Thursday 17 September 2009

Extracts from a Sermon

Fairy Penguin
Eudyptula minor


(Technical Information - Mark 8. 27-38)

A woman takes her young son on a trip to the zoo.

She lets him go off and explore by himself
but when she meets him again he is soaking wet.
She is horrified and asks him what happened
but all that he will say is that he needs a bath.

As soon as they get home
the son rushes upstairs to the bathroom.
After a while the woman hears a terrific racket
and runs upstairs to find out what is happening.

When she opens the bathroom door
she sees her son looking very happy,
an empty rucksack
and a penguin in the bath.

(a true story...allegedly...)

*****
short interlude
for technical stuff
related to text for the day


*****

A man walks into the docotor's surgery
with a penguin on his head.

"Doctor, Doctor..."
says the penguin
"I've got a growth on my foot."

*****
another short interlude
for technical stuff


*****

A little girl wrote to her grandmother:

Dear Grandmother,

Thankyou very much for the book
which you gave me for my birthday.
I enjoyed reading it
but it told me more
than I need to know
about penguins.


*****

MrsM thought that the sermon
was cleverly written and well delivered.
MissM thought that the sermon
was too abstract and rather patronising.

MrsM was secretly delighted that,
just for a change,
she could remember
the beginning, middle and end.

*****
this post is for
Jeff who preaches in Missouri
and Thomas who preaches in East Anglia

14 comments:

  1. hello Alice,

    Thank you for your comment, I was very intrigued as to where Mr M was stationed?

    This is the first time I have been in here and commented. It is of course lovely.

    I am not a great listener of sermons though, I must confess.

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  2. I laso meant to say tat i have a colony of those little penguins not far from where I live. they are very sweet.

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  3. And you didn't take notes and remembered all that? I am impressed.

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  4. For a minute there, I thought the little boy in the first story might have been MasterM ...

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  5. The trouble with a succession of stories about penguins is that one remembers them rather than the point(s) that they were meant to illustrate. For myself, I am very devoted to penguins and the film 'The March of the Penguins' but I haven't thought of preaching about that - yet! I also thought (with dottycookie)that it was Master M who had brought back the penguin. I wouldn't have put it past him!

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  6. Poor, poor Master M, what a character we are all building for him...... (I grinned, thinking it MIGHT be him too....).

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  7. too many pain relieving drugs Alice?

    (of course I loved the stories too!)

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  8. I'd go to church more often if the sermons were about penguins.

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  9. Oh dear. Will Master M feel terribly maligned that I too feared he may be th'boy' in story one. Or perhaps rather proud? Hmmmm .....

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  10. Now, those are sermons I'd listen to. I've just returned from the Thanksgiving Service at my son's school chapel. A lot of 'allowing God into our hearts' but not a lot of penguins.

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  11. It always makes me think of the line in A Man for All Seasons about selling your soul for Wales, which seems so hard on Wales (or is it whales, seeing as we are on penguins). But then it is very wet there, too, so it all hangs together rather nicely!

    Pomona x

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  12. I too thought that first story was leading to Master M... what lovely tales.

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  13. Count me among the throng that thought the zoo boy was Master M!

    The Missouri Pastor is overcome by your dedication. He feels like a movie star. I fear he now will be impossible to live with. And I believe he, too, enjoyed March of the Penguins, but he really, really enjoyed Babe...so perhaps a piggy sermon is forthcoming...

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  14. I now have in mind the things of Penguin.

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