A New Friend

I made a new friend over the weekend. She died last Thursday and I did the funeral service yesterday. I never met this person while she was alive and I actually did not begin to learn some of her most basic details until Friday.

By the time of the funeral on Monday I found myself liking this person. I heard story after story from her family and friends. I knew that people would be sharing only the good things they could remember for such is the nature of the mourning process. But I think we would have been friends.

It's strange to feel the loss of a person you never knew existed before they died.

Yikes, More Sin.

Just when you thought you had a handle on the 7 deadly sins out comes a list with even more. This article on the CNN website starts with "A Vatican official has listed drugs, pollution and genetic manipulations as well as social and economic injustices as new areas of sinful behavior."

I kind of like the move toward sins with "social resonance" as they describe them because I think all to often we only think of ourselves and forget about our society as a whole. And I do think it sometimes helps to point out behavior that we don't necessarily notice is sinful.

But here is the downside with these lists. Some people are going to see them as a check list. As long as they don't do them, or get them absolved if they do commit them, then everything is alright. Righteousness ceases to be a matter of the heart, there is no relationship with God, and we go back to being a follower of Christ in name only.

It will be interesting to see how people respond to these additions. In the meantime I better go sharpen my pencil. This stuff is getting hard to keep track of.

Bingo

I love the IBM commercial about the convention goers playing Buzzword Bingo. It shows them handing out buzzword bingo cards at the beginning of a lecture. Then you see a speaker throwing out all kinds of buzzwords as he gives his presentation. Right in the middle a young lady playing the game yells out "Bingo" which brings the proceedings to a stop while they try to figure out what's going on.

I wanna play! I wanna play! It seems most of the pastor-type conferences I've been to are also filled with buzzwords. I just want to yell out Bingo right in the middle of one and see if anyone gets how ridiculous we are with our latest and greatest buzz.

I've got to be careful though. I can see it now. About half we through my next sermon some smarty pants is going to yell bingo. I'll probably just fold up my notes and say a benediction.