At church last week, the main Scripture text was Matthew 2:12.
Speaking about the magi who visited young Jesus, the passage states:
“And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to
Herod, they departed into their own country another way” (KJV).
The pastor stressed that they went home “another way.” And the
pastor said that this is how we should be when it comes to church,
allegorically-speaking, that is: we should go home “another way,” that
is, different from how we were when we came in. If we came to church
happy, we should leave church happier. If we came to church sad, we
should leave encouraged, even if it’s by a little bit. The pastor said
that, for many, church is the only light that they get in their
depressing, chaotic week. The pastor said that the change in us when we
leave the service may be slight, and that is okay; yet, we should still
go home another way. We should have been impacted by the service, in
some manner.
The pastor said that we should come to church expecting to be fed.
He added that he throws so much out at us, that certainly we can find
something in the sermon and make a sandwich out of it! I identified
with that. When I sit down to write my blog post about the sermon,
there are so many items from it on which I could write blog posts! But I
choose the topics that were especially meaningful to me. I do not
always agree with what the pastor says. But he always gives me
something to chew on, on my walk home from church, and in my weekly
church write-up. In some cases, I profoundly disagree with his sermon,
but I end up finding some common ground with it. That, in my mind, is
me going home another way!