Sermon
It was a sermon
Not the best but the only one for this day.
I could have slept, with some of the others But I did not.
I dared not.
I never do.
I had to stay ready, waiting and ready for his
sentence,
Ready for the one sentence that was worth it all. I always come to hear all of it for the sake of the
one sentence.
All his preparing and all my listening is for the one
sentence.
When he says it, I will hear it.
There are thought gaps.
Things he leaves out.
Space.
I fill in the gaps as he goes along.
What he does not say to us I say to myself.
He does not try to say it all.
He leaves blanks and spaces for me to fill in.
I do.
He does not know when he says his big sentence.
I know.
It’s when all the words become one word.
When all the thoughts become one thought.
It’s when the words become like flesh and blood to
me.
My flesh and blood, Lord.
Herbert Brokering’s poem, “Sermon,” Uncovered Feelings (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969) 24-25. Quoted by Roger Van Harn, Pew Rights (Grand Rapids: Erdmans 1992) 159.
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