On sermons and zucchini boats

When you have a garden in full boom and you don't check it every day, one result is enormous zucchini.

The only recourse is to make zucchini boats: slicing a gargantuan zucchini into halves, gutting the insides, and baking it with the filling of your choice. Yesterday the filling of choice was chopped pork mixed with pasta and a medley of fresh herbs, also from the garden.

Valerie and I ate one boat; the other one I walked over to my neighbor's house.

There is a near jamboree going on over there with Nutri-Systems friends she had met on line. They're from all over the country. A camper is parked on her front lawn.

This month I also preached two sermons on "be holy as He is holy." I recently read that it takes about 15 hours to prepare a sermon, to which I said, yep, that's about how long each of those sermons took.

The zucchini boats took less than two hours. (Of course, growing them took all summer).

These days I'm having trouble explaining to myself what church life really is. That was 30 hours of sermon prep I did. Did it make a difference?

I don't know.

But ... sharing that zucchini boat with the folks next door.

All theology aside, I suspect church starts with having walked that zucchini boat over.

Logos2Go

Matthew 22.36-40 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."