Celebrating All of God's Creation

A Sermon by Rev. Rebecca Hjelle
Preached at Urban Abbey on July 28, 2019

My name is Rev. Rebecca Hjelle (That’s right, yell-e – it’s a good Norwegian last name!) and I am just finishing my second week as the new Director of Spiritual Formation here at the Abbey! These past 2 weeks I’ve been learning about the magic of the coffee bar, I’ve been organizing and ordering books, and learning about Fair Trade – and I’ve been taking notes on some of the things that Debra has on the radar for this coming year. And I’ve got to tell you, it’s exciting!

There are going to be some wonderful mid-week experiences including Wesley Pub and Open Mic Worship. We’re working on some Fierce Spirituality Circles, we’re talking about curriculum, and how to share the good work that you’ve all been doing with a wider circle of faith communities who are seeking progressive perspectives on faith and life and how it all connects.

It’s going to be a big year, and I’m truly honored to get to be with you all as it begins!

Now, I have known some of you through our United Methodist connections for a number of years – and some of you I have met during these past two weeks when you’ve come in for coffee and books and conversations – but many of you I am meeting for the first time, I thought it would be good to start by sharing just a bit about myself.

I am an Ordained Elder, just like Debra, and I’ve been serving local churches in Nebraska for just over 11 years – I’ve been out in Kearney, up in Blair, just down the road in Elkhorn, and now I’m living in Bellevue, which is actually where I grew up. So, it’s good to be home!

My family all lives in this area and that means I get to see them all the time – my parents are both retired. My mom was an elementary school teacher and my dad sold Marvin windows and doors for the Chicago Lumber Co. which is just across the railroad tracks on 14th Street. My younger brother is a high school math and engineering teacher at Omaha North, and my sister-in-law is a stay-at-home mom with their 3 kids – Oliver, Henry, and Luna.

Being an aunt is the best job I’ve ever had – and I’m certain that you’ll hear about them from time to time in my preaching and leading. They are hilarious and smart, and they always keep me on my toes!

Now, there is one other important person in my life that I wanted to make sure I told you about – and that’s my puppy, Hope. She is a Portuguese Water Dog and Goldendoodle mix, which means she is called a Portie Doodle. And whenever people aren’t quite sure about that Portuguese Water Dog part, I remind them that those are the dogs the Obama’s had in the White House. So, she could also be called an Obama-doodle.

Hope is the second dog that I’ve had the honor of calling “family.” My first dog was a cockapoo that I rescued from the Human Society here in Omaha. His name was Oscar and he was two years old when I got him – so, he was out of the puppy phase when he came home with me. There was one night when he tried to water my indoor aloe vera plant, but other than that, he was done with puppyhood!

Hope is another story; she was just eight weeks old when she came home with me and we had to learn everything together. And I say “we” because that’s what I learned in puppy class – it was as much about training me as it was about training her. We worked on “sit”, and “stay”, and “high five”, and “shake”. And there were so many treats when she finally pottied outside instead of just chewing on wood chips and sticks!

Again, I’d never been through this puppy phase. It was all new to me. And to be honest, for the first 4-6 months I felt a little bit like I was being held hostage – I couldn’t take my eyes off her because she was always chewing on something or someone, she was always exploring and pushing the boundaries.

It was exhausting, but I’m happy to report she is now two and a half and we have pretty much learned all the things. We have officially survived puppyhood – and only a few slippers, and socks, and winter gloves were destroyed along the way!

Looking back, I had no idea that getting a dog would teach me so much. You see, both Oscar and Hope have taught me rich lessons about life and joy and patience and rest. They’ve taught me how to embrace adventure and enjoy the small things that fill each day: like food that falls from the table, scratches behind the ear, an afternoon sitting outside on the deck in the sun. They have filled my home with a warmth that welcomes strangers and friends. They have given me a safe space to land when life feels overwhelming and uncertain. And I have a feeling that I’m not alone this morning.

Many of you have brought your beloved pets with you today. Some of you have brought their toys, their blankets, their photos to be blessed and taken back home. Some of you are remembering those who are no longer by your side, and you’re giving thanks for them today – and that’s a beautiful thing.

This morning’s Pet Blessing is an opportunity for us to celebrate the things that our beloved pets have taught us, and it’s also an opportunity for us to celebrate the connection that we share with all of God’s good creation.

