S3E04 Transcript: Matthew 5:2-12

Ellie Brigida: Welcome to Sweetbitter, where we explore the queer history of the Bible and Christianity. We're your hosts, Ellie Brigida...

Leesa Charlotte: ...and Leesa Charlotte.

EB: This episode, we're talking about Jesus, the man, the myth, the legend.

LC: But before we get into that, let's bring in our resident Christian, Alyse Knorr. Welcome, Alyse.

Alyse Knorr: Hi, y’all.

LC: How you going?

EB: Hi, Alyse. So happy to see you.

AK: In breaking Christian news, I'm sure Ellie knew this, but, you know, I'm not trying to call Leesa out, but I'm assuming you didn't know this. But this past weekend was St. Francis of Assisi Day.

LC: Oh, no, I didn't know that.

EB: Well, we love St. Francis.

AK: Big day, because it's the day that the animals get blessed in church. So we got our kitten blessed by Pastor Stephanie.

LC: Your new kitten, Jeffrey?

AK: Yeah, our new kitten Jeffrey just got blessed, so he's pretty much set now.

LC: That's fantastic. That's awesome. I'm

EB: That's awesome. He's gonna go to kitty heaven.

LC: That's amazing. Yeah, I am very out of the loop as well, because I'm in Australia at the moment. Hello from down under. And I've been told that my Australian accent has come back completely, and I sound way more Australian in like a week, which is pretty funny.

AK: Man, I know. I know exactly what you mean.

EB: How long have you been practicing that, Alyse?

AK: I really noticed.

EB: I honestly think you always sound Australian.

AK: Yeah, I love your voice.

LC: Okay, so for those listeners with a keener ear, it's funny, because I talked to my friends after two days, and they were like, "Who the fuck are you? Who is this person? You sound completely Aussie." Although maybe, now I'm slipping into my American accent again. I do have a slight American accent to Australians.

AK: Oh, I'm so sorry.

EB: The Australians are like, you sound American. The Americans are like, you sound Australian. You can't win.

LC: Yes, I can't, or I'm winning always, I don't know, because it means I always have an accent.

AK: I'm picturing you just getting, like, My Fair Lady lessons on, like, the rain in Spain. Something like that, to be re-Aussie-fied.

LC: So funny. Yeah, they just have, like, a reinduction process at the airport.

AK: Yeah, you just have to, like, talk about shrimps on the barbie.

LC: We don't even call them shrimp. Have we talked about that? We don't call them shrimps, we call them prawns. That's why it's even funnier.

AK: Well, if you say barbie, and they detect an r, they're like, get the fuck out of here. Get out of here. You don't belong here. Like, there's no r's.

LC: It's a bah-bee.

AK: Bah-bee. R's are for your o's, not for your r's.

LC: Okay, so, Elise, you didn't come here to talk about your in-depth knowledge of the Australian accent.

AK: I mean, I kind of did. Why do you think we're friends and I tune in all the time?

LC: It's just for the accent, you're studying me.

AK: Yes, of course, we all know that I've been working on my Australian citizenship for a while now. And Leesa has been helping me. Alright, so today I have one of my favorite scripture passages ever for y'all. It's called the Beatitudes, and it's Matthew 5:2-12. And this is Jesus speaking and sort of telling everybody like, his whole deal, like his whole M.O.

LC: His whole deal.

AK: Yeah, like his whole mission statement, his whole belief statement. Yeah, some people call this the Sermon on the Mount.

LC: Oh, I see.

EB: Let's do it.

AK: And yeah, this is the English Standard Version. I don't remember if I mentioned that. "And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

LC: I cannot listen to this without thinking about the Life of Brian. I'm so sorry, but it's like, with all the people at the back who just can't hear properly, and they're trying to hear him talk, and they're like, "What'd he say?"

EB: It's like, I was like, oh, this is so sweet and nice. And you're like, let's talk about a silly movie. But true.

LC: I mean, it would have been hard to hear from the back. I just think it was – and they're all like getting into fights because they want to hear Jesus. Anyway, that's beautiful. It really is beautiful.

EB: It would definitely be hard to hear from the back. But yes, I mean, I know these very well. Hearing them, it's like we say these all the time at church.

AK: Yeah, sometimes we sing them as hymns, too.

EB: Yeah, I love singing them. There's a lot of really good hymns that have the Beatitudes in them. But I love this as just like, particularly the ones that get me are, like, blessed are the poor, blessed are the meek, blessed are like, everyone who in our society is downtrodden. Like, those are the people who are most blessed in the kingdom of Jesus and God, right? Like, I just feel like if we really focus on that, we would have a nicer world. That's all.

LC: Yes, I mean, as we've said before it's like, isn't that what it's supposed to be? And so, like, it's nice to hear it all out like that. It just seems very clear. I'm not sure why we're persecuting them.

AK: I was, as you all know, I was raised in an Evangelical, super conservative mega church, and I don't remember us ever talking about these Beatitudes. So when I came out in college and was like, or in grad school, and was really, really depressed, and I started going to this queer Bible study out of nowhere. We just, like, read Matthew and I can remember distinctly, like, sitting in my car. I was 25 and I was just like, reading the Beatitudes and being like, nobody ever told me about this! Like, this sounds like he's talking about gay people when he says, "Blessed are those who are persecuted falsely in my name, on my account, for they are the righteous." And I was like, holy smokes, this is pretty much gay people.

LC: Yep, 100%.

AK: It's just beautiful.

