Pride / Reconciling

Sunday, June 26, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Rebecca Anderson, preaching

Ephesians 6:10-20

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

PRIDE Sermon
Holy Covenant UMC, Sunday June 27th 2010
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
Galatians 5:1, 13-25

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Here it is! Pride Sunday, finally. We’ve been building up to this joyous day for the last month. We’re ready to leave here and have fun, celebrate, be set free into Lakeview to march and sing and dance.

And then we hear this scripture passage, from Galatians, which can seem to squelch all our fun. It starts off well and good: Paul is talking about freedom in Christ, telling us that we are no longer under a burden of law or oppression. And he tells us that the fulfillment of the law is summed up in the one commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself.

It’s freeing and it’s beautiful…and then we get to the end of the passage, we’re on the edges of our seats ready to have fun, and Paul seems to ruin it: He tells us about all the things we can NOT do; he tells us that flesh is bad and in Christ we live by Spirit alone. It can be a bummer to hear on this day when many of us want to go carousing and engage in pleasures of the flesh. It doesn’t feel very freeing and it doesn’t necessarily feel like a Scripture passage we want to take pride in. Is this what it means to be Christian? To separate body and Spirit?
It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. Plus, many of us have been oppressed because Christians have told us are bodies are bad. This passage is about freedom, but it can feel constraining.

Is this something to be proud of? After all, we are gathered today to be proud! (more…)

by Teddy Jay

A year and a half ago I stumbled into this small and funky little church on the north side of Chicago. Little did I know how much it would change my life. For many years, I was a seeker who wondered if a gay man could not only follow Jesus, but do so in a community that saw him as an equal. I also wondered if I could find a place where not only was I welcomed whole-heartedly but also one that pushed me to grow spiritually. Would I be able to find a church community that practiced what they preached? Could I be part of something that really lived out the teaching of Jesus without persecuting people for being “the other”? Holy Covenant answered all of those questions of uncertainty with a deafening and resounding, YES!

As you’ve read from earlier blog posts and communications, Holy Covenant is celebrating 20 years of welcoming all people as a reconciling congregation. This past month has been filled with activities, sermons and songs echoing the spirit of these 20 years, and calling for 20 more. June also included an amazing Prom, “Over The Rainbow,” to raise money for reconciling ministries. Thank you, Prom Committee, for such an wonderful event! Finally, a very strong contingent of Holy Covenant members and friends walked together in the 41st Chicago Pride Parade, united with one common objective: to live out our mission of loving all people. We walked under the theme of “No Place Like Home.” The theme couldn’t be more true. Being a part of this amazing group of people might be the most empowering thing I’ve ever done.

I had the privilege of leading the parade effort over the last two months, and am so proud of our witness on Pride Sunday. On behalf of the Pride Parade planning team, I want to sincerely thank everyone who contributed to our efforts. Special thanks to all who bought a t-shirt, helped with lunches, and built the float. Whether you marched with us, waved at us, or had us in your hearts, I thank you. Thank you for your prayers, and most importantly, thank you for standing up for justice and equality. Finally, a special thanks to all members of the Pride Planning team. None of this would have happened where it not for your gifts and contributions.

Holy Covenant is a community where the often rejected “other” is welcomed, embraced and included in “the one.” It is a community empowered to take part in social justice while embracing Jesus’ message of loving one another. Words can only begin to express the impact Holy Covenant has had on my life. I am overwhelmed and energized after witnessing Holy Covenant’s commitment to the LGBTQ community, especially during Pride Month. Here’s to 20 more years!

Can I get an Amen?

Troy Plummer, Executive Director of the Reconciling Ministries Network , was our Guest Preacher on June 13, 2010, as a part of our Twenty Years of PRIDE Celebration.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Recorded at Holy Covenant UMC, June 13, 2010

SEEK GOD
Hot – sticky worship
Where two or more are gathered
Holy Covenant

LOVE ALL PEOPLE
Inviting summer breeze
All are welcome in this place
Holy Covenant

CHANGE THE WORLD
Blossoming flowers
Make the world a better place
Holy Covenant

Who are we?

One of my best friends is a woman named Tracy. We started going to school together in 1st grade and were really good friends by middle school. Tracy, my bold and spunky friend, has always marched to the beat of her own drum.

