Dear Friends,
As you read this, I’m on a bit of vacation, but I wanted to write to tell you about a fun experience I had just before I left:
One of the really cool gifts we have to offer our community is our space. And, while lots of churches have space to offer, our being so conveniently located in downtown Toledo, coupled with our commitment to being a hub for creativity and the arts, means that we often have groups of creative people who look to use our space for their gatherings. It also helps that the spaces we have to offer are beautiful. It’s what both creative and spiritually attuned people would call “inspirational space”.
This summer, we’re sharing our space once again with our friends at the Toledo Repertoire Theatre. They will be using rooms from time to time for rehearsals for their upcoming teen production of Sweeny Todd. I always love being a fly on the wall when people encounter Trinity for the first time, so I decided to hang around in the church when they were arriving for their first rehearsal.
Of course, during Pride season, Trinity stands out in a particular way because of our many rainbows. When one of the young girls came in, she marveled with her friend about how beautifully festooned the church is, but quickly wrote it off saying, “Oh it’s Pride month, that must be why they have rainbows.” I replied and told her that yes, there were extra rainbows up until Toledo Pride in August, but the flags on the balcony and the flags outside are up basically all year.
The really cool part happened a few minutes later, after I’d walked away from the gathering group. Another teen had arrived and was also expressing delight about the rainbows. The first girl repeated to them what I’d just said to her – about how our commitment to the queer community isn’t just a passing, seasonal thing. They replied, “Wow. This is a church even I wouldn’t mind coming to.”
To be clear: I have no idea if this teen will ever come to church at Trinity. I have no idea what their sexual orientation or gender identity is now, or how they might understand it as they grow. But none of those things are the point. The point is that our outward representation of our inward and spiritual values is an important way of signaling to the people who encounter us that we’re doing a new thing here at Trinity. We’re not standing by, held captive by the constraints of history or tradition. We are listening for God’s call to us, here and now.
And this important signaling isn’t just to and for the queer community. It is true that members of the queer community are deeply moved by our front-facing commitment to equality and justice for all. But just as often as I hear about that, I hear similar expressions of joy and gratitude from people who aren’t directly a part of the queer community. Sometimes it’s because someone they love is a member of the community. But as often as not, it’s because they recognize our rainbows as a sign of our commitment to being a loving and inclusive community, no matter what. They recognize them as a sign of our commitment to being church in a way that is all too uncommon – a church that chooses love, joy, and peace above all else.
Though the origins of the rainbow flag for the queer community and the meaning of the rainbow in theological communities are certainly distinct from one another, they find a common cause here in our ministry. The story of the flood tells us that God set a rainbow in the sky as a symbol of God’s commitment to never again let anger or sin or anything else stand between us, God’s beloved creation, and God. The origin of the rainbow flag is about unity in the midst of diversity – knowing that the queer community is diverse, but that we need each other to lift each other up so that we can be our truest selves.
At Trinity, the rainbow reminds us of both of those things: that we are diverse and that we need each other, and that we can count on God to love us and to want peace and justice for us regardless of the ways that churches of the past have tried to build division and harm.
We are a progressive, inclusive, and creative community of faithful people in downtown Toledo. And the rainbow is shorthand for that. It says that we proclaim God’s fully-encompassing love to all people, no matter what. It says that this is a safe place to be welcomed and loved. It’s not just for Pride. It’s not just for queer people. It is a bold and public declaration of our values – today and always.
Blessings,
Jon+