Sermons (Page 159)

It’s a summer afternoon on the playground. Two children, about 2 years old, are in the sandbox sitting next to each other. Each one has a shovel and a bucket. One child begins digging deep into the sand with the shovel, while the other bangs on the bucket with the shovel. Noticing what the drumming child is doing, the other child starts banging on the sand and sand goes flying in the air. These two children continue noticing one another and modifying behaviors, but are generally engaging in their own play. This type of play is what we would label parallel play…

We’ve all done it. We all have checked ourselves in the mirror. Before a big day at work or a night on the town, we adjust our clothing, check our hair, and make sure everything matches. “How do I look?” we wonder. Sometimes we look damn good; and other times we just hope to pass. We hope our client is captivated by our personality enough to overlook the massive pimple. We pray that our bad hair day doesn’t turn into a bad date. We hope that the black clothing really does make us look a bit slimmer. Mirrors have this way of reflecting back to us reality. They can be unforgiving, and sometimes they enlarge or distort reality, but generally they’re reflecting back to us a glimpse of the world…

Suppose you’re looking to buy shoes, where might you go to find them? Maybe a shoe store, a department store, or online. If you need a high quality recipe, what would you do? You could talk to a friend, go to a cookbook, or go online. Now, if you want to figure out if that weird skin thing is something to worry about or not, where would you turn? Maybe you’d turn to a doctor, a friend, or… online. (Although if you’re anything like me, looking online almost certainly means I’ll diagnose myself with a terminal illness. So, I’m learning to avoid that “online” answer for medical advice.)Finally, if we want to experience God, where do we look? Before we give some quick answers, like “look online”, let’s dwell on that question today. “Where do we look to experience God?”…