Joseph Yoo

I just came back from Home Depot with a 2x4x8 wood. (What do you call that? A stick? ha)

I carried it into the church and the senior pastor and office manager stopped what they were doing and stared. All I offered was a ‘sheepish’ hello.
My senior pastor said: “It’s way too early for Lent.”

I told them it was for a sermon illustration and the office manager moaned and said, I better be there to get ready to call 911.

Pastor shows me a small box of first aid kit and says, “this is all we have so don’t bleed too much.”

I’m trying to make a homemade balance beam.
But right now, it’s too wobbly. I’m not walking across the beam. More like, clinging onto it to illustrate how a lot of people’s faith look like. The text is the lectionary text (be proud that I’m following the lectionary. I haven’t done that since… well… forever) for the parable of the talents and how the one with the one talent buried it.
I am interpreting it as the last servant just played it safe and nothing happened. And how many of us in faith play it safe and almost refuse to get out of our comfort zone.

I think it’ll be very entertaining if I do go through with this illustration, then fall and break something and we have to call in the paramedics. It’ll be a moment to remember, no? (Of course, for all the wrong reasons)

-edit-
I don’t think anyone thinks that I’m clever enough to come up with illustrations like this. I’m not.
I wish I remember where I saw it done. I want to say Francis Chan, but I cannot remember. And he used a real balance beam.
But the fact that my homemade balance beam is wobbly, it provides further illustration. My faith journey is wobbly and unstable, and that’s what makes it more scarier at times. Which makes me want to cling onto my comfort zones all the more. That balance beam is going to be wobbly and unstable, and it makes me scared to get up on it, so it’ll be easier for me to cling on for life, because I actually might fall. Or the beam could break.
If I fall off, I can say that, we stumble and fall, but God helps us right back up again. Or as my brother said, if I break a bone, sometimes, brokenness is helpful in our journey, but God is there to mend us.

I got all scenarios covered. 🙂