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I hope that even my brothers who are not Christians can
still take something away from this analysis. We can
read the resurrection narratives strictly as a literary
text without trying to do theology as such. Jesus’ empty
tomb, which seems to the apostles (and to many of us!) “an
idle tale,” seems to affirm, mysteriously, that death
and oppression can never have the last word. Queer
people have had these kinds of experiences by the score,
and I think it’s time that we claim this profound and
concrete intuition as knowledge of our own and as a
source of empowerment for queer justice-making. To put
it another way, not only straight people come back from
the dead.
Jesus of San Francisco
This picture of the resurrected, embodied, vindicated
victim and feminist that I see in the pages of the
Gospels and in my own experience, I call here “Jesus of San
Francisco.” I have tried to show that queer men can know
Christ as a friend and ally of our communities. The
Jesus of the Gospels—the same Jesus that Christians
claim God has raised from the dead—also challenges us to
examine our ways of life and how we structure our
communities. Christ challenges us to embrace and
celebrate our feminist brothers and sisters. When we thus subvert
misogyny and fear, we find Christ in our struggles for liberation.
He challenges our sense of beauty and asks
us to honour our bodies and our stories. He asks us to
defend and shelter victims of violence against queers
while rooting out the seeds of that violence in
ourselves by practicing forgiveness. Above all, I
believe Jesus asks us to struggle for and celebrate the
full liberation of all people, precisely because he has
promised, by his boundary-breaking resurrection, that it
shall happen.
The point of all this is hope.
One
thing I love about Jesus is that he always takes me by
surprise. Right when I think I have him pegged down,
when I am convinced he looks just like me, he shows me
that I have in fact nailed him to the cross of my own of
my expectations and pet theories. The amazing thing,
though, is that he always rises again from the dead and
lovingly shows me that I can never contain him, even
within my best imaginings.
Even with this caveat in mind, I do feel that Jesus can
be a resource for queer men and queer masculinities in
several ways. First, and most fundamentally, the
Jesus of the Gospels and the one experienced in the
lives of queer Christians leads us to a boundary-shattering
feminism, a “returning to roots” that asserts, loudly
and concretely, the goodness of all members of the human
family. All human beings, and most especially the
destitute and oppressed, are subjects of God’s
liberating concern and love. Queer male discomfort with
and hatred of women (or of minorities within queer male
communities) must end if we take Jesus seriously.
Second, Jesus extends radically
inclusive hospitality to outcasts, women, and children.
Not only does he find his primary vocation in healing
service to others, but he demonstrates solidarity with
oppressed people by sitting down with them to eat. (The
dinner table usually reflects the values and priorities
of a given culture.[21])
“Nice” Jewish boys of Jesus’ day didn’t eat with tax
collectors, prostitutes, and lepers! He performs his own
culturally subversive masculinity, broadening the
definition from the “muscular Christian” singularity
commonly articulated by the religious right.
By accepting and overcoming his victimization on the
cross through forgiveness, Jesus further bends the
definition of masculinity out of shape. Literary
theorist Judith Butler calls this bending and
redefinition “proliferation of genders.” The very notion
of a single ‘masculinity’ collapses because there are so
many “internally ambiguous” ways of defining ourselves
in relation to others. Thus, Jesus allows people to tell their
own stories and to live in ways that bring personal
fulfilment and justice-oriented community building.
Third, Jesus rejects all forms of masculinity that have
their basis in violence and oppression. Many scholars
believe that Jesus knew his revolutionary message would
lead to death. Yet Jesus, in contrast to
the usual violent behaviour of Roman criminals, extends
forgiveness to his murderers. In effect, Jesus stopped
the cycle of violence with forgiveness. Christians
believe that in Jesus, God declared that there would be
an end to violence, victimization, and revenge.
Fourth, Jesus models for us in his life and his
resurrection concrete manifestations of hospitality and
hope. Healthy queer men, I submit, can learn much from
Jesus’ “eating and drinking with ‘sinners’” and his
message that God is active on the side of the oppressed,
dismissed, and forgotten. Doesn’t Jesus already mirror
many of the things that we see in our everyday
experience of queer men? When we see queer men engaged
in the healing professions, when we see a friend do his
best Martha Stewart impression while hosting a party,
and when we see the easy welcome and powerful intensity
of our bear and leather brothers, do we not see Jesus doing the same
kinds of things?
Last, and most incredible to me, Jesus demonstrates that
being in touch with the sacred, with God, can be a
life-giving way of being that has nothing to do with
bashing women, fleecing the poor, or putting people on a
guilt trip. Instead, Jesus’ awareness of God’s presence,
fostered by a life of prayer, led him to profound and
concrete action and prophetic speaking—he not only spoke
of God’s heart for people, but also challenged others to
buy into God’s agenda—not, as some would have us
believe, an agenda of violent revolution, hopeless
nihilism, or rigid religious observance. Instead, I
believe that it is an agenda that brings concrete
healing and justice to all those around us, including
those who disagree with us. Jesus himself, as I’ve
shown, has enough security and sensitivity to learn from
a woman heretic, how to think
about God! Perhaps Jesus can give us the courage to
engage again with the intuitive or spiritual side of our
lives as queer men that we have compartmentalized or
drowned out because of the lashings that religious
fundamentalism – in all its guises – has imparted
against us.
I’ve presented a strong image of Christ in this essay,
one with which my queer brothers may disagree for any
number of reasons. Perhaps my sketch is too radical, or
perhaps not queer enough. Perhaps some of my brothers
may still find “Jesus of San Francisco” useless to them.
But the Jesus whom I’ve experienced, who always calls me
to be his friend, doesn’t have a problem with that—he’ll
always be better than I can ever articulate. I suspect
he is even queerer than I dare to hope. I submit that Jesus can be a resource—a
re-enlivening, blurring, and subverting source—for queer
masculinities. I dare to pray that Jesus may be and
become this deep source for you. This Jesus, whom I
find in the Gospels and in my own heart, still has me
singing—even when I’m standing at the sink doing dishes.
The peace of Christ be your’s.
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2 COMMENTS ON THIS ESSAY:
I keep wanting to correct the tiny typos that I see...especially the last sentence: "The peace of Christ be yours." LOL. Minor thing!
Fantastic essay! I think one of the most exciting ideas suggested by your essay is the idea of adopting a subversive masculinity, a masculinity of which Jesus (at least in this characterization) is a superb example. I also appreciated the inclusion of a critique of our postmodern disdain for metanarratives. While I think this disdain arises quite naturally out of the radical critiques and the sheer volume of alternative readings of "important" texts that have accompanied poststructuralism and deconstruction, I also think there are radical possibilities (and even something of a practical imperative) to be found in reconstructing metanarratives on a wider, more inclusive foundation, by weaving together the millions of personal narratives that structure our daily existences, as queer men, as masculine, as feminists, as people of color, as people with disabilities, etc. - that out of this melting pot or mosaic or what have you, certain patterns begin to emerge and it is these patterns that offer us an opportunity to write our own story, our own grand narrative and lend our movement direction, sweeping up the whole of humanity in its march forward. This is just a flowery way of suggesting that the problem lies not with these grand narratives, but with their exclusivity. I also thought your approach to forgiveness was refreshing. I think what I've found missing in some of the essays was a failure to question or seek forgiveness for our own transgressions against one another or understand our attackers. On the surface this doesn't sound very radical, until you realize that we ourselves are the attackers at times and that change begins with ourselves. Wow, that was a lot more than I was going to write. Anyway: Thank You!