LC: And yet, and yet!

AK: Yeah, so I picked this because, I mean, it's one of the most widely quoted passages from the Gospels. It's just gorgeous poetry. But today's episode is all about Jesus, like his life and what his deal was. And so I wanted to bring this in to kind of capture his attitude and his belief system.

EB: His b-attitude?

AK: Yeah. Just like we did on our very first episode, before we dive in and start hearing from our sources, I just want to cater to people who have, like, absolutely no religion and are just like, wanting the crash course to Jesus in five minutes. Jesus 101, like the greatest hits.

LC: Thank you. Appreciate you.

AK: So like, I mean, he's a teacher, and he's a radical activist, radical liberation activist, who was born right on Christmas in the town of Bethlehem, into a Jewish community. And he basically just kind of shook things up by pointing out laws and rules that he thought were bullshit, and healing people, performing all these miracles that we think about. Some of my favorites are like the loaves and the fishes transforming – either literally or metaphorically, depending on how you look at it – a small amount of food into an abundance of food. Healing people, raising people back from the dead, raising himself from the dead after the crucifixion. Also like calming storms, walking on water, like all these beautiful things are some of the greatest hits. But I wanted today for us to focus less on these like party trick, kind of like magician Jesus things, and more on what those miracles represent around community organizing and social justice, which is really what he spent his whole lifetime doing, like giving health care to poor people, or like taking in people who society had outcast and forgotten. That was kind of what he spent his life doing.

LC: It's a great way to spend a life.

AK: Those are miraculous things. Like he was really – I mean, remember, he was living during a time of empire, like the Roman Empire, and he was anti-imperialist. He was anti-religion, really. He was anti-church authority. He was anti-rich people. He talked about that a lot. And so in like many of the Christian traditions, we consider him like God in human form. And so people use the metaphor of him being God's son or being God incarnate, just the idea that he was something sacred and beautiful, something was really special about him. But what I like to think about too is that emphasis on human like, he was still also a human. He got really frustrated. Like, you can read sections of the Bible where he gets frustrated, where he loses temper, where he like –

LC: Oh yeah, in the marketplace, in the thing, yeah. Because, again, in my very historically accurate films that I, you know, know of, in Jesus Christ Superstar, there's a very big scene. Look, Jesus Christ Superstar is great, you know, where he yells at everybody.

AK: He also like, I mean, he's just trying to teach these people, and they sort of never get it. You know? And he'll just like, sigh, and just be like, "Okay, let me try again." And he gets really mad at one point at a fig tree because it doesn't have any figs for him to eat. So he curses it. That's one of my favorites. And he, like, he loves getting pedicures, and gets mad when people will give him his pedicure. Like, he's just like a guy who's doing his best.

EB: Wait, I'm sorry. Are you talking about he loves pedicures, like, he likes to have people wash his feet, is that what you're getting at?

AK: Well, yeah. So there's this story where he's getting his feet washed and perfumed by a disciple, and one of the people there is trying to, like, call him out and catch him in something. And they're like –

LC: This is also in Jesus Christ Superstar, by the way.

AK: It is?

LC: Yeah, yeah. It's really – sorry. I couldn't help myself. I'm listening to you. And it's like, "Surely you're not saying we have the resources?" Yeah, it's like, Judas is like, "Yo, bro, why are you doing this? Having this pedicure? People are in need." And he's like, "Dude, we can't fix everything. Let me have my pedicure." Basically. Is that how it is?

AK: He's like, you're always going to have these problems in society, but you're not always going to have me, because he's about to die. And that's the other thing that really like touches me about the humanity of Jesus's stories is that, you know, he knows that he's going to pay for his you know, radical forgiveness, radical kindness, radical care for the marginalized with his life. You know, just like so many other heroes in our history do, and he knew this, and like he prays, and he's in agony in the Garden, and he's weeping and he asks God, like, "Please don't, take this burden for me. I don't want to do this." So he's a really brave, really human, really fragile, you know, genuine, like, person. And that's the part that I love, is that, like, this was a real guy in history, as far as we know. And like, he did amazing things. He did enough stuff for people to start a whole religion off of. So whether you, like, literally believe he rose from the dead, or whether you believe that he inspired people to feel like they were rising out of their old life into a new life. You know, either way, it's still meaningful.

EB: Agreed. I'm excited to talk more about him.

AK: Yeah, so let me get out of here.

EB: Well, Alyse, thank you so much for that beautiful introduction.

AK: Thanks. Bye, friends.

EB: Before we go on a quick ad break, we want to introduce the Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard. As a reminder, the Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard is the Director of Contextual Ministry and Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria. Here she is to tell us more about Jesus.

Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard: Like when we look at Jesus, who we're supposed to be following, he was very engaged in his society and spoke truth to power in terms of naming the ways that political forces and religious forces –especially religious forces – and political forces were being death dealing right, the ways in which they were oppressive to the poor, the widow, the orphan, to the people on the margins. And so I feel that the church, in order to follow faithfully, also has to be engaged, not only with their own religious institutions, but also in their communities and in the wider society, to identify and name and challenge those things that are oppressive to human flourishing, but especially for the people in the margins. As a liberation theologian, I'm all about God's preferential option for the poor and marginalized, and so if you want to know where to find God, you go to the margins, because that's where God is most active. That is who God is being most present, with those who are suffering, and that the church is about serving God in those spaces. We were not called to just gather and worship and run committees and raise funds and do whatever. We were called to be out in the world, and to the degree that we become caught up in ourselves and live this very insular kind of existence, we missed the mark. Like we failed to do what we were called to do, because we were called to share the good news.

