Jesus Appears at Emmaus (Gay Passion of Christ series)

20. Jesus Appears at Emmaus (from The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision) by Douglas Blanchard

“When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him.” -- Luke 24:30-31 (RSV}

[Note: This month I am posting new text on the resurrection images from “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” by Douglas Blanchard.]

Three travelers share a meal together in “Jesus Appears at Emmaus.” Jesus is hard to recognize with his hair hidden under a blue ski cap. He sits at a restaurant table with a man and a woman, breaking a loaf of bread as they touch in an attitude of blessing. The setting looks like a contemporary airport lounge with large windows and a table nicely set with a red rose and generic salt and pepper shakers. Suitcases in the foreground confirm that they are traveling.

It is an unremarkable scene of friends eating together, until the viewer recognizes Jesus. And that is the point. The painting illustrates the Biblical story of two disciples who meet the risen Christ, but don’t know it is him. They encounter a stranger on the road to Emmaus, a village seven miles from Jerusalem. They tell him about their sadness over Jesus’ crucifixion and the disappearance of his corpse, and the stranger uses scripture to explain what happened. Impressed, the disciples persuade him to join them for supper in Emmaus. When Jesus blesses and breaks the bread, they suddenly recognize him.

The Supper at Emmaus has been a popular subject in art history for centuries. Jesus is commonly shown in a hat to explain why his disciples fail to identify him. Artists of the past have assumed that both disciples were male, but Blanchard brings the scene into the present and makes one disciple female, subtly communicating that Jesus’ connection with people was not limited by gender.

The Emmaus story has intriguing parallels with queer experience. The disciples discover Jesus after they leave their spiritual community in Jerusalem, where the leaders of the Jesus movement are hiding in fear, refusing to believe in the resurrection. The disciples on the road are like LGBT people who turn their backs on institutional religion -- and then find God on the outside! In the Bible narrative  the disciples return immediately to Jerusalem to tell the other disciples that they met the living Jesus. Likewise, many LGBT Christians feel called to return to the church to proclaim their fresh understanding of the all-inclusive Christ.

“They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?’ And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem.” -- Luke 24:32-33 (RSV)

A couple of Jesus’ friends met a stranger on the way to a village called Emmaus. While they were traveling together, they told the stranger about Jesus: the hopes he stirred in them, his horrific execution, and Mary's unbelievable story that he was still alive. Their hearts burned as the stranger reframed it for them, revealing how all things can work together for good. They convinced him to stay and have dinner with them in Emmaus. As the meal began, he blessed the bread and gave it to them. It was one of those moments when you suddenly recognize the presence of God. The stranger was Jesus! He had been with them all along. Sometimes even devout Christians are unable to see God’s image in people who are strangers to them, such as LGBT people or others who have been marginalized. Sometimes people are blind to their own sacred worth as incarnations of the divine. But at any moment, the grace of an unexpected encounter may open our eyes.

God, help me to recognize you.

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This is part of a series based on “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision,” a set of 24 paintings by Douglas Blanchard, with text by Kittredge Cherry. For the whole series, click here.

Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Jesus Appears to Mary (Gay Passion of Christ series)

19. Jesus Appears to Mary (from The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision) by Douglas Blanchard

“Saying this, she turned round and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus…. Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended.” -- John 20:14, 17 (RSV)

[Note: This month I am posting new text on the resurrection images from “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision” by Douglas Blanchard.]

Two friends meet at sunrise in “Jesus Appears to Mary.” They circle each other as Mary gestures with happy surprise at finding Jesus alive in the graveyard. The colors are suddenly much brighter. The morning star shines in a gorgeous blue sky while the first rays of dawn awaken the spring-green grass. The frame itself is green -- even the faux wood has sprung to life! A patch of sunlight catches the risen Christ, but Mary remains in shadow.

On the horizon are excavating machines and a body of water that separates them from the distant city skyline. Jesus and Mary are surrounded by numbered gravestones. The one behind Jesus is marked “124” -- the same number on the mysterious tag around Jesus’ neck in the first painting of this series. The artist confirmed that he chose “124” because it has no special meaning in Christianity. Jesus died as a human castoff, stripped of his name and labeled with a random number. The gravestones and setting look like Hart Island, a public cemetery for the unknown and indigent in New York City. Operated by prison labor, Hart Island is the world’s largest tax-funded cemetery with daily mass burials and more than 850,000 buried there.

