Sermons & Pastoral Resources

Liturgy Planning Report

The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd
Berkeley, California

Changing the Pronouns is Not Enough: Doing our Theological and Congregational Homework for Same-Sex Blessings

The understandable urgency to secure our freedom to marry in American society frequently spills over into an equally urgent desire to have our relationships blessed in our communities of faith. Before rushing too quickly down that liturgical road, however, we would do well to reflect on exactly what it is we wish to bless, what it means to bless something, and whether our liturgical resources are actually adequate to the task we want to accomplish. Simply to change the pronouns in already existing liturgical rites for weddings risks missing an important opportunity for everyone in committed relationships—straight, lesbian or gay—to reflect on the religious and spiritual meaning of our relationships and how we wish such meaning to be expressed in our faith communities.

This is precisely the kind of work a small mission congregation of the Episcopal Church undertook more than ten years ago at the request of its bishop. The Church of the Good Shepherd in Berkeley, California had been urging the bishop for some time to take some action on the issue of approving the blessing of same-sex couples with a liturgical rite. In response, the bishop turned to the congregation and requested they do some sustained theological reflection on the meaning of blessing relationships, of any kind, in church, what we hoped to achieve in doing so and what such a blessing might look like based on all that reflection. Just changing the pronouns in the existing right was not enough.

The congregation at Good Shepherd engaged in a year-long study of the issues raised by the bishop and, at the end, produced both a report and a liturgy for the blessing of a relationship. We offer the report here, together with the liturgical rite, not for the purposes of simply using the liturgy, but for encouraging other communities of faith to engage in a similar process of theological and spiritual reflection on these important questions. Indeed, some of the married straight couples at Good Shepherd remarked on how much they wish they had done this kind of reflection before getting married—if they had, they wouldn't have used the liturgical rite in the Prayer Book!

Special thanks to the Church of the Good Shepherd in Berkeley, California, the Rev Kathleen Van Sickle, the congregation's administrator, and to the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth J. Smith, the primary author of the report and shaper of the liturgical rite.

Liturgy Planning Report from The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, Berkeley, CA [PDF Format]

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