Why Pride Sunday?

This year we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1976 General Convention resolution declaring that LGBTQ+ people have a full and equal claim to the pastoral care and support of The Episcopal Church.

Some people have wondered why we need to have a weekend devoted to Pride. My answer is that it’s all about the past, the present, and the future. For generations in our society, and in the global church to this day, gay people have been hidden, treated poorly, excluded, and told they need to change who they are—simply because of who they love.

On Pride Sunday, we celebrate that this past, which for some is still their present, is not our present at St. Bart’s. Our church believes that God abhors using a person’s differences to segregate them from the body of Christ. “We are simply a group of loving Christian people,” says parishioner Annette Van Dusen, “who want the same things as everyone else. Loving who you love is not a sin or cause for exclusion.”

On Pride Sunday, we celebrate that our parish is both welcoming and affirming of LGBTQ+ people. John David Cowart, leader of St. Bart’s own Let’s Go Be the Qhurch fellowship group, explains, “Welcoming and affirming holds that every one of us, LGBTQ+ and otherwise, is created in God’s own image and that God loves you precisely as you are. Our faith says that, as an LGBTQ+ child of God, you can live into your God-given identity just like anyone else.” Being a welcoming and affirming church goes even further. It means we also seek to address the harm caused by the church itself, and invite all people to participate in all aspects of church life, including leadership, liturgy, sacraments, and ministry.

On all Pride Sundays, I reflect on what I have preached to you—that we are not fully whole until all voices can be heard. (That’s why I love having guest preachers!) Unless everyone feels safe to pull up a chair to the table and speak the truth of their lives, we are missing the full expression of God in our world. Imagine a future in which an LGBTQ+ youth doesn’t hesitate to pull up that chair and speak freely. Every day that we live out what we celebrate on Pride Sunday, we get closer to that future.

Mother Nina+