It was early in the year, and I asked myself, “What is the most important things my congregation needs to know.”
I had decided to preach a series on what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, or the Plain, if you go by Luke. I mapped out the series, then I began to talk about what Jesus had to say. I spoke of being judged by the same method we used to judge others. I told them Jesus said we need to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. I got into forgiveness, pointing out that forgiving others was crucial to our being forgiven, to the extent that we pray it every week in the Lord’s prayer.
Midway into the series, I found myself stunned into silence, when one of my congregation members came up and asked, “When are you going to stop picking on us and start preaching about sin.”
It reminded me that it is so much easier to see what other people do as wrong, and to ignore the passages Jesus gave about our own behavior.