Lisa Dordal
September 6, 2009

Several years ago, I worked as a teaching assistant for a New Testament course at a conservative Christian university. At the time, I was a Divinity student at Vanderbilt and this teaching experience helped fulfill a requirement to do a year-long internship out in the community. During my first meeting with the professor, I asked whether or not it would be safe for me to make my lesbian identity known in the classroom. In all of my previous years of school, most of my professors had publicly revealed something about their sexual identity by making a reference to a wife or a husband. So my question was really about whether or not I would have this same privilege. Kathy’s immediate response was that such self-revelation was entirely my decision. However, she then went on to tell me about a heterosexual woman who had been dismissed from the faculty of the school simply because she belonged to a church whose pastor was openly lesbian. And so, I resigned myself to concealing my identity.

Two days later, I got a glimpse of what living in the closet would mean for me. Laurie and I were at a restaurant not far from the school. After the waitress took our order, we extended our arms across the table and held hands. As soon as our hands touched, I immediately perceived myself as doing something wrong as I worried about being “caught” by a student. This discomfort continued throughout the next nine months. It emerged every time Laurie and I were together anywhere near the campus. It emerged each time we attended Friday night services at Congregation Micah and heard the Rabbi announce that there was a class visiting from the school that evening. And it emerged every time I engaged in conversation with the students. Often I felt the need to edit myself. For example, when a student asked me how I became interested in yoga, I said that a “friend” had recommended it. To anyone else I would have said that Laurie – “my partner” – had introduced me to yoga.

The second semester class was intensely homophobic. A number of students asserted that homosexuality was inherently sinful and that it naturally impedes closeness with God. Toward the end of my internship, I asked Kathy about the possibility of my coming out to the class. I thought it would be helpful for the students to hear of how I entered into a relationship with God in the process of coming out as a lesbian. Kathy agreed and so, on the last day of class, I began to speak personally to the students about my own faith journey.

I told them about how coming out as a lesbian was for me an intensely spiritual experience, and how it was only in accepting my lesbian identity that I was able to finally feel the presence of God in my life. I described the many years of depression I had endured as a consequence of not allowing myself to be the person I had been created to be; how, in all those years prior to coming out, I was filled with so much self-hatred that I could not even begin to have a genuine love for other people, let alone for this larger Spirit that I had come to refer to as God.

When I finished, the students clapped politely and Kathy made a few closing remarks before dismissing class. As I was leaving the classroom, several students thanked me for sharing my story and commented on the great benefit of hearing another perspective about homosexuality. That evening, several more students responded by e-mail. One student said that my story helped her recognize the extent of her own prejudice against people who are gay or lesbian, and she indicated that from now on, she would not tolerate any negative comments about people who aren’t heterosexual. Another said that my coming out at the end of the semester, rather than at the beginning, was especially effective because he and many other students had come to trust and respect me throughout the course of the semester.

Given the way that the students responded, it was clear to me that most of them did not expect me to be anything but heterosexual. And, most likely, the reason they didn’t expect me to be anything but heterosexual was because I did not fit the preconceptions they had about lesbians. With respect to my own story of coming out, I can relate deeply to the problem of being “blinded” by one’s own preconceptions. One of the reasons I had such difficulty recognizing myself as a lesbian was because I had so many misconceptions about lesbians that I simply couldn’t imagine that I might be one of “those people.”

And in the Emmaus story from the Gospel of Luke, we have a similar kind of situation taking place. Now before I go on, let me just say that I am talking here about this story as a story. I’m not interested in whether or not this story actually happened. I’m interested in what happens when we, as readers, enter into the story, in the same way we might enter into any other piece of literature.

So, according to the story, two people – Cleopas and an unnamed companion – are discussing what had happened to Jesus. Jesus comes near and begins to walk with them, but the travelers do not recognize him. The phrase – “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” – implies that forces beyond their control prevented them from recognizing Jesus. A footnote in the HarperCollins Study Bible suggests that God may be responsible for the travelers’ imperceptiveness.

However, the travelers still are accountable in some way for their imperceptiveness. Jesus’ use of the word “foolish” and his reference to their “slow[ness] of heart” suggest that their imperceptiveness is not analogous to, say, physical blindness.

My reading of this story is that the two travelers do not recognize Jesus, in part, because the travelers were blinded by their own preconceptions of who or what a Messiah should be. As is clear from Cleopas’s comment, “But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel,” the Messiah for them was someone who would bring about tangible liberation from enemies and oppressors. The idea then of a crucified Messiah – a Messiah who dies and then “rises” again – does not fit into their preconceptions of Messiahship. Thus, the “risen” Jesus who the travelers encounter on the road simply does not exist for them initially.

** By the way, as an interesting side note, according to Biblical scholar Sandra Polaski, even though the text only identifies the gender of one of the travelers, the Emmaus story often has been read as two men walking, thereby rendering “invisible” the possibility that the person walking with Cleopas is a woman – just as the risen Jesus himself initially was rendered invisible by the travelers.**

In addition to this culpability on the part of the travelers, it is also clear that the travelers were intentionally deceived. Jesus intentionally deceives the travelers by pretending not to know them, feigning ignorance about recent events, and referring to himself in the third person.  And, as alluded to earlier, there is the sense that God (in this story) intentionally keeps the travelers from seeing.  As to why God acts to conceal the travelers’ perception, New Testament scholar Fred Craddock suggests that the two travelers were not ready to perceive: that “the two disciples are kept from recognizing [Jesus] until their eyes are opened to the real meaning of [discipleship and Messiahship].”

