Homily, A Welcoming Christian Community
The Sixteenth Sunday after the Pentecost, Proper 19A (2026)
St. Peter’s Episcopal Church
Plant City, FL
The Rev. Derek M Larson, TSSF
Today’s Lectionary Readings:
Genesis 50:15-21
Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35
In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Have you see this photo before?
Eleven years ago the internet was taken by storm with a passionate debate, not about politics, not about religion but about the color of this dress. Do you remember that?
On one side of the debate were those who were absolutely convinced the dress was blue and black. On the other side were those who were equally convinced the dress was white and gold. Which side are you on?
It has always been amazing to me, how two people can hear or see the same thing and come to vastly different interpretations of it.
And it’s one of the reasons why I love communal Bible study. When we gather around a table, as we do here at St. Peter’s on Wednesday mornings, and read Scripture together, the pages came to life in surprising and incredible ways. As one person shares how they read it, and another offers their perspective. And where you thought there was one obvious meaning, suddenly your ears are opened to the passage a new way, and you grow from it. You learn. You hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. And it turns out those different perspectives are delightfully life-giving.
Except when they aren’t. While sometimes hearing someone else’s perspective is enlightening, sometimes it’s disturbing. Sometimes its confusing. Sometimes we hear something with which we don’t agree, or something that goes against what we believe about God and God’s will for humanity. And then what do we do?
That’s exactly the scenario we encounter in St. Paul’s letter to the Romans today. The Church was still young. But as it rapidly grew to include people of different backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives, it’s theological diversity also grew. And disagreements arose.
And so in today’s passage from Romans, St. Paul highlights two of these disagreements, one having to do with food, and one having to do with holy days.
Now from our perspective, looking back, these don’t seem like particularly pressing concerns, but for the early church, these were seismic concerns that had the potential to break apart an entire church community.
The one about food, for example, was not simply a question of personal diet, but about tradition and the role of Scripture.
Having been birthed from Judaism, the early Christian communities were deeply influenced by the Hebrew Scriptures, which included long sections about the importance of eating kosher. Passages like Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. For many of those Christians, eating kosher was a clear biblical mandate that had been instilled in them from childhood. And in Rome—a predominantly non-Jewish community, it was difficult to eat kosher, because much of the meat found in the marketplace had actually been sacrificed to idols and false gods, and so some Christians, understandably, refused to eat meat.
But other Christians read Scripture a different way. They may not have been Jewish, and perhaps they didn’t grow up eating kosher, and when they became Christians they experienced the grace of Christ and the movement of the Holy Spirit attached not to the ancient laws of Israel but God’s eternal law of love. They felt God doing a new thing among them and they were not so concerned about eating a specific way.
You can imagine, then, the tension at the table of those early Christian communities between the conservatives who wanted to keep up the traditional reading of Scripture which clearly told them to eat kosher and the progressives, who believed the Spirit of the law was more important than the letter of the law and that God was doing a new thing among them.
You can imagine the tension when some of those early Christians showed up to the potluck with meat purchased in the marketplace. You can imagine the conversation. “Did you see what he brought? How could a Bible-reading Christian eat that?” Or another “Can you believe they won’t eat meat? Are they stuck in the past? Do they not trust in the grace and love of Christ?”
And so Paul writes to the Romans and essentially says to them, “Don’t judge the heart and actions of your siblings in Christ on this, for they are simply following their conscience. There is room at the table for us all.” In chapter 15, verse 7 he writes, “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
St. Paul is saying in this passage that it’s okay if we have come to different theological understandings than our neighbor, as long as we stay committed to one another in Christ. We don’t have to agree on everything to be in relationship with our neighbor.
Now that’s a powerful lesson, and one that speaks directly to us today! In a world that is so divided on so many things, that’s a lesson that could change the world. And that’s one of the reasons why I love the motto of the Episcopal Church, “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You”. And why I love the mission statement of St. Peter’s, “We are a welcoming Christian community.” Because both of these phrases capture the heart of what Paul is saying here to the Romans. We will never agree on everything, but by golly that won’t stop us from loving one another and loving God together.
As a popular teaching goes, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
In other words, there are things we have to agree on as Christians. The love of Christ. The Incarnation. The Creeds. But there are other things that we do not have to agree on as Christians. But whatever we agree or disagree on, we are always called to practice love. “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
Here at St. Peter’s we are a richly, theologically diverse place. We have members that come from Roman Catholicism, the Southern Baptist Convention, and everywhere in between. We have members who are proudly conservative and and members who are proudly liberal. And what binds us all together is not that we agree on everything, but that we prayerfully join together in our love of God and one another. We welcome one another, because we have all been welcomed by Christ.
That is not always easy. And we have not always done it well. But it is something that we ever strive for. Because we belong to one another. We are Christians together. We are a community.
This month all of my homilies will be about that. How we walk together as a community side by side. Last week was about conflict. This week, disagreement. Next week, commitment. And finally, the last week, one of the most important tools of a parish, humility.
But it all goes back to the love of Christ who welcomes us into his life and who calls us to welcome one another. We may not all read the Bible the same exact way. And we may not all agree on the color of a dress. But we, at St. Peter’s, are a welcoming Christian community. May it be so in every aspect of our shared lives together. Amen.
Questions for Reflection
- In what areas of my life do I struggle to accept differing opinions or perspectives on matters of faith and belief? How might I practice openness in these situations?
- How can I actively work towards creating a more welcoming environment in my community that embraces theological diversity?
- Reflect on a time when a disagreement with another Christian challenged my understanding of faith. What did I learn from that experience, and how did it shape my relationship with that person?
- How can I embody the motto, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity” in my daily interactions with others?
