I try to be as ecumenical as humanly possible. I really do. I came to my present denomination from a very, very different tradition, so I can appreciate all those folks who come to our doorstep who aren't 'cradle Presbyterians'. I really do.

And yet.

Some things just push my buttons.

There is a Baptist couple who worship at our church. American Baptist, they are. The wife is ordained in the ABC, the husband desperately wants to be ordained but lacks the education--he is a high school graduate with a few college courses here and there, but that's as far as he got. The wife has an M.Div. from a fairly well-known seminary in upstate New York.

She was hired during the years that St. Stoic was between pastors to run the Sunday School program. She also did some preaching in the summers, when there was no Sunday School.

They have a home church, which they rarely attend. They cannot become members of St. Stoic, due to polity reasons (she would lose her ordination), but they are warmly welcomed as friends.

The husband is...well...different. During worship he paces the rear of the sanctuary, praying. Oh, and he wears one of these while he paces. When asked about it, he remarks that it is just something very important to him, that was given to him as a gift on his wedding day. To repeat: he is Baptist. He is not Jewish. He is, in my opinion, something of a freak, in that sense that God loves all God's freaks.

Anyway, the wife is celebrating her 20th anniversary of ordination this Sunday. The husband has been strongly hinting that I should build my sermon around this celebration. I'm thinking that maybe their Baptist pastor should be doing that. I appreciate the milestone, and will certainly celebrate that during the 'joys and concerns' sharing time, since they have in some loopy way become part of the St. Stoic family, but my sermon? Nope.

Am I being hard-nosed about this?