The contrast and dynamic tension between the figures suggests that this is the moment known as “Noli me tangere,” the Latin version of Jesus words to Mary when she recognizes him after his resurrection. In the Bible story, Mary Magdalene goes to visit Jesus’ tomb before sunrise. She is distraught to discover that his corpse is missing -- until she sees the risen Christ. Overcome with emotion, she starts to hug him, but he stops her with a request that has multiple translations. The original Greek is best translated as “Stop clinging to me” or “Cease holding on to me.” But the Latin translation is embedded in cultural tradition: “Don’t touch me (noli me tangere) for I have not yet ascended.” The scene has been an iconographic standard for artists throughout the Christian world from late antiquity to the present.

Jesus made his first post-resurrection appearance to a woman in an era when women weren’t even allowed to testify at legal proceedings. And yet the risen Jesus chose a woman as his first witness. This is good news for all the disenfranchised, including today’s LGBT people. Mary Magdalene has an undeserved bad reputation. The church mistakenly labeled her as a prostitute for centuries, but the Bible does NOT say she committed sexual sins. Progressive theologians are reclaiming her as a role model. The Bible portrays Mary Magdalene as the most important woman follower of Jesus. She supported his ministry with her resources, traveled with him on his last journey to Jerusalem, witnessed his crucifixion, and hurried to his tomb before sunrise.

“Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons.” -- Mark 16:9 (RSV)

Mary Magdalene went to the tomb of her friend Jesus early on Sunday morning. It was empty! She started crying and someone came up to her. Mary thought he was the gardener until he spoke her name. Her heart leaped as she recognized Jesus! People had wondered about her relationship with Jesus from the start. The bond that springs up sometimes between a gay man and a woman is incomprehensible to most. They don’t understand how a man and a woman can love each other without being sexual. And why would Jesus, who had many powerful male followers, pay so much attention to a woman? Yet he chose Mary as the first witness to his resurrection.

Jesus, where are you now? Will you speak to me?

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This is part of a series based on “The Passion of Christ: A Gay Vision,” a set of 24 paintings by Douglas Blanchard, with text by Kittredge Cherry. For the whole series, click here.

Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Julian of Norwich: Celebrating Mother Jesus

“Julian of Norwich” by Brother Robert Lentz, OFM, TrinityStores.com

Julian of Norwich is a medieval English mystic who celebrated “Mother Jesus.” It’s not known if Julian herself was queer, but her ideas were. Julian is often listed with LGBT saints because of her genderbending visions of Jesus and God. Her feast day (May 8) always falls near Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day is also a great time to honor mothers whose love for their LGBT children helped launch LGBT organizations, including: Jeanne Manford and Adele Starr, founders of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG); and Edith “Mom” Perry of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC).

Her discussions of Jesus as a mother sound radical even now, more than 600 years later. In today’s understanding, Julian’s Jesus seems to be transgender! Her omnigendered vision of the Trinity fits with contemporary feminist and queer theology.


For a new version of this article, click this link to Qspirit.net:
Julian of Norwich: Celebrating Mother Jesus

Julian (c.1342-1416) is the first woman to write a book in English. The book, “Revelations of Divine Love,” recounts a series of 16 visions that she experienced from May 8-13, 1373 during a severe illness when she was 30 years old. The book includes Julian’s most famous saying, “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well” -- words spoken to her by God in one of Julian’s visions.

Julian of Norwich
from Wikimedia Commons

Later Julian went on to become an anchoress, a type of recluse who lives in a cell attached to a church and does contemplative prayer. Her hermit’s cell was at the Church of St. Julian in Norwich. It had two windows, one opening to the church and the other opening to the street. She became known throughout England for the spiritual counseling that she gave there.

Julian is considered the first Catholic to write at length about God as mother. Her profound ideas speak powerfully today to women and queer people of faith. “As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother,” Julian wrote.

Here are a few short quotes from Julian’s extensive writings about “Mother Jesus”:

“So Jesus Christ who sets good against evil is our real Mother. We owe our being to him--and this is the essence of motherhood! --and all the delightful, loving protection which ever follows. God is as really our Mother as he is our Father.“ (Chapter 59)

“So Jesus is our true Mother by nature at our first creation, and he is our true Mother in grace by taking on our created nature.” (Chapter 59)

“A mother can give her child milk to suck, but our dear mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and he does so most courteously and most tenderly with the holy sacrament, which is the precious food of life itself… The mother can lay the child tenderly to her breast, but our tender mother Jesus, he can familiarly lead us to his blessed breast through his sweet open side….” (Chapter 60)

These quotes come from modern English translations of “Revelations of Divine Love” by Elizabeth Spearing and Clifton Wolters. Click here for some longer quotations.