In our scripture reading, Job reminds us that God is the one who “holds the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” Job says that the birds of the air, the animals of the world, the fish of the sea, and the earth itself, all understand this: God is Creator – Redeemer – and Sustainer. And when we have that perspective, when we view life through that lens, and open ourselves to the lessons that the rest of creation can teach us, we begin to understand the responsibility that we have to care for that creation and to be good stewards of all that is around us – this world and all of its resources, all its habitats and hillsides, all of its creatures and communities.

We are connected – and what we choose to do here and now matters because it shapes what will happen then and there. And that’s true for our individual lifestyles, our business practices, our national policies, and our international efforts.

We must be in this together, and we must start taking our responsibility to care for this world seriously.

Now, there are several things that I love about being United Methodist –

Emphasis on Grace…and this beautiful reminder that God is at work in our lives long before we can name that. God’s love is with us and for us, before we know that is what it is.

Emphasis we place on Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience to shape our theological reflections and thinking. Debra mentioned that in her sermon last week too, and if you missed it, be sure to check it out online!

Connectional Nature – a global denomination, a worldwide church – which is not without its challenges, but also has its incredibly beautiful opportunities to be at work in mission and ministry in places near and far – making the world a kinder, more loving place. Bringing “up there down here.”

Social Principles – This conviction that our faith shapes the way we live and love and serve each day. In the Introduction to these Social Principles it says, “The Social Principles are a response to the pressing needs we see among people and for the planet today. We practice a living faith that is both personal and public, one we express in acts of mercy and justice that seek to meet the needs of people and the planet…consider the consequences to our church, society, and planet when those needs are left unaddressed or unmet.” (p. 13)

Our faith is made real in the ways that we live and love and serve each day – and so, this morning I encourage you to think deeply about the following question…

How can you love and care for those around you and the world we share in ways that are meaningful and help meet real needs?

Our answers are all going to look a little different, and that’s the best part. You do your part, I do my part, they do their part, and together we change the world.

May it be so. Amen and amen.

The Economics of Love

A Sermon by Rev. Debra McKnight
Preached at Urban Abbey on July 21, 2019

Scripture

Isaiah 58:3-6
‘Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?’
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast-day,
and oppress all your workers.
Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Sermon
The people are practicing their faith and the Prophet Isaiah characterizes it, “God, we are being so good, we are fasting, don’t you see us, why isn’t this fasting working?” Perhaps you heard this and you are not so much into the practice of fasting and so it seemed that you didn’t need to worry about it. The hard truth is this scripture is not so much about one type of practice as much as it is about our lived faith. We could insert any practice: you worship on Sunday and you strike with a wicked fist; you pray in public and you oppress all your workers; you sing all the hymns only to quarrel and to fight. In this passage, the prophet reminds people long past, and us today, that faith is lived in every moment; how you work, how you shop, how you parent, how you partner, everything. That means you can’t be faithful for an hour and ruthless the rest of the week, which seems obvious but is a problem in every age and tradition. The Prophet Isaiah names the systems of poverty and the work of breaking the yoke that keeps some people poor and other people wealthy. The verse continues with a plea to house the homeless, feed the hungry, cover the naked, and be present to your kin.

If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.

Justice brings light in the gloom and darkness, but this is a whole-hearted call on every hour of our lives - not just one, two, or even three. That is the unending charge of our faith, to live it every hour and rise. This puts us in positions that are unpopular, counterintuitive, and sometimes dangerous. It puts us at odds with the systems that keep some people in poverty and other people in comfortable homes with full bellies, and I do mean homes, emphasis on the s. Our Methodist tradition pushes us to explore the economic systems around us. Methodists have been doing this from the first moment that little, campus ministry small group took flight. John Wesley and his family knew about poverty. His own father spent time in a debtor’s prison (this happens when you are in debt to a parishioner and you say something he does not like). But beyond his own family, Wesley saw the systemic structures that make poverty a reality. The British government of Wesley’s day estimated that more than half of the general population lived in poverty (Kimbrough). This means more than half of the people were treated as expendable and often targeted for prison and execution. While there were ‘Relief Acts’ to help, the Wesley brothers and their Methodist Societies confronted the violence of poverty in every facet of life. And they believed this was faithful.

