Dear friends,
Next year, we will celebrate the 25th Anniversary of Edwards Church becoming an Open and Affirming Congregation. For those in our congregation who came from Grace Church, it has been even longer!
Open and Affirming has been transformative for our congregation. Our vote in February 2000 gave voice to a value we have held dear for much more than the last 25 years. We believe each of us is God’s beloved. Each of us is unique, a gift from God. When we celebrate the gifts each of us brings to our congregation, our life together is rich and full and joyous.
There is much to celebrate about being Open and Affirming. Amidst the celebration, we pause to acknowledge that it can be complicated. It is hard work. We each bring our unique gifts to our congregation; we also bring our vulnerabilities and our pain. We bring our passions and our different perspectives. To be Open and Affirming is to commit ourselves to listen carefully and deeply to one another, to offer ourselves and one another grace and acceptance, to invite ourselves and each other to grow and change.
Jesus gathered people together from all walks of life – tax collectors, those society named as sinners, people who were ostracized for their physical disabilities, people who were believed to have demons. He brought them together around a table of love. He challenged them to claim their capacity to heal and to be healers, to receive the gift of love and share it. We know from the gospels that it was not easy. Too often his friends struggled to understand him and each other. Sometime pain got in the way. Through all the struggle, Jesus believed in the capacity of community to bring healing and transformation. He called it the Kin-dom of God. He calls us to come be part of this wondrous, complicated, joyous kin-dom.
During the month of June, our worship will center on the theme, “Extravagant Welcome.” We will celebrate and reaffirm our commitment to Open and Affirming. We will reflect on what it means to honor our human frailties and gifts. We will acknowledge that, in God’s kin-dom, the smallest gift may well be the most valuable. We will explore what it means to be a place of peace in the storms of our lives and our world. And we will welcome friends from the LGBT Asylum Task Force, who will share their stories of the healing they have experienced as they have fled nations where being gay, lesbian or transgender is dangerous.
I look forward to our rich reflection and celebration of the extravagant welcome we seek to offer.
Peace, Debbie