Pride Fest 2009

Pride Fest 2009 was a success, with an interfaith service at CRC, a CRC booth at the festival, and a big interfaith entry in the Pride Parade.  Scroll down for photos from the festival and parade.

Rev. Rebecca Turner gave a beautiful sermon at the interfaith service.  Click here to read it. 

"Moving Out of Small Spaces"
June 25, 2009
Rev. Rebecca Turner, Executive Director, Faith Aloud
Interfaith Pride Service
Central Reform Congregation

I grew up in some small spaces. I grew up in Richmond, MO, population 4,685. I grew up a Southern Baptist, which is not a small group, but has often perpetuated small thinking. I grew up on "Dick and Jane", who spoke in short, simple words, and who taught me that boys are never afraid and never cry, and that girls' dresses are always perfectly pressed, even after sitting on the ground playing with their dolls. I grew up hearing racist, sexist, and homophobic jokes. I grew up in one of the little boxes described by Malvina Reynolds:

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And although I was always one to challenge the status quo, and one who couldn't wait to leave that small town box and discover the bigger world, it was still the home I knew and much of what I heard I absorbed without question because I was surrounded by people who loved me.

Small spaces are not all bad-they can serve a healthy purpose, like the uterus provides safety and nourishment for a growing fetus. Young children are kept safe by restricting their territory. But being kept in a confined space for too long prevents growth.

I have a plant that I bought as a bonsai--The instructions said I was supposed to restrict its growth by keeping it in a small pot and regularly trimming it. It could have been a perfect little miniature. But I liked watching it grow, so I transplanted it into a larger pot, and then a larger one. This plant that began so tiny just keeps on growing and may soon take over my bedroom. It liked having growing space.

All living things are designed to grow, but some fear it more than others. Small spaces can be cozy and comfortable, especially when they're all we have ever known. We fear getting lost in the big wide world. We don't always recognize when that small space is suffocating us.

Our notions about sex, politics, and religion are boxes that constantly define, confine and challenge us--the news was filled with it yesterday. The governor of South Carolina was trapped in the snare he had himself created, becoming another on the long list of politicians who, as Jon Stewart says, have "a conservative mind and a liberal penis."

Now there's nothing wrong with begging your wife and kids for forgiveness when you've hurt them, but what I have trouble with is when that attitude of understanding is so lacking towards others. It's like when Ted Haggard comes out of therapy and says "I've learned that my sexuality is complicated." Well, welcome to the human race, Ted. It's complicated for all of us. How are we supposed to respond to politicians who want us to respect their human condition when they can't empathize with the human condition in others?

Then there was the news from the Southern Baptist Convention that they have ousted one of their congregations for being sympathetic with gays. Wow, was Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth doing marriage ceremonies? No, they allowed their gay members to be included in group (not family) photos in the church directory! Well, how very open and supportive of them. But the Southern Baptists set things straight, so to speak, in its convention which is themed "Love Loud: Actions Speak Louder Than Words." Yes, my friends, they certainly do. Author Anne Lamott says "You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

Small, small boxes. And they're all made with ticky-tacky and they all look just the same.

People construct social boxes as a way to define "self" and "others". It's an important developmental task when we are young. On Sesame Street we hear the little song "One of these things is not like the other." We learn to sort and categorize and name and label. The first thing the wizardry students at Hogwarts have to submit to is the pronouncement of the Sorting Hat. We identify ourselves by the groups we're in and by those we're not.

We define ourselves by the little boxes of gender, race, class, sexual orientation. Where'dya go to high school? Do you attend Wash U, SLU, or Fontbonne? Do you live in Tower Grove, Creve Couer, Wellston, or Arnold? Such simple questions, but loaded with assumptions about who you are and whether I am likely to want to be your friend.

As we mature, we move away from the need to sort and begin to notice similarities where we previously thought there were none. As we delve into quantum physics we see that boundaries that look so obvious to the naked eye begin to disappear. There aren't clear lines that separate me from you. We are biologically and profoundly connected to and dependent upon every person on earth.

So we must take our eyes off of the small spaces and look at the big picture. We need to speak to the big issues of human rights for every single person on earth. We must work for every person's right to live without violence, the right to healthcare, the right to make the families of our own choosing, the right to control our own bodies, the right to education. No exceptions. When we begin with the big picture, the smaller questions become easy to answer.

We all have to come out of our little boxes and closets of narrow definitions of ourselves and others. And we have to do it over and over again because we keep finding ourselves in new closets, new boxes that limit our imaginations and possibilities. It's not just the other guy-the other political party-the other religious group-the other neighborhood that needs to come out of the box. It's us, too.

After the Israelites came out of Egypt there was much grumbling and complaining. Some preferred the slavery of Egypt to the vast, unknown freedom of the wilderness. Better to have the problems we had gotten used to than these new problems that we have to learn how to face. Better to have a foe to fight in government than a leader-friend who can't solve our problems.

Freedom doesn't come with a money-back guarantee. No guarantee that it will turn out in the way we imagine. No guarantee that it will happen easily or quickly. No guarantee that our friends will stand by our sides in the struggle. No guarantee that we will all arrive safely. No guarantees. Only promise.

Promise that keeps moving forward into the future. Promise that we can glimpse but every new generation has to re-envision and experience more fully. Promise that is tested over and over again by conflicts, discouragements, and the temptation to abandon hope.

The call of freedom is the promise heard by every human being. It is the promise heard in Iran and Darfur, in California and Iowa, and it is the promise heard in your heart tonight in St. Louis. All over the world people find their voices and reach beyond the personal or cultural or institutional prisons that keep them enslaved. All over the world, people find the strength to be the voice of their own generation to say "I am free."
Did any of you see the animated film "Chicken Run"? Ginger is a chicken that wants to save the others in the coop from ending up in chicken pot pies and she tries to awaken them to the possibility of freedom.

Ginger says: "You know what the problem is? The fences aren't just round the farm. They're up here, in your heads. There's a better place out there, somewhere beyond that hill, and it has wide open spaces, and lots of trees...and grass. Can you imagine that? Cool, green grass."

Hen says: "Who feeds us?" Ginger: "We feed ourselves."
Hen: "Where's the farm?" Ginger: "There is no farm."
Babs: "Then where does the farmer live?" Ginger: "There is no farmer, Babs."
Babs: "Is he on holiday?" Ginger: "He isn't anywhere! Don't you get it? There is no morning head count, no farmers, no dogs and coops and keys, and no fences."
Bunty: "In all my life I've never heard such a fantastic...load of tripe!"

No, it's not easy for some to say goodbye to their little ticky tacky boxes and move out into freedom. But those who can't envision their own liberation are dependent upon our vision and our voices. And someday, they might even thank us.

May God bless us in our struggles to be free.

AMEN.