The one thing I learned as a school chaplain is that you have to be resourceful, subtle, avoid confrontation at all costs and above all never stand on your pride or be defensive when prodded and challenged by quite reasonably questioning teenagers. I say this remembering one particular occasion when I was asked to give a sermon at another local school.
It happened to come to my attention that in this particular school it had become something of a custom among the pupils to score the preacher in a pretty harsh way. They would take in their pockets 26 coins and then once the sermon started they would wait for the preacher to use a word which began with each of the letters of the alphabet in turn. When it happened, they took a coin from their pocket and placed it on the pew ledge for the collection later so the chances of them having to fork out all their coins was pretty low especially when they got to the X, Y and Z at the end of the alphabet. Well that is, as long as the preacher wasn’t wise to their game…
It was the end of the Autumn term when I was booked to preach and a beautiful Christmas tree was already in place in the chapel for the end of term celebrations. Would I have the courage to use my insider knowledge to trick my audience? I wasn’t sure what was going to happen as I ascended the steps to the lofty pulpit and to the challenge. I viewed the congregation from on high and began my sermon….
“At Bethlehem”, I paused to see if I could hear coins clinking onto the pew ledges. Yes, I had been accurately informed by my source, this congregation really was scoring my performance in their time-honoured fashion. I continued, “Christ descended earthward”. This time faces were turned toward me in mystification. Was this a weird coincidence or maybe some kind of miracle from God?
But the coins continued their slower but inexorable journey from pocket to pew. So I took the next phrase at a gallop; “Forever giving humanity infinite joy.” The game was up. This was too much of a coincidence. Everyone was now looking at me smiling with the realisation that I was wise to their tricks. It was now to be a test of my powers of inventiveness to complete the alphabet along the storyline of the birth of Jesus.
Slowly I proceeded to let them appreciate what I thought was the sheer brilliance of the immaculate alphabetical word order. “Kneeling low, magi now offer presents. Quires rejoice! Shepherds tremble. Until violent warriors x-ecute youngsters zealously.” The chapel erupted in spontaneous applause.
Unfortunately, wonderful as it sounds, this wasn’t quite what happened. For those of you who love the works of James Thurber, it was my Walter Mitty moment. The fantasist who imagines himself elevated by his imagination from the mundane and humdrum man that he is, to the hero and the superstar. “Oh if only life were glamorous and glitzy; full of dreams fulfilled and wishes granted,” I sighed. I never did preach that celebrity sermon. Instead it was, if I remember correctly, just the plain, humble truth of Christmas - God divesting himself of all flashiness and power - and sleeping in a cattle trough. Love is so much more sincere, don’t you think, when it is simple and stripped of pretence?