Wesley believed the rich and their greed created poverty and he, like his father, was not afraid to tell rich folks. While some might have blamed the idleness of the ‘have not’s,’ Wesley saw three things as the cause of poverty in England: distillation, taxes, and the desire of luxury. He urged for personal and legal restraints to keep thousands of people from starving (Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodist, 253). When preaching to the wealthy, he offered scriptures like “You brood of vipers” (which I’m going to say is a hard way to win a crowd and my guess is he asked them for money at the end). One English gentleman suggested Wesley should have preached that kind of sermon to people in the poor house (you know, where they need it). Wesley responded he would have preached ‘behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,’ to the poor.

Wesley asked everyone for money to make an immediate impact in the lives of people. Everyone was expected to contribute a penny a week (which, now, would be about $1.66 or $2 a week depending on the “accuracy” of various online calculators). Rich or poor — everyone gave and if you had more Wesley would invite you to give more. Out of these funds, they set up schools for children who would not have had a way to learn to read, health clinics, opportunities for people to explore their gifts, and they even created micro-lending to invest in people seeking a way out of poverty. One Methodist left the group, remarking that Wesley was “charitable to an extreme.” Ironically, this man had been one of the recipients of a micro-loan from the Methodist Societies and as he experienced success by the world’s standards, he began questioning Wesley’s reminder that generosity was a powerful practice of faith. It seemed he didn’t understand the power of generosity, the saving grace of community after all.

Wesley preached a sermon, probably a lot, called “ On the Use of Money.” His first guidance was “Gain all you can or earn all you can.” This does not sound particularly revolutionary. He urged the early Methodists to work hard without delay and to avoid being idle. But he had some clear parameters on what work should look like. Work should not forfeit your body or soul; it should not steal from your wellbeing. Don’t take three jobs and work to exhaustion; don’t work in places that are dangerous or toxic. He is talking about chemicals, particularly arsenic and lead, when he says toxic, but I think we can expand that in our minds. He thought about the everyday folks that sit at a desk need to move. His second rule was that working should not steal your neighbors’ wellbeing. Gain all you can, but don’t steal it from the people around you. Wesley names those industries like distillation that produced a high percent per volume of “fire water,” which took a lot of a man’s paycheck and impacted the family. He named pawn-brokers, and even medical professionals, that could stretch out the cure to make more money in the process. Gain all you can, work hard, but gain all you can in a way that gives life. We can imagine other fields today that profit from the hurt of others, that are poor stewards of human and natural resources, and that heap pain on the most vulnerable. We are surrounded by these kinds of industries. Our labor is sacred, we should give our gifts for a greater good and it should not steal from our wellbeing or the wellbeing of others.

Wesley’s second rule was save all you can. He was not talking about saving plans, 401K’s or anything else that might come to mind for us. He was really talking about not spending money. He was talking about a deep mindfulness about what you really need to buy, or don’t need to buy. He was talking about not wasting money on a bunch of stuff, things like gilded art, books, fine furniture, decadent meals, fine clothing, and jewelry, etc., that are not truly needed and push us into a cycle of wanting more things. Personally, I have long found this a challenge; not the gilded art part, but the mindful consumption part. It is so easy to be at Target and think "oh that would be great to have, shouldn’t I give this cute thing to my cute daughter." It is easy to mindlessly consume and I have often been really good at it. It is easy to see how much stuff we have when we have to move and start packing all of it up. I think we could build on Wesley’s rules here so that when we spend, just as when we work, it is driving toward a greater good. Are we supporting workers in healthy conditions with this purchase? Are we supporting the local economy in a way that powers a greater good, or are we spending money and fueling hurt and pain with our cheap clothing, mass market food, and our big box consumption?

As the early Methodists started gaining/earning all they could and saving all they could, they became people with some means. They were a movement largely of poor people who through their personal transformation, and through their work together; sometimes giving or receiving micro-loans; sometimes teaching people to read; sometimes offering healthcare or shared meals; moved up the socio-economic ladder. They did not mind Wesley’s comments about earn all you can or save all you can, but when Wesley said give all you can, that turned into a challenge they did not appreciate. Why should they give when they just started to gain? Wesley asked people to give it all, and as a result some people left the movement. Wesley desired each of us to experience the power of generosity, just like he asked people to take communion, read scripture, visit prisons, and pray.

