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My name is Whit Bodman. I teach comparative religion here at the seminary and it is my privilege to reintroduce lily and daniel. She's already been introduced once and has spoken once. So my task is to

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provide further interesting and revealing tidbits about her. She is, of course, as you know, senior pastor of the first congregational Church UCC in Glen Ellen , a few miles west of Chicago. A graduate

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of Yale Divinity school where she also taught preaching and has been honored with a distinguished alumna award. She married a laborer organizer who chose not to take her name and she has been um she has been involved

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in labour organizations and negotiations as well as recorded in her book with martin copan haven. This odd and wondrous calling. This drew on her own experiences of the labor struggles struggles at Yale. When she was

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a student, I can only imagine that their two Children were also organized to advocate for better allowances, living conditions and benefits beyond this, I had to poke around for more information. I learned that as

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a child she moved around a great deal living in seven countries Japan Thailand the Philippines, India Hong kong and the UK. Her father was a journalist covering , among other things to Vietnam War, which explains

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a lot her talent for writing and the broad palette of her experience and interests. But it also perplexes me. When she gave her first lecture yesterday, she announced that she was giving the Second Lecture 1st

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. And so you will hear the first lecture today and she claimed that she could do this because she was not presbyterian. We you see see folks can do what we want and do as ted Wardlaw knows

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quite well. But Lillian was at one time Anglican not water down episcopal, but really anglican subject of the see of Canterbury. So she has certainly come far from her roots as befits a writer with strong

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opinions who does not tolerate fools or the spiritual but not religious lightly. She has clear opinions about other things. And this is the subject of deep research among these opinions is most importantly about the stuff of

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life which is pizza. Some may think that Chicago has the best pizza and certainly she has experience of that the wiser know that new york pizza is far better. But we learned from her that truly the

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best pizza is of all places in New Haven where the mm where the laborers are organized. So perhaps her roots are stronger than I first believed at any rate. It is now time to hear other strong

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opinions and deep wisdom from the Lillian herself to which and to whom we now gratefully turn. Yeah, yeah. It's a was very moving to me this morning to listen to craig speak about the older brother

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and and then to hear reference to my father who was a journalist and passed away about five years ago . But um just some sort of a personal note when I was trying to figure out what I was

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going to do with my life, registering myself and the wonderful way that craig was describing, the way we think we're going to make these choices. I felt like I had a choice to make between following

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my father's footsteps and going into journalism and or going into the path of religion. And when I made my choice to go the route of religion, part of it was because um I didn't believe I could

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ever be a writer because he was a writer. And and it took me so many years in the ministry of writing articles and even a book before I realized I was a writer. Two. But those

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those shadows, those shadows are deep. Here are a few things that by now you already know that I am tired of. Part of the confusion here is that when I see the word lecture I just

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translated grant. So I'm tired of hearing people say stupid things in the name of Christianity. I am tired of nutty pistol packing pastors who announced that they want to burn the Koran. I am tired of

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televangelists who claimed that natural disasters are the will of God. I am tired of christians who respond to the pain of disease with a lecture about behavior. I am tired of preachers who promise prosperity. I

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am super tired of tim Tebow but as I've acknowledged it's not even his fault. I'm also tired of people who say that they are privately spiritual and not religious. I am tired of people who have had

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one bad experience with the church and then paint the whole of Christianity with that brush. I am tired of celebrities who criticized the church for being patriarchal and homophobic but then do nothing to support the churches that

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are not. I am super tired of anne rice . Mhm I'm tired of. People expect me to apologize for a church. I am not a member of. I am tired of people who say that

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they want a church just like mine But cannot be bothered to attend one. And I am tired of people who criticize churches like mine and go somewhere else instead. So I resonate with the angry words from

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letters to the early church that criticize shallow believers with itchy ears. I feel like I live in an american society where stupid and simple spirituality always trumps the depth of a complex faith. We are people of

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itchy ears who depart from sound doctrine in favor of easy answers, but perhaps in this long list of things that I am tired of, I'm really just tired of myself in criticizing others in their faith journey

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. I hardly live up to the best of my own faith. Perhaps the people who irritate me the most are exposing my own false doctrines and this is in the end why I cannot do this religion thing

