The sheep gate (10:1-11). Michela Murgia And the “practice Of the threshold”

Report* by Mariella Colosimo of the biblical reflection meeting of the PAROLA… E PAROLE group** of Rome dated 13 May 2023

Our meeting opens by talking about Michela Murgia's personal story, which struck us a lot.

In one of his interviews with Aldo Cazzullo on Corriere della Sera talks about his encounter with an incurable disease, stage four cancer. No complaints, nor traces of regrets, he rejects war-like terms such as fight, war against cancer or similar, shows a tranquility that seems unreal to the reader. He does not abandon his militant spirit, he concludes that he does not want to die as a fascist, with the Meloni government.

He also declares the extravagant, i.e. queer, nature of his family, for which he has purchased a house containing ten beds, as many people as it is composed of, he will marry one of them. She also says that for her this person could be a man or a woman, but this time she has decided that it will be a man, who will assist her in her last needs.

Also in this circumstance, his manifestation of faith in God is important. And he talks about the afterlife like this: “Not a place, but a sentimental state. God is a relationship. I don't think life after death is that different. I will experience relationships not very different from those I experience here, where communion is very strong. In the afterlife it will be a continuous communion, without intervals".

We also talked about his book “God save the queer”, where there is a reflection on the Gospel of John chosen for this meeting (10:1-11). This too will be part of the collage of reflections and thoughts, reported here.

Someone reads the passage from the Gospel, and the connection between the words of the Gospel and ours begins to take shape.

In this passage Jesus gives a particular image of himself: he is the door of the sheep. Not the door of the enclosure, which serves to open it when it needs to be opened, and to close it when it needs to be closed. This expression, “the sheep gate”, which from a linguistic point of view also seems a little wrong, suggests a door at the service of the sheep, which allows their passage from inside to outside and from outside to inside according to their needs, not according to pre-established and imposed times and rules. That door is Jesus, the shepherd, who calls his sheep one by one by name and whose voice the sheep know.

The door is on the border between inside and outside. Jesus is therefore neither inside nor outside, and he is not at the center, he is on the border. Does this image, in which Jesus recognizes himself, have anything to do with his being a marginal Jew? Marginalized by the political and religious power of his time, which would then decide on his elimination.

In the previous chapter of the Gospel of John there is the episode of the blind man to whom Jesus restores his sight, he does it on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees criticize him for this. In the following chapter, which tells of the death of Lazarus, the disciples respond to Jesus' intention to return to Judea: “Rabbi, just now the Jews were trying to stone you and are you going there again?”. It was therefore clear to Jesus that the circle was tightening around him.

Who does Jesus think of when he speaks of thieves and brigands? To those who from a position of power hinder him and want to have control, exercise their power over the flock?

We too live on the margin, we are marginal Christians, some of us have fared worse due to the choices we have made in an attempt to follow the evangelical message: others have fared worse: they are discriminated against for who they are, for their identity. It is by their nature that women and LGBT people are discriminated against.

We didn't choose the margin, but that position has an advantage: from the threshold you can look outside and also inside. whoever is in the center is seen by everyone, but has a partial vision: he only sees those in front of him, and cannot see outside.

Perhaps we, from the margin, can facilitate that passage, that communication between inside and outside, without which the Church will die. On the other hand, the parable of the Samaritan teaches us that salvation can come precisely from those who are excluded and discarded.

Michela Murgia's reading of the image of the door in her book is interesting “God save the queer”. Queer people are those who reject the binary of gender and sexual orientation, who refuse to be pigeonholed. This refusal, this fluidity (queerness), Michela Murgia calls it “threshold practice”.

The threshold separates the inside of the shelter from the outside of the pasture, the border between the protected place and the wild one. In the sheepfold there is rest, tranquility and security for the sheep and lambs, but there is no food. To eat you have to go outside, where there is grass, nourishment, life, but there is also a wolf. On the other hand, can one give up eating due to the risk of meeting the wolf?

The life of sheep is guaranteed by movement between inside and outside, not by stasis. Jesus is the one who makes it possible to practice the threshold as a living space. He does not present himself as the protector who defends against dangers, but as a crossable border, the point of contact that allows the two spaces to communicate with each other.

The practice of the threshold, queerness rejects belonging to a single enclosure. Accepting queerness as a christian practice means recognizing that the border does not surround us, but crosses us, and that what we perceive as a contradiction is actually a fruitful space whose vital potential we have not yet understood.

The questions that queerness poses, taken out of context, are applicable to The christian god, to his Being Totally Other. they can help dismantle attempts to limit God to a single form and a single definition (which Then coincide with those attributed to him by those in power). Queerness as a threshold practice is suitable for reasoning about a triune God who in the Person of Christ said to his followers: “I am the door”.

