Sermon Blog

This is our fourth week to talk about Words.   More specifically, it is our fourth week of talking about God’s Ten Words for Community Design.   We more commonly call them the Ten Commandments.   In these commandments, in these words, we find not a restrictive set of rules to be followed like a teacher might post in the classroom, but words of guidance to help us live in the magnificent community of which God invites us to be a part. God’s First Word: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you hall have no other gods before me,” reminded us that: 1) This is God’s community, not ours, it was designed and is about God, not us, 2) We are important because God has loved us enough to invite us to be a part of the community, 3) This is not a compulsory community, God has blessed us with free will and we can choose to be part of it or not, and 4) If we choose to be part of this community, God must be first, before everything else.  

A man is being tailgated by a stressed-out woman on a busy boulevard. Suddenly the light turns yellow just in front of him. He does the right thing and stops at the crosswalk, even though he could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection. The tailgating woman hits the roof, and the horn, screaming in frustration as she misses her chance to get through the intersection with him. As she is still in mid-rant, she hears a tap on her window and looks up into the face of a very serious police officer. The officer orders her to exit her car with her hands up. He takes her to the police station where she is searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell. After a couple of hours, a policeman approaches the cell and opens the door. She is escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer is waiting with her personal effects. He says, "I'm very sorry for this mistake. You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your hor

A man was walking along the beach and found a bottle.   He looked around and didn’t see anyone so he opened the bottle. A genie appeared and thanked the man for letting him out.   The genie said, "I am so grateful to get out of that bottle that I will grant you one wish.   I can only grant one." The man thought for a while and finally said, “I have always wanted to go to Hawaii I've never been able to go because I can't fly.   Airplanes are much too frightening for me.   On a boat, I see all that water and I become very claustrophobic.   So I wish for a road to be built from here to Hawaii.” The Genie thought for a moment and finally said "No I don't think I can do that.   Just think of all the work involved, consider all the pilings needed to hold up a highway and how deep they would have to go to reach the bottom of the ocean.   Imagine all the pavement needed.   No, that is just too much to ask." The man thought for a moment and then told the genie,