Simon’s Says
Along with 113 million of you, I watched the Super Bowl last Sunday night, but somehow I managed to miss the commercials (because who watches it for the game?) that caused the most conversation in the days following. I’m referring to Hobby Lobby’s two ads about Jesus and the church, part of the “He Gets Us” series. I’m not going to offer any observation about how the $14 million the ads cost could have better been spent; many others have already done that work for me. Except to say I’m basically in agreement with The Boston Globe’s Alex Beam, who wrote this morning that an ad campaign that offends both liberals and conservatives must be doing something right. It did get folks talking, I’ll give them that, and isn’t that what ads are meant to do?
But just think – $14 million dollars for 60 seconds of the gospel, if you want to call it that. Let’s see: my sermons probably average around 15 minutes each Sunday morning, give or take. <Gets calculator out.> $14,000,000 x 15 = $210,000,000. Every week! Trustees, are you paying attention? Congregants, imagine the bargain you are getting! Now that we’re passing the offering plates again, I expect to hear a lot more loose change being dropped into them. Or maybe you could put in one of those new $1 trillion coins the Treasury keeps threatening to mint; that would get you, by my estimate, approximately 4,762 sermons (being a generous person, I rounded up), or 91 more years of them.
On second thought, we’re probably both better off with the way things are right now.
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Please join us this Wednesday afternoon at 4:00 for the United Church’s Ash Wednesday service. The service will offer the imposition of ashes and blessings.
Here are the links to Sunday’s bulletin and service.