Rainbows and the Iron Butterfly

A Sermon for Pride Sunday – reposted in memory of Saint Dolly

Pilgrim Congregational Church, UCC, Lexington

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

June 2, 2024

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.

139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

139:15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

139:16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

139:17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

139:18 I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.

–

Well, y’all, it never fails.  I visit Tennessee and I come back praising the great, the one and only, the Saint of the Smoky Mountains, Dolly Parton. It’s not just because I’m surrounded by her music when I’m down there, and it’s not just because my high school – I am not kidding – my high school has a mural of Dolly Parton reading to a child on one side of the school building.*   I stand before you today to preach about the great “Dolly Lama” because she is the kind of person we should all aspire to be.  Set aside the sequins and you get someone who has parlayed her fame and fortune into extraordinary good.  Recognizing how hard it was for members of her own family to learn to read, she’s given books to three million children all over the world. (https://imaginationlibrary.com/) When massive fires went through her area, she helped 900 families recover.  And when scientists were developing the first CoVid vaccines, she donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt’s research with Moderna.  

There is a reason John gave me a T-Shirt that asks, What Would Dolly Do?

Now, you may be puzzled as to why I’m talking about the Queen of Country on Pride Sunday.  Y’all, it’s not just that I still haven’t unpacked from my trip to Music City.  The Queen of Country turns out to be an inspiration for many Queens.  And it’s not just the rhinestones – it’s not just the Rainbow fabrics that make up her Coat of Many Colors.   “The Iron Butterfly” has been an advocate for LGBTQIA+ folks for decades.  She is what queer folks call a Friend of the Family.  She’s advocated for same sex marriage, she’s celebrated with drag queens, and she’s made it clear that her Christian faith leads her to honor the dignity and worth of LGBTQIA+ folks.  While I still have a smidge of my Tennessee accent left from this week I’m going to quote her:  “They know that I completely love and accept them, as I do all people…I’ve struggled enough in my life to be appreciated and understood. I’ve had to go against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are, and to love who they love. I don’t think we should be judgmental. Lord, I’ve got enough problems of my own to pass judgment on somebody else.”

“If people want to pass judgment, they’re already sinning. The sin of judging is just as bad as any other sin they might say somebody else is committing. I try to love everybody.”

But Dolly’s a songwriter and one song that came back to me over and over as I was thinking about Pride, thinking about our Open and Affirming commitments, was one that she wrote for a movie about a trans woman.  She sang it onstage at the Oscars in 2005.  Take a second and think about the timing there.  20 years ago the Queen of Country wrote a song affirming the dignity and worth of a trans woman. The song is Travelin’ Thru and here are two of the verses:

“God made me for a reason and nothin’ is in vain

Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain

Oh, sweet Jesus, if you’re listenin’, keep me ever close to you

As I’m stumblin’, tumblin’, wanderin’, as I’m travelin’ through

[Refrain]

I’m just travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, I’m just travelin’ through

Oh, sometimes the road is rugged and it’s hard to travel on

But holdin’ to each other, we don’t have to walk alone

When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try

We can make a world of difference, if we want to, we can fly…”

Folks, I wonder if Dolly was reading her Bible when she wrote that song.  It sure sounds inspired by Psalm 139 to me:

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”

“God made me for a reason and nothin’ is in vain”

“How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, if you’re listenin’, keep me ever close to you.”

Rev. Michael Streib, from our conference, shared a reminder of the importance of the bold Open and Affirming welcome:

“I remember a story shared by a pastor, whose church I visited. Located in a more rural and conservative area right on a busy street, the church had decided to put out a Pride flag on its property. One day, a dad driving by stopped to tell the pastor: “Thank you so much! This means so much to my child. Your church is on their way to school. They are often struggling with being queer in this area but when we see your flag we know that there are people out there that love us.” The ministry of flying the flag unapologetically as a church let this child know that they are deeply beloved.”

But just having a Pride flag isn’t enough.  I heard a story last week.  It was about a congregation a long way from here.  They had their rainbow flag out and the right words on the website.  But when a non-binary person walked in their door, the congregation wasn’t ready.   They hadn’t talked about pronoun nametags, they hadn’t worked on their welcome.  Folks got a little rude.  They probably didn’t mean to, but the effect was the same.  

When I heard this story, I thought about Pilgrim.  I remembered starting here in 2019, when a high school student came to Church Council and said, we need to talk about pronouns.  We need pronouns for our name tags.  This is for folks who are here, and for visitors.  There was a council member who said (I’ll never forget it) I’m a little puzzled about this but you’re telling me this is one way to tell someone that they’re welcome and they’re loved?  I’m im.  And I remember another high schooler – when we came back into the building from CoVid – who said we’ve got to make sure people know how to do this, which is where the article “Practicing Our Welcome” came from.  It’s still in the Narthex but it occurs to me that we need to run that article in E-Notes again.  What I know about Pilgrim is that we have offered that big, glorious, enthusiastic, beautiful, inclusive welcome within our community and to visitors alike.  We’ve been doing it for 22 years, since 2002.  I also know that we’re on a journey – we’re not perfect at welcome, no one’s perfect at anything, but we’re trying.  

This is important, y’all.  Right now, it’s getting harder and harder to be queer, to be trans, to be non-binary.  Which means spaces of welcome and inclusion are getting more and more important.  

“holdin’ to each other, we don’t have to walk alone

When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try

We can make a world of difference, if we want to, we can fly…”

And if you have questions, or you’re puzzled, Pride Month is a great time to ask yourself, What Would Dolly Do?