She and I had different church experiences growing up. Her church was big, with multiple buildings including the sanctuary, gym, nursery, etc., and her youth group was probably among the biggest in the city. One day, Tracy and some of her friends showed up to youth group with alcohol on their breath. Now, Tracy probably wouldn’t mind me saying she never claimed to be a saint. She probably showed up in her inebriated state to provoke a reaction from others, challenge them to embrace her, or possibly to call them out on hypocrisy. Well, the youth group director indulged her in that, and asked her to leave on the spot, implying she was not welcome… and 14 years later… she has not gone back.

I remember Tracy telling me this story and feeling so enraged at this act of exclusivity practiced in her youth group. More recently, some friends of mine challenged me to recognize where that strong reaction at such an early age came from; and after some discussion, I realized I’d had some experiences of my own in feeling excluded in my own youth group a few years prior (though that was from cliques and social circles, rather than church leadership). Still, I thought to myself about Tracy’s story, “Who is this youth director to say who is and is not welcome in the house of God?”

This story has shaped my entire adult faith experience. I feel passionately that all should be welcome at church, regardless of who they are or where they came from. I find myself asking, “Who are we, as a church, to tell homosexuals they are not welcome in the house of God?”

Sermon, June 6 2010
Pride Kick-Off Sunday
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd

Galatians 1:11-24

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Once upon a time, in a far, far away land called Galatia, some people of Celtic descent lived a quiet and quaint life. They worshipped their sun and river Gods, dined on pork and pita and hummus, worked from sun-up to sun-down and gathered with their families at the end of the day for dinner and ritual worship.

One day, a day just like any other day, as the sun began to set, a stranger wandered into town. This man didn’t look or talk like the Galatians, he had his own God. He was a Jew, one of the people from a different land. He told them to call him Paul.

Paul was unlike anyone they had ever met before…he was meek and mild and demeanor but strong with his convictions. The children loved to listen to him talk for he was a marvelous story teller and had lived an exciting life that the Galatians could only imagine in their dreams. He once was Pharisee, a Jewish leader who took delight in persecuting people in the name of religion, particularly people who claimed to follow a man called Jesus Christ. The children were spellbound with his past of violence and hatred, the ways he tortured in the name of God and put Christians on very public trial. His life was what they read about in adventure books. But the adults knew that he was full of regret; they could see the ways his past now lived on the lines in his face.

But Paul’s greatest story wasn’t about his religious persecution, but about how he changed. He’d gather the Galatians around a fire, children and adults, men and women, slave and free, and tell his story: One day, a day just like any other day, as the sun began to set, Paul was walking down a road, on the way to a place called Damascus. His mind was full of the thoughts of the ways he had killed Christians today and the people he was going to hurt tomorrow. Wouldn’t God be proud, he thought to himself? And just as thoughts of God began to circle in his mind, he had a vision. He encountered the living God, he encountered this man named Jesus Christ, and he was overcome with love and grace and mercy. He felt freedom unlike he had ever known. From that day forward, he changed his life. He wanders to different places, like Galatia, all over the Middle East, talking passionately about the love of Jesus Christ. (more…)

Dear Holy Covenant Community,

Hear these words from 2 Corinthians 5:
All is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Godself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

This year we celebrate our 20th anniversary of being a Reconciling Congregation! Since 1990, Holy Covenant has been a church open to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, living out our call from God to reconcile with Christ and one another. Read more about the Reconciling Ministries network.

Throughout the month of June we are celebrating 20 years of PRIDE. In worship each week we’ll focus on what it means to be a reconciled people, hearing testimonies from people who have been part of Holy Covenant for a long time. We’ll sing songs from the past 20 years to live into our history and remember how far we’ve come. And we’ll look to the future as we continue to mourn the current state of The United Methodist Church and work to change it for the better.

On our blog you can read testimonies from Holy Covenanters who will be sharing why they are “proud to be part of Holy Covenant”. And we’ll culminate in Pride weekend, the last weekend in June, with a Prom Fundraiser on Saturday night and a Pride worship service at 10:30am, followed by marching in the parade together. You can buy tickets for our “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” Prom beginning this Sunday. I’ve already submitted my old prom pics from high school-have you?

