God loves everyone

When I decided to move to Los Angeles one of the first things I vowed to do was find a church. And did I. One of the first things that caught my attention about Hollywood United Methodist Church last July (aside from the awesome building and awesome people) was that they were in the middle of a Crossflix sermon series, the pastors were preaching on different movies each Sunday of the summer. And when I visited that Sunday one of the movies scheduled to be preached on in a few weeks was Dogma by Kevin Smith.

I'm a huge Kevin Smith fan, which I know, might throw some of you for a loop. But I am. I remember back in college some friends went to see Dogma and when I asked them what it was about one girl said, "Religion but you wouldn't like it, they cuss a lot and there are lots of dirty jokes". And that intrigued me. I had a reputation for being a conservative Christian but in truth, I was just a Christian. The conservative assumption came from the belief by some in college that if I went to church ( I did, twice a week, and I was a youth group leader), I must be conservative.

But guess what? I'm not. And I now own Dogma and every other Kevin Smith movie pre-2009 (don't get me started on Zack and Miri Make a Porno, that's a whole other blog, the movie just wasn't that funny....). And when I saw that they were going to do a sermon on a Kevin Smith movie I vowed to be back in Los Angeles in time to hear it. And I was. And it was pretty cool.

But today was even cooler. We've had some great sermons in this summer's Crossflix series but today's was on Milk and I knew it would be intense given our church's activism. And when we snuck in late and sat behind our friend Pauley I wondered what was up. She seemed really excited about something. And then she whispered, "That's Dustin Lance Black" and pointed down the pew. Yep, the man who won an Oscar in January for best original screenplay of the movie Milk was sitting not five feet from me. So cool. And then I got to introduce myself and shake his hand.

Pauley had gotten word to him about the sermon and he showed up. She was shocked because she doesn't know him personally and because she was participating in the sermon, talking about his Oscar acceptance speech in which he announced to the whole world that God really does love everyone. Yeah. Pauley was excited. And so was I.

Dustin got a standing ovation after they showed a clip from his speech, and he was mobbed after church but as I stood back and watched it all I thought about the scripture Pauley had read:

Micah 6:8
"And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."

And I thought about how the spirit of that scripture was exactly what had brought me to Hollywood UMC, about how it had brought me back and kept me there, how it had showed me that God really does love everyone. He loves the television actress, he loves the Oscar-winning screenwriter, he loves the gay fathers and their little girl who walk into the sanctuary 15 minutes every single Sunday, he loves the homeless man who sat behind me and smelled so badly, he loves the crazy man who condems single mothers, he loves the drag queens and the ministers and the Kevin Smith fan. He loves us all. And I think that's pretty freaking cool.