The God Who Shows Up in Unlikely Places

For the four Sundays of Advent, Bondings 2.0 presents reflections on the Sunday scriptures from writers who represent each of the categories the LGBT community: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.

Today’s reflection is by Terry Gonda (she/her), a lifelong Catholic and spiritual director. She and her wife, Kirsti Reeve, are music ministers at their Jesuit parish in Detroit. She previously served for 36 years as music director at a campus ministry parish before being fired by the Archdiocese for legally marrying Kirsti. Rooted in Ignatian spirituality and the wisdom of the mystics, she now co-leads a lay Catholic community—formed from the remnants of her former parish—grounded in synodality, radical welcome, and spiritual accompaniment. Her story is featured in Cornerstones: Sacred Stories of LGBTQ+ Employees in Catholic Institutions.

Today’s liturgical readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent can be found by clicking here.

Advent, a time of reflection and focusing on the light amidst darkness, is also the season when God keeps showing up in places no one expected. 

The liturgical readings for this Fourth Sunday of Advent remind us that God’s presence (the literal meaning of “Emmanuel”) often enters through stories that don’t fit the norms — stories that unsettle us before they bless us. And that makes this Sunday especially meaningful for LGBTQ people and for those who walk with us.

In the reading from Isaiah, King Ahaz refuses God’s invitation to ask for a sign. He has no relationship with God, and cannot imagine that God might meet him effectively in his uncertainty. Isaiah’s response is blunt: God will give a sign anyway. God’s presence does not wait for readiness or approval; it unfolds in real lives while leaders debate strategy, often birthed long before anyone is ready. LGBTQ people know this pattern well. Grace often emerges in our lives long before others (and even we) are ready or know how to recognize it.

The angel speaks to St. Joseph in a dream (artowrk by Jean-Marie Pirot, aka Arcabas

The passage from Matthew’s gospel provides us a most powerful example of God’s unexpected ways when Joseph faces a show-stopping moment of crisis. His betrothed is pregnant. His instinct is to retreat quietly — a respectful withdrawal meant to minimize shame. Many LGBTQ people know that instinct well: the quiet distancing, the “love you, but…” responses from people who care about us but don’t yet understand. And yes, sometimes we conclude self-preservation demands we do this to ourselves.

Joseph doesn’t get much airtime in Scripture, but this is the moment where he shines.

Joseph lived in a world with very clear norms, expectations, and consequences. Everything he knew — Scripture, culture, family honor — told him what a “righteous” man should do. And yet he was open enough, humble enough, and most importantly, had a deep enough relationship with his God to listen for truth from an unexpected source: his dreams. He trusted the voice that came to him there, even when it asked him to walk a path that broke every rule of respectable behavior.

This is Joseph’s “yes,” his mountain-top moment — radical trust in a crappy and confusing situation.

We know how hard that is. When life gets scary and confusing, most of us cling even harder to the norms we were handed. Joseph does the opposite: he listens deeper, trusts wider, and allows the love connection he has found in God to take the lead. That’s what makes him such a powerful companion for LGBTQ people and the communities who walk with us.

In the first week of Advent, Bob Shine offered a needed reminder: “Hope is not optimism. It is a choice to act for a better world despite all evidence to the contrary.” If anyone embodies that idea, it’s Joseph.

In the second week of Advent, Dr. Nicolette Burbach reminded us to keep our eyes on the prize of peace, even when we can’t yet see it. This, too, exemplifies the radical trust of St. Joseph.

On Gaudete Sunday, Father Damian Torres-Botello, SJ, reflected on the kind of joy that comes only after wilderness — joy that grows slowly in dry and uncertain places, joy that does not escape reality but transforms it. Joseph’s joy does not bypass confusion or fear; it emerges through patience, questions, and the courage to stay present when clarity is thin. It is not a surface happiness, but that deeper consolation that comes from trusting God’s promise. It is Advent joy — resilient, hard-won, and quietly unfolding where God is already at work. Many LGBTQ people know that terrain well.

And now this fourth week of Advent reminds us that our most amazing stories rarely begin with clarity. More often, they begin the way Mary and Joseph’s did — with a bewildered, “WHAT?!!” and a heart scrambling to catch up to whatever God is doing. The holy often begins not with certainty, but with disruption. With surprise. With a life we didn’t plan for suddenly taking shape right in front of us.

Emmanuel is not a future promise requiring doctrinal permission. It is a present lived reality. God with us. Already. Unapologetically. Tenderly.

May Joseph become our Advent teacher. Where courage does not come from knowing how the story will end, but from intentionally being rooted deeply enough in an intimate relationship with God to recognize the voice that comes in dreams — and courageous enough to step out in response.

The question Joseph leaves us with: Are we cultivating a relationship with God deep enough to hear truth when it arrives from unexpected places — especially when that truth asks us to draw nearer rather than step away?

May we all seek the kind of trust in Emmanuel that makes room for God to be born again — into a new Christmas where love chooses presence over distance.

Finally, as we look towards Christmas, let us honor a particular grace:

Blessed are the allies and the families who create home for us where others create distance, who choose presence over fear, relationship over reputation, love over the rules. They create places of incarnation, holy ground where God takes flesh again.

 —Terry Gonda, December 21, 2025