This morning I was writing my sermon on the death of John the Baptist - which reminded me that actually I'm a coward.  May be that's a useful message for further pondering by my people, not that I am a coward (though it may be), but the fact that a lot of us are cowards when we compare ourselves to J Bap and others.

Hmmm.  Need to work out how to hold together the encouragement I got from Jeremiah with the kick up the behind from Mark...