In place of my usual Queer Theology roundup I want to post this open letter of thanks to all that made the Pride Celebration Eucharist happen on Wednesday, June 3rd. Discussing the impact of that night was the sole topic of our Queer Theology meeting on June 7th, and so this letter seems like a fitting replacement. I first emailed Rev. Eileen Walsh, who first had the idea for this service, and Rev. Charles Lane Cowen, who preached at the Pride Eucharist, but I want to extend my thanks to all that made last week’s Pride Eucharist, on Wednesday, June 3rd possible, especially the Planning Team, made up of Rev Eileen and Rev. Charles, but also Will Lee and Ben Blanchard and our own Rector, Fr. Noah Van Niel.

Dear Pride Eucharist Planning Team, and the Right Reverend Bishop Susan Haynes,

I am writing to thank you for the Diocese of Southern Virginia’s Pride Eucharist for the that was celebrated on Wednesday, June 3rd, at Christ and St. Luke’s. It was a beautiful and profound night at church, and I’m still riding the high of that night.

For some context for my thanks, I should mention that I lead our church’s Queer Theology group. Our mission is not just to give us a place to read more deeply into the lectionary each monththrough the lens of Queer Theology and experience, but also to share what we learn through that with our larger church community. Recently, our church produced a beautiful short video-documentary about our group and church (it’s embedded here). WHRO, the local public radio station, was compelled by the testimonies in it to get in touch and prepare a writtten news story on the subject along with an audio story the morning of the Pride Eucharist, storytelling that doubtless drew more people to participate in the service. 

While I know these pieces of storytelling help to invite still more LGBTQ+ people into our church and group, I have also been touched by how many cis-straight members of our church have reached out to tell me how much the video meant to them, and how much it means to them to be members of a church that doesn’t just profess love, but lives out that love. Some of these folks came to the Pride Eucharist, and for some that may have been their first Pride celebration. These are people that may never have thought to identify themselves as allies, but are allies through their membership in our church. Living a life of Christian love for all saves not just the LGBTQ+ members of our church, it saves us all by helping us all walk closer to the path of Jesus. Your Pride Celebration Eucharist accomplished exactly that mission of Christian love.

The main thing I want to share with The Planning Team, in emailing my thanks, is a little bit of the impact the Pride Eucharist had on members of our Queer Theology group. We met this past Sunday to talk about our experiences at the service as well as to dive deeper into the readings that were selected. A line that particularly resonated with all was from John 4, that “There is no fear in love” and that “We love because he first loved us.” The majority of our Queer Theology group have joined the Episcopal Church from other kinds of churches, both as LGBTQ+ people and as straight people, who were raised in a theology of hate. They had to follow their own hearts and minds to the truth of a loving God. We have a former minister from a different demonination among us as an ally, and a gay man who spent years in the so-called “Ex-Gay ministry” before escaping self-hatred, as well as a young lesbian woman whose church showed weekly videos of sermons preaching for violence against our community. What they each found at Christ & St. Luke’s, and in the Episcopal Church, and on last Wednesday night’s Pride Eucharist, was the experience of deep, joyous queer love and celebration. It is a joy that is even more resonant because of the sadness that we also know in our lives and community.

With the collection of more than 300 souls crowding our church that night, each one of us also experienced visibility, safety, and belonging. The Eucharist is about communion and community, of being united with God and as children of God, and Wednesday’s service was exactly that. I had the honor of serving the intinction cup during communion, and I struggle to find the words to express how moving it was to serve the Eucharist, as a gay trans man, to so many of our LGBTQ community, coming forward to kneel side by side at the rail at the high altar. It was as if we were enacting the words Isaiah proclaimed in the first lesson of the night, to “bind up the brokenhearted,” and “to comfort all that mourn . . . to give [us] a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mounting, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.” (Isaiah 61:1-4).

Every person that knelt at that rail that night came from different lives of broken heartedness and mourning, to celebrate in gladness and praise. Each person was looked in the eyes as they were given communion. Each person was blessed and received as beloved children of God.

Our Queer Theology group also discussed how much we appreciated the ongoing thread of the night of remembering how much of our modern Gay Pride movement is rooted in the tragedy, suffering, and activism of the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s. You all placed the rallying cry of the 80s front and center as the Bulletin’s Opening Sentences:

      Bury your friends in the morning

      Protest in the afternoon

      Dance all night

Then you expanded the meaning of this rallying cry within the context of God’s love, lines that were so beautiful and resonant, that I have to quote them again because we read them to open our meeting, and likely will do that from now on:

We grieve queer lives lost to hatred and neglect as well as the many injustices against us.

We stand firm in love with one another to demand that God’s justice be extended to all people.

And we dance in celebration with all of God’s people, not in spite of queerness but delighting in queerness!

Rev. Charles did such a powerful job preaching on and expanding on the power and reach of this rallying cry for LGBTQ Christians and our allies. Charles, your sermon particularly struck a chord with members of our group who lived through and survived the height of the AIDS pandemic in the 80s, including a gay man now in his 80s and a cis-woman straight ally in her 60s, both of whom were part of the early relief efforts in the area, including that which came out of the Episcopal Church, and who both remember those years of fear, of not knowing, and of loved ones dying around them.

There are others of us, myself included, who were teenagers during that time, coming of age sexually during this time of fear, when the rumors and worries of how you could get AIDS drowned out any narratives of science and emerging research. The closeted scared kid I was then could never have fathomed the possibility of the life I live today. And still others in our group are too young to know of that time except through our stories, but are now living once again with a government that seeks to criminalize and demonize our existences and our families. Your sermon resonated with each and every one of us, and we all loved the joy with which you delivered your sermon. It was a room full of smiles as people remembered your words.

People in our group also loved the spectacle of the night, and the care that went into it, from the rainbow flowers on the altar to the colored lights projected on the columns. As the crucifer, I led the procession following the verger, and so it wasn’t until I placed the cross in its stand that I looked back and saw the joyous sprawling length of the procession, with the rainbow streamers waving, and it took my breath away. And then, during the recessional, I got to experience that procession even more profoundly, as we looped back in the side aisles, to stand at the front of the church as the rest of the procession followed, rainbows streaming overhead. And then, during the singing of the Postlude, “Love is Love is Love is Love,” the congregation, one row of pews after the other, joined hands in the singing of that refrain. The power of that moment, of so much unified love erupting from the church, is something that I will never forget.

So, that is my long-winded thanks to everyone on The Planning Team and everyone that made the Pride Eucharist happen. I look forward to this being an annual celebration. The ripples of your Wednesday night service will continue to spread in ways that are impossible to fathom.

In God’s love, and in Queer love,

Anders Nolan

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Note: Our Queer Theology Discussion Grop is taking a sabbatical for the summer and will resume meeting during the resumption of the programming year this fall, in late September or early October. More details will be posted closer to the date.