Pennel’s Ponderings – Beach Walking

Pennels-Ponderings-Beach-Walking

Brentwood United Methodist Church’s Bishop Pennel shares his thought weekly on their website. He has graciously allowed us to repost them here for you. Pastor Joe E. Pennel Jr. is also a professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School.

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Ponderings – Beach Walking

She walked on the beach just as the sun was slowly but steadily rising in the east. Sea breezes gently blew through her hair. Joggers waved as they passed. Beach chairs were yet unfolded. With each step she felt the damp sand against her feet.

Her blue eyes moved from the rolling sea to the shore where she searched for the perfect shell. Every shell was either broken or blemished so she would toss each one back into the water. She looked with a keen eye but there was not one perfect shell to be plucked from the sand.

If we are honest with ourselves, we live with the knowledge that our lives are broken or tarnished in some way. Some of us are broken by the sea waves of life. Others are broken by moral failure. The tide of sin has often compromised our highest values.

Orthodox Christian teaching says that we do not have the power to repair ourselves. But we do have the strength to open ourselves to Christ Jesus who will, through the Holy Spirit, grant us forgiveness and restoration. The God of Jesus is not like the shore walking woman who throws us back into the sea.

The Church, as the Bride of Christ, should understand itself as a community of forgiveness made up of forgiven people. The noble purpose of the Church is to reconcile people to God and to each other after the example of Christ.

Here is a radical thought. Why not put a sign in the church yard which says, “SIN FORGIVEN HERE”? Or if that is too strong perhaps it could say, “ALL ARE WELCOME, REGARDLESS”.

Why it is so difficult to see that our sin and God’s forgiveness is the one thing that we have in common, is…

Worth Pondering,

Joe E. Pennel Jr.
Pastor

[email protected]

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Originally posted September 24, 2012