I'm going to hunt down the sermon mp3 from today and bring a copy back with me. My youth pastor gave the sermon today and at the very end, he was trying to make a point about love and the church body as a whole. When he prefaced his illustration with, "I told my wife this morning that I was going to do this, and she laughed at me," I knew we were in trouble.
He started out well by pulling out a bowl and saying that without an emphasis on loving one another, the church is a lot like the empty bowl... a nice bowl, but very empty and not doing anyone a lot of good. Then he paused, and pulled out a pair of apples, and likened some members to apples where it doesn't take long to get through their thin protective layer and get to know the "sweet part." So we're still good. And then he pulls out a pear, noting the slightly thicker skin and the different nature from the apple. And then a grapefruit, noting the really thick skin and the fundamentally different contents. We're starting to lose him there, but then things get really interesting. Bill pulled out two oranges, looked from one to the other almost stunned, and kind of blurted out, "and some of us are just happy, shiny people." Still kind of dazed, he tossed the oranges in the bowl with the other fruit, pulling out a banana. Staring at it, he mumbled somethign about rotting bananas and having to cut them up and stuff. Without much further production, he started referring to us collectively as the "fruits of the Church." And then, to finish off his abortive efforts, Bill noted the sniggering occurring in the youth section, realized what he'd said, and proudly announced:
"Hey, it's ok to be a fruit as long as you're being a fruit for Jesus!"
Thanks Bill.
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at December 26, 2004 10:39 PM | TrackBack