One of my axioms for student preachers is always to remember to preach about death and other hard circumstances in good weather, when things are going smoothly. No one has ears receptive to catechesis when they’re grieving; the time to lay foundations for themes to which you’ll return when needed is at a time when there’s as little stress in the congregation as you’re likely to encounter any time. Some clouds hover over dear brethren at St Helen’s, but this seemed as sunny a Sunday as I was likely to see in the near future, so I undertook a sermon that I deposit as savings against a spiritually rainier day. The sermon itself appears below the fold, as it were.
(Note: it was Proper 14, not Proper 15 as the header says)
