Saturday 10 October 2015

Needles and camels!

The day I have been dreading is upon us! How do I explain the gospel for this week to todays congregation?

How do I try to break this message down! "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven!"

When I was first ordained I used to joke with the people in the next village along the lines of.."Its just as well I'm preaching to you lot ...there could be a problem in the next village. "

And then I got married and went to live in the next village...

But this is still the first time that I have actually been preaching at my nearest church on this particular gospel reading ....the day has finally come...

In this beautiful place it is a joke that everyone who lives here is a millionaire. Obviously not me...but most are...or very rich anyway...so today I will gaze around at faces I know well and tell them that none of us qualifies for a place in heaven and I include myself in that statement!

This is a hard one....I might have to go back to the law of Moses again but I think the Ten Commandments are not going to help much here...

The best I have managed so far is to substitute " Do as you would be done by" in the place of all those "Shall nots"

I can exhort as much as I like but no ones going to give everything they have to the poor , not even me...so the words will have a hollow ring to them I'm afraid....

I don't like sounding either holier than thou or hypocritical so my sermon for this morning could be either very short or much too long if I try to over explain it!

Please don't feel the need to give me a solution...it will only muddy the water and anyway by the time I read it the sermon will be over!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Good luck with that. Rather you than me.

The worst I have had to do was to try and teach a recalcitrant group of teenagers in an RE lesson (I'm an agnostic scientist by the way! ) The difference between 'Right' and 'Good' !!!!!

Revjeanrolt said...

It went better than it might! One person said she wanted to clap but it wasn't really appropriate in church!

Unknown said...

Good for you :-)
If you have seen it, I used the start of the film 'Vertical Limit' where father son and daughter climbers end up hang in from a fixing slipping under the weight. Father at lower end makes son in middle to cut rope holding father, killing him, but saving brother and sister.

Not a good thing to kill your father, but in this vase, the right thing to do.

The class got it !!! :-) :-) :-)

Unknown said...

Oops for vase, read case!!

Rat Bites said...

With regard to the rich, the dangers are pride in one's self sufficiency (who needs God?) and contempt for others. Spiderman has it: "With great power..." as does the Book of Proverbs (30:7-9)