by Michael Hampson, a published author devoting his early-retirement from parish ministry to producing practical resources for busy clergy and lay-led congregations, beginning with the weekly lectionary resource ssra.uk
Last week, at Pride, my heart was transformed by undeserved grace. And on this occasion, it wasn’t from God, or fellow Christians, or the church. But it relieved the shame of decades and transformed my heart.
Until last year, I hadn’t been to Pride since the 1990s. Back then, there were probably fewer than half a dozen in the entire country. I would be at London’s. It was mostly a protest march of angry men, with almost as many police as marchers. The march would be funnelled into a fenced-off field or park, where the stalls would all be campaign groups, and AIDS charities desperately trying to save men’s lives.
Then last year, after a gap of a quarter century, I followed a small group down the hill after church to join the Lancaster Pride Parade, and I laughed with delight, as the contrast was almost unbelievable. There were all ages present, from babes in arms and pushchairs, to toddlers and children of all ages, to students and young adults, parents, and adults right across the age-range, and generally more women than men. Everything was joy: rainbow party and celebration. And the tallest presence in the parade was a fifteen-foot tall Big Jesus in a rainbow sash, surrounded by Christians at Pride with handmade placards announcing the names of Inclusive Churches and My God Loves Everyone in rainbow colours.
The only police were managing traffic, to let the parade go past.
The parade concluded in the historic town square, under Queen Victoria, where there were funfair rides, and food stalls, and musicians and poets and speeches – including a Christian minister – and three thousand people mingled through the afternoon. The small band of Christians at Pride seemed to have a gazebo and a few leaflets with Big Jesus parked outside.
Another year takes us to last week. I had made contact with Lancaster Christians at Pride, which turns out to be a completely ad hoc group that has a couple of planning meetings and a bit of a scramble by email in the few weeks before Pride, to coordinate the superb work of some heroic individuals to produce what has become – over several years – an increasingly significant presence.
As the parade concluded, and an afternoon’s duty on the stall lay ahead, I braced myself for an afternoon of well-deserved anti-Christian hostility from the LGBTQ+ crowd. I wasn’t expecting blatant abuse, but I was certainly expecting hostile stares, cold shoulders and dismissive looks – the hints of a well-earned low-level background contempt, after all that we know the churches have hurled at this community over the last forty years and more.
What followed, across the next several hours, was a genuinely transformative experience of undeserved grace; not (on this occasion) from God, or fellow Christians, or the church, but from the LGBTQ+ community, gathered for Lancaster Pride. They approached Big Jesus and the Prayer Tree and our Christians at Pride gazebo with nothing but utterly undeserved warmth and grace. It was utterly disarming.
They came for selfies with Big Jesus. They came to hang prayers for the world, and for loved ones. They came to hang heartfelt longings, which are the same as prayers; and wise hard-learned life-lessons, summarised in a few words, which are surely proverbs; and perhaps most movingly, in memoriams to loved ones, which held who-knows-what life-stories, in a moment of profound reflection, at this little holy shrine, on this big pounding party-day.
I was braced for the shame of being Christian in the LGBTQ+ community – for the church absolutely deserves the hatred of that community for all that it has done, and continues to do. And all that I experienced yesterday from that community was undeserved grace. That undeserved grace relieved the shame of decades, and transformed my heart. That little holy shrine became a grace exchange. They brought in grace, and soon I had grace to share. I listened as people told their stories. I coaxed the cautious with gifts, which had seemed so pointless earlier in the day: “Everything is free! Free cake! Free prayers! The rainbow crosses were made here in Lancaster by the needleworkers at the Priory!” Suddenly everything made sense – in the light of grace received, grace upon grace. We had built a holy shrine in the city square, and the people brought in their gifts of holy grace to share.
Some people only go to church once a year. This was our little holy shrine in the middle of Pride – their once-a-year church – and the prayers and the occasional conversations were profound. We’ll build it again next year. The rest of the church may still be squabbling, an unholy wreck, somewhere off-stage. But God is love and grace, active and fully alive amongst the ordinary people.
