Yesterday, as the world watched the inauguration of Barack Obama on TV, I was at D+2 doing Girls' Brigade, and I have no regrets.

Don't get me wrong, his election is of global importance and it would have been good to watch, but it was more important to help shape the experiences of our couple of dozen girls.

History is so often characterised by big events and famous names - but really is the little people doing little bits that no one ever notices or records.  We need the heroes/heroines, we need the kairos moments, we need the landmarks and paradigm shifts - but we also need the little bits, the people who will never know the part they played in shaping/making history.  Copernicus and the Mongolian butterfly - both are part of the story.

The odds are that in ten years time most, if not all, of 'my' girls will have moved on and forgotten who I was, but if their personal history is a little richer because of the activities we shared on that historic night then it has been more than worth missing one of those 'I can remember where I was when' moments.

I think I have now decided the basic format for my WPCU sermon this coming Sunday.

I will start with some optical illusions - you know the kind of thing, five legged elephants, impossible staircases and the Channel 4 self-trails (with the sound turned down - the ones I found on line are all for programmes that would make my wrinklies' hair curl (actually, that would save on hairdresser's bills....)).  I will do the scary bit of questioning how much our unity is an illusion - looks real but isn't really, or is a fleeting glimpse when the angle is right.

Then I'll move on to the Romans link of labour pains and groaning!  Hence, hopeful travail - unity is hard work (maybe with expletives but not on a Sunday in Dibley!) but it is based on a hope - not just wishful thinking but Christian hope in Christ.

And so to the John (which loops back to Ezekiel of course) and Christ the Good Shepherd.  Shepherding is a mucky job - sheep fall down ravines, ewes struggle in labour, orphan lambs need tending, rams fight for dominance - but the good shepherd gives his/her all for the flock in its many pastures/folds.

Need to avoid tweeness but also need to leave a sense of Christocentric hope that we can labour from illusion to reality.  Should be interesting to write and deliver!

Next Sunday I am due to preach at the united service to end the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.  According to the rota, it was Baptist host and Anglican preach, but despite a vicar and two lay readers, no one from the Anglicans is available, so it falls to muggins here.  I am more than a tad cross about this - the rota has been in place for about three years and the churches were reminded last October or thereabout that this was the arrangement for this year.  Still, get on with it I must, so I will.

I read through the Ezekiel passage again this morning, complete with its party trick image of holding two sticks end to end so that appear to be one long stick.  It got me wondering how much our views of Christian Unity are illusory?  The likelihood is that on Sunday there will be a couple of dozen Baptists (i.e. most of us), a sprinkling of Methodists and (hopefully) a couple of token Anglicans.  And within that there will be denominational huddles.  A united service?  Hmm.

So I have been wondering, do I dare use this image as a springboard to explore the illusion of Christian Unity?  Are there other images I can offer that are more helpful or healthy?  We are not one stick, or even three sticks stuck end to end, yet we all claim to be part of the Church.  How can we be 'better together' and yet celebrate and affirm our diversity?  How can we maintain the intimacy of small congregations yet be something big enough to thrive?  Is it OK to avoid feel good mush and ask the hard questions?  Ezekiel was a prophet - someone who read the signs of the times and employed his God-given imagination in his forth-telling of what he heard from God.  What, I ask myself, might he say to the congregation I will address on Sunday?  From sticks to ropes (Ecclesiastes three-fold cord type of thing), from illusion to reality - a challenge methinks.

Yesterday's service was marked by endless bouts of forgetfulness and human error, but thanks to God's graciousness it all came out alright in the end!

My act of human error was to fail to remove the original version of the service from my brief case and replace it with the new one.  Both were there and I put the wrong version on the 'lectern' (music stand).  I didn't realise until I reached the sermon and had read the first paragraph!  I told people what had happened, that I was sure the second version was more appropriate.  Not being sure whether or not I actually had it with me, I took a deep breath and blagged it - covering the main points if not delivering quite what I had carefully prepared.  Many years ago one of my tutors told me I should preach without notes now and then to remind myself I could still do it because the day would come when I dropped them or forgot them.  Well, only once in ten years (and it was in my brief case all the time - I retrieved it during the next hymn as I'd also changed other things I wanted to use and could not successfully blag).

Other human errors were...

The caretaker forgot to unlock the car park gate so we couldn't get in (luckily there was pedestrian access and I know the door code so found him in the hall wondering where we all were!)

The Methodist minister arrived a week early for the WPCU service

One of my communion servers came out too early and the other one forgot to come out at all

One person due to take the collection asked someone to cover for them as they were away - and that person then realised they were also taking the collection and couldn't quite cover both sides at once

Still, the service went off fine, we covenanted together and with God, which is what really mattered.

I've been thinking this morning about reactions to 'troubled times' and Jonah's reaction to the call of God to go with a message to the people of Nineveh.  Jonah ran away 'literally' (see earlier post to understand use of quote marks) but there are other common repsonses to unpalatable readings of the signs of the times (part of the prophetic task) which are tantamount to running away...

'Someone Else's Problem' - the SEP field invented (discovered? ;-) ) by Douglas Adam's in Life the Universe and Everything was, as I recall, used to remove Lord's cricket ground when it was in the way of some intergalactic issue.  It is an easy response to tough issues, and can emerge as a blame culture (someone else is at fault) as a a 'them' culture (someone else ought to put it right).  Denial of our own responsibility (and accountability) is a form of running away.

'The Noble Order of the Ostrich', as it is known in my family.  If we ignore it, or pretend it isn't there, it will simply go away.  Denial in its simplest form - denying it exists or will happen.  Running away by hiding.

'Arranging Deckchairs on the Titanic' - avoidance strategies, tinkering with the bits that can be done rather than facing the real issue.

There must be others that could be added, but three is enough for any sermon!  Truth is that, more often than not, it seems that there are ostriches arranging deckchairs at Lord's cricket ground.

The prophetic task is not just to look outwards at the world and upwards at God, but also inwards to our own attitudes - and that sometimes this is almost more scary than the others.