Step five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

I have been accused during this sermon series of being too sober - in my preaching. So: joke de jour. A minister, a priest and a rabbi were having lunch one day. They were talking about the spiritual support they gave the members of their congregation: listening to their confessions, saying words of absolution, visiting them when they were ill and comforting them in times of loss.

What the minister, priest and rabbi found they had in common was the sense of having ministered to their congregation, but having no one to minister to them. So they decided to go together for a retreat and provide one another with care.

They gathered on the appointed day and decided that they would begin with…