His third guidance was to give all you can. Don’t keep it. Don’t waste it. Give it. This is a challenging and transformative practice. I struggle with it. I probably would have left like that micro-loan receiver when he achieved success. But this is where salvation rests. This is the saving grace of our faith. The one time Jesus says, “Salvation has come to this house” is in the Gospel of Luke and it is not because someone confessed Jesus as their Lord savior, read five passages from Romans, or said a set prayer. It had everything to do with actual, real-life transformation. Zacchaeus, (you may know the song about him being a wee-little man), the vertically challenged tax collector, had an encounter with Jesus that changes everything about his life. Jesus names, “Today salvation has come to this house” when Zacchaeus gave half of everything he owned away and then repatriated to the people he had wronged, with interest, in his work of collecting Roman taxes (Luke 19:1-10). This is when Jesus says, “Today salvation has come to this house.” Salvation is about the now. Zacchaeus didn’t need that stuff any more, his stuff didn’t define him; he was liberated and he was setting the structures right, that kept others poor. Salvation means life is different, it means the system doesn’t own you anymore, and you don’t help keep it working. Salvation means a new kind of economy and a new way forward.

This is the call of our faith, to transform ourselves and the world. The social principles invite us and guide our conversation. What companies do we want to fuel? What ways do we need to hold leaders and executives accountable for the mistreatment of our earth and our global family? What structures do we need to transform to stem the growing tide of the economic disparity between the wealthiest folks and the folks most vulnerable? And most challenging of all, how do we benefit from those systems that heap pain and hurt? These are hard problems without easy answers. When I was a new social studies teacher, there was this great lesson plan about wealth. One showed students that if minimum wage increased at the same rate as the median CEO pay, minimum wage would be $67 an hour (and that was in 1997). Another lesson was a take on musical chairs, with ten chairs each representing a tenth of the wealth and ten people each representing a tenth of the population. In the 1970s, one player would get three chairs; in the 1990’s, that one player stretched out over seven chairs while nine people piled onto three (or tried to). It ended in laughter and sometimes students tumbling on the ground. I will never forget these old lesson plans. They lead to hard debates about our context and our culture. Our faith practice may require some research and perhaps even some math. Our faith asks us to keep learning, keep thinking, and keep pushing for everyone to have a seat and everyone’s labor to be valued as sacred. There are no easy ways to do that and there are few simple answers, but this is the call of our faith. 

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?

Our faith is challenging, because it is more than fasting to look good, or praying to seem righteous in front of our neighbors. Salvation is something much more. May we have the courage to pull at the threads of injustice and weave something new. Amen.

Reflection Questions
Read the Social Principles, economic community section below and discuss what stands out to you?
What is your experience with earning, saving and giving?
What makes giving challenging?
What do you long to learn about the economy and how you participate in it?

Getting Political: A Sermon on the Social Principles

A Sermon by Rev. Debra McKnight
Preached at Urban Abbey on July 14, 2019


Scripture
Luke 4: 16-21
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’


Sermon
In this scripture, Jesus is getting political. Politics is not a nice word, particularly when we think Jesus as so nice and sweet and kind. No one hears the word politics and thinks warm and fuzzy thoughts. Politics has become a dirty word; we say things like the stench of politics, saying someone is a “politician” isn’t a compliment anymore and receiving a political answer means no one answered your question. We are suspicious, often for good reason, of the “room where it happens” and the folks who want to be there. We think about backroom deals, swamps to drain, and we compare politics to making sausage (and not small craft batches with ingredients that make you really proud). But the hard truth is, if politics is dirty then it is our own fault and failing, born of our own collective inaction. Because deciding how we live in community is important and powerful; and it should be beautiful.

Politics is a part of life, it is a part of our country and our state; our communities and churches. Families have politics and workplaces have politics. The question isn’t how do we escape politics, it is how do we engage in a way that is healthy, loving, and born more of hope than fear.

My high school civics teacher said, “This is all about how we decide who gets what, when.” I think Mr. Wiles wanted us to care about government, even if at that point we were mostly concerned with getting our own stuff and our own 'whens'. Deciding who gets what, when, is hard work, because it requires us to to engage, to care, to lean into the needs of others, and balance this wildly diverse social fabric.

I realize it can be tender when church folks engage the politics of the world and it should be done with care, prayer, and intention. But I have heard of folks saying things like, “Preacher, you should stick to the Bible.” And I want to say, “Have you read the Bible?” It is full of leaders who fail and love and do everything wrong. It is full of prophetic voices saying, "remember the vulnerable," even if the words are usually widows and orphans and folks who want to "make Israel great again". When you hear someone angry at a preacher for getting too political, it probably means that the preacher was on the “wrong” side.