LC: And we're back. So as we mentioned at the top of the episode, this episode is all about Jesus. So, sorry. It's really hard to like –

EB: At least you haven't started singing yet. So that's like, you know, we're in a good spot.

LC: I mean, I did already sing a little bit. It's really kind of you to say that I didn't sing at all. But, I did already.

EB: But like in this particular break, you know what I mean.

LC: Oh, yet, yes. Jesus! You know, you got to get that. Okay, there we go. I just wanted to get it out of the way and now we can move on. Okay, amazing, amazing. So we're gonna hear some incredible people today. I mean, I'm really excited about this episode, because we're gonna be talking about Jesus and all of his social justice and how he really is just an SJW running for the marginalized. Sorry, I really wanted to use that term to describe Jesus, because I just feel like it'll make a lot of people very angry. So first up, I just I assume that people are going to be mad at us this season. So let's just go all in. First up, we're going to hear from Reverend Naomi Washington-Leapheart. So she is a black queer preacher, teacher, and activist, and she is currently an Adjunct Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University, and the founder of Salt | Yeast | Light. So we'll hear from her now.

Reverend Naomi Washington-Leapheart: The only way I'm able to remain a Christian is to imagine that Jesus is black and queer. Jesus's life story, the fact that his way of being put to shame the imperialist ways of the status quo, and that he was so resented that he was ultimately murdered. This life mirrors the liminality that is blackness. Yeah, I think what I was trying to say here is that if I shift my vision, if I shift my vantage point and look at Jesus in his context, I see a person who was constantly shushed. You know, don't say all of that, or don't do all of that. That's too disruptive. Why can't you just wait on the change? I see someone who was at once admired and reviled, right? Someone who people were curious enough about to follow, you know, like we need to see what he's going to say, but also would turn on him in a dime. And so those features of Jesus's life, to me, mirror the features of everyday black life, and for so many folks, everyday queer life and trans life, right? That you are caught between life and death. You are wanted and hated. Your very presence upsets the system, the status quo, that kind of Jesus is a Jesus I can relate to, right? I can't relate to the Jesus who is always victorious and is healthy and wealthy, and he's naming it and claiming it. And you know the Jesus who is the most powerful person in the land, like, what? What Bible are we reading, right? Because that's not the Jesus I see. And so that's the only way I can remain Christian. You know, a lot of people take issue with saying something like, Jesus was a revolutionary. On one hand, I get it. I mean, Jesus did not sign up to be leader of this movement, and you know, that was his thing. You know, no. But he simply lived. The decisions he made were subversive in a society that was content to have some left out and some dismissed and ignored. I see the connection between Jesus's life and my advocacy work not because Jesus was doing political advocacy, like going and talking to the lawmakers and trying to get them to – but Jesus was trying to activate people who had been disenfranchised and disillusioned by telling somebody, "You are actually God's beloved." That person then goes on and lives in a transformed way. That person might then start to question the systems that have kept them incarcerated, right? So it's not that Jesus was necessarily saying to Pharaoh, "Let my people go." But Jesus was telling the people who had been dispossessed by the society, "You actually are God's beloved, and the poor in spirit are blessed." So if you're preaching that kind of message, people start to believe you, and then they start to act differently in the world. And that was what's upsetting, you're riling all these people up to believe that they actually are worth dignity and respect and also material security, right? So Jesus wasn't just about, oh, in your heart, do you know you're somebody, but you can't eat, you have nowhere to live, right? Jesus was also about restoring people to full dignity in community, which means that you have somewhere safe to be, that you have a community that will cover you and take care of you, that whatever is in the way of your fully participating in society is eliminated, so that you can then go and be productive and whole in society. That's the way I see Jesus's life as a training in justice and ethics, and that's what I'm trying to kind of do professionally.

EB: I love what Reverend Naomi has to say here of Jesus activating people, right? It's like this, like community organizer Jesus, which I really love that vision of. The next person we're gonna hear from is Reverend Deon Johnson, who's the 11th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri.

Reverend Deon Johnson: I love, for instance, the interaction of Jesus and the woman at the well. It seems like an odd one, but here's why. She was pushed to the side. We forget that our Greek Orthodox siblings calls her Photini. Photini was pushed to the side. I mean, she's going to the well at the worst time of day, at midday, where it's hottest, when all the other women have already gone in the morning and gotten their well water. And so she's out midday because she's an outcast, and Jesus sits at the well, and Jesus has the longest conversation in the gospels with Photini, a woman at the well who was an outcast. The longest recorded conversation is with this person who has been pushed to the side. And at the end of it, you know, she has this encounter with Jesus, and she goes back to the very people who rejected her and said to them, "This man knew everything about me. Look, come and see. Could he be the Prophet that's called to us?" So the one that was rejected is going to be the one who's going to go tell the good news. And that's scandalous. And for me, that is where we are called, you know, to stand up for and speak towards the inclusion and faithfulness of LGBTQIA+ folk. That passage, to me, says it all. Jesus, throughout his ministry, he spends his time with the good religious upright folks, the scribes and the Pharisees. But he also has a way of lifting up those who are pushed to the side. That's what he does constantly. You know, there's that wonderful story of Jesus encountering Bartimaeus outside the walls of Jericho. We forget that Jericho is the rich city. You know, it's the summer palaces, and it's where the 1% goes to hang out for the summer. And Jesus encounters this man, and he doesn't just heal Bartimaeus's blindness. He heals the crowd, because the crowd had not seen Bartimaeus. They got so accustomed to walking by the blind man on that side of the road, they forgot that he was even there. And then what happens is Jesus heals Bartimaeus, and Bartimaeus doesn't run off and go found the, you know, the Formerly Blind Society of Jericho or something. He gets up and he follows Jesus, because Jesus showed them who he was, but more importantly, whose he was. And for me, that is what the church is called to do. The church is called to point to our society, to our culture, to our experience, and say, these are the people that we are not seeing. These are the folks that our blindness needs to be healed from. These are the things that we must have the scales fall from our eyes that we can see where God is actually working. Because, as one of my good friends says, you know, "God sees people that I don't see, and God loves people that I can't love."

