Third Sunday after Pentecost
A MUCH-NEEDED NOD TO FREEDOM AND PRIDE
June 26, 2022
OPENING WORDS:
We open our hearts to the presence of God and worship together.
*CALL TO WORSHIP:
One: Call to mind the mighty acts of God.
Remember the wonders God has revealed in your life.
Many: All the ways of God are holy.
Nothing in heaven or earth is so great as God.
One: With a strong arm, God redeems the people.
Day by day, God leads us with a shepherd’s care.
Many: Even when the earth trembles, God is with us.
When lightning flashes, we are confident of God’s care.
One: We have inherited the mission of the prophets.
We need the prophet’s mantle from our God.
All: We have come to be equipped for our tasks.
We have gathered for renewal of our lives.
*HYMN: Joyful, Joyful We Adore You No. 4
https://youtu.be/YcKlYUL5B0E
WELCOME
PRAYER OF INVOCATION
Good and Gracious God, you chose a rainbow as a sign of hope for the future of humanity and life on Earth. We praise you for the way the atmosphere during or after rain works together to create something as beautiful and bright as a rainbow. Thank you for the reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, indigoes, and violets of the arcs of color across the sky. We also appreciate the other colors of nature, the browns, blacks, whites, silvers, and golds. Like the colors all around us, may we reflect some small measure of the breadth of your Grace to others.
We cry aloud to you, O God. Hear our prayers. In times of trouble, we need your comfort. Amid our confusion, we seek your clarity. From ill thoughts that are mired in earthly thinking, we beg for liberation. Lead us away from the false gods we create, that we may meet you here with full expectancy and eager responsiveness. Amen.
A TIME OF PRAYER:
With thanks to Kimi Floyd Reisch, I use this prayer...
We are a gathering of diverse people, woven rainbow threads drawn together as if a single prayer shawl, laying upon the shoulders of those who have been rejected, or harmed, broken by the world and how the world and Christians have treated their LGBTQ+ children, siblings, parents, family friends. We do not have to speak the same languages. We can witness different sacred truth. We can love differently, yet recognizing that love is the same, no matter the gender of the person who shares it. For God created us for incorruption, Made in the image of immortality.
We do not have to look the same, love the same, pray the same, or even believe the same Blue uses red to shine. Yellow reflects next to green. Orange and purple. Black and white. Brown and pink. Sameness should never be the goal. Our diversity is holy diversity.
We come together committing to deeper connection, to listen more, to see and witness, seeking compassion over conflict, hope over hate, joyful in intent and dismissing the false unity of sameness, woven in the unity of love. For God created us for incorruption, Made in the image of love. We belong. We are the colors of love, the colors of our God.
Parenting God, whose will for us as faithful followers of Jesus Christ is that we live by the Spirit, grant to us love, joy, and peace. Teach us patience, kindness, and generosity. Shape us to be gentle and self-controlled. Turn us from the prejudices of flesh, of color, of gender, of being, that separate us from you and violate love of neighbor. Fit us for labor in your realm and keep our hand to the plow.
Silent Prayer
Lord's Prayer:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, now and forever. Amen.
SCRIPTURE LESSONS:
2 Kings 2.1-2, 6-14 OT Page 308
Psalm 77 Hymnal Page 668
Galatians 5.1, 13-25 NT Page 168
Luke 9.51-62 NT Page 61
SERMON: “Free, Welcomed, Loved”
I like that there have been occasions to celebrate of late. Father's Day, Liberty Day aka Juneteenth, and Pride. It beats the heck out of lamenting all the tragedy of our world. We did well with Father's Day, but we always do. The service went well, and the lunch was great. Juneteenth is new, and on the same trajectory as Father's Day on the calendar, so it's a tough squeeze. Pride we've acknowledged, but never have done much about. I'm not at all great with just a brief nod to Juneteenth and just a brief nod to Pride. To me, both are really vital celebrations. Pride, of course, hits me directly for who I am and how I get to live today. Juneteenth hits me differently; that's all about friends and neighbors for me: people who have also long suffered from prejudice even after a history of slavery, people I like being around, to befriend and live next to.
Maybe today you're in one of those groups who have celebrated; maybe not. Maybe you're in that group that has never suffered prejudice. That group that gets the ready acceptance and welcome. Those of true white privilege and of cisgender, heterosexual privilege.
If you're a woman, growing up just a while back, you didn't get that privilege if you were in the thick of business competition. There you met pushback, and lower salaries, prejudice in a word. But if you were in that other, earlier generation, where you were married, not working and raising the kids, participating in the PTA and helping out in church, all was well. And if you grew up as a straight white male, then no matter what you did, you were pretty well accepted.
