Food For Thought

Last week Mr. Ether and I attended the funeral of our friend's father. It was a quintessential Midwestern Lutheran service, complete with ham sandwiches, potato salad, and white cake in the basement afterwards. (No lime Jell-O though.)

The pastor delivered a sermon that left me scratching my head. In effect, it was an admonishment to the deceased for not attending church enough. He did acknowledge that there are many ways in which to worship without being in a church. But then he said something else that I thought was so interesting, and perhaps true. He said, and I paraphrase, that the people who question religion are the very ones that he would like to see in church. Because if they don't come, then you're simply left with the blindly obedient.

I suspect that there are a great many pastors who would prefer it to be that way -- to lead a flock of sheep rather than, say, cats. But I was impressed with this guy. He made me think.