Practicing what you preach

Sometimes preaching can have its moments. I'm a firm believer in at least attempting to practice what I preach. I may miss the mark on this, but at least I try. Today's scripture came from Mark 6 and included the feeding of the 5000. I spent a great deal of time this week thinking about the sharing (thanks to the earlier referenced quote about world hunger), and it is no wonder that the sermon focused on this.

Added to this is knowing that my parents are moving out of their house this week, and I have to find a new home for my baseball card collection. Mix in the fact that I didn't quite manage to write a conclusion to this morning's sermon before getting ready for worship, and it was a recipe for a Holy Ghost moment.

Here's the text of today's sermon, at least to the point where the conclusion should have been. Instead, when I got to the end, I realized that holding on to 120,000 baseball cards isn't going to further the kingdom of God, at least not the kingdom of God on Milton Street. So, I decided right then and there to offer to sell the collection and give the proceeds to the ministry of the church. I can't quite believe I did that (Dad always says to stick to your sermon manuscript or strange things can happen - I can definitely say he's right on this one). But, I definitely think it's the right thing to do.

What am I going to do with all those cards anyway? I've had man of them for over 20 years of my life. As a kid, my church went through seriously difficult financial troubles. I was 13 or 14 at the time and imagined putting my Nolen Ryan rookie card in the offering plate. But I never managed the courage to part with it. I suppose that too I had too much ego wrapped into owning the card. When the kids at school would pick on me for being different, I'd say to myself "yeah, but even the cool boys don't have a baseball card collection like mine - they don't have a Ryan rookie."

But I don't need that card anymore to make up for boys who might say mean things about me. And the church can certainly use the funds for ministry in the neighborhood. I'm just surprised that after all these years I've grown out of my baseball card obsession to the point where I'm able to get rid of them. But we can't preach about sharing if we're not willing to share ourselves.