EB: Jesus's main priorities were to care for the poor and marginalized and oppressed, and to build community. His mission wasn't to build a religion, it was to make social change. Our next guest is the Reverend Florentino Cordova, with more on that.

Reverend Florentino Cordova: Christianity was meant for community, to be community, to be there for one another when one person needs help, the rest of the community is there to help. I tell the LGBT community, you all, in essence, are doing what Christianity should be doing. Like we should be doing what you're doing as Christians. When an individual needs help, you're always there to help. The delivery of food to those who are homebound because of HIV and AIDS – that's Christianity at its best, and when you put what they're doing into context of what we should be doing as Christians, they said, oh, I guess you're right. When you remove all the other garbage and bring it down to basics, it's really about community. It's about helping one another. And that's exactly what Jesus wanted us to do. And Mama reminded us all the time. Jesus left no religion. The only thing he left is, "Love one another as I have loved you, period." That's it. And feed the hungry. Take care of the poor. Take care of anyone in need. So one of my one of my public statements was, if you need a shoulder to lean on, I have two. If you are hungry, come share my meal. If you are thirsty, come share my bottle of water, because that's all I really need to offer you. And if you need a listening ear, I'm here too. And that's Christianity right there in a nutshell.

LC: While some denominations and Christian churches have really focused in on Jesus as a path to eternal life, he was actually much more concerned with his life on Earth in the here and now. He wanted to make a kingdom of heaven on earth. He was a community organizer and a community activist first and foremost. So we're going to hear from a couple of different people now. So firstly, we're going to hear from Reverend Jeanelle Ablola, the lead pastor at Pine United Methodist Church in San Francisco. You'll hear from them, and then you'll hear from Reverend Washington-Leapheart again.

Reverend Jeanelle Ablola: Well, one that's been on my mind most recently is just Jesus feeding the 5000. I mean, not Jesus feeding 5000, but the 5000 people being fed because of them coming together and pulling their resources, and then the disciples going to Jesus and saying, "Look, you know, we have this problem. People are hungry." And Jesus, his response is, "You feed them." And I really like that, because it takes it off of him as an individual. He's not the superhero. He's just like, you all have the capability to feed these people, and so let's feed these people together. It's not just about being spiritually fed. I think that Christianity has used that a lot to sort of pacify resistance and our movements. But it's really about like the community coming together, the community coming together with a plan, coming together with whatever resources we have, and distributing them in an organized fashion so that everybody is able to be fed, like in a real way.

RNWL: We are only saved, to use that religious language, in community. My spiritual mentor, Reverend Lynice Pinkard, says we are individually unsalvageable, but we are salvageable in community, right? That is to say, first of all, I can't be responsible for my own pious, devout behavior, because I can't save myself. Now, usually churches go from you can't save yourself to Jesus is the only one you have, you know, Jesus is your personal savior. But what Jesus was always doing was saving people within the context of community. He was always saying, "Okay, you're good? You alright now? You've got, you know, your your ailment or your condition, it's changed. You've been transformed. All right, go now back home." You know, and so he wasn't collecting fans or followers. Like, oh, I saved you, now you got to follow me. It was like, no, he was constantly sending people away from him! And so we are only salvageable in community. I get that from Jesus. I also get that nobody is kind of replaceable, nobody is dispensable. Nobody can be discarded without it completely damaging the whole community, right? So even from the cross, for example, Jesus is extending belonging to the people who are up there, who have been sentenced to die with him. That, to me, says nobody can be discarded. Even at the end of your life, when you are finally making amends, according to the Roman state, you're finally making amends for whatever you did. Jesus says, "Come join me in paradise," right? So there are no useless people in creation. There's no useless anything in creation, right? You know what? I also really appreciate the humanity that leaps off the page when I read about Jesus, right? So this is something – we never talked about Jesus as a human being in my church and school growing up. And I'm like, but if Jesus was walking and talking and living, then he had some human concerns. He was vulnerable to the human condition, and so I want to know about Jesus's loneliness, the times he felt isolated and disappointed, the times he was sad and frustrated because people weren't listening, or the time his friend died and he wept, right? Or the time he got mad and cursed the fig tree. And the fact that it's included in the Bible is fascinating to me. Like, who approved this, who put this in here, right? So that means that Jesus was fully human and that helps me, right? That encourages me, because I'm like, phew, good. Well, then I know I can be fully human. If it was possible for Jesus to do what he did and still be fully human, then it's possible for me to do something that helps to heal the world and be fully human too.

LC: All I'm thinking about is, I'm thinking about the community at the Flame Bar, you know. I don't know why that popped into my head, but in my head, I've got like, "Here at the Flame," you know.

