I’ll bet I’m not alone in thinking and saying often to myself, “If I ran the ...” It happens to me almost every day... (must be the left-over school teacher in me.) It happened just yesterday when I went to a drab, cheerless office on Fifth Avenue to pay a $25 fine for not having a license plate on the front of my little red car. What a dump! Not the car... the city parking office. The guy who took my $25 was decidedly unappreciative. He humorlessly received my offering from behind his glass partition, his hand ready at the little slot for passing through money. Oh, well. The city needs the cash. But if I ran that office, I’d... And this morning when I was waiting for the trolley, I noticed, really noticed for the first time, the little red house at the Hazard Center Trolley Stop (“Hazard” Center! That’s another change I’d make) with the sign above the door: “TICKETS AND INFORMATION...” and it was closed at the peak commuter travel hour... and there were people, obviously strangers to our city, who hadn’t noticed the automated ticket machine and were asking fellow travelers what they should do. And then it dawned on me that the Hazard Center Trolley Shop is a lot like church; and that’s when I said to myself, “If I were a preacher, I’d build a sermon around the little red ticket and information house... and I imagined the sermon title on the big marquee beside Interstate 8 at the entrance to the Methodist Church in Mission Valley. In big bold letters: TICKETS AND INFORMATION.

At that point in my reverie the trolley came and my imagination went on to other things... like how much fun it would be to drive the little red trolley... and how I would make it free if I were the mayor or the transportation boss or a member of the Council so we might seriously reduce the numbers of cars on the clogged freeways... but I can’t go there today. I’ve got a sermon to prepare.
I would not begin the sermon with a funny story because what I have in mind is no laughing matter. I’m completely serious, and if I were the pastor I’d probably lose my job after the sermon because I’d prove myself to be a heretic, maybe even a heathen.

I’d say to the sea of upturned, gray heads, “I’m glad you’ve come to church this morning because I’m going to tell you how to get your ticket to a better life. Of course, I know that many of you are already on the road... You’ve been on the journey for a long time. But I’ve been listening to your talk and to your singing, and I’m a little worried about the possibility that some of you think you’re going to a place that, if I can be blunt, isn’t there. You may be clutching a tired old, almost worn out ticket that you’ve had since you were maybe eleven or twelve or even younger, but I’m here to tell you that the destination”..., and then in my sermon, just to be nice, I’d keep on apologizing especially for the church’s truth in advertising error... I’d say “Sorry about the earlier deception. The ticket is not to an eternal holiday resort out there beyond the short trip you will take someday to the undertaker’s preparation room. The ticket you can get here is a ticket to now... to here... to where you are already... to no place and to everywhere. If the church is a place where you are made to believe you can earn or otherwise pay for your ticket to an everlasting resort and spa, then it is a fradulent business enterprise. Forget the Jesus as your personal ticket to the Pearly Gates and the Streets of Gold described in some of the advertising brochures. Don’t get me wrong. Jesus is still the central figure in the revised standard church based on reality and common sense. Jesus is the ticket. Jesus is the ticket to the full, the meaningful life on this side of the road to the undertaker. Jesus, our brother, kind and good, our mentor, our teacher, can be literally our saviour. He saves us from meaningless existence if we only pay attention.

"Remember the sign. Let’s keep it above the church door: TICKETS AND INFORMATION. Let’s believe it means this is the place where information about meaningful life is available. Come here for information about Jesus, our guide. Come here with your friends so they, too, can get information about making homes and neighbors and cities and the whole world better. Get your ticket... do it for the life you live as a fully human being just as Jesus was an incredibly enlightened human being who showed us how to do it. You are wasting your time if you are doing what you do because you think there is an exclusive spa waiting for you after your life is over.

"Forget the meaningless, pointless arguments about whether somebody else’s way of being human besides your own satisfies the requirements for salvation. Leave those concerns for the contrarians who apparently will always be with us. Let the life and teachings of Jesus guide you. Let the Levitical Code inform you about a time in the history of humankind when people struggled without the example of Jesus’ life to live meaningfully and made a damned mess of things for themselves and for their neighbors.

"In the light of Jesus’ life, the Levitical Code can be seen for what it is: anthropological scraps and pieces that give us insight into how things were, not how things ought to be. Jesus was not a nitpicker. He was unwilling to exclude Samaritans or any other group or class of people. He rejected the idea that some people are unclean. He said, “Come all...”

"Still not convinced? If you want to go on insisting that all of the laws of all the Bible are to be followed to the letter because you believe they were declared by God, then there are a few things you must decide if your are going to be consistent and follow the law to the letter. You must look around you and find all those men who have dared to trim their hair, including the hair around their temples (Leviticus 19:27); begin now to decide how they will die. Will you kill them? Or perhaps you should find someone else to do it for you. The Bible says it must be done. Look around you and see all those people who work on the Sabbath and decide how they should be put to death (Exodus 35:2). Will you do it yourself or should you get someone else to do kill them? In Leviticus 25:44 we are told that we may own slaves, both male and female, provided they are bought from neighboring countries. Advise me. Would I be better served if I go to Mexico for my slaves or might I like better to own slaves who come from Canada? Oh, by the way, you should know that when you are selling your daughter into slavery (said to be O.K. in Exodus 21:7), you will have to decide what you think is fair market value for her. So you voted YES on Proposition 8 because you say the Bible tells you homosexuality is wrong. Right? Come back and make your case when you have answered the questions I have put to you based on the Levitical Law and you have followed all the other laws concerning what you should eat and what you should wear to be acceptable to God.

“Now, My friends,” I would say if I were the C.E.O. of the business we call church, “The ticket the church has to offer is not some pie-in-the-sky, Disney Land technicolor vacation land that a chosen few will go to after they die. What the church should be all about is helping people understand what is meant by “the abundant life... here on earth...while we are alive.

“Get your tickets here. The journey begins today. Amen!”