Pride Month is underway, and we have some great services planned that dovetail with the intersection of LGBT pride and other liberation movements and also underscore what our United Church of Christ distinctive identity means. We will commemorate two significant events that took place this week in the past few years:
* the killing of 9 Black people by a young white supremacist in Emanuel AME Church in Charleston on June 17, 2015 during a Bible study, and
* the shooting death of 49 people on June 12, 2016 at Pulse, a gay club in Orlando.
Last Friday, a California judge ruled that assault rifles cannot be banned in our state (the place with the largest number of mass shootings of any state over the last 20 years) because he said these weapons are no worse than “Swiss army knives.” That prompted a lot of coverage for our modest anti-gun violence vigil at the Leo J. Ryan Park Amphitheatre in downtown Foster City last Saturday, though we had planned it a week previously in response to the VTA shootings in San Jose. Our church was a principal organizer, and it gave us an opportunity to testify to our values. I especially want to thank both Ed Grohe and Alexis Lewis for making this possible. With pride comes the necessity to make connections and to stand in solidarity as part of our spiritual lives.
Join us this Sunday as we look at Jesus’s words in Mark 4:26-34, which could have been written directly to us as we move toward gathering in person again and the re-invention of our church.
Hope to see you,
Rev. Jim Mitulski
P.S. Join us for prayer and check-in time tonight and every Thursday at 7 pm. We will likely continue this on Zoom even when we return to in-person Sunday worship.
