"Pride: Fervent Prayer and Dinner-Kissing" - Sermon for 3rd Sunday after Pentecost, 6-14-26

† The comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory told a story about a time he was eating in a diner. His chicken dinner was in front of him. Some men sauntered up to him and one of them said, “Sir” (they didn’t call him ‘sir’) “whatever you do to that chicken, we are going to do to you.” Gregory sat there for a moment. “Something wrong with your hearing, sir?” (they didn’t call him ‘sir’) “I said, ‘Whatever you do to that chicken, we are going to do to you.’” Gregory held the edges of his dinner plate, raised it from the table, bent his head, and kissed the chicken.

I still remember this story from when I read it as a kid. How a paperback by Dick Gregory ended up on a bookshelf in my childhood home in very rural, very white western Michigan, remains a mystery.

Whatever will have been done to me, Jesus told his apostles, they will do to you as well. Jesus was handed over to the council, and dragged before Governor Pontius Pilate and King Herod. Jesus was flogged. And Jesus was betrayed by one friend, and denied by another.

Tradition holds that, indeed, the apostles, almost to a person, fell to the fate that Jesus predicted. But they endured to the end and they were saved.

The apostle Paul wasn’t among their number when Jesus spoke. Rather, Paul – then known as Saul – was one of the tormentors of Jesus’s followers. But Paul, on his journey of conversion, came to know the crucified and risen Christ, and suffered as he and the first apostles did.  Paul knew this as well as any of them, and therefore could write confidently, that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope – grounded in God’s love – hope does not disappoint us.

Many of the recognized saints of the Church lived and died within this Christ-like and Pauline pattern. There are so many stories. Stories of the martyrs who died rather than deny Jesus. Stories of the misunderstood mystics and monks who were hounded and harried for their practices. Stories of the reformers and the prophets who challenged and changed the Church. We are in their debt.

But is not only within the history of the Church that we have so many stories to remember and share. Our nation’s history – let alone the world’s – is filled with stories of people who inspire us still today by their courage. I opened with one: The Gregorian Cant of the quick-witted comedian who kissed his dinner to make a point about the evils of racism, yes, but also to point out its absurd foolishness.

June, of course, is the month when Pride is most pronounced. It recalls and celebrates the significance of the New York City Stonewall Rebellion in June, 1969, and the Compton Cafeteria Rebellion in our own city three years before, where queer people rose up and said “Enough!” Enough of being hounded and harassed. Enough of being shamed and shunned. Enough of being bashed and beaten and killed by the government and its police-protectors; by religious adherents – both the timid tsk-tskers and the fundamentally cruel; and by ordinary citizens who found license to hate by what they saw their leaders do. Many of the early leaders in the Pride movement of queer liberation paid a heavy price – as Jesus suggested they would – and we are in their debt as we remember the stories of their suffering and endurance and character and hope.

Perhaps you were active in this civil rights movement, or one of the many other civil rights movements of days and decades past, movements sadly, but of necessity, still with us. I need you to know that you are on the front lines of many of these movements, right now.

When you pray, faithfully and fervently, for anyone’s civil rights, you most assuredly are an activist on the front line. “As you prepare to march,” Dr. King said, “meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus.” Prayer is the necessary first action, the sine qua non, the without-which-not for Christian activists. Don’t let yourself think that prayer is something that is less-than, a self-pitying shoulder-shrug of “all that I can do.” And don’t let anybody tell you that by “only praying” you are not interested and invested in the hard work of the civil rights movements. Not everyone can march. Not everyone can protest. Not everyone can go to jail. Perhaps you can; perhaps not. But remember this: Not everyone on the front lines will pray. But you, O Christian, you certainly can, and pray you must – as you prepare to march, whether on your feet or in your heart.

Perhaps, if you plan to participate in this year’s Pride march, you will come to the early Mass to meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus, and to consume his life-giving Body and Blood. And if you meet up with other Episcopalians on-site, at the start make your first step a fervent prayer. Become part of this movement’s Christ-driven, Christ-led center.

There are other pressing Christ-centered movements. One movement is for the protection of endangered immigrants and refugees. Another movement is for the health and safety of at-risk Trans folk. Yet another movement is for the dignity and visibility of people living on the streets who get swept up and tossed aside like so much garbage. I’m sure you can think of still other urgent needs, each of which demands something of you. These demands are high, their costs clear.

Jesus – who lived and died for us to redeem all of creation – Jesus warns us of the fate which will befall the faithful who rise and risk on behalf of his gospel-good-news of the advent and eventual victory of the beloved community of the Kingdom of God. Sheep in the midst of wolves we find ourselves; wise as serpents and innocent as doves we must become. We are laborers in a time of an abundant harvest. It is back-breaking work. But it is not spirit-breaking.

Don’t lose hope. And remember this: When we are faithful to the gospel, the Spirit of our Father remains on our side, still speaking through us. Christ, who died for us, still suffers and endures with us. By our endurance will we be saved. May all God’s people rise up and answer the Lord’s call today, as they once answered old Moses: “Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.” †

Father Daniel S.J. Scheid, SCP

Pentecost 3A, Proper 6 – June 14, 2026

All Saints’ Episcopal Church, San Francisco

“Pride: Fervent Prayer and Dinner-Kissing”