Wednesday, April 2, 2008

traveling home

I am sitting in Seattle Washington as I write this and about to return home to Springfield. Many of you know that my father-in-law passed away the Tuesday prior to Easter. We had his funeral on Good Friday. That day I began to come down with the influenza A that my wife had. Easter was a long Sunday and then I spent the next four days at home. Thankfully I did recover quickly so that I could attend a training event here in Seattle.
As I was traveling, I flew on United Airlines which I had not done for quite some time. There was an interesting event that occurred in the Denver airport as I was about to embark on the plane. United has a special red carpet club for the frequent and first class flyer's. Those like in many airlines embark first. What was interesting that there was this small throw rug that was red with a short entry to the person taking tickets. When the people had boarded, the ticket taker took a rope and closed off that short entry making the rest of us go around to the longer entryway. I had met one of the other Nebraska participants at Denver and remarked that this could make a good sermon.
What if during communion we had a separate way of coming to the table that was only reserved for those who were special either by giving or by service. They would receive the elements first and then we would close that entry way and open up the longer way for all of the rest of the people. Somehow what I observed could be seen in some churches that pander to those who have some sort of status or elitism within the church. I wonder what James might have said about this or even what would Jesus say.
I plan to be back at work later Thursday. I am planning on doing another blog to reflect on the sermon for Sunday.
Keep me in travel prayers and God Bless.

1 comment:

John said...

Good post. We look forward to your return. Ben did an excellent job of filling in for you on Sunday.