Taking inspiration from the practice of the threshold can help dismantle the classifications and categories to which the Church institution has accustomed us. The threshold, the border give an idea of ​​freedom compared to the fence, freedom to move, to know and not to remain trapped in the fence.

Among the burdens that the Church has contributed to creating over the centuries there is also the anguish of death and its aftermath. Michela Murgia's experience restores clarity and positivity in valuing what I have now, determination to be there, to stay close to the problem, despite the awareness that the moment of death is now close

I too feel on the threshold, after years of not thinking with my head, within the dogmas proposed/imposed by the Catholic Church, of following the Catechism that the Gospel, in which the only commandment is that of love... Now I can no longer stand the sermons I hear at Mass.

From the threshold I look into the enclosure, where there are empathetic people with whom I have confided, telling the reality of my children, and who have welcomed me, and others with whom I do not feel authentic communication is possible, with whom I do not speak for don't hurt me. On the threshold you can feel good, but also bad. Before I was part of the flock, now I'm a bit on the sidelines, I feel like a dissident, following in the footsteps of Jesus, a dissident too.

The sheep in the pen go there at night, then come out during the day to eat. Going out, everyone chooses their own path. Jesus will always be there for everyone, to accompany us, protect us, search for those who are lost. The Lord's love and forgiveness are always there. I see the possibility for all of us to be herd and to be free.

I feel like both a fence and a threshold, a frontier. I feel forced into a suffocating enclosure when I cannot fully express myself in my most intimate and profound being. But at the same time I feel like a threshold, a frontier, as a silent, hidden and marginalized LGBT minority. There are still pockets of homophobia inside me, on an unconscious level. Thresholds between being okay and not being okay.

There are no perfect situations, your situation exists, with the load of effort and suffering that it brings with it, and that Jesus lives and goes through with you. What is the queer family if not an extended family held together by a strong bond of love, which goes beyond any form of conventional love?

I feel bitterness when thinking about the faith practice of my homosexual son who, feeling distanced from the Church, has no longer found a space to live his faith. It is also difficult to say about his homosexuality with his relatives for fear of hurting an elderly grandfather.

Let's remember a passage from the video 2 times parents, from Agedo. A girl tells her grandmother that she is a lesbian and her grandmother reassures her that she wouldn't tell anyone. To the granddaughter's response: “Everyone knows it”, the grandmother starts crying.

I have never felt like a sheep, but the image of the flock of sheep gathering in the enclosure, breathing next to each other, strikes me. For me, the personal relationship with the Lord is important, that intimate relationship that the Gospel passage expresses well: “he calls his sheep, each by name, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice”. and for them the good shepherd spends his life.

The image of Jesus-door tells me something about how to relate to the world: through the Lord, taking on his benevolent gaze on the world.

Being Jesus' door expresses the proposal to place ourselves in relationship with others, as he indicates to us. Love remains the driving force that pushes us to undermine patterns and prejudices. Only the vital force, the love for life can indicate the way towards the light and can make one experience moments of authentic happiness, despite everything, despite the closeness of those who, with their profound malaise, express anti-life, capable to sink into the abyss.

Passing through that door means making the life instinct act within us, so that it wins over the death drive. The fence and the threshold are two faces of the same reality. The sheepfold is the place of rest, where you feel protected, but then you have to go out to look for food, without which there is death. Two parts tied. If you don't go out, if you don't face the risks that being outside entails, the sheepfold from a place of protection becomes suffocating and a place of death.
 
John 10:1-11

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in from another side, is a thief and a robber. Whoever enters through the door, however, is a shepherd of the sheep. The guardian opens the door to him and the sheep listen to his voice: he calls his sheep, each by name, and leads them out. And when he has driven out all his sheep, he walks before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will not follow a stranger, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus told them this simile, but they did not understand what he was talking about.

Then Jesus said to them again: “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All those who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door: if anyone enters through me, he will be saved; He will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.

*The return is a sort of report of what was said during the meeting. As in a collage, significant fragments of the interventions of the individual participants are put together, words and thoughts expressed by each and every one.

** WORD… AND WORDSIs a Christian experiential meeting group for parents of LGBT people and LGBT parents in Rome. We meet to travel and trace together the path towards an inclusive society and church, where no one is marginalized. We do this by following in the footsteps of that Jesus of Nazareth, who, on the streets of Palestine, shared his life with the excluded men and women of his time. We meet once a month, normally on the first Friday, at 8pm in a room adjacent to the church of Sant'Ignazio. Those who are interested can contact us at these numbers: Alessandra Bialetti 346 221 4143 – alessandra.bialetti@gmail.com; Dea Santonico 338 629 8894 – dea.santonico@gmail.com