EB: Yes, but I do feel like a queer bar is, like, one of the most, like, pure forms of community we have in the LGBTQ community, right? Where, like, everyone gets together, all different ages, all different kinds of people, like, all meeting together at this bar.

LC: It's gay church, right? I mean, not like this gay church vibes, but like, kind of. Yeah, I feel like that. And I do feel like, as someone who didn't grow up religious, I feel like we do have a need for community that is often served by church. And even if people may not feel so strongly about their religious beliefs or close to God, they're often quite close to the community. So I really loved how Reverend Naomi, sort of, you know, touched on that, and touched on, you know, also the loneliness of the lack of community, which I think is also very part of the queer experience,

EB: A very queer experience, yes. And I think that's why it's so important that we have like queer spaces, no matter what kinds of spaces those are. But like, I know like Leigh, who's my co-host for Lez Hang Out, like she found this very queer-affirming church in Boston that she was a member of. Like, they march in the pride parade, and it's like, that's a place that people feel safe and comfortable in the same way that they feel safe and comfortable at a bar, where they feel safe and comfortable at, like, some other sort of queer community event. So it's very important, that's just my like, I love gay community soapbox.

LC: Who doesn't?

EB: Yes, but we're gonna continue with Jesus and community. So Reverend Deon Johnson reminded us that a lot of times, modern Christianity tries to make Jesus presentable, while most of what he did was really scandalous at the time. He wasn't the Jesus of Sunday school, and he wasn't always the good shepherd Jesus. He was also human, and he had his own biases. Reverend Tim Schaefer, pastor of First Baptist Church in Madison, Wisconsin, told us a lot of interesting things about that. So here's the Reverend Schaefer.

Tim Schaefer: A lot of the stories about Jesus are Jesus working at the margins. Depending on what gospel you're reading, they're slightly different representations of Jesus. But Jesus, in some ways, includes women, probably more than would have been by others. Jesus is definitely very concerned with those who are cast out because of health issues, right? And heals them, like think about things like lepers, right? It's like, oh no, please go out and live at the outskirts of the city, because we don't want that disease here. But those are the people that Jesus mingles with and heals often, and makes whole in other ways, maybe not just physical healing. So that is a really positive representation of Jesus. But then there are some scriptures that show that Jesus – we think of Jesus as both human and divine, and we see Jesus's human side every once in a while, which gives me hope, because if Jesus didn't always get it right and wasn't always perfect, then I think that that is a really great example to follow, right. Especially since when Jesus gets it wrong, oftentimes Jesus changes his mind. So I'm thinking of the story of the Syrophoenician woman, where he basically uses an ethnic slur against her. She is asking for food, and he says, basically, "It doesn't make sense to feed the dogs, right?" And she essentially says, "But even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the master's table," something to that effect. But that phrase of calling her "dogs," really, he's using an ethnic slur in that. But then he ends up healing, in that story, her daughter, because he determines that he's like, you know what? I think, I interpret the story that he thinks about it for a second, he's called out, and is like, "You're right, and your faith has ensured that, you know, your daughter will be healed." And I love that example because – and it is shocking to think of Jesus using an ethnic slur. And another story that we encountered recently is – and I can't remember the specific, but Jesus uses the language of slavery in one of his parables, in one of his teachings. And he basically says, the gist of the story is, you can't serve two masters, right? So you can't serve God and money, really is what this particular story is about. But he tells it in a way that says, like, if there's a slave, you won't love both masters. You'll either love one and hate one, serve one and not serve one. And so what's really troubling about that is Jesus would have been very aware of the practice of slavery in ancient times. There are a lot of historical records, as much as people want to say, oh, that form of slavery was not like slavery in America. There are a lot of historical records that actually suggest that, yes, indeed, they were really similar. It was also a brutal form of slavery in ancient Roman times as well. And for Jesus to be aware of that institution of slavery, or that practice of slavery, and then use that as an example, is actually really troubling for a lot of people, because Jesus could have taken that as an opportunity to say, "This is actually an unjust system." But Jesus didn't do that. Jesus, in a way, was complicit in that, and never throughout his teachings criticized slavery, and so we have to wrestle with that too, right? That this is an imperfect Jesus, and we don't want to put him completely on a pedestal, but for the most part, he gets it right. And again, I think that highlights his human side, and I think that gives us hope, too, that we don't have to be perfect when we're following Jesus, we're going to make mistakes. We're going to say things that are wrong. We're going to be so enculturated in things that we're not going to see the dangers of racism, for example, all the time. That imperfect Jesus is my favorite Jesus.

EB: The Phoenician woman stands up to Jesus and makes him realize that what he did was wrong. He chooses to acknowledge her and listen to what she has to say. Jesus was a real human person with human issues. Like Alyse said, he gets angry at a fig tree. He gets disappointed in his friends. He likes wine and pedicures. You know that, Leesa.

LC: Yes, I'm with you, Jesus. I am with you on this.

EB: And he has the agony in the Garden, and he gets angry. One of the most famous stories about Jesus's anger is about flipping the money lending tables in a temple. Here's Reverend Schaefer with more on that.

