Upon This Rock, I Will Build My Church

In this final blog post of Pride month, I have been thinking a lot about the power of community – as a tool of survival, as a witness of resistance and as means of mutual aid. 

When I think about today’s readings, there are such powerful themes that emerge that I think testify to the resilience and strength of the LGBTQ+ community.

In our first reading from Acts 12, the early apostles are being targeted by the state. We’re told that “King Herod laid hands upon some members of the Church to harm them.” He had already killed or jailed numerous members of the church and now he has his sights set on Peter. Peter is arrested and put in jail. But on the night before his trial, God sends angels to break him out and he escapes – giving testimony to the “stronger one” (spoken of by Mark 3) whose power prevails over the powers and principalities of this world.

The second reading from 2 Timothy 4 testifies about the resilience of the Christian community when it says that “The Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed.” Paul says that through an embodied witness, God’s work in the world is made possible. It is  also important to note that Paul is suggesting that it is through an unexpected source (his life) that God’s proclamation is finding a completion.

Finally, in the gospel from Matthew 16, Jesus is asking his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” Peter ultimately testifies that Jesus is the “son of the living God.” Jesus then says to Peter that he will build his movement for liberation “upon this rock.” 

Taken together, these scriptures speak to me about the life and witness of the LGBTQ+ community in our world.

Just like in the first reading, our LGBTQ+ family has been targeted by the state – both in the past and currently. And while I do not want to skip over the very serious and real harm that has come to so many who identify as LGBTQ+, the “stronger one” has prevailed over the power of the state in and through them. In spite of efforts to wipe out or disappear those who were considered threats, the LGBTQ+ community remains with us and continues to grow in power.

Secondly, just as Paul believed that through him, God’s proclamation is made visible in the world, members of the LGBTQ+ community have believed that through their lived experience God speaks to the world. This is such a profound and important belief. It is hard to describe what is required to believe that – in spite of so many messages that you are ‘less than’ in some way – a community of people would continue to believe that their experience reveals something profound about God in the world.

Finally, just as Jesus said that he would build his church upon the “rock” of faith described by Peter, so much of what we have come to understand about “beloved community” has been built on a vision of the world articulated through members of the LGBTQ+ community. 

I have been deeply influenced by the work of Mia Birdsong who published a great book back in 2020 called How We Show Up: Reclaiming  Family, Friendship and Community. In her book, she studied how people care for one another in times of crisis. Birdsong said that, “The American Dream isn’t accessible to everyone. If you are BIPOC, queer, poor, transgender, unpartnered, unhoused, a sex worker, a person with disabilities, or marginalized in any number of ways, you have less access to the standard of success and happiness as defined by the American Dream.  It’s among those groups of people that I’ve seen the most inclusive, connected, loving, nurturing, creative and expansive practices of family, friendship and community. It’s in part because we’ve had to survive systems and a dominant culture that actively oppresses us, and our most powerful resource is each other. It’s also because we are closer to our ancestral knowledge of how interdependence and connectedness work.”

When I think about Mia’s words, I think about all that the LGBTQ+ community offers to us by their continued presence, continued resistance and continued witness in the world. In them and in so many historically marginalized communities, ancestral knowledge lives on. Visions of true community and mutual care live on. Nurturing and creative practices of family, friendship, community and “church” live on. And I can imagine Jesus enthusiastically saying, “Upon this vision, I can build my church!”

While the official celebration of Pride month comes to a close, there will be so many more opportunities (especially at Spiritus) to celebrate the contributions and vision of the world that the LGBTQ+ community has offered and continues to offer us.

Through the LGBTQ+ community, the stronger one will prevail.
Through the LGBTQ+ community, God speaks to our world.
Through the LGBTQ+ community, God can build a church that serves everyone.