Sermons

I went to the wedding that Nadege was in as it was here at the church and the whole church is invited. They have a full sermon at the weddings. They are done in French so I was following ok. But the preachers started with so people aren’t whole until they are married…and so I tuned out. I find it very hard to believe that I can’t be a whole person on my own. I will admit that I would love to get married one day but until then I think God will work through me as me and not as someone who could be so much more if I were part of a couple. There was also a lot about wives being submissive which I also don’t hold to closely with. But it was a beautiful ceremony and the couple did look very happy.

On Sunday I went to church here (of course) where there was a guest preacher from the US. He went to school with Pastor Leon and was a very strong reason that HOM is here today. He came down with his family for the Christmas holidays (wife and 2 daughters). He started his sermon saying that he was preaching to husbands and wives…there I was out again. Granted he also said that the fourth Sundays are usually about strong families as that is very important to God and is in the Bible so many times with many allusions to family and Christ as the groom, God the Father. But really. I felt marginalized already. However, as he was preaching in English with a translator (Leon whose French I can usually understand) I ended up listening anyway. And it was a pretty good sermon. He wants us to look at our lives and as the New Year is coming, to clean it up and throw out the things that are keeping us from God. He started with a story about some village in Italy that has the tradition of literally throwing things out the window at the New Year that symbolize how they want to change. He gave us 3 things that we should throw out.
1) our negative attitudes…it helps no one around us much less ourselves
2) that personal thing that is between us and God…no one else can tell us what that is
3) our fear of failure…for how else has anything happened in this world without someone being brave enough to try.