One of the reasons I believe in the resurrection of Christ is because Tom Perry is preaching this Sunday at GSLC while I’m out of town. Tom the year of our church split (over same-gender marriage) was actually the person who made a motion to rescind my call as pastor at GSLC. I truly believe he was acting as best he could in defense of his close friends in the parish. Meanwhile, I was trying as best I could to serve faithfully as pastor of the congregation while remaining entirely in solidarity with the queer community.
Since that time, we’ve slowly but surely reconciled. We didn’t do a fancy reconciliation process. Tom just started attending again with a homebound parishioner he would bring, then we would talk after church sometimes and catch up, and the truth is I just like the guy, and his values and faith align with us.
Tom is a lector now at church, and he often offers commentary on the lessons before reading them. He’s a thoughtful reader of scripture.
Anyway, when I asked our council president who she’d like to hear preach when I was out of town to Tennessee for the marching band trip, she said Tom, so I asked him, and he said yes, and I feel like if there’s power in the gospel this would be one example of that power, the ministry of reconciliation.
I share this story publicly with Tom’s agreement and blessing. In fact after I showed it to him we got together and talked more intentionally than we had, which was good. There is indeed life after conflict.