Our faith invites us into values that are meant to be embodied in the world around us, faith is lived and it is an act of building the world, perhaps as Jesus prayed, on earth as it is in heaven. Mary is political in her magnificat, lifting up the lowly, tearing the mighty from their throne, sending the rich away empty; that’s political and that probably why we sing it in Latin, so no one has to hear it. The early Christians said all kinds of things that were intensely political. “Lord of Lords and King of Kings," "Prince of Peace," "Savior of the World;” these are all phrases for Caesar and it is a bold political statement to say some crucified, peasant rabbi takes his place. This passage in the Gospel of Luke is something of Jesus’ mission statement. It is at the very beginning, Jesus has been baptized by John, a spirit descends like a dove, and Jesus is driven out to the wilderness (a bit of a silent retreat if you will). He gathers himself and begins this work. He heads home, stopping at his home town synagogue, as is his custom, and they hand him a scroll, and he reads from the prophet Isaiah. I sometimes imagine him in the wilderness, thinking and rethinking through this passage.

18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’

It's a mission statement. No church ever needs to spend money on a consultant to choose one; it's right here. My introduction to theology professor made us begin each class with this passage. He asked us to memorize it, a sign that he was Baptist and not Methodist, and he even tested our memory, literally with a test. Why? Because this is the plum line, the guidance and the measure of our practice. Are we bringing good news to the poor, because doing that can make you pretty unpopular. Are we about the release of captives? Jesus was surrounded by a community held captive by the Roman empire; taxes were established to keep people in debt or debtors sold into slavery. Jesus is surrounded by people who need healing and recovery, he brings this and, while we may have a different technology around healing, we are called to be a part of ensuring everyone has access. From the very start, Jesus looks at the world around him and begins teaching and illustrating how it could be good news to the poor and how we could let the oppressed go free. In a world of scarcity, he sat thousands of people down on a hillside and suddenly a few fish and a few loaves of bread turned into a feast. He didn’t just talk about abundance, he showed people how to open their baskets and share, that feast was a real miracle, not manna from heaven. This is why he was a threat. No one ends up crucified for running a few prayer circles and preaching self help. Jesus prays, he teaches prayer, he studies the scripture, and it is “his custom” to go to the synagogue, but this transformation is more than personal, it is for a communal good.

See at the end of this passage, Jesus says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” This is a mic drop sort of statement. Can you imagine that, someone coming back from college and saying, “Boom, we are doing this, changing it all. It’s getting real now.” The story continues, folks start talking, isn’t this Joseph’s boy, the carpenter, who does he think he is, and by the end of the conversation the people who taught him Sunday school are trying to run him out of town-- and perhaps off a cliff.

This is the faith we inherit-- history has made Jesus meek and mild, and salvation personal and individual-- but when we dive down we find our call as the church. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, said, “There is no holiness without social holiness." Our movement, which began as a campus ministry small group at Oxford, engages the spiritual practices, and the means of grace for the intention of changing the world. Early Methodists, studied scripture and worked to abolish slavery, they prayed together and set up health clinics, they spent time in small groups and they built schools for children who did not have a place to learn to read. They set up micro-lending and programs for the folks in poverty and they rallied to change the British tax structures that created poverty. They changed themselves and the world for the better.

We carry this in our very DNA as a church. As a modern church, we gather every four years at General Conference to debate, create, recreate, study and re-cast the Social Principles. They are guidance more than church law, they are a public stand and a commitment. They cover creation, community, our economic systems, our social fabric, the political community, and the world community. They are divided into six sections and they cover everything from human rights, reproductive rights and health care, to ending racism, sexism and ableism. They represent a set of interests that are beyond our own individual interests. They are a part of the values we pass on to the next expression of our Methodist movement. They are not perfect and I am certain every Methodist does not agree with every part of them. And there is work that is ongoing to align the church with God's love, particularly in regards to heterosexism.

As we prepare to read and study, Rev. Neal Christie offers three important thoughts to guide our exploration and engage the political world. First, the church is called to be principled by not ideological. We are not aligned with a party or with a candidate. We are called to make an ethically and theologically informed public statement about the brokenness in the world. The Social Principles offer us a way to respond to the pain in the world. The church is called to be clear and civil. We are called to advocate for justice through a process of self-reflection. The ends and the means are both important, they are to be just, direct and compassionate. We are not called to heap pain on debates through harsh words. Bishop Will Willimon said it well at the Festival of Homiletic's when he said he was limited. When asked about immigration (by his proctologist…mid-appointment) he said, “I’m a Christian. I’m limited. The Bible is clear about welcoming the stranger, treating the alien as resident.” Finally, the church is called to be engaged but not used. We engage in dialogue with every institution in society; state, county, and country; with school boards and non-profits, with civic groups and with businesses. We are here to be a voice for justice in all of these conversations, seeking more than making a difference, but rather making a different world. Often churches are the first stop for helping, we host food banks and serve meals, we show up to help in a thousand different ways, but we are not here to be a balm for a wound the systems of the world intend to keep making, we are here to heal. So we must ask, why are people homeless? Why are people immigrating? Why are people struggling with medical debt? Why are people hungry? We are here to make more than a difference, we are called to make a different world.

