Sermon Block

It's alright for you lot sitting in the pews, listening to the sermons of people like me - you just come to church sit down, sing a bit, pray a bit and wait for the preacher to expound and then you go home. 

Which is fine until the preacher in question has a condition that I am now going to diagnose as "Sermon Block". It presents with varying symptoms:

 - Jesus already stated the meaning of the parable in question, so what can I possibly add?

 - I have preached the last 30 Christmases, so what can I say that is new this year?

 - I have no idea what this passage is saying

 - I have no idea where to start

 - I have no idea what to say once I have started

 - I gave up caring and I am now cursed by apathy

 - Good Friday? The under-5s? 

 - or just this

It is an affliction that gets every preacher at some time or other, often several times a year, and it is a hard thing to treat. Instead of anti-inflammatory drugs we reach for enflammatory commentaries, online or printed. I have even heard of people using the sermons of others (though not I, Your Honour).  Once, and not that long ago, I was robing up without a sermon written. It happens and it is not nice (though the resultant 21 minute homilette was well received). 

My solution to this and indeed to the preparation of all my sermons is to "go where called". A word jumps out, sticks to me - and then at least I have something of a launch pad. I am blessed with an extrovert mind so can "wing it" at times. So, this Sunday, we have (in this part of the world at least) the story of the Loaves and Fishes. I know that there is much to say, but I can't trawl a single coherent thought from the abyss of my Vernacular Bonce. 

Whilst this post is written in a light way, it is a real problem when it happens. Bloggers will lament their inability to write a post, and so it is with preachers. For some, a deadline is a good thing, for others a panic-inducing curse. I believe that the value of preaching is not in what is remembered but in what is retained. I am my own example here: I can never remember sermons afterwards. Never could. Yet I have been fashioned by them throughout my life. None remembered, much retained. For the preacher this brings a very specific responsibility - the excuses won't cut it. Our words stick, so when they are un-crafted, unplanned or frankly uninspired, they create a potential problem. No preaching class that I have been to have addressed this. 

I am writing this post in a state of Sermon Blockedness. I am hoping that in so writing, I might dislodge the debris so that fresh thought and new inspiration might pour forth. I have four sermons to preach on Sunday - so it needs to happen in the next 12 minutes. 

Mindgames

This is a post derived from some random noggin-fodder from your old mucker - the Vernacular Curate. I think it; I inflict it! All heart, me ...

[1] I own a mug, bought for me as a gift and in light of my childlike passion for jet aircraft, most especially Concorde. I think that this plane is among the most beautiful of human creations and if it were ever appropriate to fall in love with, and marry, a machine - this would be my honey (with the Aston Martin DB9/DBS as my Mistress). The missus (the real fleshly one, my real honey) was drinking out of said mug this morning and the girls noticed the slender curves of Lady Concorde thereon printed. They asked about this funny looking plane, so man of heart that I am, I fired up the old iTouch and put on a film from YouTube that paid homage to the now mothballed jet. Set to Brightman/Bocelli  (sniff) - it was a lovely little piece, genuinely heart wrenching for those of us who cared about Concorde. An odd thing happened - I felt grief. Yes, truly - I felt grief. I am not sure what I was grieving for in those moments, but I was bereft for a few minutes. The mind is a strange thing.

[2] As I drove to a diocesan council for something or other earlier, I was enjoying some music being piped through the old iTouch. As it happened it was some heavy metal - how fragrant such sounds are in the believer's ear! As I had my Prince of Gadgets set to 'shuffle' I was then assaulted by some easy listening stuff and I was annoyed. Remembering that the music upon that thing is there because I bought and paid for it, and that I installed it, I pondered. My musical tastes are directly affected by the life I find myself in - and not in predictable ways. For example - in my stress -laden retail days when I drove for hours to and from work, I sought the company of Mark Knopfler et al. Nice, easy listening. When I was at College I only ever listened to Palestrina, Durufle and Byrd (and mostly Mass Settings at that) and both Knopfler and Metallica were set aside. Now I am in ministry, it seems that only loud heavy metal will do. It also dawns on me that I have had the same Metallica CD in the car for over a year - round and round and round. These are perhaps the opposite to what I may have predicted, and to be honest I don't fully understand. I am far and away happiest now, so why the agressive music? Not sure, to be honest ...

Well, dear friends, do with this as you wish. Perhaps you have had slightly 'left field' emotional moments; confess brothers and sisters! Maybe your musical appetites differ with the lives you lead; maybe you just don't listen to music. Who knows ... who knows ...