Pride Month Reflection

For those who do not know, the month of June is considered Pride Month. Now, you may be wondering why I am feeling compelled to write about this as your minister, officially we are not an open and affirming congregation, but I believe we have set ourselves with the expectation of being a loving congregation. But I wanted to share in reflection becuase my research for my Master of Sacred Theology degree is focused in Queer Theology, which has some personal significance to me and my faith journey.

Well, June became Pride Month because of something called the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969. At that time, homosexuality was a criminal offense in this country and those who identified as Gay were faced significant violence towards them from people and from the government. The riots of the Stonewall Inn are considered the tipping point of the liberation movement to move away from times of hurt to being able to be oneself. Now this is just a quick point of a very long, painful, and loving struggle by the LGBTQIA+ Community to find peace in themselves and find dignity in their lives. Now, you may not know that the work of moving out of opression of LBGTQIA+ persons actually had been in the works long before Stonewall. In fact, some of the early work toward LGBTQIA+ liberation was started in Church basements here in the US. So the Church does have historic ties to this.

But as I have been thinking about this month, I have been thinking about the Church as well. There are still arguments being made that there are scriptures condeming homosexuality, which has a very complicated history of how that understanding even came about, becuase that was really first an idea in English translastions of scripture, but perhaps that is for a different time. What I have been thinking about is that the Church has always been called to be different, to be a place of radical hospitality. If we look in the New Testament, we can see so many examples of the radical welcome of the Church.

For pride month, I specifically think of the passage in Acts 8:26-40. In this passage, Phillip is called by the spirit to go south from Jerusalem. On this journey, he encouters an Ethiopian Eunuch who is reading from the prophet Isaiah. Now, this Ethiopian was well off. He had a high position in the Courts of the Ethiopain Queen, he would have resources. But despite his station and his wealth, he was not permitted to enter the Jewish place of worship becuase he was a Eunuch (Eunuch is a person who has been castrated), which violated rules set in Deutoeronomy 23:1. Yet, despite the rule previously set forth, the Spirit called for Phillip to journey with the Ethiopian and to teach and to baptize this person. If we were to frame the Ethiopian in a modern understanding (and we should acknowledge that Eunuchs still exsist in the world), they would be considered genderless, or perhaps non-binary. This person, by our modern standards, would be part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Now, lets us also be a bit realistic. The events of Acts took place many years ago, and they did not have an understanding of the LGBTQIA+ community, because it was a concept that did not exsist the way it does today, so it is very difficult for us to say that the Bible makes a commentary on something that did not exsist at the various times the Bible was written. But if we take a moment to sit back and reflect on the story of Scripture, we can see this work of the Divine (of God) to reach out to all of God's creation. In Jesus ministry, he often was in community with those who were otherwise kicked out of the community, or prevented from being part of the worhsipping community. I truly believe that God is still reaching out and journeying with people whom are rejected by the institutions that should exsist to lift them up, not put them down.

Queer theology does have specific focus on the LGBTQIA+ community, however, there is also part of this work of Queer Theology that is about working to make sure that we all feel the Love of God in our midsts, and that is something I think is important for us all to remember. The Church exsists to share the Good News of God's love. More often than not, this Good News is shared by our actions and not by our words. So in this pride month, I invite you to remember that you are God's beloved creation, and so is your neighbor. In our understanding as Church, neighbor is not restricted to Geography, but is a term that is applied to people we meet from all journeys of life.

I will end by stating that I know not everyone understands LGBTQIA+ identity, there is confusion and perhaps fear. But Church, we are not called to understand first, but we are called to love one another first. If we start with love, loving one another, finding our way back to each other and communicating with each other, we will gain understanding of each other. But first we must love, then we MUST talk with each other, becuase it is there that Holy Spirit will work and transform us all in God's limitless love. So go and love your neighbor, always.

In God's Limitless Love,

Rev. Mathew Goodrich

Stonewall Inn, New York City. Taken in 2025 by Mathew Goodrich during a trip after graduating LTS.