, you will keep her laws. If you are attentive to her laws, you can be assured that you will live forever. If you live forever, you'll be near to God. If you desire God with all your heart, you will know what good leadership is. Chef's kiss. Shay, it's not going to take very much work, but let us embark upon queuing this text. I love this text so much. This is a new one for me, actually. I see so much in this text of what we have been talking about in the transfigured online course in transtheology, where we talked a lot about how part of the work of learning new theology is to learn about it and then internalize it and then live it out. I see that movement happening in this text. But I also love that wisdom in this setting is so active and it requires us to be active as well. Sometimes, even as queer and trans folks, we think that because we've come out and because we are queer or trans, that we know everything that there is to know about being queer and trans. I want to use this as an encouragement that there is always more for us to learn and that part of the work is this line. Taking wisdom to heart is the way to bring your thinking to maturity and that that's what we're aiming for is to be whole and healthy and integrated people. And that integration is about our sexuality and our gender, but it's also about our spirituality and our justice work and how we move through the world. The work that we do at queertheology.com and through this podcast and in our courses is about looking at how scripture and faith interacts with our lived experiences of ourselves and our bodies and our relationships. And we think that that is like a key way to engage with and understand scripture and our faith and that's an ancient tradition that dates all the way back. And so one of the things that I love about this text is sometimes like the Bible queers itself. Sometimes it's very dry and you're making connections and finding metaphors and things that resonate with you. And sometimes the Bible does that itself. This is talking about wisdom as a person. It's wisdom personified. She has a gender here, like a woman. And she's awakening and she's looking and there's like a the person who can't sleep at night, he's consumed with thinking about her. Like it's like a man and a woman. So like perhaps like this consumed with thinking about her like might be both like thinking about wisdom intellect, but also like a man desiring a woman, right, is also an element of thinking there. And so I just I love the imagery and the poetic language of this idea being brought to life and there being a relationality there that's a part of our relationship or with God, our relationship with people reflect our relationships with God and wisdom and they all nourish each other. The queer theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at queertheology.com, which provides resources, community and inspiration for LGBTQ Christians and straight cisgender supporters. To dive into more of the action visit us at queertheology.com. You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. We'll see you next week.