Service on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seeyouonsunday/videos/413370458354757   and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XudDU87Bs_g

In 1993, Steve Pate man had risen through the ranks of W J Brookes factory in Northamptonshire, England. He was a fourth generation shoemaker, but at that time, the market for brogues, which are not the same as oxfords, had declined. Steve cut the workforce from 70 to 21 and they were still facing closing the factory. It was then Steve got a call from a shop that specialized in sales to drag queens. men who dress as women to perform asking if they could make shoes, boots, for were full sized men. And for some years, the factory was saved. When it did close, it was due to what you’d expect, cheap knockoffs made the Aria expensive one seem excessive

While the store did not continue, the story & legacy did. In 2005, Kinky Boots the movie was released. It was a story with visuals and ideas primed for a musical. Director Jerry Mitchell called star of Stage & Screen Harvey Fierstein who called the  legend Cyndi Lauper and the Musical Kinky Boots began. The show opened in 2012 in Chicago and moved to Broadway in 2013. Among its Tony’s that year were Best Score for Cyndi Lauper, the first solo woman to win.

Kinky Boots tells a similar story to Steve’s, just with more drama and songs! Charlie Price is raised to believe work at and take over the family shoe business. Price & Son. Charlie, grown by the end of the first song,wants to leave his small town and not be part of the family business. But just as he moves to London with his fiancé to start a new life in London, his father dies, leaving Charlie in charge of Price & Son, all its unsold shoes, the staff who are like family, and debt.

When selling the overstock shoes in London, Charlie is saved from a mugging by Lola, a drag performer who breaks her heel to her boot in the process. Charlie has a revelation–he can save the company and the jobs of the folks he grew up with if he makes women’s shoes for women who are really men.

Relationships are made, developed, and grow: Assumptions are challenged. There’s a boxing match Lola should have won but threw for the benefit of the person at the factory too manly to treat Lola like a person. Still, connection is found when the characters are willing to be honest, talk about their childhoods and fathers, to accept themselves, their callings, others.

Our next song is about those relationships and Charlie and Lola realized they weren’t that different: they both lived in the shadow of their true selves not being who their father’s hoped they would be.

 

Reflection

In The House on the cerulean Sea, we meet Linus, a quiet man living a droll life, in an underpaid and underappreciated job making sure the orphanages for magical kids are following rules & are up to code. Linus loves rules. He spends a month at one orphanage filled with misfit kids and their committed and unusual caretaker; Arthur.

Over the course of the month, Linus grows protective and affectionate toward the children & Arthur. Linus finds a community he returns to, a family to belong to.

One of the things about the early church is that it did, at least according to the stories, divided families. The stories that were often passed down were ones about Paul and women. Remember we’re talking about Paul so nothing  sexual. In fact, that was often the problem! Marriages were arranged by young women’s fathers and the women weren’t interested. they found meaning in what Paul was preaching. They would run away to follow Paul, away from their families as they were called into the community.

Jesus, as the first thing he did, he gathered a community-men and women, older and married, young and unattached, and any and every combination into this new community. What would become the church, what grew as the Church, was a radical diverse community of human messiness: all ages, all statuses. all incomes, all capabilities, all genders. all people, all equal, all a place, all belong, all family doing what families do together–learning, struggling, growing, doing all of life together every day.

Something special was happening in this new church. Families, chosen families were being formed, united by three spirits under the God who calls us beloved children and adopts us one family

Have you ever really thought about that? How amazing it is to be named a child of God, to be chosen by God, adopted, part of God’s family, around the dinner table, part of the inheritance of love.

Have you ever really considered what that means for you? you, just who you are, are beloved. And so is your neighbor, and every stranger. Before we leave here, that is amazing. That is overwhelming, sometimes it is too much, and sometimes it is unbelievable. If that is you, take a breath & imagine just for a moment it might be true. Just for a moment, pretend you believe it. Know you are loved by God, creator of the universe.

And if you are a beloved child of god, and your neighbor is a beloved Child of god, if we are all adopted into the inheritance of god’s love, we are family. You, me, our neighbor over there, the farmer in the field behind you, that person who annoys you, the aggressive driver who passed you earlier, the immigrant, the political leader, the gay couple, the drag queen, we are siblings, one family, learning and growing, struggling and doing life together, every day, just as each one of us is and knowing through the love of God and love of community we will be changed

That is the story and the good news of Kinky Boots: We can find family and community just as we are. But Charlie & Lola were changed–not at all Lola doesn’t stop being queer or living her full self, but that she find some healing in her past with her friendship with Charlie and Charlie is changed by being loved and by loving others and himself, more and more until all were welcomed, all were loved, all belonged, all family

In finding common ground, in being accepted and loved just as they are, they were changed and love grew.

Everyone you meet, and every one you don’t. every queer kid rejected by their church or family and every gay person who made it to old age.

every shoemaker and firefighter and teacher and nurse and patient and republican and democrat and Socialist and anarchist, every religion and non-religious, every and… and…and…  everyone belongs. Is family. is beloved.

You belong and we, this church family’s call is to let everyone know that they belong: they belong here (church), they belong here (in community), they belong here (heart), they belong here (in this world), they belong here (as they are).

  • How does knowing that there is nothing you can do to separate you from the love of God make you feel? That no matter what you do or fail to do, you belong to God?
    • Can you believe that? Really. Can you believe it? Because when you can believe and receive and embody the truth that nothing you can do will separate you from the love of God. It changes everything.
  • When have you felt like you belong somewhere? Or here?
  • How can we help others feel like they belong: Here? in the world? in community?
  • How does knowing that there is nothing you can do to separate you from the love of God make you feel? That no matter what you do or fail to do, you belong to God?
    • Can you believe that? Really. Can you believe it? Because when you can believe and receive and embody the truth that nothing you can do will separate you from the love of God. It changes everything.
  • When have you felt like you belong somewhere? Or here?
  • How can we help others feel like they belong: Here? in the world? in community?