The work before us is hard. But we have the gifts to deploy and the community to walk beside. We are seeded with resilience and courage, gifted with the stories of the past and called to write new chapters to God’s song. 

May it be so. amen.

Pride

A Sermon by Jasmine Flores
Preached at Urban Abbey on June 30, 2019

I have struggled greatly with pride. As a latino person, being gay and gender nonconforming can be incredibly uncomfortable. Being proud of myself doesn’t come easy, and building it has been a long, ongoing journey. I have learned many things about pride itself, the organizations that sponsor it and the people who work tirelessly to put it on every year, but those things aren’t really what it means. Understanding the history of pride, and knowing what it means to other people is one thing, but feeling it for myself has always been on the back-burner, an afterthought. When I began writing this I spoke in generalities, revisited the history of pride, but never once did I acknowledge what it means to me personally, because of how vulnerable it made me feel. But Pride isn’t exactly the time to be guarded or ashamed, so for today, I am brave.

Pride is meaningful in part because of its context. Its roots are those of resistance and activism, in standing up for the LGBT community because we will not go quietly into the night. Pride is as much a celebration as it is a memorial, and it encapsulates a hard fought battle to be loud and unapologetic about a source of deep shame for many of us, because being queer or LGBT is nothing to be ashamed of despite what the world around us may feel. I love these ideas, and that it’s safe to be this way in Omaha, Nebraska, of all places, but I find myself wondering what it must be like to live somewhere where it is impossible to be out and proud. I think that pride is as much about those who can’t celebrate it as those who can. Through the pain and fear that being different can cause, I hope that just knowing about pride and seeing pictures makes them feel less alone, because I know that was the case for me when I was younger. I’ve been fortunate enough to not have to experience those things, but even then, Pride can be difficult.

The truth is, I find it hard to this day to feel the joy of pride, to find authenticity in it. I think many people also feel this sense of ill-fitting at the parades and parties, partially because of the ostentatiousness of it all and because sometimes we don’t fit into neat little boxes of identity. The LGBT community is so varied and colorful, it can be overwhelming trying to figure the whole thing out, especially in public. But with every passing year I find that pride is, more than anything else, about love. I know that’s really cheesy and has been said a thousand times, but it really genuinely is about feeling loved for who you are, whatever that may entail. Pride is this incredible thing, this sensation of being seen for who you really are and being embraced with open arms in response. It is the freedom of choice and self expression, of shedding the things that make us small and unobtrusive. For me, my first Pride was the first time I’d ever felt like I could have a happy future, that I even had a future. I saw families of LGBT people, older people who were out and successful, young kids and teenagers with incredible, supportive parents (and like, so many dogs).

And after the parade was over and I was with my other LGBT friends, I realized pride is not a one month affair. It lives within us at every waking moment, in every connection we forge, in the bonds of chosen family that we care for during the other 11 months of the year. Pride is a state of being, regardless of whether it is loud or quiet. I am proud to call this space, the Urban Abbey, my home and my church. This community is so loving, so open, and I am forever grateful to be part of it. Being here on this day reinforces that ever elusive feeling of validity, and more importantly, that the community around me meets me with love and respect. Happy pride month. Thank you for helping me be brave.

What Does Pride Mean to Me?

A Sermon by Rachel O'Neal
Preached at Urban Abbey on June 30, 2019

I came out for the first time when I was 12 years old. I was lucky to have grown up in the family I did because they essentially said welcome to the club. Roughly 50% of my family identifies somewhere on the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Pride for me is deeply rooted in family. And although I grew up in a generally accepting family, I seem to confuse a lot of folks outside of them. Identifying as both nonbinary and bisexual means fielding a lot of questions. The fact that my partner identifies as a man helps no one. Folks who I’ve known for all of five minutes have asked me if he is “biologically male,” as if his parts were any of their business.

