Raw Ingredients

Sometimes it's fun to see all the ingredients for a recipe laid out in front of you.  And you can think about how the flavors enhance each other or be surprised that two seemingly distinct tastes do, in fact, blend well together. You might wonder about the proportion of certain ingredient against another and wonder whether a pinch is greater than a dash and how much spice the whole thing is going to require.

Sometimes, it can be like that with a sermon. So, here are some raw ingredients for Sunday:

Colossians 2:16-23

16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humilityand the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. 19 They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

20 Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”?22 These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

Quotes from Eugene Peterson's Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

"We humans, with our deep-seated pretensions to being gods, are endlessly preoccupied with worrying and tinkering with matters of salvation as if we were in charge of it.  But we are no. God carries out the work of salvation; not, to be sure, without our participation, but it is Gods work done in God's way." (153)

"Otherwise, salvation becomes our 'thing,' a strategy or program for doing something that will make us and the world around us fit for heaven pretty much on our own terms.  But salvation is never our thing. it is God's work in history in 'ways past finding out.'" (170)

A list of church practices:

Head coverings. Speaking in tongues. Praise music. Organs. Raising hands in worship. Sitting in reverent silence. Choirs that read music. Choirs that sway and clap. Preachers who read manuscripts. Preachers who preach from iPads. Kids dismissed from worship. Kids running around in worship. Dressing up for church. Dressing down for church. Rules for keeping the Sabbath. Using videos in church. Singing from hymnals.

A clip from the TV show 30 Rock:

A thought-provoking blog post:

Click here!

 ... On the other hand, maybe sermons are like sausage.  No one wants to see how they are made.