Was Jesus Gay? Probably
22 April 12
I preached on Good Friday that Jesus's intimacy with John suggested he was gay as I felt deeply it had to be addressed.
reaching
on Good Friday on the last words of Jesus as he was being executed
makes great spiritual demands on the preacher. The Jesuits began this
tradition. Many Anglican churches adopted it. Faced with this privilege
in New Zealand's capital city, Wellington, my second home, I was
painfully aware of the context, a church deeply divided worldwide over
issues of gender and sexuality. Suffering was my theme. I felt I could
not escape the suffering of gay and lesbian people at the hands of the
church, over many centuries.
Was that divisive issue a subject for Good Friday? For the first time in my ministry I felt it had to be. Those last words of Jesus
would not let me escape. "When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple
whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, 'Woman behold your
son!' Then he said to the disciple. 'Behold your mother!' And from that
hour the disciple took her to his own home."
That disciple was John whom Jesus, the gospels affirm,
loved in a special way. All the other disciples had fled in fear. Three
women but only one man had the courage to go with Jesus to his
execution. That man clearly had a unique place in the affection of
Jesus. In all classic depictions of the Last Supper, a favourite subject
of Christian art, John is next to Jesus, very often his head resting on
Jesus's breast. Dying, Jesus asks John to look after his mother and
asks his mother to accept John as her son. John takes Mary home. John
becomes unmistakably part of Jesus's family.
Jesus was a Hebrew rabbi. Unusually, he was unmarried.
The idea that he had a romantic relationship with Mary Magdalene is the
stuff of fiction, based on no biblical evidence. The evidence, on the
other hand, that he may have been what we today call gay is very strong.
But even gay rights campaigners in the church have been reluctant to
suggest it. A significant exception was Hugh Montefiore, bishop of
Birmingham and a convert from a prominent Jewish family. He dared to
suggest that possibility and was met with disdain, as though he were
simply out to shock.
After much reflection and with certainly no wish to
shock, I felt I was left with no option but to suggest, for the first
time in half a century of my Anglican priesthood, that Jesus may well
have been homosexual. Had he been devoid of sexuality, he would not have
been truly human. To believe that would be heretical.
Heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual: Jesus could have
been any of these. There can be no certainty which. The homosexual
option simply seems the most likely. The intimate relationship with the
beloved disciple points in that direction. It would be so interpreted in
any person today. Although there is no rabbinic tradition of celibacy,
Jesus could well have chosen to refrain from sexual activity, whether he
was gay or not. Many Christians will wish to assume it, but I see no
theological need to. The physical expression of faithful love is godly.
To suggest otherwise is to buy into a kind of puritanism that has long
tainted the churches.
All that, I felt deeply, had to be addressed on Good
Friday. I saw it as an act of penitence for the suffering and
persecution of homosexual people that still persists in many parts of
the church. Few readers of this column are likely to be outraged any
more than the liberal congregation to whom I was preaching, yet I am
only too aware how hurtful these reflections will be to most
theologically conservative or simply traditional Christians. The
essential question for me is: what does love demand? For my critics it
is more often: what does scripture say? In this case, both point in the
same direction.
Whether Jesus was gay or straight in no way affects
who he was and what he means for the world today. Spiritually it is
immaterial. What matters in this context is that there are many gay and
lesbian followers of Jesus - ordained and lay - who, despite the church,
remarkably and humbly remain its faithful members. Would the Christian
churches in their many guises more openly accept, embrace and love them,
there would be many more disciples.
1 comment:
Awesome! Boy howdy!
Post a Comment