Second Sunday after Pentecost - Pride Sunday in Portland

Second Sunday after Pentecost – Year B (RCL) 2009
Ezekiel 17: 22 – 24; Psalm 92: 1 – 4, 12 – 15; 1 Corinthians 5: 6 – 17; Mark 4: 26 – 34
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland OR
Sunday, June 14, 2009

WONDERFULLY AND MARVELOUSLY CREATED

Let us pray: God of all creation you have made everything that dwells upon this earth and have called it good. When you created humankind in your image you called it very good; and yet we have taken upon our selves the judgment of our value or lack thereof in your creation. Help us to see that you intend for us, your children, the full measure of dignity and value on your earth and in your heaven. Teach us the lessons of your parables that even in the smallest of seeds are contained the greatest of blossoms. Remind us that in respecting the dignity of every human being – is the commandment to love ourselves so that we might carry out the call to love others in your name. Amen.

(SUNG) JUST AS I AM, WITHOUT ONE PLEA, BUT THAT THY BLOOD
WAS SHED FOR ME, AND THAT THOU BIDS’T ME COME TO
THEE, O LAMB OF GOD, I COME, I COME.

Before we begin to explore in a little more depth the Gospel lesson that we heard this morning, I need to share a little history of my own with you. I share this because I think that it is essential to hold up our history and continue to educate those who have little or no experience with who we are as a people. Let me share with you a brief history lesson – the history of my tribe that can help explain why this day is celebrated.

The Stonewall Inn was a nondescript two-story building at 53 Christopher Street, just off Sheridan Square in New York City’s Greenwich Village. 40 years ago this month, June 27th, 1969 was not an average Friday night at this Mafia run dive where the watered down drinks were often sold in not particularly clean glasses. Earlier that week, on Tuesday night, the police had raided the Stonewall (a frequent occurrence in gay bars at the time). Several plainclothes officers entered the bar around 2:00 AM on the 27th. Of the approximately 200 people ejected from the Stonewall that night five (5) who were dressed as women were detained. After being released from the bar the patrons were joined by another approximately 200 of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight, Bisexual and Transgender people who were in the village that hot summer night (many who had been in the borough of Queens at the wake of Judy Garland). Tensions began to grow. The festive applause minded crowd’s mood started to change once the paddy wagon arrived and 3 drag queens, the bartender and the doorman were loaded inside. Tensions continued to rise. Angry shouts rose from the crowd. A newspaper reporter, the deputy inspector and the police officers that had conducted the raid retreated inside the bar and bolted the heavy front door. Someone threw a rock, which broke a window. A large group grabbed and dislodged a parking meter and began battering the entrance door open. Beer cans and bottles hurled in; a uniformed police officer was hit with something under his eye. The police became furious and located a fire hose; the idea being to ward off the madding crowd until reinforcements could arrive. Someone in the crowd yelled, “. . .let’s get some gas.” A stream of liquid was poured in from the broken window. The reporter, Howard Smith for the Village Voice writes, “. . . A flaring match follows. Deputy Inspector Pine is not more than ten feet away from the broken window. But he didn’t fire; the sound of sirens coincides with the swoosh of the flames where the lighter fluid was thrown.” Later, Pine states that he didn’t shoot because he had heard the sirens in time and felt no need to kill someone if help was arriving. It was that close.

The modern Human Rights struggle for Gay and Lesbian people was born that night – and so this Sunday of June is celebrated here in Portland and in other cities around the world as Gay Pride Day. The Spirit works in strange and mysterious ways. Out of that tribe and that people, God called me and many hundreds of thousands of others like me to live in dignity and integrity, and to witness to the good news of God in Christ. We who have been part of that struggle march to remind ourselves and others that our value and integrity have not always been so evident in our Churches, Mosques, Synagogues and Temples. We gather as members of this and other faith communities to witness to our growth as Children of God and to invite those who remain marginalized by fear and prejudice to know that there is a place for them in God’s Kindom.

The God of our understanding, who knew us before we were knit in our mother’s womb, calls all of us, from every tribe and language and people and nation. It is a powerful thing to fall into the hands of the living God! This call to follow Jesus was never promised to be easy. What was promised is that Jesus will be with us on every step of the journey. That promise is fulfilled here in this embracing and affirming Christian community of St. Stephen’s when we are fed with the “Bread of life and the Cup of salvation.” It is also fulfilled in the quiet moments of contemplation and prayer when God’s Spirit is breathed upon us and guides us through the moments of fear and uncertainty when it is that Spirit who calls and says “You are my beloved child, with you I am well pleased”

(SUNG) JUST AS I AM, THOUGH TOSSED ABOUT, WITH MANY A
CONFLICT MANY A DOUBT; FIGHTINGS AND FEARS WITHIN,
WITHOUT, O LAMB OF GOD I COME, I COME.

In the Gospel narrative this morning we return to the author of Mark’s account of the good news and begin to explore the parabolic teachings of Jesus and the metaphors created to explain the Kindom of God. I think it is truly fitting that the first of those metaphors is that of the seed. All forms of life were believed to be contained within the seed; the tinniest speck of life was cast upon the ground – and not quite knowing how the sower would witness the miracle of new birth and growth. Even the smallest known seed of the mustard shrub would yield a harvest of great growth and bounty within which the creatures of God could take refuge. That, says Jesus, is the truth of the Kindom of God. Jesus has taken the time and tenderness to reveal in metaphoric and parabolic story how and when God’s Kindom is to be made manifest in God’s world, and that it is through us and those that came before us and those that will come after us that God’s Kindom becomes reality on earth as it is in heaven. As we listen and digest the Word of God, made flesh who dwells among us – we learn in simple, yet profound ways that God’s Kindom is not distant, but near at hand; that God’s Kindom is not obvious, but subtly hidden in the everyday moments of our lives; that God’s Kindom is not static and rigidly defined, but ever becoming and manifesting itself in our actions aligned with God’s purposes; and finally that God’s Kindom is not limited by our perceptions of who is worthy and who is not, but rather it is a Kindom continuing to make room for all of God’s creation of every tribe and language and people and nation. No one is left outside of the circle; no one is denied the feast at the banquet table – and everyone is called and challenged to live out the good news of God – because as Paul tells the early Christian community at Corinth “so if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

(SUNG) JUST AS I AM; THOU WILT RECEIVE; WILT WELCOME, PARDON
CLEANSE, RELIEVE, BECAUSE THY PROMISE I BELIEVE
O LAMB OF GOD, I COME, I COME.

Amen.