00:08:05.490 - 00:08:20.950

all by myself. This is why I need a community. I need something and someone to remind me that it is not all about me and my own opinions in a culture that assures me quite the opposite

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. I live in a culture that assures me that it is all about me and my own opinions and I need you the body of christ to remind me of the limits of my own taste. The limits

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of taste In this. The year 2012 I live in a fast paced suburb of Chicago That pretends to be a simple, slow paced village from 1950. You may know this kind of place. We have

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a cute little old fashioned movie theater Where the seats have long since lost their springs, but people love to walk there and pay$1 less than you'd pay at the Cineplex. We have our little coffee shop

00:09:09.490 - 00:09:22.340

and pizza joint that the kids can ride their bikes too. We have beautiful parks at every turn. We have a big baseball parade down Main Street when the kids start their season. We have a homecoming

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parade for the teenagers. We even have a puppy parade at the dog park And we have a 4th of July parade that takes over our entire village and turns it into a 24 hour party. one of

00:09:39.070 - 00:09:54.240

the highlights of the July. The 4th parade is this african american tumbling troop of teenagers. It's the highlight of the parade they stop and they perform these gymnastics feats in a village that is not known for

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its racial diversity. The teenage tumblers come in annually from the city of Chicago, stopping by our town and many other towns that same day in what is an exhausting but great fundraising venture for this wonderful organization

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. Another highlight of four July parade is the Republican Party float. It is enormous, an enormous life size elephant made of paper mache a usually accompanied by our own home grown congressman who raised in the town

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that he returns to. Each 4th of July rides forth in a convertible triumphant waving. The Democratic Party makes a small showing of course. But given that I never recognize any of these people, I have

00:10:46.810 - 00:11:05.730

come to wonder if they like. The african American tumblers were also imported from somewhere else. For the parade on ordinary weekdays are Children walk to school accompanied by their mothers and some fathers too. Parents who

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walk a few steps behind to make sure that their Children are not viciously attacked by other well cared for Children. People refer to our town as Mayberry, some with irony, others without, but just miles

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out of America's third largest city, there is our little village, our tree lined streets with Children playing in the yards. Take you back to a simpler time when most kids could play pickup ball in each

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other's gardens and had bonfires on cool fall nights. We still do that in our town. We love our kids so much so that we put signs up about them in our front yards. Go hitters says

00:11:50.540 - 00:12:05.270

the sign that indicates that a high school football player lives within and not a badly behaved toddler as I initially suspected when I saw a sign advertising hitting, there are signs for all the sports, including cheerleading

00:12:05.350 - 00:12:15.300

, but lest you think it's all about the jocks , you can also put a sign up in your yard indicating that your little one is in the marching band or even a member of an elite, internationally

00:12:15.300 - 00:12:30.860

known Children's chorus. When I think of poor jesus showing up as a grown man in his own hometown to preach and getting such a terrible response. I wonder how he would have fared in my little village

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. Look at the flag waving homecoming we give to our Congressman every July the 4th look at the big signs that we put up in our yards for our kids, the bumper stickers that reveal that we are

00:12:43.480 - 00:12:58.460

the proud parents of an honor student. Our Children's college is proudly displayed on the back windows of our cars. See how we love our hometown boys and girls. Surely jesus would have fared far better in

00:12:58.460 - 00:13:16.440

glen, Ellen. But of course there is a great deal that those signs do not say not every attribute of our youth gets mentioned. I have yet to see any yard signs that point to certain more

00:13:16.450 - 00:13:37.840

popular teenage extracurricular activities. How about this sign? My kid spends a lot of time in the basement or this one compulsive television watcher, video game expert does not ever clean her room slacker. I want

00:13:37.840 - 00:13:56.570

to sign out in the yard that says, talks back to parents, fights with siblings. My son is a regular at detention underage drinker. Oh, come on. That's not fair to describe our kids

00:13:56.570 - 00:14:13.280

that way. That's not who they are really deeply underneath. You couldn't put a sign out saying that . Well, why do we put signs out about these other attributes them? What if we try to

00:14:13.280 - 00:14:26.920

get a little more honest and revealing with those yard signs a little more nuanced? We need much smaller print of course. Or much bigger signs to say something like my teenage daughter is a member of the

