Happy Pride!

This year marked 20 years since I attended my first GLBT Pride in Boston. I am struck by how much has changed since my first Pride in 1983, exemplified by my trip today to get coffee at a franchise within our local grocery store. There was a small blackboard by the cash register on which was written, ÒLook for our Iced Frappacino Float in the Gay Pride Parade!Ó In Medford. Granted, it was a Starbucks, but stillÉMedford. There are those who would debate the coverage of Pride in the media---too much drag queen coverage? Come on, can you ever have too much drag queen coverage?---and those who are disappointed in what they see as the ÒmainstreamingÓ of the GLBT community. But no one doubts that the ripples of GLBT Pride have spread.

So, Happy Anniversary! For what we mark each June is a remembrance of 1969Õs Stonewall Rebellion, when a small group of gay and trans activists in NYC refused to be passive in the face of continued oppression and victimization, and fought back. Thirty-four years later, we honor their courage, and publicly celebrate both their resisting the status quo of the time AND their refusal to let their experience be defined and maligned by the majority culture. From that moment, the GLBT community began to shape our own identities, to no longer wait for acceptance or approval but to instead reclaim our positions in the world, to stand up and be visible, to march in solidarity and in pride.

In preparing for todayÕs homily, I spent a good bit of time with a wonderful book, ÒReligion is a Queer Thing,Ó(1) edited by one of my own personal heroes, English Catholic lesbian theologian Elizabeth Stuart. In a chapter she wrote on Salvation, she examines the Stonewall experience from several perspectives. She describes the work of another queer theologian, Gary David Comstock (2), who posited that we re-live the Stonewall experience not just collectively each June but in our own individual coming out stories---not a one-shot-deal event Òbut a process that never ends. Every day we have an opportunity to deny or affirm who we are: ÔStonewall is our source of encouragement and possibility; and Stonewall is repeated as we continue to face down threats, solve problems, and move beyond barriers.Õ (Comstock, 1993, p. 125) Stuart writes that this experience is both individual and communal---Òit is communal because it is about building up different ways of relating based upon mutuality and justice. It is individual because in order to be part of this process, we ourselves need to be saved from the forces of non-mutuality and injustice which cause our isolation, self-hatred and marginalization in society as a whole. This comes to us through other people, and we ourselves then become agents of salvationÓ (Stuart, p. 91) In our connections with others, we ourselves then become agents of salvation. Quite a model for liberation, isnÕt it?

At Pride yesterday, I was struck by the many and diverse examples of people both challenging barriers and forces of non-mutuality AND celebrating of our anniversary. Stonewall becomes like our own Passover, in which we re-live each year our covenant as GLBT community, along with those who support us. (An aside: how great is it that we have visible, vocal ÒstraightÓ support for the GLBT community? A thank you to those who may not identify as GLBT but who journey with us, who enter into the covenant again with us.) The Freedom to Marry coalition, same sex parents with their kids, PFLAG parents with their adult children, the multigenerational spectrum from Primetimers to BAGLY. Those who tirelessly work to remind us that the AIDS crisis is not over. Bars and businesses, marching bands and thumping disco floats, a straight Episcopal bishop and queer pagans. The women of Our Lady Help of Christians parish. The men of the Jesuit Urban Center. The men and women together of Dignity/Boston. The flirting, the acknowledging, the questioning, the cruising---all connections, all representations of identity, of affinity, of diversity, of community. Pride celebrates community, and community, at its best, encompasses StuartÕs Òways of relating based upon mutuality and justice.Ó

The feast marked by the Church today, the feast of the Holy Trinity, gives us an extraordinary model for this type of relationship. IÕd like to explore this a bit, and as I do, IÕm mindful of how the Trinity has been seen as one of those Òdifficult to understandÓ concepts in the Church. St. Patrick supposedly used the shamrock to try to explain the Òthree-in-oneÓ concept to the masses. A good friend who is an IHM sister reminded me many years ago that God Òis not two men and a bird.Ó Ted once gave a homily on this feast day that began with a story from his seminary days, and a sermon he heard that, in its entirety, consisted ofÉ ÒThe Trinity. You donÕt understand it. I donÕt understand it. ItÕs a mystery. Please stand for the Creed.Ó While it may indeed be a mystery, I donÕt see it as something to be analyzed, explained, or even understood so much as entered into. The Trinitarian God is an entity that, as Comstock says, is Ònot above, other, or outside but among, between and part of us.Ó (Comstock, ibid., p. 129) Among, between, and part of us.

