Queering Ruth: Chosen Family and Belonging

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. Today, we are looking at Ruth 1-18. It's quite long, so we're actually going to put it in the show notes for this episode. Shay, I know that you've got something to say about this text. Can you sort of like give us just sort of a little bit of a summary of like where we are in this passage and where does queerness show up for you in it? Sure. So this is the famous story of Naomi and her two daughters-in-law who have kind of left their homeland because of a famine. The sons die and Naomi tells her daughter-in-law to go back to their families to be taken care of. And Ruth declares her devotion to Naomi and insists to stay with her. So it's kind of the passage that has the lovely where you go, I will go, where you die, I will die. Your God will be my God passage that has been used in lots and lots of lesbian weddings. The decades and has been this passage has been used as for some folks to to look at it and see queerness in it. And so I just I am fascinated by by this passage and really love it. And I think the first thing that comes up for me and I know that I've said this before and I get to be the killjoy is that I do not actually see lesbianism in this passage. I absolutely see queerness in this passage and a subversion of of familial norms. But I don't see a lesbian relationship between Naomi and Ruth. But what I do feel, I feel like the queerness in the passage is actually more profound and subversive because of that. And I think that's really exciting to me that here we have women who are pledging themselves to one another and vowing to take care of each other. And I and I don't necessarily, for me, like need them to be in a romantic relationship to say that there is really something powerful in their relationship. There is something really subversive. And there is, to me, a queer chosen family element in this that that that that Naomi is choosing or that Ruth is choosing to be with Naomi and is choosing for his family. And I think that that's something that is really powerful and beautiful. And that to me, that says that that we can choose our families, that we don't have to return to the people that gave birth to us. If those people are not good people, if they are not accepting of our queerness or transness, that we can instead choose new family and make vows to that family and that that be seen as valid and beautiful. Yeah, all of that. I love chosen family. And, you know, I think that from like you were saying, what is subversive for me is not that maybe this is a queer or this is a gay love story. Because, you know, like even the straight people take care of the people they're having sex with, right? You know, it reminds me, I think there's like some passages in the Bible or in my not being the Bible, but sort of like taking care of. It's like even the it's not this, but it's like even the Romans take care of their own or even whatever. And it's like the subversive thing about Christians is like we take care of everyone. I think like what I want in queerness is like, yeah, lots of people mainstream culture is like the person that you're having sex with. You're going to like pledge your allegiance to and where you go, I will go and where you can die, I will die. But I what I want out of queerness is that like we can make those commitments even to people that we're not having sex with that. Like our ability to form love and family and commitment and connection isn't limited just to like, do I want to fuck you? And, you know, like I am polyamorous. And so like I want to have multiple sexual or romantic partners sometimes like or I could see myself that feeling good. But I also want to like make queer, chosen family to involve people that I've never had sex with that I don't want to have sex with, that I want to be roommates with that I trust and like want to live with or want to build a business with or that I want to have co-parent with that I want to have a garden with that's like really beautiful. I think of my own life about how, you know, I have had really good friends that are at the center of our chosen family that started out as either me or my partner being sexually and romantic involved in them. And then over time, they like shifted to become non-sexual friendships that, you know, we lived our whole lives together and was really meaningful. And I think that like I love seeing that sort of reflected in there and like that sort of possibility and that feels even more queer, even more subversive in a world increasingly where like gay people can get married and like gay marriage becoming a thing and sort of gays are being asked to assimilate into sort of like a very heteronormative, homonormative model of being that still is sort of like centered around a nuclear family. Like I just I like you see queerness in this passage, but not at the gay lobster, but as sort of like reimagining and reconfiguring what family can be and like what loyalty can be. And like, you know, I've been thinking about I have a friend that I have a conversation passed with. And just the other day we were talking and it was like, I, you know, I want to be with you when you die. I like I think there was a time where a pastor once told me and it meant a lot to me. He was like, when you're thinking about like who like a person that might be that you like might want to marry or spend your life with, like it could be helpful to think about who do you want to hold you when you die and who do you want to hold as they die. And I remember when I heard that that being a very clarifying moment for me and my relationship with Peter, I was like, oh yeah, Peter's that. Like I want that for Peter. And for me, and as I've grown and evolved, even more queer, I think I want that for more than one person and for people that I'm not necessarily heading sex with. And I'm just so grateful that I got to be in like one of the last people to be with Josh and to be with him as he slept out of consciousness for the last time. And thinking about all the friends in my life that I'm not heading sex with that I absolutely want to be there. Like wherever they go, I want to go like I want to say moved. I want to move if we die, I want to die together. And that's what a vision and I want that feels sometimes like a fantasy to me that we're so far away from there. But I could if I could wave my magic wand, like this version of queerness, I love it. I think it's also really important to just name that, you know, this passage, this, the story of Ruth and Naomi was also written to contradict other texts in scripture that we're talking about the fact that foreigners didn't get to be a part of the people of God. And like this passage was a was a direct, a direct kind of affront to that to say, actually, no, like, here is someone who is choosing to be a part of this is being welcomed in and then ends up being a part of the lineage later in the Christian texts in in the lineage of Jesus. And like that's that's really vital and important too. If you are interested in learning more about like how to read scripture in that way, how to uncover those things and know what is happening in text and between texts. We have a course called Journey into the Bible. You can find that on the website. And it kind of really dives into figuring out what is going on in the text and how to read really faithfully. And we will see you next week. The queer theology podcast is just one of many things that we do at queer theology dot com, which provides resources, community and inspiration for LGBTQ Christians and straight cisgender supporters to dive into more of the action. Visit us at queer theology dot com. You can also connect with us online on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram. We'll see you next week.