A young married couple decides to join a church...

They attend a few introductory classes and meet with the pastor, who will decide whether they'll be approved for membership.

The pastor says, "Well, as you may have heard, we take fasting pretty seriously here. And Lent is just around the corner. I'd like to ask you to do something that may seem strange, but it will really demonstrate that you're committed to this church and to our spiritual disciplines. I'd like you to give up all sexual contact with each other for the entire 40 days of Lent."

The husband swallows hard. The wife audibly gasps. But they look at each other, and then to the pastor. The husband says, "Okay. We'll give it a shot."

A week into Lent, they show up at the pastor's office looking a bit shamefaced. The pastor welcomes them in, and they can't seem to make eye contact. He knows it's gone wrong and he folds his hands, leans forward and says, "Tell me what happened."

The young husband blurted out, "We tried! We really tried. But the second day of Lent was our anniversary. We went out to dinner, had a bottle of wine, and when we got home, things just started to go, you know. Down a certain path." The wife said, "But nothing happened — we danced and kissed briefly and then I made him sleep on the couch."

"The next night," the husband explained, "We talked about it, and both felt pretty guilty. But as the evening wore on, I could tell that both of us were really wanting that physical intimacy. So I actually went to a friend's house and slept at his place."

"Go on," said the pastor.

The husband said, "And then yesterday evening, she was reaching up to grab a can of peas from the top shelf and, well, she just looked so beautiful — I mean, that's good, right? She's my wife! I'm supposed to find her arousing. She looked so good, I grabbed her, we kissed, and then we ripped off all of our clothes and had wild, passionate, loud, messy sex right there on the floor."

The pastor stood up, shook his head in disgust and said with considerable exasperation as he motioned toward the door, "I'm sorry. But you are no longer welcome here at this church."

They got up to leave and the wife said, "That's okay. We're not welcome at Kroger anymore either."