Happy PRIDE
HAPPY PRIDE, one and all!
I moved to Minnesota from Eugene, Oregon, 25 years ago this month. My husband and I moved into an apartment on Loring Park, just up the block from St. Mark's Cathedral, just before PRIDE weekend. We had no idea what to expect when our new neighbors told us Pride in the Park was coming, but we woke up on one of our first mornings there to music, rainbow balloons, glitter, and glowing, happy, faces right outside our doorstep - and as far as the eye could see. It was a beautiful way to start our lives in Minnesota.
There are a few passages in the Bible, known sometimes as "clobber passages", that have been inaccurately used by some to condemn LGBTQ+ people and relationships. In truth, the cultural, historic, and linguistic data around sexuality and gender in ancient cultures tells us that the practices these passages condemn have nothing to do with the mutually beneficial, consensual, same-sex relationships (otherwise known as just "relationships"!) we know today. Nor do these passages speak to personal gender identity. And Jesus never mentions same-sex relationships or gender identity at all.
What Scripture does tell us is that God created the full breadth and depth of humanity in God's own image. And our Creation story uses a very particular literary device, called a merism, to emphasize that point. A merism is a set of two words that serve as endpoints to convey a full spectrum. An example of a merism in the Creation story is "morning and evening on the first day". This does not mean only morning and only evening, but also everything between. Later, Scripture tells us to care for "the widow and the orphan". This does not mean we care for only elder women and young children, but all vulnerable people. Jesus said he was "the alpha and the omega", but was not only the beginning and the end, he also encompasses everything between.
There are many theologians who believe, as I do, that the pairing of "man and woman" in the Creation story is also a merism. "Man and woman, God created them" is mean to convey "man" and "woman" as points on a continuum rather than two discrete categories. There is a full spectrum of humanity between those two far-end points, and many understandings of the connections and love people share. Every bit of it is a beautiful reflection of God.
This month, as we celebrate the reflection of God found in each and every person, and every loving bond between people, my prayer for you is that you are able to live in the world proudly as your authentic, true, glowing-with-a-spark-of-the-Divine, self, whomever that might be, and however you might express that. Today and always.