God Can Show Up However They Want

The uproar of certain Christians expressed by the "Last Supper" interpretation shows me once again how small they make God

I woke up to a text from a Catholic friend this morning alerting me that other Catholics are clutching their pearls about the drag queen presentation of “The Last Supper” at the Olympic opening ceremony in Paris, France on Friday, July 27, 2024.

Confused, having watched the whole ceremony, “The Last Supper?,” I asked quizzically.

Evidentally a tableau of drag queens that, according to organizers, was meant to reflect a celebratory mood shouting out Dionysius, the god of wine, pissed off some conversative Christians. Because some Christians interpreted the display as the Last Supper simply because the formation of the performers looked similiar. Looking back at the picture and footage today, yes the staging looks similiar. I see it only as a shout out to the important role that drag performers and the LGBTQ+ community plays in Paris’ art culture. And that culture was the true star of last night’s show. And how about Celine Dion? Still drying our tears from that one…

I’m not surprised by the pearl clutching and protestations in the vein of our faith is being mocked in a way that no other faith would be mocked. One meme this morning even referred to the drag performance as an “abomination,” a word that many conservative Christians use abusively to shame and torment gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and other people who identify as sexual or gender minorities. That’s the kind of mockery that actually ruins lives, as mine was for so many years under the thumb of conservative Christianity (both Catholic and Evangelical varieties having been raised in both churches).

Even if we assume that the performance was intended to reference the Last Supper in some way, I have three general responses to the uproar. First, Leonardo da Vinci, the Italian artist who originally created the iconic “The Last Supper,” was either gay or bisexual according to most credible scholarship. Featuring performance artists who are LGBTQ+ is a fitting tribute to the artist.

Secondly, the original “The Last Supper” was also a mere interpretation—of a white skinned European painting in the Renaissance era. We tend to see Jesus as we are, and the tendency of Western Catholics and American Chritians to portray Jesus as a white skinned, blonde man is well-known. And has certainly been well-criticized. If we respect the anthropological acurateness of the historical Jesus, he and his followers would have looked much darker than the way DaVinci rendered them.

Most importantly, the God of my understanding that I’ve come to meet in my healing process as a queer person harmed by conservative Christianity can show up however they need to or want to. If you embrace the Christian narrative, God showed up as a the human being Jesus, which to me is the real miracle of our faith. God could show up as a Black woman, an interpretation that touched so many readers in William Paul Young’s The Shack. God shows up as the poorest among us, reminding me of Jesus’s important teaching in Matthew (25:40), “inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.” I am also reminded of the memorable teaching from the late Ram Dass, “Treat everyone you meet like God in drag.”

For some of us, including progressive Christian artists Melody Walker and Mercy Bell, Jesus was a Drag Queen. The living Christ, like God his father, knows how to show up however people may need him/them to. That is the Christianity I’ve been shown and am called to embrace in my post-institutional church healing.

If you’re complaining about a group of drag queens in poses that remind you of sacred art being an offense to your faith, you are showing me how small you think that Jesus is. That God is. That they can fit into one church or one painting, or that they exist for only people like you who worship in the way that you do.

For this follower of the teachings of Christ, drag is sacred art. And I feel included as a member of Christ’s body when I see myself represented. My prayer is that you who criticize the performance can one day celebrate this inclusion instead of chastise it.