The sacred feminine is just one of the many revelations that have endeared Julian to the public. She uses objects from ordinary life to illustrate God’s loving, forgiving nature. For example, in one vision God shows Julian a small object like a hazel-nut in the palm of her hand. Julian writes:

“I looked at it and thought, 'What can this be?' And the answer came to me, 'It is all that is made.' I wondered how it could last, for it was so small I thought it might suddenly disappear. And the answer in my mind was, 'It lasts and will last forever because God loves it; and in the same way everything exists through the love of God'.” (Chapter 5)

In the icon at the top of this post, Julian looks out the window of her cell with her beloved cat. As an anchoress, she probably lived alone. The only other being said to share her room was a cat -- for the practical purpose of keeping it free from rats and mice. A longstanding legend tells of Julian’s friendship with her cat companion. The icon was painted by Robert Lentz, a Franciscan friar based in New York. Known for his innovative icons, he was rebuked by the church for painting LGBT saints and God as female.

Julian lived a long life. The date of her death is unknown, but records show that she was still alive at age 73 to receive an inheritance. She was never formally canonized, but Julian is considered a saint by popular devotion. The Episcopal and Lutheran Churches keep her feast day on May 8.

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Related links for Mother's Day:
Jeanne Manford: PFLAG founder loved her gay son

Adele Starr and others: Patron saints for straight allies of LGBT people

Edith “Mom” Perry, mother of Troy Perry and first heterosexual member of the Metropolitan Community Churches
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This post is part of the LGBT Saints series at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, heroes and holy people of special interest to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.
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Icons of Julian of Norwich and many others are available on cards, plaques, T-shirts, mugs, candles, mugs, and more at TrinityStores.com





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Ethiopian eunuch: Early church welcomed queers

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch, detail from 11th-century illuminated manuscript (Wikimedia Commons)

A queer black man was the first non-Jewish convert to Christianity, according to progressive interpretations of the Ethiopian eunuch’s story in the Bible. The term translated as “eunuch” probably included a variety of sexual minorities that today would be called LGBT or queer. The account of the eunuch’s conversion in Acts 8:26-40 will be read in many churches this Sunday.

Billboard by
WouldJesusDiscriminate.org

The nameless Ethiopian eunuch was a triple outsider -- a gender-variant foreigner from a racial minority -- and his experience shows that the early Christians welcomed all kinds of outcasts, regardless of race, gender identity or other differences.

Divine intervention plays a big role in the eunuch’s story from the start. It begins when an angel gives some surprising advice to Philip the deacon. He is in the midst of a successful evangelistic campaign in Samaria, but the angel interrupts with an order to leave and take a lonely desert road through the wilderness from Jerusalem to Gaza.

On the road Philip meets a stranger in a chariot reading aloud from the Book of Isaiah on his way home from worshiping in Jerusalem. The man is described as an Ethiopian eunuch (“eunouchos” in Greek), an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.

Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch from the Menologion of Basil II, an 11th-century illuminated manuscript (Wikimedia Commons)

In contemporary usage a “eunuch” is a castrated man, but it had a broader definition in ancient times. Literally meaning “the keepers of the bed,” the eunuchs served and guarded the women in royal palaces and wealthy households. Their employers had to be certain that the eunuchs would not get sexually involved with the women they were supposed to protect, so many eunuchs were castrated men, homosexual men, and intersex folk. Many, but not all, were both castrated and homosexual. Eunuchs were trusted officials who often rose to senior posts in government.

Billboard by
WouldJesusDiscriminate.org

Jesus himself used eunuch as an ancient term for LGBTQ people when he declared in Matthew 19:12: “There are eunuchs who were born that way.” (The traditional interpretation of this scripture is that Jesus was speaking of voluntary celibacy.)

When Philip sees the eunuch on the road to Gaza, the Holy Spirit again takes the initiative, urging him to run to join him in his chariot. Soon the two men are absorbed in conversation about the scripture that the eunuch was reading: Isaiah 53:7-8. The passage describes the humiliation and injustice experienced by God’s suffering servant.

The eunuch probably chose this scripture because he had just faced rejection from religious leaders when he worshiped at the temple in Jerusalem. Eunuchs were sexual outcasts in Jewish religious society, much like LGBT people in the church today. First-century Jewish law condemned homosexual acts and forbid converting eunuchs to Judaism. Deuteronomy 23:1 says bluntly, “No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord.”

Philip used the prophecy of God’s rejected servant to tell the eunuch about Jesus as they traveled together in the chariot. Maybe he pointed out Isaiah’s prophecy that comes a few chapters later:

  To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,

  who choose what pleases me

  and hold fast to my covenant —

  to them I will give within my temple and its walls

  a memorial and a name

  better than sons and daughters;

  I will give them an everlasting name

  that will endure forever.

