Cooper's Corner
Cooper, with help from Miss Julie, gives our Children's Sermons on Sundays when children attend.
Cooper the salty dog . . .
Arrrgh!
Ahoy, mateys! Cap’n Cooper here, getting ready to sail the high seas.
Well, maybe not the HIGH seas. Maybe just my bathtub.
But ...This week’s gospel talked about salt. That made me think about the ocean And the ocean made me think about pirates!
Boy I bet it would be fun to be a pirate, sailing all over the place looking for treasure and adventure! I can just see me now, following a wrinkled up old map to some spot marked with an X and digging up a chest full of… yep, you guessed it! Doggie treats!
Miss Julie says that a long time ago North Carolina’s coast was a favorite spot for pirates to visit because there are lots of little nooks an crannies where they could hide their ships from the British navy! And Blackbeard was the most famous of all the pirates! His real name was Edward Teach He attacked ships in the Caribbean and the American colonies. His ship was a captured French slave ship he called Queen Anne's Revenge. In the 1700s it sort of crashed near Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina and was abandoned. Blackbeard was captured and killed at Okracoke Island right here in North Carolina.
We looked at some pictures of Blackbeard and I think he looks pretty scary! But there are no reports of him ever killing anyone. Blackbeard attacked merchant ships, forcing them to allow his crew to board their ship. The pirates would take all of the valuable stuff like food, liquor, and weapons from the ships. I guess they figured Blackbeard was nobody to mess with.
It sounds like pirates were a pretty tough bunch and I don’t think I would have liked being one, but it’s fun to imagine. And Miss Julie says I have a really big imagination for such a little dog.
What the gospel really means doesn’t have anything to do with pirates at all. When Jesus says we are the salt of the earth, he’s talking about how we Christians should be in the world.
I didn’t know this, but salt is actually pretty important. It was so important that people used to used it like money, like gold, because it was so important in so many ways. for all of its uses.
Salt kept things fresh before refrigeration came around. It is important in cooking and can even keep roads from freezing.
But mostly, we like salt because it makes food taste better. I like salt on my popcorn and especially on my French fries! Yum! Salt makes a big difference!
This is what Jesus is telling us here. As Christians, we want to make a difference in the lives and hearts of other people, flavoring them, saving them, and changing the world.
And as far as finding treasure… the best treasure ever isn’t really all that hard to find. We don’t have to dig for it or even use a map.
The best treasure ever is that God sent us Jesus to show us how to love each other. Jesus and his love is the best treasure ever!
Let’s not bury it.
Let’s share it with everybody we know, every day.
You won’t have to carry a sword, wear an eye patch or walk the plank!
