Celebrating Pride Month

A message from our rector

The final questions asked of the people in our baptismal covenant are “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” and “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” In these sacred vows, we commit ourselves to exemplify God’s love for every person without exceptions. Christians living out these vows toward all people is good news for the whole world, and it’s also the basis for our celebration of Pride this June. 

This month, we pause to give thanks to God for all of our LGBTQ+ siblings in Christ who have demonstrated this love to the church, even while they were being excluded and hurt. It’s also a time for us to acknowledge and repent of the many ways the church has laid heavy burdens on LGBTQ+ people and refused to offer the love, safety, and respect that they are due as image-bearers. 

I will be forever indebted to the brave and loving LGBTQ+ friends and allies who extended God’s love to me that I was not owed. Their forbearance, patience, wisdom, and friendship changed my life and helped me to grow in critical ways. The Resurrection community can testify similarly about the many LGBTQ+ friends in our community who shared their lives with us to help us understand their experience of exclusion and pain. If this is you, let me speak to you on behalf of our church community: you are invaluable gifts to our church and continue to remind us that we too are included and loved by God.

This Pride Month, we thank God for those in our Resurrection community who continue to lead in demonstrating this central Christian conviction: that every person is beautifully and wonderfully made in the image of God and worth celebrating. Inspired by the example of our LGBTQ+ family, may we renew our baptismal commitment to seek and serve Christ in all people, strive for justice and peace, and respect the dignity of every human being. I invite you to join the reply of the whole church in thought, word, and deed, saying, “I will, with God’s help.”

Peace,

The Rev. Dr. Shawn McCain Tirres