News reached me yesterday evening that another of the people I came to know and love in Dibley has died after a short illness, bringing to an end an era within that little church.  Sadly his wife is also quite unwell at the moment, and in recent days the two were in separate hospital wards (possibly separate hospitals, I'm not sure).

This former Sunday School superintendent (long before my time!) was also a member of the Magic Circle and had, until not that many years ago, regularly performed his tricks at church socials.  I recall him telling me that at the time he asked his wife to marry him, coming to his church (she had been a Methodist) and accepting his membership of the Magic Circle were non-negotiable!

The first year I was at Dibley, for the evening service on harvest festival, I invited people to bring along something that symbolised their own 'harvest' and to be willing to explain it.  Sadly, I didn't explain myself well enough, and a lot of what came were artifacts from decades past rather than recent activity.  This man brought his Magic Circle certificate and explained that 'to see the smile on the face of a child' was what it was about for him.

I never saw him perform his conjuring tricks, by the time I arrived his fingers were already too stiff and his mind beginning to slow down, but there will be many who look back fondly on the days when his prestidigitation entertained and amazed them.

RIP RC, go now to your eternal rest.

So, this is a REAL cold, a proper keep-you-awake-cos-you-can't-breath and/or your-nose-drips-like-a-tap kind of a cold.  Way back when, in the days I had a real job, one of my colleagues used to take great delight in me getting colds, as I always had a red nose, rheumy eyes and sometimes a husky/gravelly/lost voice... and was nicknamed Rudolph for a few days.

Hurrah for Beecham's powders, mixed with orange juice, honey and hot water, which stave off the worst of the acute-rhino-virus symptoms quite well.

An enjoyable day in prospect - and hopefully an hour's leaping about will drive out the little monsters that are hiding in my bloodstream - but definitely Rudolph the Red-nosed Preacher for tomorrow.

Today's readings...

Psalm 22: 6 - 7

Exodus 4:2 - 3a

Matthew 26: 6 - 13

To be honest, reading these verses once, twice, three times, I struggled to find anything that spoke to me about hope... the words from the psalm are full of despair ("I am a worm"), the words from Exodus, quite frankly, meaningless out of their wider context, the story from Matthew very well known and well loved but 'the poor will always be with you...' 

So, I have decided not to force the issue.  To accept that sometimes what is needed is permission to express hope-less-ness.  "I am a worm and not a person"  I am useless... I am worthless... I am a failure... whatever it might be that people need permission to say, rather than the cheesy Christian 'I'm fine' (Feeling Inadequate, Needing Encouragement).  The hope, then, is not in the terms of a promise (though reading bigger chunks than the Northumbria Community list might well give us that), but that it is permissible to express how we really feel and know this will be acceptable to God.

God,

Sometimes we feel worthless, useless, failures

Sometimes we feel abandoned, isolated, rejected

Sometimes we can find no positives to express

Sometimes we wonder, with the psalmist

"My God, have you forsaken me? I am like a worm..."

Despised, if even noticed,

Trodden under foot

People mock

People insult

They shake their heads in despair or derision...

Where does help come from?

God of Jesus, whose cry of dereliction resounds through the ages

We come as we are

Longing for hope, feeling hope-less,

Hear our prayer

Amen

How to light charcoal in a thurrible and then whirl it round to oxygenate it.

OK so it was a Baptist college

OK so Baptists don't do censing

OK so this Baptist ends up having a coughing fit every time someone burns incense

But

For my act of worship on Sunday on frankincense and prayer I thought I ought to do it properly

So I will risk the coughing fit

This Baptist will try to do censing

Or at least light the charcoal and whirl it round to oxygenate it before adding grains of frankincense.

So I've just been practising in my kitchen!

If you want to see something utterly mad, then you know where to be this Sunday evening! (no, not my kitchen)

Todays' BUGB e-news-sweep thingy links this set of ten tips for better preaching.  Most of it I would go along with quite happily, but, as is often the case with these lists, I cannot concur with the ascertain 'preaching without notes is superior'.  I fully agree, there is nothing worse than someone reading a boring lecture from the pulpit, I've heard my share of them.  But far worse, imo, are those who ramble along, off at a dozen tangents, never actually saying anything much because they are 'going where the Spirit (of unpreparedness?  of arrogance?) leads' them.

Because this old chestnut pops up now and then, and because I make the same response each time, I kind of expect the usual comments.  Suffice it to say, the best sermons I've head are from people who use full scripts and have learned how best to deliver them.

So, my revised step 4 would be something like this:

Notes or not?  This is very much a matter for personal taste, but whatever is decided must be that which best enables the preacher to deliver the message, she/he feels called to bring.  Dull monologues, at one extreme, and structureless ramblings, at the other, are not preaching, and probably don't do much for God either.  Find the technique that works for you, learn to use it well and then get on and use it.

As for me, I intend to stick with my full scripts, thanks all the same, and will improvise, extend or summarise as assems right in the act of delivery.... as the Spirit (of order, not disorder) leads. :0)