Today, my parable/story to comment on is the one of the woman at the well. I perhaps am both too queer and feminist to properly articulate the story (read: I am not conservative). I’m going to tell it to you anyway in my (amusing) recollection.

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There’s this famous line of Jesus telling the woman: “You have no husband,” to which my very queer 19-year-old self would reply (and did remark to her VBS cast members) “Because she has a wife.”

I’m not going to go on about the plausibility of her being bisexual or queer, because that isn’t the point of the story, and so I won’t pretend it is.

The point of the story is truly that for the first time in her life, she is being seen for who she is rather than what she has been through. It’s a touching story of Jesus standing up for someone who is disrespected by an entire community for enduring things that weren’t truly all that uncommon.

In the story, we first see a woman being told the punishment for her actions is to be stoned. We learn throughout the story that she has been through multiple marriages and was recently caught in a morally compromising act. (In all fairness, I have always read the story as the whole town, people of all genders banding together, to tell off some poor woman who is losing at love.)

Then comes along Jesus, who says the very astute line of: “If you haven’t sinned before, you’re allowed to hurl a stone at her.” (This is very much paraphrased, but also to a much cleaner tone than my initial instinct warrants.)

In some sort of miraculous fashion (as basically every story with Jesus intervening has), people begin to stop and consider their hypocrisy. That seems to be why they stop. I’d like to add in some commentary here that I have long been appalled that the town considers death as a better outcome than being sexually promiscuous. It’s honestly kind of outrageous that the customs allowed that.

So basically, to recap:

A woman is caught having sex with a (I think married) dude. Only she gets blamed. Jesus gives a much more formal version of “I double dog dare you” to the crowd, who then stop.

The woman is flabbergasted then at the power of some dude coming up and defending her. He then reveals through his knowledge of her that she is more deeply loved than she knows. I’m not making any promises that she actually did manage to then go ahead and find a permanent romantic relationship, but it did seem that she found a spiritual one to fulfill some of her desire to be wanted, at the very least,

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This means the world to me.

I’m not the type of woman that the church receives with open arms, and I don’t think I ever plan to be anything other than a bold brash bisexual being. If that means the church doesn’t accept me, it’s okay, because, as the story communicated so vividly:

It’s not up to man to play God.

It’s not up to mankind to decide who Jesus accepts or even wants to follow Him.

Many people tell the story as one of Jesus helping the woman be more pure, or rather, give up her sinful ways. I find this offensive. It would then imply that Jesus only sees us as a litany of sins for him to conquer out of us.

To me, Jesus loves us for everything we are.

The Bible states that He knows how many hairs are on our head. He knew us before we were born; He knit us in our mother’s womb. He cares for even the birds, and so He will take care of us

I’m bothered that humanity (religion) wants to overstep and decide whom Jesus would have chosen to fight for Him to be known. Even the twelve disciples, if you really come to look at them, were just as much of a mess as any group of young adult men on a quest would be. (Look at DnD if you need a firmer example of why a team of twelve friends would not be the go to choice for defense.)

Based on this, Christian religious organizations have no business pretending the story wasn’t primarily a warning for religious leaders and the like to not use human metrics as stand ins for God’s metrics of value and worth.

God’s love is so infinite that I stand by the bold claim that anyone who wants to know Him is worthy. I don’t care if they grew up Wicca or Hindu or Atheist or any one of the other multitudes of valid and existing stances on spirituality. God’s one requirement to claim eternal life is to believe in Him with mind, body, and spirit.

That’s not a requisite to learn of Him though.

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In my experience with church and religious leaders there has been a long-standing issue of them taking tradition and precedent to validate abuse and violence, namely against anyone they believe the Bible says is nothing more than sin incarnate.

If that sounds harsh to even hear of, imagine being told to your face that it is because of your wrongdoings that you deserve to be treated poorly. Imagine going to the church for solace and comfort and instead being berated that you deserve mistreatment due to your humanity. The commonly cited evidence for this is the woman at the well. The story gets thrown in the faces of those who intimately understand that godly love is so much bigger and beautiful than anything man can do.

I won’t be having a church wedding.

I won’t subject myself to some premarital pastoral counseling. I more or less have experienced this, and being berated for harm done to me as an excuse for why I’m unworthy was torture.

I won’t have a scripture reading.

I won’t have a sermon of any sort.

My wedding is to be a celebration of love and all the multitudes of life that are made that much richer and more amazing with it. I don’t want the people closest to me refusing to show up to something I too would decide not to attend.

My best friend will wear whatever the fuck they’re the most comfortable in. My bridal party won’t be just women. It won’t even be just men.

My cake will be most likely colorful and very very gay looking. I might even throw on there a shit ton of queer pride regalia. It will be so tasty, and I might even make it cream filled and squirt out.

My dress will be beautiful and sexy.

I’m who I am.

I’m not apologizing for it.

XOXO,

Dorothy B