What do you imagine? (a message about queer politics, outrageous biblical characters and things we don't know)

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31

For many, many decades, even lifetimes, things had been predictable.  Maybe not perfect, but predictable. Folks had these familiar ways of interacting with each other. Everyone knew their place. Everyone was on the same page about what was okay in society and what was not okay, maybe even forbidden.  Religion was anchored by these age-old, steady principals that weren’t really questioned.  (Of course, this was the way God functioned in the world!). But then, things turned upside down. There were cataclysmic events that made folks question their religious anchors.  The people had to leave home and with it, leave all the old patterns and beliefs, …when they came back to life as they knew it, nothing was quite the same.  

The government was dissolving—(that was the monarchy in their case). Some of the infrastructure was changing or disappearing.   The old symbolism was eroding.  Those pillar truths that supported religion were being shaken.

It used to be predictable who held power in society (it was the elites: the king, the temple, the priesthood) and now, that was being challenged.  There was extraordinary social and even theological upheaval.  There was nostalgia for the way things had been back before it seemed like the world exploded (you know, nostalgia for the courts and the wise sages, the temple being the center of religion).  It had been a nation that knew what it was and that was clear and confident in who God was. And now? What a mess.

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There is something frightening about an open future where we can’t quite imagine how things will shake out. Like when a few too many support beams have been kicked out from under the house. Social philosopher, Judith Butler, wrote about this almost 2 decades ago in her book, Undoing Gender:  All these questions! All this change! All this uncertainty about how things are. And then, let’s not even get started on imagining what will be when everything feels a little out of control around us.

If this level of uncertainty doesn’t freak society out, it will at the very least, make it feel threatened. 

She really hit the nail on the head with how ancient Israel was grappling with change and instability around the time when the book of Proverbs came together.   The Israelites had been exiled in Babylon for 70 years. Now they were returning to Jerusalem, and things were different: their temple in Jerusalem which had been the center of religious life had been destroyed, there were all these working class Jews who had stayed behind who were now, different. Who was God? Where did they find God? Where were they headed? There weren’t clear or easy answers. 

Judith Butler wrote about how when we ask questions or poke holes in ideas that are tried and true, it stresses folks out because it makes the future feel unstable or cloudy.  People, she says, do one of several things when the future feels that unsteady. 

1. They can become frozen and they don’t want to rethink anything. It’s like they say: This is too much! I can’t process this! I will be here freaking out in the corner if you need me.

2. They become really nostalgic for the way things were:  Oh <<reflects wistfully>> remember when we were young how safe and predictable everything was?

3. Sometimes, she wrote, that regardless of our politics, we become so nostalgic that we even kick into a sort of cultural reverse-gear that uses moralism to pull us back to the way things were. We actively work to stop the change: "Reverse the currents! Stop the change! Back to tradition!"

Or, you could say, when everything around you is unraveling and you find yourself in a big open space full of piles of yarn, do you shout: fix grandpa’s sweater! Knit it back the way it was! Or Hmm, could we knit something new? Or could we throw away the knitting needles and weave a hammock instead? 

There is a fourth option when everything around us unraveling: Theologian, Elizabeth Stewart writes that it’s the job of queer politics to resist that tendency we have to run back to the tried and true when we’re stressed. 

And when I say politics, I don’t mean partisan, but politics in the sense of what do we want the world around us and the life we share to look like.” 

Just when we think something is concrete reality, queer politics pokes holes in it.  

It pokes holes in the ideas like: this is how women are supposed to behave. 
Or: This is how men are supposed to dress
Or: these are the two genders that exist. Period.
Or, this is the way we’ve always done it in the church.
This is who holds the power in society.
This is the way you _______ (fill in the blank)

Just when we think things are concrete, queer politics call us to the edge to think again. (To the edge of the dance floor? Or to the edge of the canvas? And then perhaps, while handing us a paintbrush, it asks us “what do you imagine?”)

The fourth option is stepping into that uncertain, scary space and courageously asking what can we be?

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In the case of the book of proverbs, Woman Wisdom bursts into the scene and it is undeniably different from anything we’ve seen. ever. in Hebrew scriptures up until this point.  

Women have nothing like this kind of role in the Torah like you see here in proverbs.  Biblical mothers like Rachel, Rebecca, Leah, Jocabed, and Sarah get this teeny, tiny amount of air time as supportive actors. Not until this time period in ancient Israel’s history do you start getting people like woman wisdom or even Queens Vashti and Esther breaking into scripture like this and taking up chapters and chapters in the story.   

In today’s reading, Woman Wisdom breaks into the street. She is loud and shouting! Confident and even flashy! Eloquent and poetic! stamping her feet in the public square, clapping her hands, look at me!  

Again, this is exactly the time when Judaism is starting to pull away from practicing religion in the temple (remember, the temple had been destroyed) and instead it’s settling into local synagogues and even the home which had traditionally been women’s domain. 

