There are some sermons, or some Sundays perhaps, where you have exactly one chance to get it right, and if you don't well oh...my...word.

It feels that this coming Sunday is one such.  I am happy with the readings the lectionary skewed by a week to fit our special services in October has given me.  And this morning I have written a first draft of my sermon - kind of into a black hole but then that's also kind of deliberate, as it's important to me to 'bring a word' that is true whatever the outcome of the referendum.

I aniticipate that come Sunday I will have a congregation of folk split roughly 50-50 on how they voted because we are sufficiently diverse to be strangely normal, as churches go.  Even if the percentages are way out, some will be pleased and some won't, some will be fearful and others excited.  And in God's infinite wisdom, I am the one who has to speak to them 'a word in season' not to 'tickle their ears' but to bring 'good news' to a complex and historic moment.

Most of my readers 'do praying' so please pray for all religious leaders in Scotland, and indeed in the whole of the UK-as-currently-constituted, of all faiths, as we endeavour to set aside our own preferences, prejudices and feelings to speak peace to those we are entrusted to serve.