Well, I thought I had played it safe (as safe as I have ever got) yesterday with a sermon on Micah. Swords into ploughshares etc. Listening to the voices of the past and present, wartime poets like Siegfreed Sassoon. However, The quote from Thomas Merton got a distinct blank look… (note to self, leave room to explain who these people are) What I hadn't bargained for was the lack of interest in the whole subject. It is one of those Sundays of the year when, after it is all finished you can just relax and sigh loudly, knowing full well that if you preach the same sermon next year, someone might notice – maybe!! The real low point was, having read the passage from Micah in true prophetic style (bold as brass and brash), there seemed to be little appreciation of the similarity, as I had alluded, to speeches by that modern prophet Martin Luther King. They all seemed happy and pleased at the end of the service, perhaps that was because the sermon was on the short side, or perhaps the two minutes silence was timed perfectly (it wasn't).
If, though, the service in the church had gone on much longer, the walk to the cenotaph would have been met with an almighty down pour – those in the Parish church, just up the road, who had scouts and TA etc to contend with got rather wetter!!
