Summer at Reservoir 2023

Pride Service 2023

Ivy Anthony

Taj Smith

Reservoir's LGBTQIA+ community

Emmett Jorgenson

Jun 04, 2023

Reservoir’s 2023 PRIDE Service

Emmett Jorgenson, Reservoir’s LGBTQIA+ community & Taj Smith 

Communion Script and Prayer by Reverend Megan Roher and read by Emmett Jorgenson.

 

COMMUNION | by enfleshed.com/liturgy/lgbtq-related/

We will now move to a time of communion. 

Where we give thanks for the presence and love of God  – God’s presence that is not at a distance –  but intimately in our lives – as intimately as our own flesh/skin.

God gifted us with bodies and through them we come to know God:

Through touch.

Through taste.

Through struggle.

Through rest.

In God’s love for us and for all creatures and creations, God took on skin like ours – entangling, forever –  the (H)oly with our flesh. God showed us through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus that we love through our bodies, we seek justice for bodies, we live out our faith in these bodies – not despite them.

Jesus took care and rest of his own body –  fed people, healed people, ate with people. 

He met the physical and spiritual needs of bodies.

And when his own body was threatened by political and religious execution, he turned to the Table. He sought, first, in his hour of need, to share a meal with his friends.

On the night of his arrest, he gathered around a table with his companions.

He took bread, blessed it, broke it (as his own body would break), gave it to his disciples and said,

“This is my body which is given for you.

Do this in remembrance of me.”

He did the same with the cup after the supper, saying,

“This cup that is poured out as a sign of the new covenant.”

A new way forward with love and infinite possibilities.

The body of God was crucified.

And the body of God was resurrected.

Not only in spirit, but in flesh.

God has shown us that our bodies are good, holy, precious, and full of possibility.

Prayer: Spirit of God, Come, bless this bread and this cup, that we might encounter your presence as we touch, and we taste, and we feel. As we come to the table, may we become one body. And may we be relentless pursuers of your Kin-dom, until every body has its needs met, every body is recognized as beloved, and every body is treated with dignity and care. Amen.

PRAYER | by Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer. Megan is the bishop of the Sierra Pacific Synod in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Bishop Megan is the first transgender bishop in a mainline Christian denomination, a crip theologian, and writer who was featured on Netflix’s Queer Eye.

A PRAYER FOR MY LGBTQ KIN

Shepherding God,

Be palpably present with us when we dance,
                                                                snuggle,
                                                                        and enjoy the sensations
                                                                            of the creation you declare good.

Help us to name, define, redefine, deconstruct, claim, and properly pronoun our fabulousness. We commit to properly naming and pronouning the fabulousness of others.

Dwell with us,
    both when we are able to articulate our pride for ourselves and others
    and when we get stuck in a cacophony of negativity, bodily shame, or unjust laws.

When we are tired, weary, and exhausted,
    grant us the rest and renewal we need to keep on marching, advocating, and living openly.

When we have all that we need to live fully,
    help us to share with others who lack.

And when it feels like time is moving too slow,
    or change is not possible,
    take the lead
    block the wind
    refresh our hearts
    distract us with passionate love
    give us purposeful work
    anything that helps those on the edge to choose life
          to get through the month, the week, or the hour
          to move time a bit closer
              to the safety, acceptance, and love we all need and deserve.

When we cannot hear you,
    scream louder,
    love more tangibly
    silence violent voices of opposition
    whip advocates into a frenzy
    fill us with memories of times when we felt closer to you
    and love us anyway
          as we were
          as we are
          as we are becoming
          as we wish we could be in a safer time and place
          as you know us
          as we seek to know ourselves.

Remind us of the victories our ancestors won,
    with their storytelling and coming out,
    with their lobbying and work from the inside,
    with bricks and sugar shakers thrown through windows of oppression

Help us to live and act with bravery,
    working within and without,
    educating ourselves and those around us,
    so that we can do the work generations to come need us to do.

Stir up our hearts,
    so that we always remain on our tiptoes
    looking for additional ways
    we can remove the barriers unjustly placed in front of our LGBTQ kin,
    especially those embodying multiple intersectional identities.

Make us plumbers,
    capable of unclogging all the places
    where the ever-flowing stream of justice has been dammed up or clogged.

Shepherding God,

Be palpably present with us when we dance,
                                                                snuggle,
                                                                      and enjoy the sensations
                                                                            of the creation you declare good.

Amen.