A congregation have, despite having heard me preach, been kind enough to ask me back again. I'm not so full of myself as to overlook the possibility that in an interregnum and with dwindling numbers of ordained and lay preachers I'm simply better than nothing. Accordingly, I've turned to Mark Tanner's book How to Write a Good Sermon for guidance as to how I might improve.Tanner says that only a disciple can preach, and the first thing he says he means by this is that I must live my faith. Put another way, he is saying 'practice what you preach' else, he warns, you are not a preacher but a commentator, an observer, or a critic. And as he says "we have enough of those already".
I know what he means. I have said on a number of occasions over the last year or so that it is some time since I've heard a Yellowhammer locally. Rory McGrath in his Great Bearded Tit is scornful of the mnemonic attached to this bird, but for me it's 'a-little-bit-of-bread-and-no-cheese' is very helpful as an identifier. And indeed it must be a good few years since I've heard that call along the local hedgerows.
Except that by holding forth on the subject I am falling into the human trait of implying that of course I am a fount of naturalist knowledge, a twitcher par excellence and whose opinion is worthy of note. The truth is plainer: I haven't delighted in the countryside around me to the extent that I would place myself where I might actually hear a Yellowhammer.
Today I walked up the escarpment overlooking our village, and sat and watched and listened. I heard no Yellowhammers, but since the Daffodils too are late out, perhaps that is not unusual only half-way through March.
As I sat reflecting, I recalled a meeting last week in which someone took a 'pop' at civil servants. Being an ex-civil servant I felt my hackles rise, but I kept my counsel and thought about times when perhaps I too have let slip a judgemental comment and unwittingly caused offence.
Jesus told us to love God and to love each other as ourselves. If we take exception to everything unthinkingly blurted out, perhaps even blogged, we dig ourselves a deep furrow from which it is hard to escape. Still less to enjoy God's bounty as it sings to us from the hedgerows.
