I Stole This ... I'm not sorry

If you've ever been to a Christian church, you've heard, agreed with,

disagreed with, endured or just fallen asleep listening to a sermon.

They're good or bad and most take too long.

Some preachers/evangelists/ use the hymn Amazing Grace to back up their plea to bring the congregation together. In the second line of the hymn, 

my wife objects to "that saved a wretch like me" --

she doesn't think of herself as a wretch and neither do I. 

Often I wish, just once, that the sermon giver would get up to the pulpit and simply say, "Please try not to run over another parishioner as you are leaving the parking lot ... have a nice day." and then sit down.

Recently, I stayed awake long enough to steal a sermon theme from an unsuspecting orator.

He claimed it was a Best Man wedding speech delivered after one of the chicken dinners he is forced to attend.

       Salt         SEL           Sal             Sale             Salz

"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its taste, 
with what can it be seasoned?"     Matthew 5: 13 - 16

"The Best Man rose and looked uncomfortable as he approached the microphone. He was the last speaker. The others before him made jokes and told old stories. They tried to embarrass the couple and tried their best to imitate Johnny Carson - they didn't."

As the speaker approached, glasses were raised.

He began.

"It's hard to keep a house without salt.

It adds flavor and taste to just about every dish."

"If you run out of toothpaste, you can brush with a mixture of soda and salt because of salt's cleansing qualities."

"If you develop a sore throat, you can gargle with salt because of the healing properties of salt."

"If you are hungry, you can cure a ham or other meat with salt because of its preserving qualities."

"You can use salt to melt the ice that builds up in the winter cold;

salt can also be used to put out fires that flare-up.

"So if you'll bring to your marriage the qualities found in salt - the cleansing quality, the healing quality, the preserving quality -- If you use it to enhance the flavor of your life together to melt the ice that will build up and put out the fires that will occasionally flare up between you; and, of course, if you take everything with a grain of it, you will have a long and happy life together." 

At the end of his speech, the Best Man presented the wedding couple with a beautifully wrapped, decorated box and asked them to open it.

When they did, it revealed a simple, Dollar Store, salt shaker. 

This may be a message for all of us.

If you think it's worthy, you can steal this story anytime if you are called on to give some advice to newlyweds.

I stole it for this story for my blog and I'm not sorry.

I'm sure the pastor won't mind.