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Call to Worship
CtoW06132021
Sunshine Cathedral is a different kind of church where the past is past and the future has infinite possibilities!
This is the day our God has made.
Let us rejoice and be glad in it!
Opening Prayer
OpeningPrayer06132021
O God, remember today our LGBTQ siblings who were martyred in years past: those murdered by fanatics in the Middle Ages, those who perished in the Holocaust, and those struck down in our own city, in our own time. Remember also those who took their own lives, driven by despair by a world that hated them because of their love or gender. And in mercy remember those who lived lives of loneliness, repressing their true natures and refraining from sharing their love with one another. O God, remember the sacrifice of these martyrs, and help us bring an end to hate and oppression of every kind. Amen.
https://www.rac.org/pride-shabbat-selected-liturgy-readings-and-poems\
The Lessons
Reading06132021
Listen to the Story of Judith (8.7-12, 15-16, 32-35)
Judith was a beautiful widow. Her late husband, Manasseh, had left her great wealth, which she was maintaining. No one had a bad word to say about her, for she was a godly woman.
So when Judith heard of the people complaining against the king (because their enemies had cut off their water supply in an attempt to overtake them) of King Uzziah responding to the people by saying he would surrender to the Assyrian armies in 5 days [unless God miraculously came to the aid of Uzziah’s people], Judith sent word to Uzziah and the elders of her city.
When they came to her, she said to them: “Listen to me, you rulers. What you said to the people today is not right. You pronounced this oath, made between God and yourselves, and promised to hand over the city to our enemies unless within a certain time the Lord comes to our aid. Who are you to put God to the test?
If he does not come to our aid within five days, God is equally able to protect us at any time thereafter…Do not impose conditions on the plans of our God. God is not like a human being to be moved by threats, nor like a mortal to be cajoled.
Judith said to them: “Listen to me! I will perform a deed that will go down from generation to generation among our descendants. Stand at the city gate tonight to let me pass through with my maid; and within 5 days the Lord will deliver Israel by my hand. You must not inquire into the affair, for I will not tell you what I am doing until it has been accomplished.”
Uzziah and the rulers said to her, “Go in peace, and may the God go with you!”
The Story of Judith Continues (9.1-2a, 7-8a, 11-14)
At the very time when the evening incense was being offered in the house of God in Jerusalem, Judith prayed with a loud voice,
“O God of my ancestor Simeon, to whom you gave a sword to stand against oppressors…
Here now are the Assyrians, a greatly increased force, priding themselves in their horses and riders, boasting in the strength of their foot soldiers, and trusting in shield and spear, in bow and sling. They do not know that you are the Sovereign who crushes wars…Break their strength by your might…
Your strength does not depend on numbers, nor your might on the powerful. But you are the God of the lowly, helper of the oppressed, upholder of the weak, protector of the forsaken, savior of those without hope. Please…hear my prayer! Make my deceitful words bring wound and bruise on those who have planned cruel things against your people, and against your sacred house…Let your whole nation and every tribe know and understand that you are God, the God of all power and might, and that there is no other who protects us but you alone!”
FinalReading06132021
Judith: The Finale (10.10-13, 23; 13.2, 4-11; 16.24)
Judith went out, accompanied by her maid. The men of the town watched her until she had gone down the mountain and passed through the valley, where they lost sight of her.
Judith and her maid were going straight on through the valley, an Assyrian patrol met her and took her into custody. They asked her, “To what people do you belong, and where are you coming from, and where are you going?” She replied, “I am a daughter of the Hebrews, but I am fleeing from them, for they are about to be handed over to you to be devoured. I am on my way to see Holofernes the commander of your army, to give him a true report; I will show him a way by which he can go and capture all the hill country…”
When Judith came into the presence of Holofernes and his servants, they all marveled at the beauty of her face. She prostrated herself and did obeisance to him, but his attendants raised her up.
[Judith convinced Holofernes that she was on the side of the Assyrians and he welcomed her as his personal guest].
[After a banquet, the servants went to bed leaving] Judith alone in the tent, with Holofernes stretched out on his bed, for he was dead drunk.
Then Judith, standing beside his bed, said in her heart, “O God of all might, look in this hour on the work of my hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem. Now indeed is the time to help your heritage and to carry out my design to destroy the enemies who have risen up against us.”
She went up to the bedpost near Holofernes’ head, and took down his sword that hung there. She came close to his bed, took hold of the hair of his head, and said, “Give me strength today, O God!” Then she struck his neck twice with all her might, and cut off his head. Next she rolled his body off the bed and pulled down the canopy from the posts. Soon afterward she went out and gave Holofernes’ head to her maid, who placed it in a bag.
Then the two of them went out together, passed through the camp, circled around the valley, and went up the mountain and came to the gates. From a distance Judith called out to the sentries at the gates, “Open the gate! Our God is with us, still showing strength against our enemies!”