My existence outside of the boxes that people so desperately wish to place me in is generally greeted by one of two responses: confusion, or further dissection of my identities until the tiny pieces of who I am can be neatly separated into labeled boxes. The problem is that those boxes are not me. In fact, I know only a few people in the queer community for whom those boxes are comfortable. Certainly no one in my family fits exactly.

My mom came out when I was 8 years old. She was married to a man and a part of a fundamentalist church in California. The sheer courage it took for her to come out as a gay woman in that setting and in that time represents Pride to me. You see, in my family Pride is not something you feel - it is something you do. The act of loving and accepting yourself for who you are is Pride.

Although stories about families like mine are more commonplace now, we can never forget that our existence and self-love remain revolutionary. It is for that reason that when I think about Pride, I not only think of my family, but I also think of those who began this movement 50 years ago. Their power and self acceptance paved the way for families like mine, and for that I am ever grateful.

This rainbowtastic movement began as a riot started by Marsha P. Johnson, a black, trans, sex worker. It remains an act of revolution, in a cisgender, heteropatriachal, white supremacist society to be anything other than straight, white, and cisgender. Her defiance of the system and refusal to conform sets the tone for all Pride-related activities. Her identity and self-confidence remain as subversive today as it was back then. To this day trans folks of color face more danger and discrimination than any other sect of the LGBTQ+ community. Since the beginning of 2019, eleven black trans women have lost their lives in the United States. 

Moreover “According to a recent poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, LGBTQ people of color are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to say they've been discriminated against because they are LGBTQ in applying for jobs and interacting with police.”

The rainbow capitalism that runs rampant during Pride Month seems to suggest that there is no need for further action, that we have achieved equality, but the awful truth is we haven’t. Our community cannot turn a blind eye to the realities of queer people of color. Pride began as a riot, and until the day that everyone can walk down the street free of fear and fully accepted by their community, Pride will remain a protest.

What Pride Means to Me

A Sermon by Charles Schlussel
Preached at Urban Abbey on June 30, 2019

Hi, my name is Charles and I’m gay...

Now what I just said may not seem that monumental to you, but just a few short years ago uttering those words in any public setting would’ve been absolutely unthinkable for me. In a large group setting like this I would’ve been scanning the whole crowd over and over to see if possibly there was anyone that might report back to my pastor and or church what they heard and saw. Standing up here and openly talking about being gay would’ve normally struck fear through my heart, now it just feels normal and good

When Pastor Debra asked me to explore what celebrating pride meant to me, I thought about all the parades and rainbows and I love all of that. It’s incredible and beautiful, and it’s just one of my favorite times to get together with friends and celebrate pride with all of the sparkle and glitter, and glitz. But as I thought about it a little bit more deeply and this may not make sense to you at all, but, for me celebrating pride means that I get to feel normal. You see for my whole life, well actually since puberty I guess, I’ve dreamt that maybe someday I could be a real boy instead of being a wooden Pinocchio with all my feelings and emotions locked up inside, that someday someway somehow maybe I could just be me, who I really am, that I could just be a normal guy - and it’s finally happened…And a huge part of what becoming normal is for me has happened right here in the Abbey, it’s as if there’s some kind of wonderful magic in the air here that’s turned me from a wooden Pinocchio into the real person I was never allowed to be growing up. You see for almost my entire adult life I’ve had to hide everything about who I really was from everyone. And you know, I think being gay, all that I’ve ever really wanted and I think many LGBTQ plus people would agree, is that all we really want is to be normal, just to be accepted for who we are and who God made us to be and that my friends is what happens every time I come into this place, now don’t get me wrong there’s still unfortunately a lot of hate out there, but coming here gets me ready for what I’ll face out there and what I love about being here is that people don’t look at me as Charles the gay guy, I’m just Charles and they love me just because I’m Charles, nothing more nothing less. And that makes me feel normal and it filters out into the rest of everything I do in my life. 

So to answer the question what does celebrating pride mean to me -

Celebrating pride to me, is getting to be normal, to do the things that I only used to dream of doing, like dressing however I want to and not worrying if somebody might figure out that I’m gay. 

Or going out on a date with a guy and not being terrified that someone might see me or recognize me, but kind of hoping that maybe they will and I can kinda flaunt it a little bit.