This Sunday, join us as we gather around the communion table, the place where God’s radical grace welcomes us to reconcile with Christ, one another, and ourselves. What a wonderful time to invite someone to church with you! Think about who you know who needs to hear the good news of reconciliation and to feast at that heavenly banquet where all are welcome and loved. And bring a dollar for our communion mission giving-this month our offering will go to the Reconciling Ministries Network.

See you Sunday, and think about who you can bring with you.

Grace and Peace and Pride,
Kate

My freshman year in high school was the first time that I remember realizing that I was a Reconciling United Methodist (although for a couple of years I did not have the words to describe what I was).

One of my friends had told me about the National Day of Silence, when hundreds of thousands of students nationwide take a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in their schools. I was a really talkative high schooler, and I knew that there was no way that I could commit to silence for an entire day. So even though I was a supporter of the cause, I chose not to participate.

That day in choir, we did not sing, out of respect for the people who were participating in the Day of Silence. We basically had a study hall. During the class, some students who I knew to be Christians were harassing and making fun of the students—my friends—who had taken the vow of silence for the day. I remember thinking: this is not how a Christian should treat another person, regardless of who they are. When I voiced this to my classmates, the situation became a little confrontational, but I’m glad I chose to speak up. That was the first moment in what has been and will continue to be a long line of moments when I chose to stand up and speak out for what I believe.

My drive to be a Reconciling United Methodist was further motivated on May 13, 2010 with the death of my best friend’s mother. She made sure that everyone she knew understood that she loved them, and more importantly, that God loved them. She did this, by and large, through her actions: she made sure that the whole person was loved, cared for, and nurtured. In her own way, she welcomed us into her family and into God’s family. I want to carry on her legacy – a legacy of love and welcome for everyone. And that is why I am a Reconciling United Methodist.

It was the summer after my freshman year of college. I had gone back home to stay with my parents, and to work a job that kept me on the road around the Midwest. I had recently started blogging, most often about my struggles with my sexuality, with being gay and how to make it work in the context of my faith.

During the first week of a three-week break that summer, my home church of seven years was having Vacation Bible School – always one of the highlights of my summer. On the Monday night of VBS, I came into church and immediately made myself available to help out in whatever fashion I was needed, whether it be games, food, teaching, or just running errands. I had no idea that what was about to happen would change the course of my faith life drastically.

About 45 minutes into the night, the youth director at the time (someone I hadn’t known too well), asked me into his office. He proceeded to tell me that while they appreciated my willingness to help, my presence was not exactly beneficial. He expressed that in my “current state,” I put the church at risk of allegations and accusations. In doing what I thought was right, in being open and honest and authentic in my struggles, I had been made into an outcast. Since I did not have a car, he then proceeded to take me home.

We pulled into the driveway where my mom was tinkering with our riding mower. The youth pastor made some small talk with us, and then went on his way. Mom knew something was up, but I wasn’t quite ready to tell her. So I offered to take care of the lawn with the push mower. She followed me out back, where she finally got me to tell her what had just happened. She was livid, and went into the house to call my grandma, while I mowed the yard, tears flowing freely, stinging my eyes.

After I finished, Mom offered to take me out for ice cream, just as a treat, she said, but probably more as a distraction. On our way home, I asked Mom to stop at the church. I needed to talk this out, to make sense of everything. For the next hour and a half…two hours…eternity…I sat in a room with my mom, the youth pastor, chair of the deacons, his wife, and another of my mom’s female friends, who was a prominent leader in the church. The group went on to berate me for putting my mom in this position, for hurting her, setting her apart, forcing her into isolation. I had been too honest, too authentic. My faith was weak, and it made me less of a Christian, less of a person. The only resolution that was reached that night was that while I was struggling, I was not to take part in any ministry roles. I was unworthy to represent Jesus to anyone. I left the church that night, not to return into a body of believers for nearly six years.

As recently as this week, I’ve had a conversation with my mother who informed me that while she and my stepdad loved and cared for me, and thought nothing ill of my partner, he would not be welcomed in their home. While the pain of this is indescribable, there is joy too – joy knowing that I have a church family who accepts me fully for whom I am, and for whom I love. One that has affirmed my call into ministry, and who embraces my desire for authenticity.

This is hope, and I am thankful to say that I have it. My call is to make sure that all others on this path are granted it as well.