Your First Church trustees….ever relentless in their efforts to look out for you and this building in which you gather….have turned their attention to doors. More to the point, they have returned their attention to doors, given that I remember holding….then tabling….this same discussion five years ago. For the doors in this building are old and worn. They neither look good nor work good. Few of them can hold a finish on….or keep intruders out.

Several years ago, a member of this church for whom I have enormous respect walked into my office, shut the door, took a seat and shared his reason for coming to see me. “I know we know each other,” he said. “But given my lack of family to tell my story when the time comes, I wanted to tell you a little bit more about myself. Because the chances are pretty good that I am going to die on your watch.”

I find it fascinating that in the very same week St. Christopher has been called into question by the Roman Catholic Church, I should be standing up to preach a sermon inspired, in no small part, by a love affair that many of us have with the automobile. For St. Christopher has long been revered as the patron saint of drivers.