Boldness before God
Christians and (Gay) Pride
June is Pride Month, a month of affirmation for LGBTQ individuals and communities. Pride celebrations coincide with, and to a degree commemorate, the 1969 Stonewall Riots, a major turning point in the struggle for the acknowledgment of gay rights and acceptance in America. For those of you intimately connected to LGBTQ folks, none of this is news, and you do not need me to say anything about the meaning of Pride, but I have encountered a number of people in my years of ministry who wonder: how should Christians think about Pride Month? Note: I am not talking about whether being gay is a sin. It's not. That's a place I'll plant my flag unequivocally, and if you disagree I'm happy to have a biblical discussion about that anytime. Still, even some very well-intentioned folks have questions about Pride. Some have asked me, for instance, isn't pride a sin? Why, then, celebrate queer identity with pride? Some have suggested that Pride celebrations are often a hot, drunken mess. Having served at a restaurant in Boys Town, Chicago, there's a measure of truth to that characterization in some places. But instead of asking about the legitimacy of Pride, what if we were more prone to wonder? What if we asked ourselves what we, as Christians, might stand to learn from the celebration of LGBTQ Pride?
In some ways this is really not a conversation we desperately need to have. No one seems to mind when the Irish (and those who pretend to be Irish or wish they were Irish or are 1/284 Irish) have their pride on when they celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We don't get similarly squeamish when people wrap themselves in red, white, and blue around July 4th and announce their pride in being American. So why single out LGBTQ Pride? (By the way, in case you are unfamiliar LGBTQ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer. Sometimes it is augmented with further initials like "I" for Intersex and "A" for Asexual.) Well, in part because, just like with the Black is Beautiful or Black Lives Matter movements, it is queer lives (I use that term broadly to refer to the several communities represented in Pride, not as a derogatory slur) that have been repressed, oppressed, hidden away, denied, and delegitimated--that is, historically it is people who happen to be queer who were discriminated against because they were queer. And since it is Pride month, let's lean into our wonderment again: What can LGBTQ Pride teach us as Christians? What do we stand to learn about who we are and how God is moving through humanity in this world.
The first thing that cannot be missed is that Pride events are wonderfully embodied. The Pride events I have attended are all people physically gathered in celebration, and attention is drawn to our bodies. In the Diocese of Chicago I marched behind our Diocesan banner at one Pride parade, wearing my collar. My body mattered, how it was presented mattered. It mattered that I was there, marching. It mattered that I was wearing a collar. It mattered that I could give and receive hugs. And our bodies matter, too. Life is not disembodied. That's what made parts of our COVID experience so hard--we couldn't be embodied together, couldn't hug, couldn't draw close. And didn't we all feel a little (or a lot!) more isolated? Pride can be a reminder that while we are not simply our bodies, apart from our bodies we are not. This is not a fact to be lamented, but a fact to be celebrated. Sure they can be frail and fail us, and they are the conduit of pain and aches, but they are also sources of our joy, the electricity of being alive courses thought our bodies. God gave us bodies, thanks be to God!
Secondly, we were made for joy. While it is true that some Pride celebrations are a little over-joyful, as is true with any kind of party--occasionally one does get over-served at weddings, for instance--the joy itself is palpable. The Westminster Catechism begins with the question, "What is the chief end of man?"--what are humans made for? The answer is "to glorify God and enjoy God forever." We were made for delight, and Pride can be a reminder of that fact. Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the preeminent Jewish figures of the twentieth century wrote a beautiful book on the keeping of the Sabbath. Among other things he reminds his readers that "it is a sin to be sad on the Sabbath day." What? How can we control our sadness or happiness? I don't think the good rabbi meant that one must repress all negative emotions, but that the Sabbath is a reminder that we are not made for despair, and when we live toward despair we live in a direction counter to what God made us for. The Sabbath, Heschel says, is a palace in time. To use somewhat more Christian language, it is a day to live as though the kingdom of God has come:
All week we may ponder and worry whether we are rich or poor, whether we succeed or fail in our occupations; whether we accomplish or fall short of reaching our goals. But who could feel distressed when gazing at spectral glimpses of eternity, except to feel startled at the vanity of being so distressed. The Sabbath is no time for personal anxiety or care, for any activity that might dampen the spirit of joy. The Sabbath is no time to remember sins.... It is a day for praise, not a day for petition. Fasting, mourning, demonstrations of grief are forbidden.
And why are all of these to be avoided on the Sabbath? Because "the Sabbath was given to us by God for joy, for delight, for rest. Pride at its best can be the same--a glimpse of eternity, where all of God's children are at harmony, at peace, because all are cherished, honored, and loved just for who they really are.
And that brings me to the third thing I think we might learn from Pride: joy in being honest about who we are. I don't mean joy in our rough edges and vices. But joy in how we are fashioned, joy in being "wonderfully and fearfully made" (Psalm 139:14) by a God who knows us as he knew Jeremiah, from our mother's womb (Jeremiah 1:5), when we were woven and spun in secret (Psalm 139:15), and who knows the plans God has for us, plans for good and not for evil (Jeremiah 29:11). Joy in being created in God's own image, after God's own likeness. Joy at being a living spirit, a living body. Pride might teach us what it means to regard ourselves with the love that God bears us, with all the glory and shame that we carry.
I have never needed to question my sexuality or my gender. I understand myself relatively well, and I have never had occasion to question those basic things that I have taken for granted since my earliest days. But our queer siblings have. Some of them have had to wrestle and fight bravely the battle to be honest with themselves, their families, their friends, and their God about who they are. Pride honors that struggle to be honest, to be and live truly. And we should honor that also. Because many of them are living truer lives than those of us who have never needed to question basic structures of who we are. One priest and author once wrote about this experience as one of discernment, that LGBTQ folks necessarily undergo a deep process of discernment to arrive at peace with themselves, the world, and God. She likens it to the call of Isaiah, when Isaiah is overcome with a vision of God in the Temple and hears God say, "Whom shall I send? Who will go for us, " and Isaiah says, "Hineni! Here I am! Send me!"
In the New Testament, the word parrhesia comes up in several key places. It means "boldness." The Acts of the Apostles (ch. 4) speaks of the boldness of the apostles as they proclaim the Gospel of God in Christ. First John says that if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God (1 John 3:21), love perfected among us "that we may have boldness on the day of judgment" (1 John 4:17), and the "boldness we have in him" that we might ask anything that accords with his will and God will hear us (1 John 5:14). Paul talks about his boldness in sharing the Gospel (Philippians 1:14, 20). But it is Hebrews where the theme rings out the loudest: "Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (4:16); "Do not, therefore, abandon that boldness of yours; it brings great reward" (10:35). Boldness is living unafraid of who we are, with delight in who and how we are created to be. And Christ shows us this boldness in living his life in the face of those who wanted to tone him down. But, as Hebrews says, "Christ, however was faithful over God's house as a son, and we are his house if we hold firm the boldness and the pride inspired by hope."
Pride is about living our lives out loud. Not with dishonest noise or distracting static, but with the clear melody of the song woven into each of our lives, drawing from the deep reservoir of the Love that fashioned us before we were and will hold us forever. Pride is boldness before God to live our lives honestly. Pride celebrations can, I think, remind us how to live like that. It's not easy: it takes patience, and reflection, and not a little courage. But if we can find our way to it we might just find the joy we were made for.
