Dear Westwood Family,

It’s June, when we celebrate LGBTQ+ Pride – and this year, I’m so delighted that we get to do so with joy. This week, in addition to other Pride festivities, the whole church is invited to celebrate the wedding of two of our staff members, both of whom are leaders in our Queer Group: Everest Harvey and Uriya Simeon. (You’re welcome to the party, which will be on Saturday at the church – the ceremony starts at 11:30am!)

Uriya and Everest are choosing love, choosing joy, choosing connection, choosing community. I’m excited for the celebration. It’s a daring thing to choose marriage, especially in a moment where the rights of Transgender and other Queer folks are so under attack. This choice affirms that we humans are meant to belong with one another, and that God intends for us to experience joy!

In the midst of the preparations this week, I’ve also found myself a little nostalgic about weddings. I’ve been thinking about the first time I ever came to Westwood UMC, long before I was appointed here as your pastor. I was here for the wedding of former Westwood pastor Rev. Greg Norton to his husband, Paul Floyd. They were married on the 20th anniversary of their first commitment ceremony, a covenant they entered into long before same-sex marriage was legal. And it was yet still years before our denomination would remove homophobic rules against such ceremonies–but our congregation had already voted to welcome and host all marriages in our sanctuary. I’m moved by the courage and hope of couples like Greg and Paul, and the courage and hope of congregations like ours that make space for honoring and celebrating how God is present in these commitments.

Marriages are such an interesting mix of private and public things–they are a personal relationship, declared out loud to the community. There is an expectation in our liturgy and tradition, too, that marriages will be a blessing not just to the two people making the vows, but to the whole community.

Every time I officiate a wedding, I’m moved by the prayer that comes at the very end of the ceremony in our United Methodist Book of Worship:

To the couple:
May God the Eternal keep you in love with each other,
so that the peace of Christ may abide in your home.
Go to serve God and your neighbor in all that you do.

To the people:

Bear witness to the love of God in this world,
so that those to whom love is a stranger
will find in you generous friends.

As a community that has borne witness to love, and shared in the joy of some good celebrations, I invite you to find even more ways of celebrating Pride this year. May we do so by becoming generous friends to all those to whom love is a stranger.

grace and peace,
Pastor Molly