00:14:26.920 - 00:14:37.860

dance team, which I hope will pull her out of a click of shallow underachieving gossipers who I am convinced have brought her grades down. But sometimes I wonder if their parents think my daughter is the problem

00:14:39.740 - 00:14:54.730

. That would be a sign. I'd pull over to read. Or what if we just said inside this house lives A complicated kid with multiple interests whose life is far too fragile and complex to be described

00:14:54.740 - 00:15:11.430

by his membership in any one group. But if you really want to know more, his resume is posted on the family website. Visitors to our town always comment on the signs, but not just the

00:15:11.430 - 00:15:28.080

signs about the kids you see in our town, the adults put up signs as well. You're probably thinking political signs. And while there are some of those that's hardly unusual, know the signs that visitors

00:15:28.080 - 00:15:41.640

notice our our local issue signs. As soon as the residents of my town disagree with one another over any given issue. The signs in the yards go up in that way. We are much less like

00:15:41.650 - 00:15:56.720

the sleepy small town and much more like the busy , fast paced suburb. No, says the sign to lights at the high school. Yes, says the sign to lights at the high school. There's

00:15:56.720 - 00:16:12.640

a big debate about whether we should have lights put up at the football field because right now we are so oppressed that we cannot have night football games. And yet somehow our Children limp along. No delights

00:16:12.640 - 00:16:22.460

of the high school. Yes, delights of the high school becomes a shorthand debate. What it lacks in complexity. It gains uncertainty. Yes. To this. No. To that we know what we

00:16:22.460 - 00:16:37.070

think. We do not need to talk with each other. The signs say it all. It's a very efficient way to make your views known without ever having to hear anyone else's. I'm not saying that

00:16:37.070 - 00:16:49.820

people who put the signs up are not well informed and passionate because of course, usually it's those people who do put up the signs, but who are the signs meant to be read by? They're meant

00:16:49.820 - 00:17:02.500

to be read by people like me, the average person who really could go one way or the other and it's not particularly well informed or passionate and the idea of the sign seems to be that me as

00:17:02.500 - 00:17:11.380

the average person will drive by enough signs. And at the end of the day I'll say, well I really don't know whether they should put up lights of the high school or not, but I saw

00:17:11.380 - 00:17:23.300

more yes signs than no. And so the eyes have it and now that I finally know what I think, how do I make that known to the world? There used to be far fewer ways to

00:17:23.300 - 00:17:34.230

express one's opinion than there are today. Once you know your opinion on any given issue. Now there's a ready made sign for your yard. You don't have to make it yourself out of magic markers.

00:17:34.230 - 00:17:45.250

I mean that would, that would be tawdry no , you can get your own ready made sign or you can post your views on facebook or you can send it out through twitter or you can put it

00:17:45.250 - 00:17:59.360

on your blog. It's my opinion. I believe it, it happened to me or it happened to my kids and it is now worthy to be shared and I determine all that for myself. You're almost

00:17:59.370 - 00:18:14.150

under an obligation in this society to tell everybody what you think. Why don't you have a sign in your yard? Why can't we tell what activities your Children are participating in? Why don't you post on

00:18:14.150 - 00:18:33.160

facebook? Well, couldn't we just talk about those things? Why can't I respond to an email party invitation without being asked for my favorite movies to share with other guests? We are so quick to ask

00:18:33.160 - 00:18:48.970

one another to share information but equally quick to judge because in this tweeting world where every opinion can be shared, every child's activities advertised with photographs sent instantly from a cell phone to the internet. Every angry

00:18:48.970 - 00:19:06.120

thought emailed or posted anonymously with the press of a button. This rapid quick exchange of information can be shallow or it can cut very deep. I worry that we are creating a culture of narcissists who have

00:19:06.120 - 00:19:21.160

never had a single thought. They did not press send on. I think it, I felt it , I did it and now it must be shared once shared then and only then does it become real

00:19:22.540 - 00:19:34.390

? And now you must respond. Did you see my post? This is the bargain we have struck instantly available to one another electronically but unavailable in person , teenagers checking emails and posts under the dining room

00:19:34.390 - 00:19:48.940

table because they see their parents doing it. Can you believe the number of people who tell the world on facebook what they are eating or drinking while they are eating or drinking? Hey guys, I love