It also means that in the state of Nebraska I can now be an openly gay foster dad and I have two amazingly wonderful foster sons, Jakob and Nic. To them I am not the gay foster dad, I’m just Charles their foster dad and they recently gave me one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever had in my entire life. After church a few weeks ago, we somehow accidentally bumped into my foster son’s two brothers and their new foster dad. We ended up inviting them to go with us for my birthday lunch. I only found out later that there had been a whole involved parent trap style plot to get the two of us together, once Jakob‘s younger brother, Lucas, discovered that their new foster dad was also gay. I can’t even begin to tell you how touched I was by this because their only thought was how can we get these two guys together and to them that seemed completely normal.

And finally it’s having my 14-year-old niece asking if she could talk with me after church and sharing with me that she likes girls and then watching her having the courage to share some of that journey with all of us at our open mic worship service recently.

So what does celebrating pride mean to me? It means that I’m starting to feel normal and that feels really, really good.

What Does Pride Mean to Me Today?

A Sermon by Paige Hruza
Preached at Urban Abbey on June 30, 2019

Pride holds a very different meaning for me today than it once did. Growing up, I felt that having pride meant that I must be the best at anything I attempted. It meant I must never ask for help. That I be super human and never make mistakes. Pride was never crying, no matter how bad I hurt. Pride was something I should feel when others saw me being my best. I spent over half my life trying to be all of that and more, so that others would be proud of me. What I learned is that pride had to come from the inside. No amount of acceptance from others would be enough to make me a person I could be proud of. Especially when I had lived my life in a lie.

Twenty two years ago I fell in love with Suzie. It was was though my fear of who I was meant to be had vanished. I remember that I felt proud to tell my disapproving family that I was in love with this beautiful person. That I was happy for the first time in my life. And their responses did not diminish my pride. The shame was gone and I had come alive.

Some things came to mind as I pondered the question of what pride means to me today…

I feel pride when our grandchildren run and jump into my arms, because I know that I have been there for them as a loving grandma and they want to spend time with me. They like who I am because when I am with them, I can’t help but be me.

I feel pride when I walk hand in hand with Suzie, whether alone or amongst others, because I know how very much I am loved and I know how very much I love.

I feel pride when I fully invest myself in a day’s work and know that I have given all I have on that day.

I feel pride when I give grace to others and take interest in their struggle, rather than my own.

I feel pride when I pause to look at another person and share a smile, a kind word, encouragement.

I feel pride when I share stories of my family.

I feel pride when I see our four loving children and know that I have given them all I have and that I love them as much as any parent can love their child.

I feel pride when I remember the gifts I came away with while spending seven months in a homeless shelter.

I feel pride when I take care of myself, knowing I am no longer a tornado, roaring through loved one’s lives and leaving a path of pain.

I feel pride when our children lovingly refer to us as “the moms”.

I feel pride when I walk in the Pride parade with our Urban Abbey family.

I feel pride when I reflect on how I’ve crawled up from the darkest of times to be present in the light of today, because I allowed others to lift me.

And I feel pride every time I walk through the doors of this church community.

In the context of pride month, I celebrate the gifts of being free to be me. I can’t say that I take pride in being gay, but I can say that I take pride in being a child of God and honoring who I am created to be. When I think of how I reference myself, “gay “ is not the first thing that comes to mind. Being gay is only one of thousands of characteristics that have been given to me. I think of my relationship with Suzie. One that can be an example and bring life to those around us. I have had a few encounters where I have been subject to discrimination individually, and of course, over 20 years of discrimination in our society. Though I have been blessed, as we have been able to surround ourselves with people who love and cherish us, and at times, that has meant leaving some behind. One think I know about me is that because of my experiences, I am and will always be an advocate for those who are marginalized and I take pride in that.

I feel pride when I assist in finding shelter for one who has none.

I feel pride when I can share a gift with another who has no means of earning.

I feel pride when I stop to talk with someone who can’t lift their head to speak.

I feel pride when I am able to share a tiny spark of hope with another who can’t see their own.

I feel pride when I reach out to another who is grieving.

I feel pride when I take part in a larger group that is caring for those without.

I feel pride when I pause to hear what another really needs and wants.

I feel pride when I approach and start conversation with a person who is standing alone amongst many because they don’t feel they can fit in.

I feel pride when I say to a person “I love you”.

I do these things because for me, creating pride means giving back what’s been given to me by others. Every person here has given me something special today and I mean that, sincerely. I walked in here. I felt welcomed. I feel loved. I feel cared about. And I feel alive. So, thank you. May each of you take pride in what you’ve shared with me today.