My sermon has not been coming together. You can't easily summarise a book as dense as Tom Wright's "Justification" in a way that does justice to the theology and yet is simple enough for a congregation that is 30% "people with learning difficulties". Yesterday I was getting completely bogged down.
So I set my alarm for 5:30 and went for a quiet walk through the town and into the local countryside. (Except it wasn't so quiet in town, with people still coming out of the clubs at that time!)
I tried speaking out what I would say as I walked - which I found to be agood technique - but I kept getting bogged down.
The spirit directed me to turn aside among the long grass and lie down. Looking up I could only see blurred grass and blue sky, and feel adn hear the wind and watch the grass sway in its influence. "Go in among them," He said, "let me do the talking".
So does he want me to have a quiet time of contemplation and no sermon at all? May be. But I didn't feel comfortable with that proposition. But when I got up and continued my walk, and had another go at the sermon, I found the words flowed more easily, and the content of the talk was much more simple and therefore less inclined to get bogged down. (Ironically I was walking through a muddy patch as I thought this! - but just stay out of the muddy bits and you're fine.)
And for the first time I got to the end of the talk.
Time to go home - where am I? --ONLY 3 MILES FROM HOME!
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