The following comments were made by Pastor Jeff Wilson at the beginning of worship services on Sunday, June 27, 2015.
Today we gather for worship after a deeply emotional week.
This is the second time in as many weeks that I felt I must address issues that affect us.
This has been a week in which we saw further terrorist attacks in France, Tunisia, and Kuwait.
A week in which we saw the Supreme Court of the United States uphold the Affordable Care Act, which has deeply divided many Americans along political, ideological, and economic lines.
A week in which we saw the Supreme Court reverse an appellate court’s ruling, thus making it legal in all 50 states for gay and lesbian people to marry. Again, this issue has divided many in our nation. For that matter, it has divided many in our congregation.
This has been a week lived in the shadow of the killings in Charleston as we began to bury those slain at Emanuel AME on June 17.
It leaves many to wonder just what is happening to our United States of America.
There are those who wonder why we have to have something like the Affordable Care Act … that it is too expensive … that it is too complicated … that it is yet another government intervention into the private lives of individuals and an imposition on businesses, especially small businesses.
There are also those who acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act is not perfect, but it is at least an attempt to provide care for the poor.
There are those who wonder how the United States can condone the union of gay and lesbian people under the institution of marriage. They cite Genesis, the prohibitions in the Bible, and that homosexuality is considered abhorrent to God.
There are those who rejoice today because this ruling that allows gay and lesbian people to live together and their married heterosexual peers do. People of faith who favor same-sex marriage also reference the Bible.
Good, intelligent, well-meaning, faithful people come out on both sides of these issues.
In the end, we can’t legislate morality.
In the end, we are called to live together in spite of our differences as sisters and brothers – fellow members of the body of Christ.
So, as we talk with one another, let us listen more often than we speak. Let our speech not be that of derision towards those who see things differently. Let us be respectful and loving. Let us be a people united in Christ, bathed in the waters of Holy Baptism, and profoundly thankful for God’s gift of grace that covers us all.
Epicurious Lutheran 