This Little Pastor Went to Pride

So we raced through second service this morning, then raced to clean up afterwards, so we could book it over to the Pride Parade and march with our fellow Reconciling in Christ Lutheran congregations. Despite our hurry, we knew we wouldn't catch them at the top of the route, so we parked in the vicinity of Loring Park (the end of the route and the main location for the festival) and worked our way up Hennepin until we spotted our contingency and joined in with them.

I purposely wore a lavender cleric and a rainbow stole to march today, because given the damage a lot of clergy have done and continue to do to LGBT people, I thought it was important to reclaim those symbols as a supportive presence rather than a condemning one.

It was interesting, though, making our way through the park and the crowd along the parade route, I definitely got a lot of looks - some smiles and "right on" kinds of nods, some double-takes, some just kind of surprised and bewildered. I was initially surprised by their surprise, but then I had to remind myself "Duh, this why you wore what you wore today, because a lot of people in this crowd are not used to seeing clergy as allies, their surprise is a natural reaction."

I also had to remind myself that 90% of my LGBT friends are practicing Christians, so my "sample" (to put it in statistical terms, natch) is not at all representative of the population as a whole. My friends have said they often feel like a double minority, because being LBGT makes them minorities among the Christian community, and being Christian makes them a minority among the LGBT community. After my experience today I have a bit fuller appreciation for what they mean.

Anyway, when we finished the parade we stayed at the end to watch the others come through, and at one point these people with bright yellow shirts that said "Free Bibles" walked by pulling a dolly with boxes on it. One of the members of our group was like "Oh, that's a good idea, but I bet that's really heavy at the start of the parade."

To be honest, it looked like it was kind of heavy at the end of the parade and something about this group just didn't feel right in my gut so I said, "I don't know - that could go one of two ways - are they handing out Bibles to show people how they're filthy sinners, or are they handing them out to show people God's not a jerk? (I used a much stronger term than "jerk" but I'm trying to keep this post PG) Even with good intentions I'm not sure how well received that would be in this crowd."

And then when the parade was all over and we walked back through the park on the way to the car, we passed this group again, outside the park, with three teenagers holding a sign that asked "Who is Jesus?" and that just kind of confirmed my suspicions - they were there to tell people they were filthy sinners.

I think of all the looks I collected today, the looks from this group were my favorite, because they showed not only surprise, but also betrayal, like, "You're supposed to be one of US, what are you doing with THEM?"

I didn't think to say this until we were long past them, but if I had been more quick-witted I'd have told them "I'm with them because of my answer to your question: 'Who is Jesus?' He's the one who always stands with those on the other side of the line."