Now, while “undercover,” Jesus tries to teach the travelers about his kind of Messiahship through the exposition of Scripture. The content of his exposition is unstated.  What is evident – given that Jesus begins with Moses and proceeds through “all the prophets” – is the thoroughness with which he attempts to open the Scriptures for the travelers.  However, Jesus’ efforts to transform their vision prove unsuccessful. The travelers still don’t recognize that the man walking with them is Jesus.

Similarly, long before I came out to the class, Kathy and I tried to offer counter-arguments to the claim (espoused by a majority of the students) that the Bible universally and categorically condemns homosexuality. We examined the texts of Leviticus 18, Leviticus 20, 1st Corinthians, 1st Timothy, Romans chapter 1. We addressed the issue of sexual differentiation in the first century Roman world. And we looked at the issue of Biblical authority – why Christians feel bound to the authority of some texts but not others. Throughout our discussion, we encouraged the students to think about their own presuppositions concerning homosexuality.

Our on-going conversations with the students suggested to us that the (few) students who were already accepting of homosexuality continued to be accepting, while the students who were opposed remained so. As I have done my own wrestling with the arguments concerning what the Bible does or does not say about same-sex intercourse, I have come away with the belief that if someone is already viscerally opposed to homosexuality, there is little that logical argumentation can do to change that person’s mind. For people who simply cannot conceive that homosexuality might not be inherently sinful, something more is needed. Just as the travelers in the Emmaus story needed something in addition to the exposition of Scripture, so too, did our students.

So what exactly is the “something else” that was needed?

In the Emmaus story, we learn that the travelers recognize Jesus only after Jesus blesses and breaks bread with them. According to Sandra Polaski this language is meant to highlight “the Eucharistic theme present in Luke’s Gospel, for whom the ‘breaking of bread’ in worship signifies Jesus’ presence.” And there’s a lot more that could be said about this but for our purposes there are two things that are significant.
First, the text doesn’t say “they opened their eyes” but rather “their eyes were opened,” suggesting that some external force – God perhaps – is responsible for opening their eyes.

To return to Fred Craddock’s idea that God conceals the travelers’ perception because the travelers aren’t ready to perceive, this use of the passive voice suggests that God understands them now to be ready to perceive Jesus. Why is it that the travelers would now be ready? And this is the second point of significance: Because, by extending hospitality to a stranger, they have demonstrated that they now understand the true meaning of discipleship. In other words, the reason that Jesus is able to carry out this ritual of breaking bread (which results in their recognizing him) is because the travelers have invited Jesus – a stranger – into their home.

Along the same lines as Craddock’s interpretation, scholar Andy Johnson argues that God (in the Emmaus story) first creates the space necessary for Jesus to forge a new narrative about the Messiah – about a Messiah who would be crucified and then raised from the dead – and then allows their eyes to be opened once Jesus has prepared them, through his exposition of Scripture, for this new understanding. Thus, God’s act of deception serves as a vehicle for the travelers’ transformation by providing the necessary space in which Jesus can present what is, for the travelers, a whole new concept of Messiahship.

What made recognition – and transformation – possible, then, both in the Emmaus story and in the classroom, was not merely an opening of the mind through logic but an entering into a relationship with a “stranger.” This is not to say that scriptural exposition is unimportant but that when the concepts under discussion are so foreign to listeners, logic and exposition alone do not have the power to open eyes and transform hearts.  When the concepts under discussion are so foreign to listeners, space is needed in which both the listener and the speaker can enter into some kind of authentic dialogue.

The idea of “creating space” in order to allow for the flourishing of new concepts describes, for me, one thing that Unitarian Universalism as a whole does so well. Unitarian Universalist congregations create space in which people can grapple with difficult theological concepts and world realities. They create a safe space in which people can take the time they need to work out their own beliefs; a place where people can enter into dialogue – into relationship – with each other about their beliefs.

I remember one thing that struck me when I started attending services here five years ago was how infrequently the word “God” was used from the pulpit and yet how deeply I felt God here. To me, this place is spiritual in part because we don’t, as a congregation, subscribe to one set of beliefs. We generally don’t toss the word God around, for example, unless we are prepared to explain what we personally mean by that term, a step that naturally requires entering into relationship with whomever we are taking to.

Labels – whether theological labels or labels related to some aspect of personal identity – can be problematic if time is not taken to explore the meaning of such labels and to address what may be some very problematic misconceptions on the part of the asker or listener regarding that label. If I were to answer Yes to the question Do you believe in God?, for example, without explaining what I mean by the word God, then what I would really be saying Yes to is the kind of God the person who asked the question believes in (or doesn’t believe in).
I’m thinking here, too, of something Jason Shelton said (or wrote) a couple of months ago about hosting a block party in his neighborhood and being hesitant to say that he was a Unitarian Universalist Minister for fear of completely shutting down any chance for dialogue, because of all the misconceptions there are about Unitarian Universalists (and I suppose about clergy as well…)..

While I believe that living outside the closet is a key step for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgender people to take in our fight for full inclusion into religious and civil society, I also am very thankful for having had the experience I had of intentionally and temporarily staying in the closet because it gave me an opportunity to create the space that was needed for a transformation that might not otherwise have taken place.

Had I been open with my students from the beginning, I do not believe that I would have been as effective as I was in breaking down their prejudices. It is one thing to hear positive comments about something as “anathema” as homosexuality from someone you don’t know and respect. There is little reason to listen. It is quite another thing to hear a first-person account from someone whom one has come to trust and respect.

And I am also immensely thankful to belong to a congregation that works so hard to create the rich, abundant space needed for deep, spiritual transformation. Creating a safe space in which to grapple with the hard questions of life, to me, is fundamental to healthy, spiritual growth; fundamental to our UU principles of encouraging spiritual growth within a widening circle of love and compassion; fundamental to our affirmation and promotion of a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.”  Amen.