The themes of this week’s Bible passages range from who is admitted to the temple, to what happens when the new community receives the Holy Spirit, to praying to God for protection and refuge, to new birth and resurrection, to the reality of fear and closed doors.

All of these themes are connected to the lived experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.  The dominant texts, however, that captured the imaginations of our conversation were Psalm 16 and the story from the gospel of John.  We pretend no objective reading and experience of these passages, rather as two lesbians and a gay man, we invite you to “listen in “ on the face-to-face conversation we had as we  struggled with the texts in relation to our own lives and the lives of the LGBT community.

 The passage from John 20:19-31 confronts us with the reality of fear and the reality of locked doors. One could hardly miss the connection of locked doors with the “in the closet” reality of so many LGBT lives. This band of Jewish followers of Jesus is afraid of the Romans and the violent crucifixion they witnessed, and they are afraid of their own religious authorities who hold enough power to hurt them. LGBT people know both the fear of violence inflicted by people in our larger social and political contexts, and we fear religious authorities that determine whether we can “enter the temple” (Psalm 16) and be fully a part of own religious communities.

Like the persecuted followers of Jesus, LGBT people have been forced into places of doubt and secrecy. And yet this passage from the gospel of John reminds us that wherever we may be hiding, the presence of God in Christ can find us and can breathe the spirit of new life into us.  In that Spirit, we have the power we need to come out of hiding, to live fully, and respond to our call as disciples of the Christ. Surely it is a resurrection hope for the LGBT community, that one day all of us will be able to come forth from closeted places of hiding and into the fullness of new life.

	What are some of the ways that Christian people continue to force LGBT people into closets of hiding and secrecy? When has the divine presence found you even though you were hiding?

As members of the LGBT community we have a particular regard for the character Thomas. We believe that he is not just accepting what the others say, but rather he is willing to enter into the process of doubt and the process of moving closer to the wounds of the crucified one than the others seem to be (John 20: 24 -25).  Many of us have been willing to “touch the wounds” of members of our community who have suffered and died from AIDS. We have held each other and cried with each other on the other side of beatings, and our families disowning us, and some of us losing our children simply because we are gay or lesbian.  Thomas moves with suspicion and rightfully so as a part of a community who has witnessed the violent death of Jesus. Thomas is not borrowing someone else’s faith, or simply accepting what others say, he chooses in this critical moment to deepen his own faith by both expressing honest doubt and a desire to believe.

	When have you experienced or noticed that faith actually deepens when we express our doubts honestly?  When have you actually been willing to intimately draw close to the wounds of others?  What impact has that had on your life of faith?

LGBT people have so many reasons we can identify with Thomas. Oppressed people develop an intuitive sense in the world of who is trustworthy and who is not, or who will affirm our lives and who will reject us. Thus most LGBT people understand exactly why the followers of Jesus are behind closed doors (verse 19).   And we know that there is not only death behind those closed doors, there is the power of the gathered community present as well.  There is holy sanctuary there. There is the presence of our chosen family sitting, grieving and waiting for death to give way to life. We create quilted panels in the privacy of these holy sanctuary places as reminders of those who died with AIDS. We cry with each other when families have turned away in this holy closed sanctuary places. We comfort and empower each other in these holy sanctuary places when the church has abandoned us. We know these closed doors well, both the fear behind them, and the life.  

	When as a member of the heterosexual community have you experienced being locked behind closed, secretive doors because you were afraid for your life?  What experiences in life have you had that have caused you to seek out the holy sanctuary of closed doors where only”chosen family can come in?”

The words of the psalmist in Psalm 16 also speak a powerful word of truth to us as LGBT people. We have prayed for “admission to the temple” for most of our lives. We, along with the psalmist know and believe that we “belong” to God (verse 2) and yet there is no joyful security and limited new life that comes with this knowing as long as the institutional church continues to reject and condemn us. As we struggled with the text we realized that the relentless persecution we experience often threatens the very presence of God in our lives. We long to feel that presence as the psalmist does (see verses 5 to 11) and to receive the pleasures and the goodness of God’s presence and blessing. Yet so often we have gotten more a glimpse of the “pit” and of “Sheol” (verse 10) than we have received God’s blessings in the temple.

	When have you had a glimpse of “the pit”  or of  “Sheol”? What impact did this experience have on your life and your faith? What are some of the “paths of life” that express your solidarity with LGBT people?

On the second Sunday in Easter, the church would do well to reflect on how it can become refuge for LGBT people.  How might the church be transformed into a place that invites all kinds of human beings into a “path of life” (verse 11) that is for all? Even though LGBT people have often been utterly faithful to the Christian Church and chosen God steadfastly, the “boundary lines have not fallen in pleasant places” for us.  We have not received a goodly heritage (verse 6).  It is time for these promises and these blessings to be realized by LGBT people and for all creation.