TS: Jesus is the one who flipped the tables, the money changer tables in the temple. People would make a pilgrimage to the temple in Jerusalem, and there were certain sacrifices that could be given, and sometimes it depended on your kind of income level. And there were some different options, but it was not really possible to travel with those animals that would be sacrificed. And so they would be sold there. And there were tables that were, you know, wherever you were from, you were bringing maybe a local currency. And so there were money changers there. The thought is that there was maybe sort of a sense that they were taking advantage of those who were coming, because they knew, you know what, you have no other option than to use the service here, and that there may have been, you know, a little bit of an upcharge, right? That they're profiting off of this. And the Hebrew Scriptures are really clear about things like usury and charging excessive, you know, interest rates and things like that. And you know, I think Jesus's anger comes from that, right? It's that taking advantage of those because you know they have no other choice. That, to me, is how I read it. I think that's pretty consistent with how at least some scholars write about that story. I find it interesting though, you know, that it is just this physical manifestation of that anger, like it isn't just, he is chastising them, which Jesus does a lot with the religious leaders throughout the Gospels. He's challenging them all the time on these practices that he thinks are unfair. But in this case, he does something really physical to disrupt that, and to me, that gives permission, in a way, for us as people of faith, to put our own bodies on the line, to disrupt in physical ways, if necessary, not violent necessarily, but in physical ways. And we don't like to think of this Jesus that is angry, right? Society tells us that certain emotions are okay and certain emotions are not okay. And then there's Jesus, who has this righteous anger, who gets upset because people are being taken advantage of. And I think that's a valid reason to get angry. And I think, too, of figures like Martin Luther King Jr., and we like to sort of whitewash that history of, you know, he fought for civil rights always in a really peaceful way. Well, that's not really true. There's also a more radical past that we tend to ignore because it's uncomfortable for us. And so it's interesting. I think that as Christians, we should reclaim some of that. I think that there is a validity to this idea of a righteous anger, and that is what drives us towards justice. I think it's complicated that we have created a Jesus that makes us comfortable, rather than one that maybe sometimes makes us uncomfortable, which I think is the point in justice work. So what I'm hearing is that Jesus is also angry at capitalism, therefore this is valid. How did church become like this, when Jesus is over here flipping tables about capitalism? Next time I have a rant about it, I'm just gonna be like, don't you want to be like Jesus? WWJD?

EB: What would Jesus do? Flip a table at a casino?

LC: He would. He would.

EB: The next section we're gonna go into has nothing to do with flipping tables, but we are gonna talk a little bit about Jesus and crucifixion and the resurrection.

LC: I know this from Jesus Christ Superstar, too. Ellie, I mean, I think you guys think you're teaching me stuff here, but I know my Andrew Lloyd Webber.

EB: Andrew Lloyd Webber has taught you everything that you know, and that's okay.

LC: Then Jesus comes back from the dead and sings a song and like, it's a whole thing. Yeah, that's right. With angels dancing, yeah. If you come today, you would have reached a whole nation.

EB: That's exactly what they teach us in church.

LC: I assumed, yeah, I assumed. Anyway, sorry. Continue on with your joyful chat about crucifixion.

EB: Well, I just feel like, you know when people think about Jesus, you see him on the cross, like, especially in the Catholic Church, there's, like, lots and lots of crosses, crucifixes like everywhere, people wear them as necklaces, like you see them in the front of the church. So let's talk about that story and what we should take away from it. So Reverend M Jade Kaiser, the co-founder and director of Enfleshed, a collaborative effort to create and facilitate resources of spiritual nourishment for collective liberation, is going to help us read the story of Jesus's crucifixion in ways that focus on justice work and its risks and costs, as well as the role of community rather than the individual.

M Jade Kaiser: One of the things that has just become like so important to me, especially because of my years in the Methodist Church, where I've seen – this certainly happens in many different contexts – but like I've seen the ways that courageous individuals in marginalized contexts are like, encouraged to put themselves out there as singular people, and then are taken out by these systems. I feel so strongly against reading the story of Jesus in that way, because I think it furthers that dynamic. To me, it is no longer the story of Jesus. It is the story of people who are living out Christ with flesh on, right. And many of us understand what that means through the person of Jesus, but he was always in community, and he was plucked out, and he was lifted up as a representative of what happens when you dare to push back against the system. And his crucifixion I understand as a tool of the Roman Empire to scare and scatter the collective movement. And so it feels so important to me to be clear that I'm not suggesting individuals sacrifice themselves, and I've had so much unlearning of that myself, but that, like the whole thing about the resurrection I love, I can't remember which gospel it is in, but one of the Easter stories starts with, like, the women rose with their herbs, like they rose on that third day first, like with their herbs to go tend to this body, even though they were absolutely devastated and destroyed, right? Like, still, they rose with their herbs, and that, to me, is the beginning of the resurrection story. They encounter Christ in that rising to go tend to that body, to go keep doing the things, even though they have every reason to stay hidden in their little holes. You know, they find each other and they go keep tending to the pain, to the death, to the brokenness, and they do it together. And that is the beginning of the resurrection story that we're still tending to today.

LC: This is so interesting to me. So one of the things that came up in the interviews with Father Shannon Kearns, so Father Shay from Queer Theology, was the idea of Jesus's resurrected body and the scars, and how the scars from crucifixion look like top surgery and are holy, which I just thought was like, incredibly amazing way to look at it.

EB: I think it's awesome, and it is like talking about the crucifixion and the resurrection as this form of transition, right? Like, there's this – if you think about it as this metaphor, and not actually the mad magician Jesus that Alyse was talking about before, of like raising yourself from the dead, right? It's more just like a transition from one state to another, or like reborn as a completely new person in a new version of yourself

LC: So trans. It sounds so trans when you say it like that, it sounds incredibly trans. It really does. Here's some more from Reverend Schaefer on that.

