<$MTGreetFacebookCom Luther rose colored glasses: October 2014 Archives

October 2014 Archives

Sermon delivered to St. Francis Lutheran Church
October 19, 2014 - Children's Sabbath (Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost)

"Children" - Text from Matthew 19:13-15 




Greetings to you, my family in Christ, sisters and brothers, saints and sinners, children of God.

I am approaching 48 years old, and of course, it is not "old" by many measures, as many members of my beloved St. Francis family will remind me when I complain about the toils that age has thus far been having on me. But it does seem to be a kind of milestone in my life. Way back in 1989, over half my life ago, I tested positive for HIV, which pretty much eliminated the question of passing on my DNA to later generations, for fear of passing on the virus as well, and so any time I ever thought about the desire to have children, I pretty much moved forward from that thought. But now, in 2014, I am still around and in better health than ever, and my virus has been undetectable for probably the last five years. But I'm going to be 48 soon, and my spouse is going to be 60. And so the prospect of bringing a newborn child into this world now is also the prospect of approaching 70 when that child is in the midst of college. It will be a time that I hope to be beginning retirement and at least joining my husband's golden years in life.

Sermon delivered to St. Frnacis Lutheran Church
October 12, 2014 - Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

"The Prickly Guest" - Text from Matthew 22:1-14 

 You should listen to the delivered sermon. The text is provided below for convenience, but as with any delivered sermon, I go off the text as the spirit leads me. 




Greetings to you, my family in Christ, sisters and brothers, saints and sinners, children of God.

wedding bowties.jpg

This week has been an impressive week for good news. I'm delighted to tell you, my Saint Francis family, that I have been recommended for a call to Emanuel Lutheran Church in Modesto. The call committee has presented its unanimous recommendation to the Church Council, who has approved it, and now it goes before the congregation itself. And while the significance of the fact that a pastor with a same-gender spouse would be called to an ELCA church in the central valley is not lost on me, part of my own identity is that I am a pastor who happens to have a same-gender spouse, and not a gay man first and a pastor second. Indeed, one of the wonderful things about the changes that have happened in our church in the years since the 2009 ELCA churchwide decision that my identity with regard to lifelong committed relationship with another human being is no longer the first consideration in whether or not I will be called as a minister of Jesus Christ in this church.

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This page is an archive of entries from October 2014 listed from newest to oldest.

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I *am* Cary Bass-Deschenes
Written by Cary Bass-Deschenes
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