April 7 Worship: "We Are Family (or Father Knows Best)"

We gathered for worship on Sunday in the continued glow of Christ's resurrection, but without all of the hoopla of Holy Week and Easter.  While many churches call this Sunday "Low Sunday" because it is usually their lowest attended Sunday service of the year (even many pastors take the day off), Eastgate did not see any such thing.

In fairness though, there was a little evidence that yours truly may have been taking the day off mentally.  After trying to get the congregation to sing the wrong opening song, I then tried to skip the first scripture reading -- fortunately, others were there to keep the ship afloat and headed in the right direction.  My most egregious mistake, though, came at the beginning of the sermon, when I spoke about the classic television show, "Father Knows Best."  I said that "Father Knows Best," like many other family shows, featured only two children -- those with a better memory, or just those who saw the cast photo on the screen, know there were three children.  All I can say is that I just don't remember Kathy, who played the youngest child.

Anyway, I do think that there is valuable material in the sermon, as we considered generally some of the lessons -- good and bad -- that we learn about family from watching so much television.  Beginning with the description of how Christians should appreciate God as a father-figure from Hebrews, we considered how some of the family imagery on TV affirms our faith, but some of it is counter to the wisdom of Christian discipleship.

If you missed Sunday's sermon, if you'd like to listen to it again, or if you'd like to share it with others (warts and all), you can find an audio recording here.