One of the things that I enjoy about organizing worship is crafting the service itself. For our opening prayer, I adapted Kittredge Cherry and Patrick Cheng's "Rainbow Christ Prayer:"
Rainbow Christ: You embody all the colors of the world. Rainbows stretch in order to connect diverse realms. Inspire us to stretch beyond boundaries so that we may embody your wonders born from the diversity which You created.
RED gives us life. Self-Loving Christ, you are our Root.
ORANGE stirs our passion. Romantic Christ, you are our Fire.
YELLOW awakens our courage. Out Christ, you are our Core.
GREEN moves us to love. Transgressive Christ, you are our Heart.
BLUE frees us to speak. Liberator Christ, you are our Voice.
VIOLET clears our vision. Interconnected Christ, you are our Wisdom.
The colors of the rainbow are distinct, but they all shine together to make one light. Hybrid Christ, you are our Crown.
Rainbow Christ, you are the light of the world. May the rainbow lead us to experience the whole spectrum of life! Amen.I dug around online and found the music sheet for "We Are The Church Alive," which is a traditional MCC hymn that I've wanted to use for a while. I also found the music sheet for "The Rainbow," which is a great hymn with a familiar tune. And then I closed with "What a Covenant."
But my actual sermon was called "Who Owns the Rainbow?," which is admittedly fluff when it comes to Biblical exploration. But it was well received by my fellow parishioners. Several people have reached out to me to tell me that they got a lot out of it.
I've shared other shared ministry messages here on this blog, so have decided to post this sermon here too:
Gilbert Baker was a gay activist and artist during the 1970s. In 1974, Baker met Harvey Milk, the infamous gay activist and San Francisco City Supervisor. Milk charged Baker with creating a new Gay Pride symbol.
Before then, the Pink Triangle had become used to symbolize the Gay Rights Movement. Pink Triangles were used by the Nazis to categorize gay prisoners within the concentration camps during World War II. Those within the early Gay Rights movement had reclaimed the Pink Triangle as a symbol of our past struggles. But Milk and his contemporaries objected to the oppressive nature of the Pink Triangle and wanted a new symbol that would better capture “the dawn of the new gay consciousness and freedom” that was quickly emerging in the 1970s within cities like San Francisco.
Baker liked the concept of a flag that could be held up high and waved for all to see. His final design was inspired by Judy Garland’s infamous song “Over the Rainbow,” as well as the Stonewall riots that happened shortly after Garland’s death in 1969. Baker and a team of 30 fellow artists gathered to hand-dye and stitch together the stripes for the two original Rainbow Flags. Each of the colors symbolized various aspects of the new gay consciousness:
Hot Pink = Sex
Red = Life
Orange = Healing
Yellow = Sunlight
Green = Nature
Turquoise = Magic / Art
Indigo = Serenity
Violet = Spirit
Those first two Rainbow flags made their debut on June 25, 1978, at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade.
A few months later, Harvey Milk was assassinated by a former City Supervisor. His death completely galvanized the country. Following Milk’s death, demand for the rainbow flag greatly increased. While trying to mass produce the Rainbow Flag, Baker discovered that it was virtually impossible to obtain hot pink fabric coloring. He and the San Francisco parade organizers ran into similar problems with the turquoise stripe. As a result, Hot Pink was out and Turquoise & Indigo became consolidated into a Royal Blue color within the Rainbow Flag design starting sometime in 1979.
The Rainbow Flag has persisted as a visual symbol of the LGBTQ movement over the decades. In 1994, Gilbert Baker was commissioned to create the world’s largest rainbow flag in honor of the Stonewall Riots’ 25th anniversary. It took months to plan and a whole assortment of volunteers to pull off, but Baker managed to create a mile-long Rainbow Flag. The flag was 30 feet wide and needed 5,000 people to carry it through the streets of New York City! That flag was eventually cut into smaller sizes and has been used in subsequent marches throughout the world.
Gilbert Baker insisted that the Rainbow Flag remain within the public domain, and it has. But its multi-color pattern has bled into various areas of life – both public and commercial. It’s pretty easy to find rainbow shirts and rainbow shorts and freedom rings, which are essentially rainbow necklaces. You can get rainbow mugs for your coffee and rainbow stickers for your car and rainbow hats for your head and rainbow collars for your dogs. Even the White House would find itself illuminated in the rainbow flag colors during Pride Month – at least during the Obama years.
But as the Rainbow Flag has become entrenched within our culture, we’ve seen steady pushback from those within the larger Christian culture who find it to be offensive to Christians.
If you follow Christian right blogs long enough – and I do, much to Husband Mark’s chagrin – you will witness a series of essays complaining about how the gay community has stolen the rainbow from God.
