Friday, May 22, 2020

State Of Pride - Sermon for week ending May 23, 2020

 Reading: 


Our reading for this week is from journalist Raymond Braun, host of the 2019 documentary, State of Pride, in which he travels around the country to Gay Pride festivals, interviewing members of the LGBTQ community, asking them to share their stories.

I can’t even articulate how terrified I was to come out, even though pretty much everyone knew. I used to rehearse trying to come out to my family, and it was really scary for me because I couldn’t even start getting the words out without starting to cry. My idea was, ‘Let me write them this letter that is bulletproof.’

It was 16 pages, single spaced, and the 15 hours from me sending the Fedex to my parents receiving it were the most agonizing of my life. I got a call, maybe 20, 25 minutes after the letter had arrived, and the first thing that my mom said was, “I love you. I just want you to know that I love you so much. Come home, and we’ll talk everything through. You’re my son and I will always love you.”

And that was all I needed to hear in that moment. And it was the biggest weight off my shoulders because I had at that point 17 years of shame and fear and self-hatred and self-disgust. 


Sermon - State of Pride 


We are finishing up our documentary sermon series this week with The State of Pride, available on YouTube.  As we heard in the reading, the documentary follows journalist Raymond Braun as he travels across America, visiting Gay Pride Festivals, 50 years after Stonewall, asking the folks there to share their stories. His first stop is DC Pride. When he asks the people there what Pride means to them, they answer, “It feels so good to be round people who are like me, and who have the same struggles as me.” “You can shed your shame and just be yourself!“ “There is a spirit of community and connectedness. You don’t feel alone in the world.” But the trans women of color that he interviews tell a different story, because 50 years after Stonewall, they are still not accepted as equals. And they were the ones who started the Stonewall uprising by finally saying “Enough!” after being arrested and humiliated again and again, yet they are still ostracized. Raymond also visits San Francisco Pride where over a million people gather each year.  In 2005, Cathy and I happened to be in Berkley, where I was taking some courses at the Pacific School of Religion, during San Francisco Pride. And, Wow! I’ve never seen anything like it. They capture better than anyone the spirit that Pride is both a march for equality and a celebration of life and love. But an African-American woman Raymond interviewed expressed a sentiment similar to the trans women in DC., noting that 50 years after Stonewall, in the diverse city of San Francisco, the leadership of Pride is still white, male, and privileged.

They visit Salt Lake City, where we meet a gay man from a Mormon family, who, when he came out, left the church. He says he loves his family and they love him, but it’s hard for him to reconcile that with their devotion to the Mormon Church, which has such anti-gay belief.  He started a support group for gay Mormons and ex-Mormons. The film shows one of their meetings, where a young teenager speaks through tears about being depressed and suicidal because she was taught that being gay was an abomination, which is what all gay people who grew up in fundamentalist churches were taught. And it is where most of our internalized shame and self-hatred come from. My favorite part of the documentary was the visit to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where we learned they held their first Pride festival in 2014 with about 50 people in attendance, in a part of the country where, as one attendee says, “There is terror in even walking out the door and being who you are.” One of the older people Raymond interviewed said that Pride festivals in small towns, especially in the South, are a lot like the original Pride festivals in big cities, visibility at any cost. And that people who live in big cities sometimes don’t realize how hard it is to be gay in a small town. Tuscaloosa Pride reminded me so much of our first Fernandina Pride last year. It was held in a big green field in the center of town, folks came decked out in rainbows, and laughed and hugged and danced in a safe space where they were accepted for who they are.
50 years, 51 now, seems like a long time for the amount of progress that has been made, when trans people are still murdered for being who they are. But we are 55 years from Bloody Sunday, and black people are still murdered for being black. As Dr. King said, “The road to freedom is a hard road. Two years ago, our church’s community conversation on LGBTQ issues, which our mayor attended, was the starting point of what became Fernandina Pride. And for this small town in Florageorgia, that is major progress. At New Vision, we believe that all God’s children are worthy and deserving of justice and equality. We live Jesus’ commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves, without exceptions. Our presence and leadership have opened hearts and minds here.  And I am so proud of us. Jane’s postlude, which we are about to hear, embodies this same message. The song is “Help us Accept Each Other.” Here are the lyrics:

“Help us accept each other, as Christ accepted us.
Teach us as sister, brother, each person to embrace.
Be present God among us, and teach us to believe,
we are ourselves accepted and meant to love and live.

Teach us, O God, your lessons, as in our daily life,
we struggle to be human and search for hope and faith.
Teach us to care for people, for all, not just for some.
To love them as we find them or as they may become.
God, for today’s encounters, with all who are in need,
Who hunger for acceptance, for righteousness, and bread,
Bring us new eyes for seeing, new hands for holding on,
Renew us with your spirit, God. Free us, make us one.”

God bless you. Stay safe. Amen.




No comments:

Post a Comment

New Vision and Progressive Christianity

 New Vision is a Progressive church. That doesn’t mean that you must be progressive to be a member here. It mainly means that your pastor an...