Biblical scholar, Elizabeth Stewart, whites this whole thing about how we can actually see this tension between what Judiasm was and what it’s becoming getting worked out here in scripture.  

The whole book of Proverbs toggles between these different people who are working it out.  In one chapter you have the obedient son or student who’s looking for clear instruction or guidance.  There is no mystery there. There’s just a common sense patriarchal, family, living by the rules. In the next chapter we find one of a whole cast of interesting women characters called Woman Wisdom who is  non-conventional and shouting in the streets. 

If we preform our gender, (I learn and preform what it means to be a woman) and if we preform our humanity, (I learn and preform what it means to be human), Elizabeth Stewart says that lady wisdom is “performing [her] humanity subversively.” She is pushing the envelope as a woman character. On purpose.  Whether or not it was the intention, she is making us think again about something.  She’s undoing us. Unraveling us. 

And it sounds like this when we digest this scripture: 

“Wait. Wait a second. Is Lady Wisdom, …God? Or God’s wife? Or some previous iteration of the word made flesh?” What exactly going on here? Why is this woman behaving like this?”

And we start asking dangerous questions. 

Truth is, social transformation always depends on some brave people who are willing to risk kicking a leg out from under tradition. And that doesn’t happen unless we go right up to the edge of what we know.  

Change, growth and transformation in ancient Israel would depend on a daringness to risk, a willingness to imagine, and the courage to talk about or even live out what seemed like it was impossible.  

We get a window into that with the book of proverbs.

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In the gospel of John, not the piece we read today, a different piece, there’s this story about a Samaritan woman who goes to a well.  Jesus unexpectedly finds her there.  Because of her life story, this woman, you could say, lives on the edge and, as she talks, Jesus goes to the edge there with her.  (Hanging out on the edge with people is kind of one of Jesus’ signature moves).

He asks her dangerous questions. He blows her mind. He knocks down walls. They work something out in their conversation that’s recorded in the bible. She is undone by him. It’s like he says to her: “Imagine, what we will become!” 

She is transformed, runs back to her community and all these Samaritan people in her town start believing in the extraordinary expression of God in Jesus.  

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Can you think of someone who has blown your mind? 
So much so that some pillar in you has been undone? 

Or a time when God has said to you: “hey. here’s a nugget of scripture. Put this in conversation with your daily life and see what you get.”

You know, we look at our Christian tradition sometimes as if it weren’t this living thing but stagnant.  Like God revealed themselves to us thousands of years ago and now, well, we just have to learn those ancient lessons.  Nope. We Christians confess that, yes, God created the world, and then came to dwell in it, and then, as we celebrated it last week with Pentecost, continues to be alive in it right here, right now by the power of the Holy Spirit.  The life of faith is never about staying in one place.  The Holy Spirit is always coaxing us forward. The life of faith is always about growing.  

And this unsteady, uncertain place? This place that feels a little scary or even threatening? That is where the growth and the transformation happen. 

And you, queer family, are there, often at the edge of comfort, dancing with risk and ready to lend us your telescope so we can see what is out there that’s calling us forward.  

Last week, there was an interview with Aiyana Elizabeth Johnson that aired. She’s a marine biologist and climate activist.  She’s amazing for a million different reasons

You know climate change is tough to talk about and to think about right now.  She posed this question in her interview: "Instead of how bad will it be," she asks, "what if we get this right?"  What will the world look like in 50 years, 100 years, 500 years?

For example, The healed lung of our great forests grown back to health? Oceans that provide enough for coastal communities to live? Clean and healthy air for all of us to breathe? It’s mighty easy to critique, but to build something? that takes effort.  

So today, let’s let ourselves be drawn out into this creative space I ask you, what if we get it right? What will this world look like?  What do you see when you take a hold of that telescope and look out there?  

In this time of uncertainty, what do you see from your spot there on the edge? Do you see each one of us living as our beautifully created selves without fear of violence?  Do you an end to gun violence? A world without Parkinson's?  A magnificent redwood forest? What do you see? What do you imagine?

During a song later on in the service, we’ll sing a song that Jesse Lava wrote a few years ago about the Samaritan Woman who met Jesus at the well out on the edge. 

During that song or maybe another point in the service like communion, I’ll invite you to answer this question: In this time of cultural upheaval and change that we’re living through, in this time that feels so uncertain,“what if we get it right?”  (write that down) what will the world look like? When you're ready with your answer, come up and fasten your idea up here.

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Out there on the edge is this creative space.  God bless you, queer ones for “making cultural trouble” (as Elizabeth Stewart wrote decades ago—John Lewis said a version of a few years ago). God bless you for cracking open these creative spaces where change happens.  Where would we be without the ways that you draw us out and bless us?  We love you.