Finding the Reign of God in a Gay Bar

Today’s reflection is from Jim McDermott, who is a freelance writer in New York.

Today’s liturgical readings for the Twenty-second Sunday of  Ordinary Time are available here.

As a priest, I never went to gay bars. Even though my order, the Jesuits, was very accepting of gay men, going to bars always seemed a step too far. Even though I’d just be going for a drink, and not to pick someone up, what if someone saw me there? I knew of men who had been passed over for jobs or treated as objects of scandal simply because they had been seen somewhere.

In retrospect, though, I wish I had gone out as a priest. By the time I did, in my 50s, after I had gone on leave from the Jesuits, it was with so much trepidation I had to force myself through the doors, force myself to order a drink, force myself to talk to someone. The fear was enormous. The first few times someone flirted with me I was so freaked out I pretty much ran out of the bar.   

A gay piano bar in London.

Then I went to Marie’s Crisis, a show tunes singalong piano bar in Manhattan’s West Village. I had discovered the place on Facebook during the pandemic, which meant that when I walked in I actually recognized people, at least by name, from seeing them online. The piano player whose shows I’d attended in lockdown actually stopped to give me a hug. The whole experience was like that one moment: me in a new place and yet immediately feeling like I was being welcomed home. 

Marie’s, and the friends I made there, gave me a space within which I could confront some of my own anxieties and internalized homophobia, and helped me understand being gay as a cause for celebration, a happy, and often hilarious adventure. Ironically, it also helped me find a peace about myself that only made me better able to listen and support others, exactly the skills you’d want in a priest.

Both the first reading and the Gospel of today’s liturgy talk about striving for humility rather than self-promotion. In the Gospel Jesus actually pushes his listeners to always take the lowest place at a party table. But his point isn’t self-abasement. He’s not saying we need to understand ourselves as having something wrong with us, as LGBTQ people have heard so often in the church. Rather, he wants us to be in the best position to experience God welcoming and inviting us.  “Go and take the lowest place,” Jesus says, “so that when the host comes to you he may say, ‘My friend, move up to a higher position.’”

We look to the Mass and other sacraments as places where we might experience that kind of acceptance and revelation, God calling us and lifting us up. But we can taste the fruits of Zion at many other tables in our lives, and barstools, as well, including some that others might not understand or appreciate.

God is not bound by us. The Spirit moves where it will. But what is clear is that God wants us to put ourselves in positions and places where we can be found, and welcomed, and called to the feast.

 –Jim McDermott, Aiugust 31, 2025