00:19:48.940 - 00:20:07.040

this new restaurant, we'll just eat there. Then People who worship their own opinions will at some point come face to face with an idol and like all idols, it will ultimately disappoint. If I worship

00:20:07.040 - 00:20:18.840

my own opinions, then I will delight in your sharing your opinions until they differ from mine. And then we are into the sign wars because I feel it. It must be true. Yes to the

00:20:18.840 - 00:20:33.360

lights. No to the lights, sentimental, happy thoughts or angry, outraged citizen thoughts all seem to get equal airtime these days and we can switch from one to another with such speed. Oh look at

00:20:33.360 - 00:20:52.740

darling jesus. He has grown up so handsome and so articulate and here he is preaching to us in the temple that he attended when he was a child . All look how far he has come, listen

00:20:52.740 - 00:21:07.840

to how smart he is. Let's give him a spot in the big July the 4th parade. It's intriguing to me how the gospel of Mark in it's baffling brevity in its refusal to give us the plot

00:21:07.840 - 00:21:23.180

details. Does not tell us one word about what Jesus said that day. All we know is that suddenly the hometown hero ticked people off and then it got small town crowd nasty. Well, he's only

00:21:23.180 - 00:21:34.860

a simple man's son. He's not a particularly educated family. And you know, looking back on jesus childhood, there were very few signs and mary and joseph's yard about jesus growing up, I mean,

00:21:36.440 - 00:21:47.440

Gospel Mark says he's just a carpenter's boy, mary's boy. We've known him since he was a kid . We know his brothers, James Justice, jude Simon, his sisters, Who does he think he

00:21:47.440 - 00:22:03.750

is? And it says that the people, they tripped over what little they knew about him and fell sprawling and they never got any further. They tripped over what little they knew about him and they fell

00:22:03.750 - 00:22:23.550

sprawling and they never got any further. It's like it's about us riding around in our cars, insulated from one another, protected from conversation or the revelation of somebody's real life pain. We read the signs

00:22:23.550 - 00:22:36.610

in each other's yards about who is for this and who is against that and whose child plays in the orchestra and who does nothing. And we think we are like those villagers, we trip over what little

00:22:36.610 - 00:22:52.880

we know about each other and we never get any further trapped in a world where our opinions have come to matter so much. They weigh us down and incivility and relativity. Someone was complaining to me about

00:22:52.880 - 00:23:03.220

why she had stopped going to her former church and she said, you know, when I was sitting there in worship, I just didn't get much out of it to which I replied, well, it

00:23:03.220 - 00:23:21.920

was not directed towards you. Worship is directed toward God. And if there's anyone that I would like to get something out of worship, it would be the creator of all things seen and unseen. I'll

00:23:21.920 - 00:23:36.070

go to worship, said one person, but only if it's the contemporary service, that is the only kind of music I like good. What does it mean when our worship services are segregated and advertised as

00:23:36.070 - 00:23:52.270

being spaces where you will only hear music soothing to your ear or worse, still a guaranteed sermon that is soothing to your already held opinions. If there's anyone I want to take delight in a beautiful anthem

00:23:52.270 - 00:24:02.060

, it's the one who invented musical taste in the first place. And if there is a target audience for a sermon, it probably should be the guy who died on the cross for preaching his own.

00:24:03.440 - 00:24:15.050

In my opinion, this is now the central task of Christianity in our culture, of narcissism, to tell the world that it is not all about you . The question is, do we have the courage

00:24:15.050 - 00:24:30.810

to say it in our culture of self esteem, books, trophies for every single kid on the team , win or lose a computer screen with space for every thought, a tweet for every twit, a

00:24:30.810 - 00:24:44.560

self made spirituality for every seeker and relativity run rampant . Do we have the courage to say? It's actually not all about you, To those who think God grants touchdowns to the faithful. Sorry, it's

00:24:44.560 - 00:24:53.990

not all about you and your football team, to those who think they can make up their own religions . Sorry, it's not all about you either, to those who stir up trouble by calling out both

00:24:55.000 - 00:25:04.180

groups. Sorry lily. And it's not about you either. In the end, we sense something that is bigger than we are because God is bigger than we are. And in the story of a savior

