The Pub and the Penitent Man Sermon

In light of Father Jones’ advising to the spiritual shoplifters (here), I wanted to offer my own spiritually lifting story for the holiday.

A cowboy walks into a bar in Texas, orders three mugs of Bud and sits in the back room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finishes them, he orders three more. The bartender approaches and tells the cowboy, “You know, a mug goes flat after I draw it from the beer tap. It would taste better if you bought one at a time.” The cowboy replies, “Well, I have two brothers. One’s in Australia, the other’s in Dublin, and I’m in Texas. When we all left home, we promised we’d drink this way to remember the days we drank together. So I drink one for each of my brothers and one for myself.” The bartender admits this is a nice custom. The cowboy becomes a regular, and always drinks the same way. He orders three mugs and drinks them in turn. One day, he comes in and orders two. When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, “I don’t want to pry, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your loss.” The cowboy looks quite puzzled for a moment, then he laughs. “Oh, no, everybody’s just fine,” he explains, “It’s just that my wife and I joined the Baptist Church so I had to quit drinking.

7 thoughts on “The Pub and the Penitent Man Sermon”

  1. Mildly related:

    Today marks the start of Beerika, a celebration of family, friends, fine food, and fermented malt tea. It’s easy to celebrate, buy a six pack of good beer, and enjoy. There’s also an optional feast, just invite people (I generally set the upper limit of my guest list as 6 others) you genuinely like over, have a good dinner (one that involves a couple of courses and takes a few hours to eat is ideal, but not always practical), and drink some fine beer. The only requirements (other than the beer) are that you savor it all and remember just how good it feels to simply enjoy life.

  2. Mmmmmm!!! Kriek! Funny, I’m not particularly fond cherries in most forms, but I love kriek. (For anyone who drinks, but is hesitant to try “cherry beer,” the good stuff isn’t sweet! It has a ton of fruit flavor, but the sugar has been largely fermented into alcohol – it’s a delicious end result. Your brain has to work hard to wrap itself around “tons of fruit flavor” and “dry”.)

  3. Ain’t that the truth.

    Ok, you know when you have 4 Baptists together in the same room, you always have a 5th…..

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