Many contemporary theologians are examining the Trinity as the truest model for interconnectedness. Jon once preached here on this feast about a Franciscan professor of his at Weston Theological, who described how it was the Trinity, and not Adam and Eve, that should be held up as THE example for mutual relationship. Now, what does that say to those who are stuck in their broken record of, ÒAdam and Eve, not Adam and SteveÓ?

The end of MathewÕs Gospel, which we heard today, has Jesus telling the disciples that he has received all authority from God in heaven. Jesus empowers the disciples to go out to all nations---not just the Jewish people, the Òchosen ones,Ó but ALL people---and baptize, teach, spread the Good News of the Risen Christ---that we are each and all beloved, adopted sons and daughters of God our Loving Parent, born again in Spirit. Jesus receives authority from God, and empowers his followers to share in GodÕs reign. TodayÕs Trinity Gospel is thus about both connection and power. Andy Braunston, theologian and a pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church in England, uses this model of the Trinity to challenge the hierarchical structure of the Church. He describes how Òin a hierarchical church, power is not exercised as authority---that is, as a system to promote justice, community freedom, and moral agency---but as force. This is a way of operating which is in direct opposition to the model of power presented to us in the gospel and in the model of God as Trinity. In the gospel we learn that the power of the reign of God belongs to all, and that those chosen to lead are loaned power by the community on whose behalf they exercise it and to whom they are accountable. To lead, therefore, is to serve the whole community. The Trinity provides the church with a model of relating based on mutuality, equality, reciprocity, and the dynamic exchange of and sharing of power.Ó (Braunston, in Stuart, p. 100) Now, what does that say to those in our Church who cling to power and wield it as force, who use their influence to justify discrimination against us, who steadfastly maintain that the Emperor does have clothes on---who refuse to accept responsibility for abuses of power, abuse of children, abuse of the very Gospel message Jesus imparts in todayÕs reading. And does it not challenge us to continue to witness to the Church about our lives and relationships, and to humbly strive to vision and live a different model of service and leadership in our own community of faith?

I believe the excerpt we hear today from PaulÕs letter to the Romans calls us out of fear, out of slavery to old models of power, beyond an identity as oppressed or Òintrinsically disordered,Ó to claim our inheritance as adopted children of God. I think this speaks deeply to us as GLBT people and to our allies. For me, the Feast of the Holy Trinity highlights our calling to be disciples, to spread the Good News to those who have not yet heard, to unlock those closets of shame and invisibility, to share in the inheritance of GodÕs promise to us. It holds the Òthree in oneÓ of Identity, Affinity, and Community. It reinforces the notion of God with and among us, the invitation to go deeper into relationship with God and with each other as community. What better model to hold up on this High Holy Day of Pride?

And so, in this context---the relational model of God and community as embodied in the Trinity, and the feast day of Pride---we receive the Great Commission. To go out to all the nations and teach what we have learned about GodÕs love. To be signs of hope, faithful companions in building the reign of God on earth and in challenging unjust structures that pervert the Good News. As we go forth, I invite us to think on the closing words of MatthewÕs Gospel---for me, among the most moving and powerful of JesusÕ recorded words. The words of covenant made with each of us: ÒRemember, I am with you always, until the end of the world.Ó Even when our human relationships falter, when we fail each other, when human institutions like governments or churches break faith with us, we must not forget JesusÕ promise to be with us.

I am with you, when you teach another about the Gospel of radical inclusion.

I am with you, when you feed the hungry and comfort the ill and neglected.

I am with you, when you suffer for love.

I am with you, when you challenge injustice.

I am with you, in the changes of life and in times of anxiety and trial.

I am with you, when you seek peace.

I am with you, when you bear witness in coming out.

I am with you, when you honor your identity, live with authenticity, love with mutuality.

I am with you, in your dancing, your creating, your love-making, in your prayer, in your calling, and in your song.

I am with you, on your Iced Frappacino Float.

I am with you, always, until the end of the world.

Sources:

1: Religion is a Queer Thing, Elizabeth Stuart, ed. (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1997)

2: Gay Theology Without Apology, Gary David Comstock (Cleveland: The Pilgrim Press, 1993)