For example, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute wrote an essay back in December 2010 about how Christian activists like her and her organization are the “real rainbow coalition. The gay lobby does not own the rainbow!” She wrote that she usually wears a rainbow-colored scarf to public events where she was called to speak out against gay marriage and other LGBTQ-related rights in an attempt to reclaim the rainbow for Christianity.
The president of Answers in Genesis Ken Ham is also doing his best to take back the rainbow. You might be familiar with his Noah’s Ark theme park down in Kentucky. Starting back in June 2017, he wrote that “Christians need to take back the rainbow as we do at the Ark Encounter. God owns it. He decreed it’s a sign of his covenant with man after the Flood.” He then tweeted an image of the rainbow flag colors illuminated across the ark’s outer walls.
Which of course solicited a variety of snarky responses – because it’s Twitter and that’s what people do when one makes their Noah’s Ark theme park look like a “glorious gay cruise” ship.
More recently, Pastor E.W. Jackson preached against flying the rainbow flag during gay pride events at his church. “That’s an accursed thing. The rainbow was given to us by God as a sign that he would not destroy the earth by water again, and you’re going to appropriate that as pride in homosexuality? Are you kidding me? Talk about blasphemy. Talk about arrogance. Talk about boldness. Talk about shaking your fist in God’s face.”
Franklin Graham also recently spoke out against rainbow flags at Pride events, as well as those hung outside government buildings. “The gay pride flag is offensive to Christians and millions of people of other faiths, not only in this country but around the world.”
It’s easy to get caught up in the snarkiness of social media – particularly when one is dealing with Christian leaders who do their best to be cruel to LGBTQ people and families. But I found myself in a moment of contemplation during a real life “the rainbow has been stolen” moment.
Many years ago, I was given a rainbow fish bumper sticker – kind of a mix of Christian and gay imagery. Now I have this long-standing policy of not putting any bumper stickers on vehicles, but I didn’t want to toss it. So I took it to work and put it on one of my office bulletin boards.
It’s been there so long that I rarely even remember that it’s there. And occasionally someone will notice it. Usually that person is a gay person or the family member of a gay person who thinks that it’s cool that I have it there. Otherwise, nobody ever mentions it.
Until one day when someone else noticed it. She told me that she wished that she could have a rainbow fish bumper sticker, but she wouldn’t get one because she doesn’t want other people to mistake her for a lesbian. She then expressed dismay that gay people have stolen and ruined an otherwise good Christian symbol.
I shrugged sympathetically and then moved on to other sources of conversation. But I couldn’t help wondering deep down inside why she thought that anyone could own or steal the rainbow.
Of course, it’s not really the rainbow that she’s upset about, but a symbol of her faith. And have no doubt that it is a symbol of the Christian faith.
One of my favorite childhood stories from the Bible was the story of Noah’s Ark. Most of us know the story. God was unhappy with mankind’s wickedness. So he charged Noah and his family with creating a giant boat to protect them from a great flood that would soon be unleashed upon the planet. After the ark was completed, representatives from every animal species marched two-by-two into the mighty boat. And then came the rains and everyone was saved and humanity was given a second chance at getting things right.
It’s not until you get into your more formative teenage years that you realize the pure horror that faced all of the rest of humanity and pretty much every other living thing as they found themselves collectively washed away and sent into oblivion. That’s when the story loses a bit of its charm.
But after the flood, God blessed Noah and his family and assured them that he would never create another worldwide flood. And he created the rainbow to symbolize that promise to mankind, which would remain a visible reminder to both God and to mankind that the rains would always end eventually.
There’s some further symbolism to the rainbow that I sometimes like to ponder. The rainbow itself is light – seven colors of light that reflect off of the rain into bands of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet – and always in the same order. One could argue that God himself became a rainbow when he came to live among us as Jesus Christ. Christ himself proclaimed “I am the light of the world.” And he is the embodiment of another promise made to mankind through his ultimate sacrifice on the cross.
So… I understand why many within the Christian community – most of who find the inclusion of LGBTQ people and our families to be antithetical to their faith – object to the use of the Rainbow Flag as a symbol of gay pride.
Of course, there’s no reason why the rainbow cannot possess important meaning to both Christian and LGBTQ people. The gays no more stole the rainbow from the Christians than grieving pet owners have stolen the concept of the Rainbow Bridge from ancient Norwegians.
Thinking back to that woman who once sat in my office mourning the rainbow’s theft, I can’t help but think that if she really wants a rainbow fish bumper sticker then she should get herself a rainbow fish bumper sticker! Life’s too short. Don’t let others’ questioning assumptions deter you. Give that rainbow fish bumper sticker your own meaning!
If nothing else, she might start a new trend a few months from now where gay people start harping that the Christians have stolen their rainbow fish bumper stickers. And everything will come full circle…Amen!