The Parable of the garbage disposal

Once there was a woman who decided that it would be a good idea to clean out her refrigerator before a new form of life evolved in it. She was happily emptying containers of their mysterious-looking contents down the garbage disposal and indeed, had already had some wisked off to unknown regions. That’s when it happened.

She turned on the garbage disposal once again but instead of the familiar roar, it whimpered and the sink promptly backed up. The woman stared at her sink in horror. She vaguely remembered that this had happened before in the presence of a knowlegeable person who had stuck her hand down into the disposal, pulled out some debris and hit a friendly red reset button under the disposal. Actually, come to think of it, she had tried that herself once and it had worked.

She stuck her hand into the disposal and pulled out a stringy mass which she had dumped into the disposal by mistake. Ugh! She knew better than to put shredded meat into the disposal. Oh well. She carefully cleaned out the disposal, hit the friendly red button flipped the switch and listened to her disposal whimper.

This was a disaster! The woman had neither the money to repair or replace the garbage disposal. What was she going to do? She decided to visit the “Hall of Knowledge” aka the internet to see if there were people out there who knew what to do about whimpering garbage disposals and were willing to share their knowledge free of charge.

Quickly she discovered a video on YouTube which not only described her very problem but showed her what to do if the friendly red button did not work. She called to her husband (who is not handy either) and together they watched it.

“But I don’t think we have a special wrench that came with it,” she said sadly. The garbage disposal had come with the house when they bought it and was now 22 years old. She turned to do a search to see if she could find one on the internet and discovered she could get one at the hardware store for $5.99.

Excitedly she called to her husband who had mysteriously vanished from her side during her search but her voice was drowned out by a tremendous roar.

“You fixed it!”

“All I needed was an allen wrench and I have one of those,” replied her husband.

The woman did what she always does when she is very pleased. She danced around the kitchen and shouted for joy. That which was broken was now mended and it hadn’t cost her a dime. It had all happened simply because someone who had the knowledge was willing to freely share their knowledge.

*****

We live in a world that is full of broken people. Sin has broken them and they do not function quite the way God designed them to function. They are broken.

We as Christians were once broken as well but we are no longer broken. We are “born again” and made whole through Christ. We who have experienced salvation have the responsibility to freely share our knowledge and experience with those who are broken so that they too may be “repaired” and function the way God designed them. Are we sharing our knowledge with others or are we keeping it to ourselves?

Tonights question and news story…do you think Churches or Pastors shoul be involved in politics?

Pews (Photo credit: Etsy Ketsy)

A recent poll by the general American Public says that a majority of the people think religion should be kept out of Politics. What do you think after reading the story below?

AFP – Wed, Mar 21, 2012   Fifty-four percent of Americans think churches should steer clear of politics, according to a Pew Research Center poll announced Wednesday during a presidential campaign tinged with faith issues.

Pew said it was the third consecutive poll in four years to reveal that Americans who favor churches speaking out on political and social issues are outnumbered by those who believe they should not.

Of the 1,503 adults it surveyed by telephone on March 7-11, Pew said 40 percent believed churches and other houses of worship “should … express their views on day-to-day social and political questions.”

Sixty percent of Catholic respondents said the church should keep out of political issues, according to Pew’s findings.

Early this month, New York‘s Cardinal Timothy Dolan, leader of the increasingly outspoken US Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the church was called upon to be “very active, very informed and very involved in politics.”

With President Barack Obama up for re-election in November, the Catholic church is fiercely opposing his proposal for all employee health plans — including those at religious-affiliated institutions, such as hospitals — to cover the cost of contraceptives.

The Pew survey also found that 38 percent of Americans say there has been “too much expression of religious faith and prayer by political leaders.” Another 30 percent said there has been too little.

“The percentage saying there is too much expression … has increased across party lines, but this view remains far more widespread among Democrats than Republicans,” said Pew in a summary of its findings.

Pew, which posted full details of its research on its website (www.pewforum.org), said its survey had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.