Screwballs and Nuts

Kelly Siegler is a candidate for district attorney here in Houston. According to the Houston Chronicle, she is disinclined to include the “screwballs and nuts” who attend Lakewood Church on juries. She told a judge last year that she worked to keep them off of juries. She made the comment in response to the charge that she struck a man from capital murder jury pool because he is black. She balked at that, saying that the reason was not his race, but that he attends Joel Osteen’s mega-church.

"To start with, he's a member of Lakewood Church. And we have had a running agreement, my partner Luci Davidson and I have, since we started, that people who go to Lakewood are screwballs and nuts,"
Siegler said, according to the court transcript. "I'm very familiar with that church. We try our hardest not to put anybody who goes to Lakewood regularly on any jury, he's a pretty devout member of Lakewood Church. That's one reason that scared me about the man."

Imagine that – Christians being called “screwballs and nuts” in the public sector. While many of you know I’m not a big fan of mega-churches, and that I have frequently criticized the theology and hair of pastor Joel Osteen, I’m proud to know that at least some portion of the church is viewed in the public sector as counter-cultural! What if all Christians lived out the unique message of the Gospel? We not only might avoid jury duty in capital cases, we might convince others that faith in Jesus is worth something, that it actually makes a difference in how we live our lives.

I’ll be talking about this on Sunday in a sermon about baptism. I’ll offer some practical pointers on how to “live out” our baptism, and you’ll be urged to remember the waters of your own baptism in a tangible way. Maybe by the end of the worship gathering you’ll want to be considered a screwball, too! The Bible texts this week are Acts 10.34-43 and Matthew 3.13-17.

See you Sunday,
Pastor Gary

Not a Sermon – Just a Thought is a weekly column by me, Gary Long. I’m the pastor of Willow Meadows Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, where we gather for worship on Sundays at 10:45am. You can sign up for this weekly column by contacting me at glong@wmbc.org. You can check on the full story on Kelly Siegler at this link: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/religion/5444317.html.