Out In Scripture Archive

You don’t have to leave your mind, heart and body behind when you encounter the Bible. This Human Rights Campaign resource places comments about the Bible alongside the real life experiences and concerns of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of faith and our allies.

Out In Scripture is a collection of over 175 conversations about the Bible. With the skilled help of 100 diverse scholars and pastors, from over 11 different denominations, you will discover a fresh approach to Scripture. Here you can be honest, question and go deeper.

Out in Scripture is a great devotional resource as you consider your life of faith and put that faith into action. It is also especially helpful for preachers preparing sermons based on the Revised Common Lectionary.

The Bible’s not about beating you up, but lifting us all up. It includes the seeds of liberation and justice. You, too, can be out in Scripture.

The lectionary is a three-year plan of selected Bible readings for each Sunday of the year. To figure out what are the assigned passages for a particular week in the Church Year, check out the 2009-2011 Lectionary Calendar. Find out even more about the lectionary at the Consultation on Common Texts

Select Bible conversations from the following seasons. The conversation will appear at the bottom of the page.

Year B

Year C

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21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 16), Year A

Saving Waters

Water and salvation hold all these Bible passages together. Discover here powerful waters that cleanse, challenge, destroy harmful powers of death and create new life.

This week's lectionary Bible passages:

Exodus 1:8-2:10 & Psalm 124 (Isaiah 51:1-6 & Psalm 138 are not included in this conversation); Romans 12:1-8; Matthew 16:13-20

Who's Out in the Conversation
What's Out in the Conversation
Prayerfully Out in Scripture

Who's in the Conversation
A conversation among the following scholars and pastors

"We are born having passed through water and we encounter troubled waters throughout our lives. The good news is God's promise to provide flowing and flourishing waters that offer new life and healing in our liberator Jesus Christ!"

Linda Thomas

“Within this week’s readings, so many people risked their lives to bring about salvation — Shiphrah, Puah, Jochebed, Miriam, Pharaoh’s daughter, Paul, the Disciples and Jesus. We are called to reflect on how much we are 'willing to bleed.'

Deborah Appler

“Bodies matter in the transforming work that Paul is speaking about in these verses from Romans. Bodies co-operate with God’s work of grace in each of us and these are the bodies that are joined to each other as Christ’s body.”

Mona West

What's Out in the Conversation
A conversation about this week's lectionary Bible passages

In Exodus 1:8-2:10, the attitude of Egypt's pharaoh toward the Hebrew people and his plan to get rid of them is all too familiar to marginalized people. LGBT folk hear echoed in the pharaoh's words "let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land" (Exodus 1:10) such phrases as "don't ask don't tell" or "love the sinner hate the sin." As with the Hebrews, when those of us who are LGBT folk come out of our closets, we become too many and our pharaohs become nervous. They claim we are a threat to national security which justifies their efforts to escalate their oppression. This kind of attitude has been at the root of genocide and ethnic cleansing for centuries, but what has also been true as this first part of the Exodus story reveals is that the more marginalized people are oppressed the more they multiply. We know, as do our pharaohs, that there is strength in numbers.

Water plays a major role in the salvation of the Hebrews. Women, marginalized in ancient Egypt and Israel, draw upon water for salvific purposes. First, Shiphrah and Puah, midwives to the Hebrews, "subvert" the waters of the womb and play on the ruler's racist beliefs about Hebrew women as being fertile animals who pop out babies before the midwives have time to kill these infants (Exodus 1:19)! By playing on the ruler's prejudices and doing their jobs, the midwives are able to save many Hebrew boys at a risk to their own.

Second, Moses' mother risks her life and violates the intent of pharaoh's law by placing her son into the Nile as commanded, but in the safety of a basket. Even pharaoh's daughter willingly draws the Hebrew Moses out of the water and rears him in the royal household. Water in the Exodus story symbolizes chaos yet in the early chapters of Exodus water provides life, particularly for the Hebrews who will be led toward the Promise Land by Moses whose life is spared because of the daring "aquatic acts" of a few brave women who willingly and at risk break the law.

How much are we willing to risk to participate in each other's liberation? There are examples of clergy who have risked their credentials to perform Holy Unions against the church's official stances. Some have effectively joined together as a large group to officiate such ceremonies in order to create a hardship should they all be dismissed. Where are we willing to jump in and risk? Or, when have we risked in order to do what is right?

In Psalm 124, water again plays a role in national deliverance and recalls the chaotic water that exists before creation as well as the chaos that results from being pursued by enemies. Without God there would be no creation or human beings. God watches over all of us and grants all of people protection. God even keeps us from dangers that attempt to take away our life. There are times as members in the LGBT communities that we feel as if we are drowning in the water of homophobia and hate directed at us. Yet the psalmist promises us that God will take these chaotic waters and create a world that includes us in our fullness. God will deliver us.

In Romans 12:1-8, Paul is affectionately calling the Christians in Rome to offer their full bodies to God. Bodies matter in the transforming work that Paul is speaking about in these verses. Often society values one particular kind of body -- white, male, able, thin heterosexual. But God has made our bodies in all their shapes, colors, sizes, genders and sexualities. These are the bodies that co-operate with God's work of grace in each of us and these are the bodies that are joined to each other as Christ's body.

In verse 3, Paul asks the Roman Christians to sincerely and humbly be honest about who they are -- their strengths and growing edges. For us today this honesty means that we praise God for our abilities, and talents and confess to God our weaknesses and shortcomings. When we make these assessments of ourselves, we will have a grateful attitude toward God and a more loving attitude toward other people no matter their attitude, race, gender and sexual orientation.

Once again, water is an important theme in these admonitions from Paul. This transformation and renewal that Paul is claiming for all Christians is possible because of the waters of baptism (Romans 6:4).

In Matthew 16:13-20, Jesus asks the disciples "Who do people say that I am?" They give a variety of responses: "John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." Then Jesus changes the question and asks the disciples directly, "Who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter immediately responds, "You are the Christ, the Messiah and the Son of the living God." Jesus says to Peter, the one who will deny Jesus three times, "God has blessed you for God has revealed this to you -- this is not from any human source." Jesus continues saying to Peter, "You are Peter, a stone, and upon this rock I shall build my church."

The place where Peter makes this statement of faith is at Caesarea Philippi also known as Banias -- the place where the Romans worshipped Pan, the God of everything. This site is located at the bottom of Mt. Hermon and contains a hill with a huge cave where water once in its history gushed out to start the northern flow of the Jordan River. In a land often deprived of water, Banias was an oasis and a symbol of new life and fertility. It is significant that Jesus is proclaimed the Messiah/Christ and Child of the Living God in a place so full of life and living water. Peter also makes this radical faith statement at risk to his own life.

Jesus asks all disciples today, "Who do you say that I am?" Marginalized communities usually have special names for the spiritual entities that center if not save their lives. This question is a liberating query because each of us gets to answer. Some may answer, "Abiding Friend, Loyal Lover, Co-sufferer Liberator."


	Who is Jesus for you? And what do you understand the role of the Church that he established through Peter to be?

Prayerfully Out in Scripture

	Reflect on the Scriptures for the day once more and as you do think about a body of water that is special for you. Imagine yourself in that water or at its edge. How might this body of water be calling you to participate in an act of liberation, a statement of faith, or in transformation or healing? Journal your answers or share them with a friend.

Bible passages are selected based on the Revised Common Lectionary, copyright © 1992 by Consultation on Common Text (CCT). All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Year A

Year B

Year C

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Proper 16), Year A

Saving Waters