Once upon a time I wrote an essay in which I explored, among other things, the function of Sunday School as either didache (teaching) or kerygma (preaching), whether it is primarily informative or transformative.

The last two Sundays my sermons have definitely been way more didactic than kerygmatic, but have hopefully given people something to ponder futher.

It remains, I think, one of the challenges and mysteries of homiletics (sermonising) whether it is meant to educate and inform or to inspire and transform; the extent to which it is human endeavour and the extent to which it is divine revelation.  And of course, at its best it is probably all of these things.  And at it's worst it is either unsubstantiated opinion or erudite theory.

This morning someone said to me that their brain was hurting a bit from the sermon - a lot of didactic stuff around predicated 'ego eimi' sayings in the 4th gospel, but that they had found a nugget to take away in what I offered at the end as a possible way of hearing the 'I am the way. the truth and the life' saying that is inclusive rather than exclusive...

As a born worrier, I do worry that I have nothing to say, or that if I have something to say it is either too facile or too complicated... I have enjoyed researching the 'signs' and 'sayings', discovered and rediscovered some interesting stuff... and I hope that somewhere in amongst it was something helpful in glimpsing a little more of the nature of God through this mysterious and complex text that we know as the Gospel according to John.