TS: So I'm gonna say something that also probably is not as common, which is, I have my doubts about the resurrection, the death and resurrection really being physical, right? I don't know one way or the other. I mean, it's an incredible claim, right? And so sometimes we don't know in our scriptures, did these things happen exactly the way they're described, or is this a bit of propaganda by the authors to claim that Jesus is more than what Jesus was, right? We don't actually know that, and I know that that might seem really controversial, but I'm not sure that it matters so much, because I think that there is still something really beautiful about a symbolic death and resurrection. And if I apply that sort of to my own experiences in the church, you know it felt to me when I was younger, like there was this sense of death and then my own resurrection within the faith that came again at the hands of the church, both the death and the resurrection, right? So I think it is a caution, maybe sometimes, to remind ourselves that we can be instruments of death and oppression and things like that. But we can also be the source of people's liberation, which is very life-giving. So we can be a "both and." And I think in the case of Jesus, Jesus's death came really at the hands of the religious leaders aligned with political leaders. I mean, they really were one in the same at that time. And so we have to be really cautious, in particular, when we as clergy or we as faith communities, align ourselves with imperial power. And I know it's hard for us to kind of say like, America is like the New Rome and is that imperial power? But in a lot of ways, we really are.

LC: Okay, so Ellie, you are a Catholic Christian.

EB: Yes.

LC: We're talking through all of this. What does this mean for Christians following in Jesus's example? Or what does it mean for you?

EB: I'm like, there are many, many, many answers for that.

LC: I expect that you are going to tell me, we're going to represent all Christians right now and tell me the answer for everybody. What does it mean?

EB: Well, one of the things that I found most fascinating was actually from Reverend Dawn Bennett, who is the Pastor Developer at The Table in Nashville, Tennessee, who said to us that Jesus may have never even wanted the word "Christian" as a label, right? So, like, Christians have made up our own label to follow in Jesus's example.

LC: Well, it's like lesbians being called lesbians, right? Like Sappho wasn't a lesbian and yet.

EB: But like, literally, in the Bible, he literally says, "Do not follow me."

LC: I mean, maybe Sappho said that, but we will never know.

EB: But he said, "Don't follow me. But rather, the one who sent him," right? And the one who sent him from the Bible is God, right? So it's like, follow the teachings of my father, which, like, are also me, because there's the whole thing about, like, Jesus being God in human form.

LC: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Yeah, I get it. I know some things. Yeah.

EB: But Dawn Bennett also said she still takes pride in calling herself a Christian, because it's a means of aligning herself with Jesus's experience for companionship and comfort, and it reminds her that she's not alone. She told us also that Jesus's life was radically queer, so she's gonna tell us a little bit more about that, since I find that fascinating. Here she is.

Pastor Dawn Bennett: To be bisexual, I'm bisexual. To be bisexual, which is a train ride and a train wreck all in of itself, some days. But to be gay, to be lesbian, to be bi and queer and trans and asexual, intersex – it's such a creative way of life, and there's so few of us, mathematically, like in terms of the mass population on the globe, there's so few of us that we have to find one another. We have to support one another, and when we are isolated from one another, we do have to find creative ways to celebrate our existence. So Jesus is hella queer, just I mean who he is and what he did and how he thought and there's plenty of evidence that he was very free in his sexuality. Plenty, plenty of scriptural evidence and theological findings. So I'm in good shape. I've never once doubted it. I didn't come out for a really long time. But that's really nothing about nothing, I've known I've been bi ever since I was a little girl, you know, had my first experience with boys and girls. I didn't ever feel shame about it. How my gender identity and my sexual orientation lead into my living as a person of faith and then serving as a pastor – I think it maybe informs it. But I never had any of this earth-shattering come to Jesus. It's okay to come out. It just, I'm very privileged that I never felt that shame. Or maybe I'm just too much of a brat to let anybody put that on me. There's really good potential for that.

LC: I really like this, and I really like this in terms of identifying with the queer experience, because I just sort of feel like it's lovely to have the label, and I'm gonna use the label, but like, we shouldn't need the label. Like, it's not, I don't know, like, when I read this, it's just like a way of life that shouldn't need one, if people would just mind their business. But then, at the same time, I proudly will say I'm queer, bisexual, whatever I feel like.

EB: I really like that. I love it, Dawn's really killing it.

LC: And also just like, I mean the same feeling of, like, never some, like, earth-shattering thing, it was just like, oh, like, sure, that's just what it is. It's how it is. Yeah, everyone's really hot, and I don't make the rules.

EB: We don't like labels. The Reverend Bennett also told us about how she sees Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit working together, AKA the Trinity. Have you heard of the Trinity, Leesa?

LC: You mean from The Matrix, right?

EB: Yeah. Well, we were just talking about this in the previous section, but we didn't call it the Trinity, right? Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Okay?

LC: Explain it for our listeners, because I totally know what it means.

EB: Yes, so some people get a bit confused about the whole Trinity thing. So Reverend Bennett has a really cool way of thinking about it. She told us she understands the Trinity as God's three different ways of making connection with humanity. So being Go the Creator wasn't enough for humans to get and feel connected. So God sent Jesus, but we, of course, messed that up.

LC: Well, yeah, we killed him.

EB: Yes, so then God's like, alright, well, I guess not Jesus. So God gave us Jesus and the Holy Spirit. So the Trinity lets us have a relationship.

