‘Humpty, have you ever heard a sermon from a preacher flat on the deck?’
‘No, and I’m not likely to. Why do you ask?’
‘I’m thinking of Ezekiel.’
‘Well, think again. Was it because he fell off a wall?’
I ignored that.
But I went on thinking about Ezekiel. Sermons nowadays are directed at well-dressed congregations in comfortable surroundings who give respectful attention to pulpit rhetoric. John Wesley, William Booth and Donald Soper showed earlier generations this was not the only way to go about things. C. S. Lewis showed another way with his ‘Broadcast Talks’ and imaginative literature. If we move back further to the Old Testament prophets we find even more striking examples of the unconventional.
Ezekiel is at the extravagant end of the prophecy spectrum. We should think of him holding forth not in a warm well-appointed church building but inside his own garden gate. He was not even free to strut on a platform. He was tied down with rope. If he was to speak he had to do it lying down. He lay down – and he lay down for 390 days. (Nobody has quite explained this number.) He conformed to a bread-and-water kind of diet and he orated about the fall of Jerusalem – all this at ground level. Prone preaching? It’s one way to gain the attention of an audience.
That was not the end of it. There was also a shave. Ezekiel had a comprehensive removal of his head-hair. He was told to weigh it and divide it into three portions. Some was to be burnt, some scattered. It was a figurative way of suggesting the day of doom. We are reminded of King Canute enlightening his sycophantic courtiers at the seaside and Bruce learning persistence from a spider.
Prophets were in general far from being grave dignitaries who composed memorable prophecies (sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse) in quiet solitude. Ezekiel may be an extreme example but others too were awkward figures very remote from bourgeois respectability.
Sometimes I think Humpty has a great deal in common with the prophets. Like them, he puts a question mark against convention. I’ve never heard him address a public meeting but that would be an event worth attending.
NO BRICKS AND MORTAR
Gareth Lane calls himself a community vicar. He has no church building and his congregation meets in a primary school on Sundays. He is based in a new community and looks after the Church on Berryfields. It is part of the Aylesbury church network and has a strong youth section.
PARISH WALKS
Three times a year St Giles’ parish church, Newcastle-under-Lyme invites people to join a parish walk. It is an opportunity over three or four miles for people to get to know each other. A pub meal ends the occasion. Gilbert Scott designed St Giles’. It is the fourth or fifth building on the site. (There was once a forest of Lyme, with lime and elm trees.) Joshua Penduck is the Rector. A newsy magazine is on-line.
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