There Are No Insiders and Outsiders: Isaiah 56 and Romans 11

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, let's open up our Bibles and queer this text. This week we are gonna, you get a twofer. We're gonna queer two texts together. The first is from Isaiah 56. The first verse and then verses six through eight. I'm gonna go ahead and read that for us from the Common English Bible. The Lord says, act justly and do what is righteous because my salvation is coming soon and my righteousness will be revealed. The immigrants who have joined me serving me and loving my name, becoming my servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath without making it impure and those who hold fast to my covenant. I will bring them to my holy mountain and bring them joy in my house of prayer. I will accept their entirely burned offerings and sacrifices on my altar. My house will be known as a house of prayer for all peoples says the Lord God who gathers Israel's outcasts. I will gather still others to those I have already gathered. And then the second passage is from Romans 11 verses one through two a and then 29 through 32 again from the Common English Bible. So I ask you, has God rejected his people? Absolutely not. I'm in Israelite a descendant of Abraham from the tribe of Benjamin. God hasn't rejected his people whom he knew in advance. Or don't you know what the scripture says in the case of Elijah when he pleads with God against Israel? God's gifts and calling can't be taken back once you were disobedient to God, but now you have mercy because they were disobedient in the same way they have also been disobedient because of the mercy that you received. So now they can receive mercy to God has locked up all people in disobedience in order to have mercy on all of them. Yeah, this there's there's a lot happening in the two passages here. This is just like we don't we just follow the lectionary and the lectionary has been the lectionary for a really, really long time. And so I just it's like the Bible is still so relevant. And this is just like another reminder of like a broken record, but that like social justice warrior Christians are not like making up a new version of Christianity. We're just like taking the Bible seriously. And that like in the Bible, in the Hebrew Bible and in the Christian Bible, there's, you know, this emphasis on on not just outsiders, but also like immigrants, right? Immigrants who have joined me that like, you know, and then Leviticus, it says, like, take care of the immigrant to treat treat him as like a native born. That the people of God putting together the books of the Bible and not just like this one book, but many different books written by many different people at many different times in different places. This theme of immigrants being accepted, celebrated, included is just over and over and over again. And so it just drives me absolutely bananas to be living in America with this just like rampant anti immigrant sentiment masquerading under Christianity. And that like white nationalist Christianity is not the Christianity that I see in the Bible. And so I just like, I don't like exactly know what to do with that because like the people who are anti immigrant like don't care that fucking Isaiah says like, it's talking about immigrants here. So I like that I sometimes get a little bit like in like, I get this like righteous indignation of, don't you see it so clear? And then so then what? So I have lots of ideas about that. And we've been talking about like activism. And I think all of what we said about the church and our Q and A also applies to not just like the church, but also the country in terms of like forcing folks to change and organizing and solidarity and being working sort of being held accountable by by by like in this case, immigrant immigrant organizers. And so all that work is happening. And like as someone who doesn't like queer theology.com is is like my faith community. So I don't have like a church building. I don't have like a pot lock. We just so I don't have like a service project. Like the sort of like the way that churches often do stuff. And so my the way that I like live this part of my faith out is often in like secular and intersectional settings that I don't think like I have to be working through a particular church in order to be doing like the work of God around immigration. So that's like some scattered thoughts. Shay, as we were getting ready to record this episode, you had some really interesting connections with between this passage and Romans. And I would love you to share them with everyone. Yeah, I think what so what jumped out at me in reading these two passages that is that both of them are about again, this question of who's in and who's out. And again, this question around salvation. And so often I think evangelicals in particular, but sometimes Christians in general, they do two things. One, they set up this kind of dichotomy of like Christians are in everyone else's out. And evangelicals especially often would look at, you know, the newer testament and say Christians are in Jews are out. Right. And I think that what's so fascinating to me, especially in this Romans passage is that Paul is or whoever wrote Romans is saying exactly the opposite, right? That like this is not Christians are forming a new religion. And now now they're like supplanting God's chosen people and becoming the new chosen people. Paul instead is saying like, no, again, there are no insiders and outsiders. Like the whole point of this entire endeavor is that all people can and will receive salvation. And I think that that's like a really beautiful message. And we see it in Isaiah too. Right. Like my house will be known as a house of prayer for all peoples that there are no insiders and outsiders. But I think that the key piece in this Isaiah passage is that it's not just like everyone gets to be in and do whatever they want, but that like the people who are become a part of the community are the people who keep the Sabbath, who hold fast to the covenant. And so I think we have this sense of like, be a part of the work of justice. And like, that's how salvation comes. And it's not about a go to heaven when you die. It's about salvation is about like what we do together as a community here and now. It's about how we care for the immigrants and the poor and the widow and the orphan is about how we work for justice. It's about how we create communities of mutual care and mutual aid. Like that's that's the work and that's what salvation is. And and all through scripture, like you said, like we're seeing that heartbeat of God for justice. And we're seeing that call to like be a part of the work of God and to be a part of the the holy community. Amen and amen. We would love to hear from you at home. What you think about this passage, this episode, you can share with us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, wherever you find us or inside of Sanctuary Collective. 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.