Three women die together in an accident and go to Heaven.  When they get there, St. Peter says, “We have only one rule here in Heaven: Don’t step on the ducks!”

So the three women enter Heaven and, sure enough, there are ducks all over the place; it is almost impossible not to step on a duck. Although they try their best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.

 Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest man she ever saw. St. Peter chains them together and says, “Your punishment for stepping on a duck is to spend eternity chained to this ugly man!”

 The next day, the second woman accidentally steps on a duck and along comes St. Peter, who doesn’t miss a thing. With him is another extremely ugly man. St. Peter chains them together with the same admonishment he gave the first woman.

 The third woman observed all this and, not wanting to be chained to an ugly man for all eternity is very, very careful where she steps. She manages to go months without stepping on any ducks.

One day, St. Peter comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes on – very tall, long eyelashes, muscular. St. Peter chains them together without saying a word.

The happy woman says, “I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you for all of eternity?”

“I don’t know about you,” says the man. “But I stepped on a duck.”

 The moral of this poor joke?

Where you find yourself, at any given moment…  Is all a matter of the steps you have made along the way.  You could end up where you are…  because you made all the right steps. You have followed the rules,…and you made all the right moves…

Or maybe you are where you are,…because you stepped on a duck or two. Maybe you ended up here, because you stumbled and fell along the way.

Maybe you made bad decisions and bad choices…

But in the end, through the incredible Grace of God, despite those decisions [or precisely because of them], many have ended up in a pew on Sunday Morning.    Each Sunday, we find ourselves back in churches, gracing all too familiar pews, in all too comfortable community churches.  As we do, we must remember one simple thing: a portion of our worship should be about  coming to the realization each and every Sunday,…is that whatever brought us to that wooden pew in the first place, is forgotten.

The people in those pews are a new, and a different people.   All that stuff, all the mistakes, and all the squished ducks don’t matter. Once we consider that very fact, we realize something incredibly important.  We realize that we are no different from the person sitting beside us.    We are no better, no worse.   We are two people on a journey to the same destination, and that creates a bond, like the chain that St. Peter used, that no matter what value the world puts on you, cannot be broken.

 As we undertake the living out of our faith, through discipleship, devotion, service, stewardship, and worship, let us be people that recognize the journey that we share with others.   Let us reach out and celebrate that we are the same, and we have the same destination in mind.   There is a confidence, there is a strength, and there is comfort,  in knowing that we make this journey together.