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Glad you are home safely. I must confess that I am curious about the racoon theme for the sermon. I can think of several things regarding their behaviour that can be commented about, but am curious as to the scriptures he selected.
The scripture was Matthew 3:1-12, about John the Baptist heralding Christ's coming - and the sermon was on a "Wilderness Crying for a Voice." The gist of the message is that we are the Voice "crying out" to those who may be in their own Wilderness - those feeling lost, lonely, hopeless, abandoned, trapped by life's circumstances, or imprisoned by sin. God can and does use us, even when we don't know it, to reveal Christ. The racoon story was an analogy of how sometimes sin can creep into our lives by appearing harmless, or because we may feel that we are "different" and won't be affected like others have. To illustrate this point, he told the story of a zoo biologist's attempts to warn a woman who had a pet racoon ("Julie") that at about 24 months, racoons undergo a glandular biological change - and whatever cuteness they may have as babies and juveniles will go out the door as they reach full adulthood and can become truly vicious. "Julie" responded with, "Oh no, my cute little Bandit would never hurt me - we have a very close bond." Three months later, the zoo biologist was visiting Julie in the hospital where she was recovering from facial reconstructive surgery caused by her sweet Bandit's devastating attack on her.
...so maybe the whole sermon wasn't about racoons per se....
Actually, I was thinking about how people think it is "cute" to feed raccoons until they start destroying your property to find food and shelter for their kits. . . sort of the same theme.
