Can We Welcome?
This is the sermon I am preaching Sunday at St. Timothy Lutheran Church . We will continue our drive-in service and simultaneously have our first indoor, in-person worship since early March. The text is Romans 14:1-12. We are finally back inside our sanctuary and yet...worship is different. Not only do the COVID rules alter our worship, but we are physically separated. Many of us are still worshipping outdoors in our cars or listening on the radio. In a real, tangible way we are divided, physically that is, which brings us to the churches in Rome to whom Paul wrote. The churches had trouble: division, quarreling, looking down upon others for what they did/did not eat and the holy days some observed/did not observe. Meat consumed in urban areas had been sacrificially offered to the Roman gods. Regarding various days being observed, several calendars included the keeping of Jewish holy days and Roman pagan festivals. Paul does not dictate solutions to these debates, but rather pr