     --Isaiah 56-4-5

As the chariot passes by some water, the eunuch raises a question that LGBT people today ask as well: “What can stand in the way of my being baptized?”

There was no reason to prevent the eunuch from receiving full membership rights in the church. Philip shows no concern about the eunuch’s sexual orientation or race. Philip simply replies, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”

The pair goes down into the water and Philip baptizes the eunuch then and there. Mission accomplished, the Holy Spirit suddenly takes Philip away. The men did not see each other again after that, but the Bible reports that the eunuch “went on his way rejoicing.”

“The Baptism of the Eunuch” by Rembrandt, 1626 (Wikimedia Commons)

Many authors explore the implications of the Ethiopian eunuch for LGBT people today in books such as:

“Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch: Strategies of Ambiguity in Acts” (book) by Sean D. Burke

“Sex Difference in Christian Theology: Male, Female, and Intersex in the Image of God” by Megan K. DeFranza.

The Children Are Free: Reexamining the Biblical Evidence on Same-sex Relationships by Jeff Miner and John Tyler Connoley

Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality, Revised and Expanded Edition: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church by Jack Rogers

The Man Jesus Loved: Homoerotic Narratives from the New Testament by Theodore Jennings

Outing the Bible: Queer Folks, God, Jesus, and the Christian Scriptures by Nancy Wilson

Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The Spiritual Journey to the Fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians, and Everybody Else by John McNeill

The Queer Bible Commentary by Deryn Guest, Robert E. Goss, Mona West and Thomas Bohache

A literary look at the life of a gay eunuch in Biblical times is provided in “The Persian Boy,” a historical novel by Mary Renault.

Over the centuries many artists, including Rembrandt, have painted the Ethiopian eunuch’s conversion and baptism. The image of of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch at the top of this post is from the Menologion of Basil II, an 11th-century Byzantine illuminated calendar manuscript now in the Vatican library.  It presents a beautiful image of harmony between men of different races and sexual orientations. Unfortunately a lot of other historical paintings of the Ethiopian eunuch have an undertone of racism, showing the Ethiopian as exotic or childlike.

Philip, the deacon in the story, is often confused with the apostle Philip whose feast day falls on May 1 or May 3. However St. Philip the Deacon (sometimes called Protodeacon) is honored on Oct. 11 in the Catholic and Episcopal churches and on June 6 in the Orthodox Church. Whatever the day, his example of unlimited welcome for a queer black man is an inspiration for today.
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Related links:

The early church welcomed a gay man (WouldJesusDiscriminate.org)

The Ethiopian Eunuch - Did You Know God Saved A Gay Man In Acts 8:26-40? (GayChristian101)

A Reflection on the Story of the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts (John McNeill)

Queer Eye for the Lectionary on Acts 8:26-40 (Louie Crew)

Sermon on Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch (Queeremergent)

Can Size 14 Heels Keep You Out of Heaven? (Kathy Canyonwalker)

"Born Eunuchs": Homosexual Identity in the Ancient World (Faris Malik)
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This post is part of the GLBT Saints series by Kittredge Cherry at the Jesus in Love Blog. Saints, martyrs, mystics, prophets, witnesses, heroes, holy people, deities and religious figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) and queer people and our allies are covered on appropriate dates throughout the year.

Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
http://www.jesusinlove.blogspot.com/
Jesus in Love Blog on LGBT spirituality and the arts

Cartoon shows Pope mad at nuns and Jesus for not condemning homosexuality

“Vatican crackdown” by Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star Tribune

A new cartoon uses humor to shed light on the latest controversy pitting the church against homosexuality.

“Vatican Crackdown” by Steve Sack shows a grouchy Pope warning a nun, “I’m very upset with you for not speaking out against homosexuality.”

In the next panel, Jesus appears beside the nun. “Same goes for your friend,” the Pope hisses.

So true! Jesus said nothing against homosexuality in the Bible. It’s a maddeningly inconvenient truth for conservatives like the Pope.

Vatican officials are cracking down on U.S. nuns for supporting LGBT rights, women’s ordination and healthcare reform. The Vatican recently issued a harsh report criticizing the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents the majority of the 57,000 Roman Catholic nuns in the United States.

Thanks, Steve, for permission to share your cartoon here! Thanks, Trudie, for alerting me to this cartoon!
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Related link:

Vatican Crackdown On Nuns Over Social Justice Issues, Women Ordination (Huffington Post)