After this, Judith was held in great esteem…and she was the most renowned woman in all the land…
Reflection by Rev. Dr. BK Hipsher
Open The Gates 06132021
Our readings to day from the book of Judith tell the story of a woman who took on a man’s role as a leader and a warrior. Judith did not conform to gender norms that kept here near hearth and home. Yes she certainly did fill that role for part of her life. But after her husband died leaving her independent and wealthy she began to speak and act and function in the world as an equal to men. She chastised the king and the other political leaders and set about making justice for her people as both a religious and political leader.
Now certainly I’m not suggesting that going out and cutting off the head of our enemies is the way to justice. Yet I am saying that prayer without action does not make justice. If we simply give God deadlines and ultimatums we are sure to be disappointed. And if we do not work for justice, taking action to bring justice about, there will surely be no justice. It has ever been thus on any topic we choose to examine.
Over the millennia we LGBTQI people have tried every way possible to have the world leave us in peace to live our lives as we choose. We have hidden, we have been quiet, we have chosen to “act out” a heterosexual nature in marriages of convenience, and more than a few of us have put our true nature in a secret place inside ourselves walled off from the world, with the gates of internalized homophobia shut tight and locked from the inside.
We’ve had to do many things to protects ourselves from the judgment of the world. Terrifying laws designed to reinforce “gender norms” made how we want to dress punishable by prison. Evil men made decisions that forbad the expression of our sexuality and stifled our love for our partners. We put a wall around all of that, locked that gate inside our minds and hearts to protect ourselves and threw away the key.
When the Nazi’s began to round up the Jews in the 1930’s they also took the Roma (then called gypsies), gay men, lesbian women and trans people to the camps where most of them died as slaves or were gassed and cremated, their ashes comingled and used a fertilizer in fields where other concentration camp members were forced to work.
As recently as 2003 in the United States, making love to a member of the same gender was considered a crime. And in this year, 2021, at least 28 trans or gender non-conforming people have been murdered in the US simply for dressing and acting as they choose in public. In 2020 the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission laws that prohibited discrimination based on sex was interpreted to include sexuality and gender non-conformity. But bias and outright denial of civil rights continues.
In other words, there are good reasons why we internalize homophobia and transphobia... it still exists. And while those of us who live in more liberal places in the US and enjoy our comfortable privileged middle-class white privilege often feel insulated from the injustices that continue, we are duty bound to refuse to allow our elected officials to ignore the plight of LGBTQI people who still lived in fear of their jobs, who cannot find housing, who are denied loans, and who fear for and lose their very lives to the hate that still persists.
Like Judith we are called not only to pray and live our own lives ethically but to put our considerable privilege to work in service to those who are oppressed by the hatred of LGBTQI people all around the world. We are called to speak for those who have no voice and act on behalf of those who would be murdered for acting themselves.
After the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village in New York city that begin on June 28, 1969 there were years of work and action by “out” LGBTQI leaders. But eventually we were convinced that by being nice little queers, eventually the heterosexual majority would give us our rights. After 20+ years we began to realize that only changing laws would begin to set us free and so we embarked upon the equal marriage fight that came to fruition first in my home state of Massachusetts in 2006. At that time only the Netherlands, Belgium, and the provinces of Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec in Canada issued marriage licenses to same gender couples.
In 2020 there were 29 countries across the world where everyone has the right to marry who they choose. But there are 195 countries in the world. That means that only less that only 15% of the countries in the world now allow its citizens the right to equal marriage. Let that sink in lest we allow ourselves to think that the fight is over and justice is achieved. There is surely more work to do.
Certainly we ought to pray for God’s guidance. But to bring about justice for all people around the world we must also act. We must speak, donate, and support those who continue to work for justice in the other 85% of countries around the world so that any two people anywhere in the world may decide to make a life together and enjoy the privileges of marriage and the respect that they are a family.
We must not allow the walls of internalized homophobia and transphobia to keep the gates locked tight telling us that “these things take time.” We must open the gates and allow our minds to imagine a world where everyone is free to love who the love, marry who they marry, and make a family of love and support with whomever they choose.
There is enough hate in the world. May we come to know true freedom and throw off the chains of internalized homophobia and transphobia so that we expect that everyone should live free. Open the gates of internalized homophobia and free our minds of any doubt that we are perfectly made by our creator. May we have courage to act in whatever way we can to bring about this world of justice for all as we pray:
Spirit of Life, we know you by many names or by no name at all. We affirm that all people are endowed with inherent dignity and worth and that we are called to treat each other in ways that honor and value that worth. We seek to embody those values in our lives and in our community. We also acknowledge that we are called to resist all forms of injustice... We lament that too often the lives, rights, and freedom of LGBTQ people have not been valued in our communities and our society. Give [us] a spirit of wisdom and understanding, that [we] may discern what is right. Guide our community toward an enduring justice. Give us the courage to reconcile with those who have been harmed by religion. Bless us as we seek to live in a world where people are free from injustice, violence, and discrimination. Amen.
For a list of music suggested to meditate on for this service click the link below.
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Call to Worship