I recently went to church (United Church of Christ) and had some fun. In some ways, this should go in my critic blog, but... That just seems... not its place. It's also something of an essay.
The sermon was pretty good with a lot of good ideas and morals espoused, but it got me thinking on a lot of things. One was my previous post, but there were some other less developed thoughts that went though my head.
The sermon was on the Prodigal Son. It is a nice little story with some good lessons. I don't want to seem like I don't like this story. I do. And I appreciate it's message.
But it's a bit simplified from reality. If you look at it another way, a very clinical way, the Father in the story positively reinforced his wayward son's poor behavior. He might just go be an idiot again because now he knows he can always come back home and be immediately and completely forgiven. In the version of the story I heard, the son was very apologetic, so I am not advocating not to forgive. On the contrary, even if he did it multiple times, that doesn't mean he shouldn't be forgiven. It should just be harder and harder to come by. Perhaps his father should, eventually, make it clear that he hasn't forgotten (completely).
Anyway... just a thought. Little simplified from reality, it doesn't tell what happened later. It shows how fiction can be incomplete. But if you read other thoughts I have, I believe that fiction can be more than fact as well.
The preacher also talked about Jesus being a new way and that we should not live in the past. However... Jesus is pretty far in the past.
I was also struck wondering how many in the congregation agreed, or pretended to agree, in church, but not back out in the rest of the world. You can't really argue in church, can you. The setting creates a certain constraint which you may not even be aware of. Meaning that you don't realize that you disagree, just because of the way it is phrased and the setting.
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