Kurt Nelson, 04/26/10
John 21
This day marks the 4th Sunday of Easter.
A day also becoming know as “Earth Sunday”
And it’s also the beginning of LGBT Pride week at Dartmouth.
So it’s an exciting day for me.
And I am proud to be part of a community,
that can celebrate the resurrection, and the earth, and Pride all together,
though we probably don’t all agree on the convergence of Easter, and Pride, and Earth Day,
we are deep and broad enough to know that these things matter deeply.
And they matter together.
And we can talk about them together.
There’s a whole lot swimming around up here in my head.
A number of disparate ideas kind of shifting and moving.
And I hope that they’ll fall into some meaningful order for us.
but I’ve decided to provisionally title this sermon:
“It all makes sense in my head.”
Now it may not surprise most of you, that I would consider myself a liberal.
I am, after all, the kind of person who’s invited to preach,
during LGBT Pride Weeks, and on Earth Sundays.
And I suppose that, being honest with myself, I’m pretty happy about the label most of the time.
But be sure that mine is a distinctly Christian liberalism.
And there’s room for you there if you consider yourself a liberal.
Or if you don’t.
It’s a perspective, really, founded really in one word,
a word which is at the very center of my faith,
indeed at the very center of our Lutheran Church.
And I hope, of the Christian people as a whole…
and that word is “Grace.”
