Lutheran Preacher Says ‘Drag Queen Story Hour’ is An Example of LGBTQ Folks Being a ‘Good Samaritan’ to Children

Lutheran Church of the Cross is a Canadian congregation that “affirms and celebrates human diversity in God’s creation.” Led by Lyndon Sayers and Lyle McKenzie, they are an ELCIC (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada congregation, the canuck version of the ELCA) that is populated by senior citizens, lesbians, and a host of other ragtag goatlings.

We covered them after a recent sermon argued that the baby Moses’ trip in a basket on the Nile river has some queer themes, and is actually about kinship outside of heteronormative family structures, as well as a metaphor for the turbulence that trans folk experience at the hands of the church.

In a ‘Reconciling Sunday’ sermon, University of Victoria student Ruby Cupp, a non-binary, transgender, bisexual who uses they/them pronouns, insists that LGBTQ people are acting as ‘Good Samaritans’ when they put on ‘drag queen story hours’ for children, and the problem with society is that people are unwilling to let LGBTQ folks try to be the Samaritan in a world full of broken and hurting people.

Hi everybody, my name is Ruby Cupp. I am 22 years old and my pronouns are they/them… I come to you today as a queer person. I’m non-binary, transgender, and bisexual. And if any of those terms are unfamiliar to you, and you’d like to learn more, then come and talk to me after the service, because I would love to tell you more.

…When one thinks of a church-going Christian, I’m probably the last person they would picture. In Jesus’s parable of the gospel, today, the Samaritan was an unlikely person to help out the wounded man.

Growing up, I always thought that the term ‘Samaritan’ just meant a good person who helps out others when they can. But in reality, Samaritans referred to an entire identity of the people who at the time were socially outcast. They practiced a different religion than that of the majority, and to the religious leaders of the time, they would have been seen as heretics.

Yet it was the religious people who passed by the wounded man, and finally a Samaritan who helped out. He was an unlikely person to help.

When I started to read the story that I had heard hundreds of times in my childhood, but in this new context, I started to realize how much modern-day social outcasts are prevented from helping only because of their identity.

My mind immediately thinks of how many times the drag queens in this country have been attacked for simply wanting to read stories to children.

He continues:

I’ve seen so many celebrations of queer joy in my life, from drag performances to open mic nights to visual art showcases to pride parades, to rallies for trans joy. It’s clear that queer people everywhere want to help out others, regardless of who they are. They want to help out their neighbors, and Jesus tells us in the gospel, that everybody can be our neighbor.

What would have happened if the Good Samaritan, as told by Jesus in His parable, was denied the opportunity to help out the wounded man? What would have happened if Samaritans were so socially outcasts, and they wouldn’t even have the means to help in the first place, even if they wanted to?

God’s message through all three readings today, it’s clear, we as God’s followers need to work towards queer liberation by letting our justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. ..We need to help queer people and work towards their liberation so that they can be given the opportunity and the means to help all of us.

About Author

Staff Writer

See author's posts