I've witnessed and heard many an account of prejudice, of seriously demeaning, mean, and belittling comments, attitudes, rulings, and dictates wielded by others of the "proper majority." People I know and love have been hurt, are still hurt. Even today, much less decades ago, women often still have a struggle to prove their worth. Even today, if your skin is a bit tinted, or especially more than a bit, some folk will decide that you are less than they are. Even today, if your English is such that it carries an accent, there are some, idiots, who will discount your worth or even bully you. And all of that stuff is pretty impossible to hide. But you never have to hide that stuff from your real friends and family.
Ah, but if you're gay, especially a white, gay man, it can be easier to hide. That is, if you're less than genuine about who you really are, less than genuine with family, with friends, with society. Then you can live with that great white man's privilege, and benefit. More respect will be offered, more jobs will be open, and you're considerably less likely to have to worry about where you can be married, or by whom, or about what florists or caterers will serve you… or even if you can be a member, even an ordained one, of a church. That is, unless or until you mention that you're gay, or get caught holding hands or kisses a beau.
One thing is to be free -- freed from shackles, freed from laws and social constraints that hold you lock you in, hold you back, that tell you that you're not just other, but less than. Yes, black and brown people were freed but it took them a while to really feel free. Yes, with the women's liberation movement, more women were freed, but it still has taken a while for them to really feel free. And I know some in both groups who still don't.
When I, and many of you, were growing up, there weren't many people of color on TV or Broadway. And when they were, they were largely caricatures, written into scripts to play the servants or the bad guys. Back then, women on TV were largely in the role of housewives and those who supported or seduced men. Back then, Ricky Ricardo was likely the only regularly seen actor who had an accent other than an accepted English one. And as for LGBTQ+ people well, forget about that. They were invisible, and still largely are today, and when not invisible, it's often more of a matter of innuendo than of any kind of positive message.
I celebrate that we're living in a new age of acceptance, even of welcome. The faces, genders, roles of people of color, of women, even of accented individuals has changed. There's more of a welcome, more of acceptance. We've had a black President. We have a female Vice-President. We have black, Latino, and women leaders, and now, even a few gay ones. The faces and names of children in children's books have changed.
But there's still pushback. There is still profiling. Still prejudice. Still violence.
The recent news of Smithtown library that pulled its Pride display in the children's section was telling. It indicated the prejudice that remains, namely that same sex relationships are something that should be hidden, at the very least from the kids; that those relationships are not only minority ones but also counter to what should be and what any young child should be "exposed" to. Some of the board seemed to think that it was fine for older youth, but not for the young. As if to say, it's out there, but we want to keep such matters as hidden as possible because, as some still think, "that just ain't right." Meanwhile, there are kids who are being raised with two moms or two dads who are teased and bullied because of it. Fortunately, the decision was reversed after more thoughtful consideration.
It was tough to grow up gay, to have to hide and pretend to be other. Yet, the older me, still in my 20s was fortunate to find a church and a denomination that didn't stand for such prejudice. I was fortunate to work with the Rev. Bill Johnson, the first openly gay man to be ordained in the UCC. Like the young Elisha, I was offered the opportunity to pick up the mantle, to continue the justice work for all God's children. I was fortunate to be named co-coordinator of the AIDS Quilt Workshop when that first got off the ground in Manhattan, and I went with the quilt to DC. I was fortunate that my family accepted me, especially as I know well that to follow a cause, no matter how just, and not have family support is killer. That's why I find Jesus' teaching -- to let the dead bury the dead, and to not say farewell to family -- is so difficult. Yet I do know that tough times make for tough choices. I'm just glad I didn't have to.
I can wish my family a Happy a Pride Sunday without pushback. I can text, "wear a rainbow on Sunday" to them, and they'll respond with rainbows and smiles. I know I have not only been welcomed but truly loved. That's been true too in the churches I've served, this one included. I have been fortunate to know not just welcome but love. But many, I know, have not been so fortunate, and a rainbow on a label would do much to let them know that they have allies, companions on the journey, even amid the ignorance and rancor.
One of the problems, of course, for any of us who'd like to show that we're an ally is to find the rainbow to wear, and for some it will even be a matter of mustering the courage to wear one. Should you choose to do so, with thanks to Sandy, we have rainbows for you today. Additionally, I have flags. You can put a flag in your garden, or in your window. You can even join me after church in putting some out front of our church.
There is nothing sick or sinful, abhorrent or objectionable about love. Pride is not about sex or sexuality, it's about love: Love that goes beyond freedom, love that goes beyond a welcome, love that embraces, recognizes worth, and states we are family, children of God, one and all.
Show some love this day and all days. Let us all strive together to defeat the prejudice that persists and show our true colors as God's disciples here on earth. Be blessed by God. Amen and amen.
*HYMN: O for a World No. 575 https://youtu.be/6OJanH5zQdw
*PASTORAL BENEDICTION