LC: God's being pretty generous here. I wonder why there hasn't been a second coming. Like, y'all.

EB: I gave you this, I give you this, I give you this.

LC: I tried with y'all, yet.

EB: But the Trinity also – so it's Holy Spirit, right? So you have a relationship with a spirit, then also a human being's life, so you have, like the body, right? And then the creator, who's God, so the relationship permeates everything. You can find evidence of God everywhere and anywhere. So that's like our soul, our like human body forms, and then this like higher power, right? That's how I look at it.

LC: It's just being queer. We're queer. The higher power is, obviously, I don't know, Cher, Dolly Parton, take your pick, Lady Gaga. But queerness and the queer community, same thing. Trinity. You got the person, you got the Holy Spirit. You've got a lot of gods. I would say it's a polytheistic religion, yeah. But still, we have a lot of – and mostly queens, not gods. But you know, we get it, anyway. For one last thought, here's Reverend Bennett just to say one last thing about Jesus.

PDB: Take a look at the Last Supper. And next time you see a picture of the Last Supper, scooch in real close and look at who's laying in his bosom. There's so much opportunity for unnamed people who have come alongside him with descriptors like "the one Jesus loved." No names mentioned. And the Trinity, in and of itself, I think, requires a bit of imagination. Not everyone who identifies as Christian is Trinitarian, but for those who ascribe to the Creator, some call Father, the Son as Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, my friend in South Carolina says "the Holy Spook." I love that. I love that. I just thought that was so sweet and cute. But there's plenty of evidence in the way that Jesus treated women, to know that he was intimately engaged with women, and the way that he aligned himself with men shows that he was intimately engaged with men. And I don't believe for a minute that life in first century Palestine, where he lived, happened, you know, out loud. I mean, I really don't think that the term we have now, loud and proud, I don't know that that really applied. I think that life then was people perhaps had a little bit more of a personal compass that allowed them to maintain privacy, for crying out loud. But there's plenty of evidence that we can follow when we take time to deeply entrench ourselves in the scriptures, particularly the Gospels. You know, we have four really great examples that when we put them side by side, a lot of those stories are synonymous, but there's hidden gems in each one of them. And I think that when we take the time to read for ourselves, we find gold mines in there, instead of just listening to what a preacher says in the pulpit, myself included. I'm the first person to tell my folks, "Don't believe it, just because I said it, go home and read it for yourself. Talk to God about it, and then we'll have a conversation," right? But God reveals things to us in our innermost spirit. And for LGBTQ+ people, we know something special about ourselves, and those are our pearls, right? I believe those are our pearls. And scripture pretty clear about not casting your pearls before swine. What's swine? Swine is anything in the world that is going to try to detract from who it is that God created you to be. Jesus, to the best that I can read and understand, was trying to get us all to understand about ourselves that we are innately wonderful created beings, as was he. And we don't have to go very far to understand that when God creates something, anything, a human being, an element of nature, space, stars, like when God creates something, it is always like a magical mystery tour. There's always so much more about that thing than meets the eye. And I think queer people have that hidden, remarkable, sometimes untapped beauty in them. You know, we are all diamonds. Every one of us. We are all diamonds. We are hard, hard, hard, hard, like diamonds. And yet we glimmer and shine.

LC: We are all diamonds. You're all diamonds. And that's the end of our episode.

EB: I feel so sparkly. Shine bright like a diamond. Until then, here's a taste of what's to come on Sweetbitter.

Reverend Jeanelle Ablola: I feel like nothing can separate us from God is a good reminder, in the sense that maybe it helps alleviate any fears we may have about society or where society is headed. It may alleviate us from trying to control others, knowing that whether we're people who are in fear for the future, nothing will separate us from God, no matter what, you know. And then, whether it's judgment upon other people, nothing can separate them from God either, right? If there are folks who don't believe that LGBTQ people are of God, that idea goes all ways, that there's nothing that can separate us from the Divine.

M Jade Kaiser: An old guy said something about the glory of God is humanity fully alive, right? Like, that's been something that's really circulated and stuck with people over the years. And like, put that in a queer person's life and tell me what you see. You know, it's not the closet, it's not repression, it's affirmation and embrace.

LC: Thanks for listening to Sweetbitter. Our next episode will be released on May 1st.

EB: If you enjoyed the podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review us. It really helps, especially written reviews on Apple and Spotify.

LC: Like any church, we also have an offering plate. We can’t pass it down the pew, but you can give us your tithings on Patreon at patreon.com/sweetbitter.

EB: Sweetbitter is an independent production by me, Ellie Brigida, Alyse Knorr, and Leesa Charlotte. Our assistant producer is Thea Smith. Our audio engineers are Cora Cicala and Ana López Reyes. Our content producer is Lungowe Zeko, and our artwork is by Istela Illustrated.

LC: Thank you to our guests this week, Reverend Altagracia Perez-Bullard, Reverend Naomi Washington-Leapheart, Reverend Deon Johnson, Reverend Florentino Cordova, Reverend Jeanelle N. Ablola, Reverend Tim Schaefer, M Jade Kaiser, and Reverend Dawn Bennett. You can read more about our guests and where to find them on our website, sweetbitterpodcast.com.

LC: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at @sweetbitterpod, or contact us on our website, sweetbitterpodcast.com.

EB: Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and Bluesky at @sweetbitterpod. Stay sweet!

LC: And bitter!