Long service

I have had a dreadful morning: you couldn't make it up. I have material for a few posts, one may be quite long unless I cool down first.

The sermon today was given by a (senior) member of the congregation; a churchwarden I believe. It was about bread given that today was Harvest Festival.

She wanted to sum up, using children to hold up the ingredients of bread - flour, salt, water, fat, sugar, yeast. I guess it was all about different things make bread just as different people make up the world; you know, the 'talents' sermon I keep hearing.

Just as she was listing yeast and sugar a member of the congregation interrupted - at length - and sternly made the point that sugar is not strictly needed to make bread: it simply speeds up the yeast fermentation and is thus an idea from mass manufacture. She was 'keen' that the children did not leave the service with the wrong idea. She had missed the point, I feel.

The acted-out sermon (using children again) was long enough already without this delay and, in total, lasted 21 minutes.

It reminded me of the old story:

Hit Me Again

“I heard about a man who was supposed to preach for 20 minutes and he spoke for 30 and 40 and 50. An hour and 20 minutes later he was still speaking. The man who introduced him couldn’t stand it any longer and he picked up a gavel and threw it at the speaker. It missed the speaker and hit a man in the front row, and as the man in the front row was going into subconsciousness, he said, ‘Hit me again, I can still hear him.’”