Pentecost is a major feast in the liturgical year – and one with special significance for LGBT Catholics and other Christians. This is when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit on God’s people, and the inclusiveness of the Christian church, symbolised by the gift of tongues, which made explicit the inclusion of all language and ethnic groups, but which also extends to other forms of inclusion.
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,and whose sins you retain are retained.”
Consider why the disciples were in this locked room – “for fear of the Jews”. As Michael B. Kelly reminds us in his reflection on the journey to Emmaus and back, this fear of the Jews is directly comparable to the fear and suspicion of so many modern LGBT Christians towards the Catholic and other major churches: the “Jews” referred to here are the religious authorities of the day, and those who wished to impose religious conformity by coercion. On the receiving end of prejudice, discrimination and sometimes even physical violence, many gay men, lesbians and trans people can certainly identify with this fear.
We do not usually respond to this fear by locking ourselves literally inside a room – but we do indeed lock ourselves (to varying degrees) in our personal closets, especially in the church, or in gay ghettos of different kinds, both physical and metaphorical. And so it is important to remember, on this feast of Pentecost, that the reason Jesus gives for sending us the Holy Spirit is that peace should be with us, peace which is not possible while we live in a state of fear. With the help of the Holy Spirit that comes today, we must put aside that fear and timidity in the face of the hostility we face in the name of religion. Furthermore, he leaves his disciples with a clear task, he is “sending them”. This they cannot do among themselves in their locked room. They will be obliged to leave it and go out into the wider world. In the same way, we too are obliged to move out of our own locked rooms, out of our closets and ghettos and into the wider church.
What is the precise nature of this task?
Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,and whose sins you retain are retained.
Yes, the job that we usually think of as given specifically to the priests is in fact entrusted to all the disciples present there – men and women, married and single, and including diverse orientations. I cannot reconcile this with the Catholic claim that only men were called, or with its claim that only celibate, married men are equipped for priesthood.
And so, from the appearance of Jesus in the locked room, I move on to the events of Pentecost itself, and to Paul’s commentary in Corinthians.
Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.
This extract from today’s first reading from Acts 2 reminds us again that the Holy Spirit came on each of them – not only on the heterosexuals, or only the married, or only the celibate. We are so accustomed to the drama around all present speaking in diverse languages yet being understood by all, that we forget that linguistic diversity will not have been the only form of diversity present. Yet, the gifts of the Spirit were given to all, and given to them explicitly to “proclaim”.
Brothers and sisters:
No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone. To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.
As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
Indeed there are many gifts, and different forms of service. We too have important spiritual gifts (some would argue, that we as sexual or gender minorities have particularly notable, unique gifts, as recognized in many non-Western and historical societies). We too are called to exercise these gifts in the service of the Church, and in creating God’s kingdom on earth.
What is the nature of the Holy Spirit? There are many aspects to this of importance to queer Christians, too many to go into in this post. For now, I content myself with quoting from Kittredge Cherry, who points out at Jesus in Love blog how very queer the Holy Spirit is:
In church tradition, the Holy Spirit is often presented as the female (and easily ignored) person of the Trinity. She is sometimes called Sophia, the embodiment of Wisdom. But at other times She is referred to as “He.” Sounds rather queer, doesn’t it? And what kind of omnigendered or transgendered Trinity would include both female and male persons in Their Three-in-One identity?
Kitt also includes a reflection on a representation of the Holy Spirit in art by the painter Douglas Blanchard, an extract from her own novel Jesus in Love, and observations on the Rainbow Sash Movement, who use this feast to insist on LGBT inclusion in church. Read her full reflection at Pentecost: Holy Spirit Brings LGBT Visions
I close with the line in response to the Psalm for today:
Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.
These familiar lines are expressed as an appeal – but from the perspective of gay or lesbian Christians, they have deeper resonance. This renewal is already occurring, at remarkable pace. To see this, simply reflect for a moment on the momentum towards family equality (whether by full marriage or legally comparable civil unions); the astonishing progress towards accepting out and partnered LGBT clergy; research findings that the majority of Catholics support same-sex marriage, oppose any form of discrimination; and do not seen homoerotic relationships as a moral issue; and the flood of publications aimed at the popular market that present alternative readings of the traditional Biblical texts of terror.
For this, let us give thanks and praise to the Lord.
Related articles
- Pentecost: Holy Spirit brings LGBT visions (jesusinlove.blogspot.com)
