Each Sunday when you arrive for our worship service you walk through those doors … those doors are painted red.  Now ours are not the only church doors that are painted red … many Episcopal churches, as well as Lutheran and Methodist churches, paint their doors red.  Have you ever wondered why?

A year ago I was invited to another church in the area to make a presentation.  They had asked that I speak about an aspect of the Church’s liturgical calendar, and in the weeks before I spoke they had Rabbi Mark Goldman … then the rabbi at Temple Bet Yam … speak one week, and a leader in the Muslim community speak on another week.  I was invited to speak as a “Progressive Christian” … almost as if my faith were as different from the faith beliefs of the host church as it was from Judaism and Islam.  In the end, they may have been right. 

Happy Mother’s Day!  I think I have mentioned this on other Mother’s Day, but I learned the hard way that I should never try to preach about this special occasion.  Many years ago I started a Mother’s Day sermon telling the congregation … with some sarcasm … that it was really a holiday invented by the greeting card companies, florists, and restaurants.  My intent was to point out that mothers needed to be honored every day of the year … not just the second Sunday in May.   Well, Dorothy Ebert … God rest her soul … was sitting in the first pew with a gorgeous corsage, a lap full of pastel colored envelopes, and her daughter and her family sitting next to her … no doubt they were taking her to a Mother’s Day Brunch following the service.  Dorothy’s smile turned to a scowl and she never heard another word of my sermon.  Oh well, lesson well learned.  But happy Mother’s Day anyhow.