Monday, January 12, 2009

The Sermon and the Lunch

In this essay, Lewis starts off with a minister preaching a sermon about home life.  As he gets into talking about home life, people stop listening.  This is because the minster is talking about the home as a sanctuary where anyone who goes there can be he or herself and just let the stress of the day melt off.  The reason why people stopped listening is because the minister is being very hypocritical in that his own home life and dinner table conversations are filled with selfish arguments and quarrels.

 The thing that was wrong with the preacher’s sermon is that he doesn’t once mention the difficulties of the home life, but goes on about how wonderful it is.  He is getting at the tradition of the healthy home, but this is a false tradition that should be addressed with ways to fix it.

 Lewis goes on to talk about the problems of the home.  The problems start with the fact that since the fall, no human interaction goes right.  The family is selfish and resentful towards one another, and only in it for themselves.  The family needs to be redeemed.  Charity begins at home and so does uncharity.  He also makes the point that love is not enough to redeem or sanctify the family life.  It is because people care about each other that they argue with each other.  In the home, Lewis writes, people show what they truly are, but the fact is that this may be bad because we are all selfish creatures.  Because of this, it is never lawful to be ourselves unless ‘ourselves’ have become the sons of God.  We need the grace of God to be presentable to Him and each other.  The last comment that he makes is that if a home is a place of grace, it must be a place of rules.  This is because with out rules, there is a tyranny of the most selfish member.  Humility is needed to follow the rules and become a healthy interactive family.

1 comment:

  1. Dear Brittany,

    You summarize this very well! I also love the quote ‘charity begins at home and so does uncharity’, even though it is one of the most challenging for me. Oh! The tyranny of the most selfish! The “it is never lawful to be ourselves unless ‘ourselves’ have become the sons of God”. Unfortunately this means that ‘only in heaven!’ I will be released of this duty… What grueling task!
    However, the consolation is that IF we toil on, we will find that the effort for each sequential incident in the needed action of ‘kindness towards my neighbor’ to be less agonizing, more comfortable to be carried out, and to our surprise, less necessary; as people around us become mellower and kinder because of OUR obedience!
    God Bless
    Adriana & Paulo

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