Teresa’s Note: June 28, 2024

Teresa's Note

Jun 28

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Dear friends and members of University UMC:

Today is the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City, known now as one of the most important events in the struggle for LGBTQIA+ rights. The first anniversary of Stonewall saw the first gay pride parades held in cities across the country including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago. Over 50 years later, the work of justice continues. Marsha Johnson was one of the most prominent leaders in the gay rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s and she was known for saying, “No pride for some of us without liberation for all of us.” These words remain with me as Pride Month ends but as the work of justice and liberation continues.

As I commit to my own work to be a better ally, I look to the 5th Sunday offering during Sunday School this weekend. All are welcome to this Ally Training planned and led by members of our own UUMC community. We’ll gather in the Fellowship Hall at 9:45 this Sunday for a time of learning. Plans are also coming together for the Pride Parade held later this summer. Find more information in the Econnection and on the website.

This week I discovered a couple of books I want to share this Pride Month. One is a children’s book entitled “My Guncle and Me” by Christian writer Jonathan Merritt. Talking about the inspiration for this book, Merritt points out there aren’t many children's books that include LGBTQ characters who are clearly Christian. He also writes from his own experience saying, “The present-day me was able to travel back in time to a past version of me and to get down on one knee, and look that kid in the eye and tell him what I know now he needed to hear.” I just received my copy and love it! Learn more on the book’s website.

Also, Pastor Earl shared with me, the new book “Queering Wesley, Queering the Church” by Keegan Osinski, a librarian at Vanderbilt Divinity Library. I don’t yet have a copy of this book. Still, the description reads,

“Fifty years after Stonewall, the experiences of LGBTQ+ Christians are--rightfully--beginning to be received with interest by their churches. Queering Wesley, Queering the Church presents a prototype for thinking about Wesleyan holiness as an expansive openness to the love and grace of God in queer Christian lives rather than the limiting and restrictive legalism that is sometimes found in Wesleyan theology and praxis. This inventive project consists of queer readings of ten John Wesley sermons.”

Learn more about this book on the author’s website.

This Sunday’s scripture lesson comes from the Gospel of Mark and is often called “The Healing on the Way to A Healing.” It contains two healing stories including the story of a woman who for 12 years has suffered from bleeding. The bulletin art is from United Methodist artist Jan Richardson who also wrote the blessing “The Healing that Comes” to accompany her visual art. I’m placing that blessing below. I also have a link to the song “We Shall Be Known” by Karisha Longaker of Mamuse. It was fun to rehearse this song with the Treble Choir this week and it will serve as the offertory for this Sunday’s worship. Hope to see you there!

What a joy to be your pastor!

Teresa

The Healing That Comes
A Blessing

I know how long
you have been waiting
for your story to take
a different turn,
how far
you have gone in search
of what will mend you
and make you whole.

I bear no remedy,
no cure,
no miracle
for the easing
of your pain.

But I know
the medicine
that lives in a story
that has been
broken open.

I know
the healing that comes
in ceasing
to hide ourselves away
with fingers clutched
around the fragments
we think are
none but ours.

See how they fit together,
these shards
we have been carrying—
how in their meeting
they make a way
we could not
find alone.