Delivered at Ascension Episcopal Church, Hinton, West Virginia, on Easter V (May 3, 2015).
At the time this sermon was prepared, the US Supreme Court had heard oral arguments with respect to “gay marriage.” The court is expected to rule later this summer, and may (or may not) extend the civil marriage laws to include all people, not just “one man and one woman.”
The Episcopal Church has long since come to the realization that it is appropriate for the church to bless the faithful union of loving couples, but it has not been an easy path to follow, and some members of the church remain in conflict on this issue. I think it is time we all put away those conflicts and got on with the mission of doing God’s work here and now without continuing angst. My thinking has been informed by personal experience as well as the writing of Fr. Tobias Stanislas Haller, an Episcopal priest in the Diocese of New York. His book Reasonable and Holy: Engaging Same-Sexuality was given to all attending clergy in the Diocese of West Virginia when Tobias spoke to us some years ago.
Further information on that work is at http://reasonableandholy.blogspot.com/ .
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