No Church Today Part 2

I just remembered the most bizarre church experience I have ever had in my life.  I was newly married and living in Philadelphia with my wife.  We went to a church that was yards away from where we lived.  It was summer time and it was warm.  Being Lutheran we sat in the back pew.  We noticed a girl eating an ice cream cone in the pew in front of us.  A bit unorthodox, but I guess the mom figured it would keep the girl occupied and quiet.  Not what I would have done as growing up Lutheran we were taught that the sanctuary was a holy place and we were indeed in the presence of the Lord.  So we were very reverent once we entered into the sanctuary.

Well, I kept looking at this girl lapping at her cone when I heard someone behind us start speaking.  Now as I said we were in the last pew in the back so the dude speaking was standing pretty much in the door way.  "I have a letter here!" the voice said.  I spun around to see that it was a US Postal carrier.  That's right it was the postman! On a Sunday!? When has that ever happened before?  Not to mention that he came in during the Sermon portion of the service.  At first I thought he was part of the sermon as some pastors have wacky interactive sermons to drive home a point.  I immediately thought that the postman was going to say something like, "God sent me to give you this Word from Him," or some such illustration.  However, I soon realized by the look on the pastor's face that this was not part of the service.

I then started to think how on God's green earth could this letter-carrier barge into a church service like he was annoyed that we didn't stop what we were doing to welcome him.  He really had that attitude as if to say, "I don't care that you are playing church, I have a letter to deliver and nothing is going to stop me not even God Himself!"  Well an usher stepped forward and grabbed the letter, signed something and then the mailman left.  All the time that this is was going on the ice cream eater in front off us was just lapping away like this was all some sort of liturgical dinner theater.  I wanted to say to the mother at this point, "You know that ice cream is going to spoil her Lord's Supper and she's not going to have room for the Body of Christ!" With the goings on I kind of felt that the comment would have fit right in with the service, but I refrained.

Well after all of the excitement church was uneventful, which was sad as I was expecting the pastor to work all of that into the service, but he stuck to his sermon which was a bit dry. Anyway, the service was memorable if not the sermon.

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