Sermons from St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Atlanta
Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Jun 21, 2026 · 0 min · 7 segments
- Speakers
- Sermon Preacher, St. Luke's EpiscopalHost
Sermons from St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Atlanta
Jun 21, 2026 · 0 min · 7 segments
And so to honor the spirit of Pride, I want to start off by sharing a story from gay history with you.
And just as a heads up, the story recounts memories of the AIDS crisis in the US, which I know has touched many lives in this parish.
In the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the US, fear was everywhere.
People, mostly men, mostly vibrant, young gay men, were becoming horrifically ill with terrifying speed.
And many were dying.
They were dying lonely, painful deaths.
Stigma shaped the response to the epidemic and to those people most affected.
Hospitals and clinics refused to care for people with AIDS.
Employers fired them.
Landlords evicted them.
Families abandoned them.
And religious leaders proclaimed the disease to be their divine punishment.
Fear in that time did what fear intends to do.
It isolated people when they most needed care.
And the people who stayed close enough to offer care or friendship did so at great personal risk, not to their own health, but for their professional standing and their social status.
In the middle of all of the fear about transmission and treatment, blood became central to the conversation around AIDS, both the danger it represented and the life it could sustain.
This ban caused a critical shortage in blood available for transfusions across the country.
something, it turns out, many people living with AIDS frequently need.
Blood had become freighted with danger and suspicion, leaving those in desperate need to go without.
And so to honor the spirit of Pride, I want to start off by sharing a story from gay history with you.
And just as a heads up, the story recounts memories of the AIDS crisis in the US, which I know has touched many lives in this parish.
In the early days of the AIDS epidemic in the US, fear was everywhere.
People, mostly men, mostly vibrant, young gay men, were becoming horrifically ill with terrifying speed.
And many were dying.
They were dying lonely, painful deaths.
Stigma shaped the response to the epidemic and to those people most affected.
Hospitals and clinics refused to care for people with AIDS.
Employers fired them.
Landlords evicted them.
Families abandoned them.
And religious leaders proclaimed the disease to be their divine punishment.
Fear in that time did what fear intends to do.
It isolated people when they most needed care.
And the people who stayed close enough to offer care or friendship did so at great personal risk, not to their own health, but for their professional standing and their social status.
In the middle of all of the fear about transmission and treatment, blood became central to the conversation around AIDS, both the danger it represented and the life it could sustain.
This ban caused a critical shortage in blood available for transfusions across the country.
something, it turns out, many people living with AIDS frequently need.
Blood had become freighted with danger and suspicion, leaving those in desperate need to go without.
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