Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”

Matthew 19:21 (ESV)

This past Sunday was eventful. Father’s Day arrived predictably. We are in both Pride Month and Black Music History Month. We baptized a daughter of our congregation into faith, and saw the arrival of a new Prayground in the Sanctuary.

But it was also Juneteenth….a fact that may have completely escaped your notice if church is the only place you might hear such a thing!

It wasn’t my intention. As I crafted the sermon for this week, I noted Father’s Day and I thought a baptism Sunday was an important day to say something essential about fatherhood. In my outline for the sermon, I began with an illustration from the TV Show Stranger Things. I talked about how one character is trying to exert their will over another character; something that seems to happen a lot in parenting, and certainly in the role of Fathers.

I had a plan…I always have a plan!

But then something happened, as it sometimes does. After the section about how Jesus sought to impose his will on the demoniac man he healed, I was going to pivot to the way we imposed our will on the enslaved. The founding fathers managed to jump start our economy in the United States beginning in colonial times through forced labor. This imposition of wills enabled our ancestors to accomplish a lot.

But it was wrong. They shouldn’t have done it. And when slavery was abolished through the Emancipation Proclamation, the slaves in a certain town in Texas didn’t get the news until two years later…talk about imposing one’s will on others!

This would have been a perfect connection, I thought, to Juneteenth and why that holiday is important for Christians. It was in my outline, roman numeral “V,” just as I’d written it. And each week, on my way into the pulpit, I take my outline and throw it away. I want to leave room for the Spirit to move. But it’s not the Spirit’s fault I didn’t address Juneteenth. The outline was perfect…

And it would have been perfect…if I’d done it!

Some times our great intentions do not amount to a hill of beans. And perfection is certainly relative. But missing that opportunity to connect our congregation with the Juneteenth holiday in a fresh was was a real drag. I’m sorry. I hope to make even better connections to this important holiday in the future.

In the passage from Matthew above, Jesus reminds a young man that the only path to perfection for the young man would be a hard one. He was wealthy, so Jesus tells him he must sell all he has to benefit others to go and follow Jesus. The one thing that would challenge him the most, and that’s what Jesus asked.

The weekly challenge of crafting a sermon means leaving many things out in order to have room to say what matters most. Some times I hit it, but sometimes I don’t. I thank you for walking on this journey with me. I pray that I never stop improving and making the best possible choices I can.