Sermons (Page 145)

“If you’re a football fan, and especially if you’re a Carolina Panthers or a Denver Broncos fan, today is your day! While sports in general don’t often excite me, I am captivated by the football fans that have a passion for the finer things, like tailgating. While I’ve never tailgated before, I hear that it’s quite an experience. The die-hard tailgaters park in the same spot year after year. Food, drinks, and a good grill are essentials, I’m told. It is about gathering together with others, spending time in one place, and, in one sense, camping out – even if tents are not allowed.”

In William Briscoe’s book entitled “You Hear Me, But Are You Listening” he talks about what inhibits our clear communication. One thing he notes is our “belief filter.” He says, “you filter everything you hear through beliefs about yourself, about life, and about others. Your political, religious and other strong beliefs change the message you are ‘hearing.’ [People] will filter all conversations through that belief. [They] will hear the things validating [their] belief and ignore the things that do not agree with it.” I think there is a lot of truth in that analysis. It’s fascinating that people can hear different things from the same speech, play, presentation, book or even a sermon. We gravitate and affirm the things we want to hear, and we ignore or gloss over the things that don’t speak to us.

There’s one word at my family gatherings that makes me cringe. It’s a word that outsiders like to use to describe my generation. The word also comes in to play in the polarization of democrats and republicans views of social programs. Entitlement. (Cringes) Just the way it’s naturally pronounced communicates disdain – inˈtīdlmənt. It sneers. It shames. Entitlement programs. Entitled generations. / Millennials have received the brunt of this “entitled” label: the generation where people hate to work, a generation that doesn’t take responsibly, and the age group that just wants everything given to them.