• A sermon for Y’All

    Here is a sermon that I preached on Sunday. You can find the audio here. (This one is more fun to listen to than to read, I think).

    I have learned in the course of my travels that it sometimes takes people a few minutes to atune to the way I speak. I’ve learned that people sometimes need a few sentences before they get used to my accent – the way that I speak.

    And of course, it works the other way around too.

    I am getting used to listening to the sounds of voices that I am not used to hearing. And of course, coming to here, the first time I’ve been in the South has meant me having to listen extra carefully.

    Before I came on this here I decided to lose weight and get fit. Over the course of a year I managed to lose 30 pounds. What I hadn’t realised was that when I came to the South, the hospitality would be such that I would put those 30 pounds back on. During breakfast.

    Whilst I was eating that first breakfast, I had something to ponder. For the very first night that I was here I had the strangest of dreams. I’ve been up at Sewanee, the University of the South. It is a beautiful university and an excellent seminary and I was their guest. That first night, I dreamed that I had encountered angels. It is a strange dream to have these days though it would not have been particularly unusual in Biblical times. [Indeed, one might think that a very great deal of John’s Revelation, part of which we heard this morning, was just such a dream].

    Anyway, I woke up on my first full day in the South absolutely sure that I’d encountered angels in my dreams. And as I came to, I desperately tried to remember what they had been saying. I knew that something was important. I tried and tried.
    However, to this day, I can’t remember anything of the conversation.

    I do remember one thing though. (more…)

4 responses to “Sermon for Michaelmas”

  1. Eamonn Avatar

    ‘breaking open the same word of God and finding it feeds us all according to our earthly needs and god given personalities’.

    Ought to be emblazoned over the door of every church.

  2. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    Azrael – is that not the named fourth great archangel?

    1. Kelvin Avatar

      Oh, I knew someone was going to get picky about other Archangels.

      I deliberately said something about them being named in the bible. Raphael sneaks in because of Tobit.

      I think if you want to bicker you’ve a better case with Uriel than Azrael.

      Azrael is better know in Islam and Sikhism (oddly) than in Christianity. Uriel meanwhile gets a singsong in the Creation. However, Raphael, Gabriel and Michael have got a bit more of a secure biblical foundation.

  3. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    The more archangels the better, mind you …

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