00:25:04.180 - 00:25:18.650

who died was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, we recognized something that rubs like sandpaper against the culture. This is the secret that we may be afraid to tell a world that doesn't want to

00:25:18.650 - 00:25:38.570

hear it, jesus is better than we are. And as for salvation, it's not all about you . Thank God in a culture of narcissism and do it yourself, spirituality. Could one reason that people

00:25:38.580 - 00:25:53.990

dislike even liberal and inclusive Christianity be the fact that we still believe that jesus might be better than we are. If you sweep aside questions of exclusive is um theologically if you sweep aside partisan politics and other

00:25:53.990 - 00:26:10.390

theological debates, you are still left with that uncomfortable and countercultural notion that offends most who claim to be open minded in their preference driven passion. Still offensive to them, is the idea that at the heart

00:26:10.390 - 00:26:23.760

of Christianity is the notion that jesus is better than you, God is bigger than you and how you feel about all that. Well, the future of eternity probably does not hinge on it. When jesus

00:26:23.760 - 00:26:38.830

christ himself showed up to preach in the very town where he was raised a celebrity, who had healed people of their diseases and drew enormous crowds wherever he was going. His townspeople were so excited. But

00:26:38.830 - 00:26:52.890

then in the human condition of drowning in our own opinions, it very quickly went awry. For while the technology has changed and complicated things, I think the human condition is pretty consistent. The limits of

00:26:52.890 - 00:27:07.920

taste. Our sin. For even when faced with a word from the son of God himself, it was still just a matter of opinion. And essentially they said, you know what jesus said, I

00:27:07.930 - 00:27:22.750

just didn't get that much out of it when taking my jesus lawn sign down, I'm replacing it with something else, but don't take offense. It's only my opinion in the church. At its best.

00:27:22.750 - 00:27:34.820

We challenge this idolatry of opinion and we acknowledge the limits of our own taste. We acknowledge that the love of God matters more than our love of the latest fad. And we tap into a long tradition

00:27:34.820 - 00:27:52.070

, a historic tradition that takes the best and the wisest of thousands of years of following christ. And while the world is desperate to hear what your favorite movie is or your latest opinion, we say these

00:27:52.070 - 00:28:03.670

prayers and make proclamations that have been shaped by the lives of others who came before in church. At its best, we are a vagabond group of naysayers saying, no, it is not all about you

00:28:06.340 - 00:28:21.370

, but let's also admit that it's hard to say that in the pressure to grow to prosper to keep going. Even we can fall prey as clergy to our service provider culture so that the church at its

00:28:21.370 - 00:28:37.460

worst sees the parishioner as the customer and says, what do you want? What programs do you need ? Sure we can do that. But remember pastors that when jesus himself appeared and preached to the people

00:28:37.940 - 00:28:53.060

who should have loved him the most even he wasn't good enough. The son of God arrives in your hometown, delivers the word. And what was the response? I just didn't get much out. He's

00:28:53.060 - 00:29:03.590

just a carpenter's son, not educated, not my cup of tea. I think I would prefer to sort of do my own thing, make something up that works for me. And that day they posted

00:29:03.590 - 00:29:18.660

it on facebook and tweeted it because after all, they had felt it. And so now it must be right. And 2000 years later, we read about the limits of their good taste. It is

00:29:18.660 - 00:29:33.960

tempting for me. I know, and so I suspect it's tempting for you as my clergy colleagues that when you're in a setting like this and you're listening to these incredible lectures as we heard yesterday and today

00:29:36.340 - 00:29:48.700

, when you are surrounded by these speakers, who to fill you with awe. It is tempting to then think that we have to go home and get it all right. It's tempting after hearing somebody else's

00:29:48.700 - 00:30:06.620

beautiful words to think that if we can just get the taste question right, God might fully be praised . It's tempting to get caught up in our own tastes and opinions and to think that ultimately it's all

00:30:06.620 - 00:30:27.560

up to us at my previous church back in New Haven Connecticut. The building was beautiful but faded in its glory, like so many of our buildings, The paint peeled on the tall high ceilings. The

00:30:27.560 - 00:30:44.190

magnificent organ was desperately in need of repairing and the parlors in the church were filled with disheveled antiques and velvet couches with one broken leg right next to an old beanbag chair. From the 70s. You've seen

