Services every Sunday at 7:00 P.M.
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Services every Sunday at 7:00 P.M.
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"Celebrate Love" Ruth 1:16-17 I Cor. 13 2/12/06 Celebrate Love is the title of tonight's sermon. Love can come into our lives in many forms. Most of us are blessed with treasured friends. Those people who stand beside us no matter what. We have family or a family of choice whom we have chosen to share intimately in our life's journey. We have a spiritual community that we love very much… a group of people who know the importance of having God in their lives. Many of us have been or are in partnered relationships and some of us have chosen to have a holy union as a way of expressing our love and commitment for that person. Every person should have the right to marry the person of their choice under the laws of this country. As the pastor of our church I have performed hundreds of Holy Union ceremonies over the past 25 years. Our denomination last year around the world united over 4000 couples in Holy Union. A Holy Union, a wedding, a marriage is a sacred union for people who are committed to each other. Everyone should have the right to love the person they choose to love and to make that declaration know to others. The fight to have our relationships legalized is a social justice issue. No one in this country should be a second-class citizen. No government should have the right to tell some people they can get married and others they cannot. When we stand up for the rights of glbt people to make the choice to marry we stand up for the rights of all people. No one is free when others are oppressed. To stand up before our families, friends and family of choice and say to another I love you is a courageous and spiritual act of coming out. To proclaim to the world that as a glbt or straight person that our sexual expression is one of the sacred ways that we express the depth of our love in our relationships. In sacred union we see the face of the divine. The freedom to marry the person we choose is not a special right it is right that should be given to every person. The day will come when we all will have the choice to marry the person we want to marry under the laws of this country. Tonight we celebrate love… love that we have for our partners, our friends, our family, our family of choice, our spiritual community, and our God. As you go about your week look into the eyes of the people around you. See the beauty, the worth, the dignity, and the love that you have to offer our world. Love indeed does make a family. Never let anyone tell you that your love is not sacred. Our sexuality, our sexual expression is holy; is blessed. No one, not any church, not our government, not even those right winged Christians can stop us from loving one another. Let your light shine, let your love shine before others and hearts and minds will be changed. Keep on loving, keep on being the person you are created to be, keep on celebrating love. |
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