Saturday 17 September 2016

Liturgy of Preparation for the Hardest Gospel to Explain in the Lectionary

Archdruid: Parable of the Dishonest Manager tomorrow.

All: The one where the bloke is a crook?

Archdruid:  A-ha.

All: And to save his skin he defrauds his boss?

Archdruid: Yep.

All: And Jesus says what a good job he did?

Archdruid: Yep.

All: Mmmmm.

Archdruid: Let us hold in our thoughts those who will have to explain it tomorrow.

"Little Pebbles" Leaders: Woe is us. For what can we do? We can't tell the little 'uns not to cheat people and tell lies and then read them this.

Archdruid: Bummer, innit?

"Little Pebbles" Leaders: What fun games can we come up with that make this sense? What activities could relate to this? We'll hope the weather is nice and do parachute games. Again.

Archdruid: Sounds wise to me.

Intercessor: Woe is me for I have a text that inspires me little, but scares me greatly. For how can I use this text to guide my prayers? I can only pray for loss adjusters, fraudsters and people who hide banking errors.

Archdruid: People who are too seldom prayed for, in my opinion.

Preacher: Woe is me for I am a bear of little brain and this is a right tricky one. At my left hand I have a commentary that I do not understand. And on my right, a large supply of coffee. It's gonna be a long night.

Archdruid: Perhaps you could try alternative worship?

"Little Pebbles" Leaders: He's not having the parachute.

Archdruid: I was thinking more, small group discussions coming together into presentations of what you've discussed in plenary?

Introverts: No! No! No!

Archdruid: Or everyone gets to model the parable in Play Do?

Preacher: Like your thinking.

Hymn: This text, O God, has stressed-out, preachers from age to age.

Archdruid: There will be a retiring collection. Please don't be tempted to substitute notes of smaller denominations for larger ones.

Hnaef (rushing in): I've got it! It's something to do with the Kingdom of God!

All: It normally is, in our experience.

4 comments :

  1. I'm the intercessor for this tomorrow...thanks for making me laugh!

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  2. There is always the NT Reading!

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  3. I have this morning sat through a homily in which the preacher said that he would tackle this text. Some 20 minutes later I realised that he was doing anything but.

    Usually faced with a problematical reading there are three tried-and-tested get-outs: 1. It's allegorical; 2. It means something quite other in the original Greek; 3. It's an interpolation. I can today add: 4. Announce you are going to talk about, talk about something else, say you have talked about it and make your getaway.

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  4. Monsignor X said that the steward was forfeiting his own commission. This seems to be stretching things slightly.

    ReplyDelete

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