00:30:44.190 - 00:31:03.180

this parlor, we have this beautiful small little chapel that had once been the site of charming tiny weddings and elegant little funerals, but it had its old wooden pews ripped out, and that was this all

00:31:03.180 - 00:31:19.560

purpose room with blue vinyl covered chairs. The pastor , who had come before me was very proud that he had finally turned the chapel into something useful where 12 step groups could really use it. But I

00:31:19.560 - 00:31:33.660

longed for the beauty of the whole physical plant to be restored. But I also knew that at that point in the church's life, I couldn't preside over some grand capital campaign. I couldn't bring the whole

00:31:33.660 - 00:31:47.320

physical plant back to its former glory. But I could work on that little chapel. It would be my legacy. We went into the church records and we researched the old photographs and we actually found a

00:31:47.320 - 00:32:04.500

carpenter who could recreate those beautiful old wooden pews and we restored that beautiful little chapel to a wedding worthy setting with rose pink walls and the a a group graciously agreed to move to another room where they could

00:32:04.500 - 00:32:20.080

put those vinyl chairs in a circle. And all was well in the beautiful chapel, more beautiful than ever. Many years after I left that church, the next pastor pulled off the big renovation and with

00:32:20.090 - 00:32:34.120

great eagerness I came back to town and accepted her offer of a tour of the building. The huge sanctuary glistened with the new paint. They were creatively changing the front of the church and the basement had

00:32:34.120 - 00:32:47.340

been transformed into an education area that had never looked better and with each new room that I saw. I gasped at the wonderful transformation that had taken place during her ministry there. But this lily and she

00:32:47.340 - 00:33:00.450

said, this is the change I am proudest of . And she flung open the doors of my little chapel. She said that space was completely unusable with all those wooden pews and we needed more space for

00:33:00.450 - 00:33:13.810

the Children's worship, Really more of an all purpose room. But we had a devil of a time pulling out all those antiquated pews. And there in the middle of my beautiful chapel were those 12 blue

00:33:13.810 - 00:33:31.800

vinyl chairs arranged in a circle today. She said we call it our all purpose room much more what we need in this day and age. Don't you think? one day an eternity in heaven, the

00:33:31.800 - 00:33:44.240

three most recent pastors of that church, we're all going to stand in front of the throne of jesus waiting for judgment. And it is then that he's going to tell us which one of us was right

00:33:44.240 - 00:33:58.420

about the chapel. Okay, He's gonna see all three of us standing there. Two votes for the all purpose room, One for the chapel. Oh please Lord, let it be me. Can I

00:33:58.420 - 00:34:14.170

at least make my case, jesus is going to look down upon us and he's going to Call us forward one x 1 tom he's going to say you were right to care about people in recovery from addictions

00:34:14.840 - 00:34:27.070

. You were right to open that space up for those life saving 12 step meetings. And he's going to call me forward and he's going to say Lillian . But I also think you were right to care

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about beauty and and worship and to expect that even the tiniest funeral deserved a dignified and transcendent setting and Shelly, you were right to follow the movement of the Holy Spirit and allow the Children to take over

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that space for their learning. But then Jesus will say as for those blue vinyl chairs, I didn't get much out of that pues vinyl chairs. He's going to say, actually get over yourselves, you

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are here for eternity, people. So here are the keys to your eternal homes, all next door to one another over there on clergy row behind that next cloud movin, go ahead, you can put

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a big old signs in your front yards that say jesus says I was right about the chapel and then it's going to hit me and maybe I'll be brave enough to ask out loud, wait a second,

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jesus, do you mean to tell me that heaven is a place where all the clergy from the same church live next door to one another in this little clergy subdivision with self righteous signs in our yards and

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jesus is going to respond and say, oh billion , this is really awkward. You thought this was heaven? Mhm Yeah, it is. Mhm Yeah , I suspect that in heaven, nobody gets a

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sign in their yard, nobody cares about vinyl chairs or wooden pews. Nobody gets to say, you know, I didn't get much out of that because in the presence and power of God at the heavenly

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banquet, finally, in the presence of the one inimitable host, we will finally know the limits of our taste. It is not all about you.