You Smell Like Church: Sermon Illustration Tuesday

A student of mine called me late one evening after worship. He was really excited on the other end, and I had to ask him to slow down. So, he says, “Mother Kim, this strange thing happened to me today. After worship tonight, I was riding the train back to my apartment, when this woman sat down next to me. I had my earbuds in, so I wasn’t really paying her any attention, but she tapped me to get my attention.

She said, ‘Son, you smell like church. You smell like church.’” Now the Apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthians that those who know Christ have a particular smell.

When we come to know God—come to trust and believe in the power of God’s love, there’s an aroma, a fragrance that lingers in the room even after we leave. To borrow from the words of the woman on the train, when we encounter God, we begin to “smell like church.” Or to borrow from Paul, “We smell like Christ.”

…That evening on the phone with my student, I asked him what happened next. He said, “She started to cry. And she looked up at me and said, ‘Thank you. I haven’t been to church in a long time.’”

The Reverend Kimberly Jackson, Sermon: “The Smell of Christ”, August 27, 2014.

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