PRIDE Guest Blog: Ensuring a Rainbow Path to God’s Love
By: Rev. Meredith Keseley, Senior Pastor, Abiding Presence Lutheran Church
In instances of religious trauma, it isn’t solely humans inflicting trauma on one another, it is one group of humans claiming they possess God’s power to say who is in and who is out of God’s reach, God’s love and God’s kingdom. When that happens, the depth of the soul and the essence of identity is called into question.
Last month, our church held our annual baccalaureate service where we bless graduating high school students. We’ve been doing it for years. Every year, I pull out the standard blessing liturgy (the words we say during the church service) written for the occasion by our denomination. This year was no exception. I cut and pasted the liturgy into our worship plan, gave it a quick glance to make sure all the parts were there and figured it was set. That is, until I found myself standing before the congregation with our graduates that Sunday morning.
Part of our tradition at Abiding Presence involves inviting our college-age young adults to help lead the baccalaureate service. The blessing liturgy offers an invitation to our graduates to stay connected to their faith and the church through a series of questions where they respond, “With God’s help, I do.” The congregation then responds to the graduates by making promises to pray for them, support them and forever welcome them home. Strategically, I have our college-age young adults read the invitation and congregational promises as a way of modeling for our new graduates – and the whole congregation – what it looks like to say yes to God. It’s one of the traditions of our church I love.
On that Sunday, I listened as our young adults read the words I had cut-and-pasted into the worship plan. “People of Abiding Presence, do you claim these graduates as brothers and sisters in Christ…” I cringed. My heart sank. I hadn’t caught it! “Brothers and sisters” is a common phrase in our liturgy to describe the church community. Usually, I change it, on the spot as I am speaking, replacing the phrase with “siblings”, or another gender-neutral word. This time, I forgot to change the language for the college students who would be reading.
Immediately, I looked over in KK’s direction. I knew exactly where she was sitting. I wondered if she had heard the phrase, too, and cringed. I hoped that maybe she was distracted in that moment. I messed up – and I knew it! Not just for KK, but also for my college-age young adults who I had asked to read a phrase that wasn’t fully inclusive and reflective of the community of our congregation.
Being KK’s pastor – and several other people’s pastor, too – has made me aware that “brothers and sisters” doesn’t fully encompass what we as a church want to be saying, which is “all of you, in a kindred kind of relationship with one another as children of God.” What it can sound like to gender expansive and non-binary folks is, “everyone except you.” Words have power. The words we use to describe who is included in our Christian community have a lot of power. They are a critical part of communicating the inclusiveness of God’s love.
KK and Pastor Meredith at Vacation Bible School a couple of summers ago.
Pastor Meredith is wearing a space helmet that KK brought with her because the VBS theme was related to outer space. In the background is EP3-20, the puppet that joined the children at VBS that week. KK was EP3-20’s biggest fan!
On that Sunday morning, I missed the mark. As KK’s church family, we want to do better. As her pastor, I must do better. The stakes are high. Too often, for far too long, too many people, especially those who identify as LGBTQIA+, have heard the church say, “What we mean is everyone except you.”
I know how high the stakes are because people have entrusted to me their “everyone except you” stories experienced in other faith communities. The trauma they have experienced through words, threats and exclusion from faith communities runs deep. Many times, I have sat with people to make space for their stories and found myself exclaiming, “Church trauma is the worst trauma.” In instances of religious trauma, it isn’t solely humans inflicting trauma on one another, it is one group of humans claiming they possess God’s power to say who is in and who is out of God’s reach, God’s love and God’s kingdom. When that happens, the depth of the soul and the essence of identity is called into question.
As a pastor, I understand my call to remove the stumbling blocks keeping people from being welcomed into the church, exactly how God created them, and being in relationship with God. Our Lutheran theology teaches that in baptism, God makes a promise to be reaching out to us throughout our lives. No matter where we go, what we do, how far we try to run, God promises to always reach out to us. God always keeps God’s promise!
God does the reaching out. I’m called to push away all the stuff that gets in the way of people being able to experience God’s love for them. As a faith leader, I am clear, I am not God. I do not have God’s power. The ins and the outs aren’t up to me. That frees me to be in the business of boldly proclaiming God’s love for all people, without exception, and creating an environment where people can experience God’s reaching out to them.
As long as KK is part of the church I serve, I will keep working to do better to make sure the good news of God’s love for her comes across loud and clear. I can ensure at Abiding Presence she never experiences the religious trauma I have processed with too many others. I don’t ever want there to be a doubt in KK’s mind as to what I mean when I stand behind the altar on Sunday mornings and say, “All are welcome here.” All means all. I will keep working to do better so KK (and everyone else) hears themselves reflected in the all of our Christian community.
