Mickey,

My husband has preached many a sermon in exactly the same vein... using a story that might have happened in the context of the times and the mindset of the people, to expose a truth far opposite to the story. Some stroies are best told from that view.... because so often we ourselves are like the people in the story, although we think ourtselves better. He did one just last week about the Scribes and Pharisees, showing us how human they were as they made the decisions of the crucifixion... they sounded a lot like US, and not on a good day!

A song or story like yours calls us back to a sense of our own silliness, if it's preached right, at the right time, to people for whom it is the next logical piece to hear. And in homiletics, there is also the assumption that the preacher has a personal, pastoral relationship with most of the hearers as individuals, so they hear it differently and feel easier about talking it over later with him or her. And it comes within a context of prayer... there are ways for the people to channel their response to it.

Perhaps yours is so powerful that it brought up more discomfort within the listeners than they could handle without lashing out. Perhaps the real effect of it came later, after they had excoriated you; and maybe it has been a good effect. Truth has a way of sinking into even the most rigid heart and mind, and it kicks in when the time is right for it to be applied.

I had been invited to present the first meditation on Good Friday and have since declined for a variety of reasons. Now I feel stupid-- I'd have read them your song and your remarks about it. And maybe some of the other remarks. And then left them there to sit and think on it.

I am going to print it for my husband. I bet it will work its way into a sermon before too long.

Khandu, BTW, we also loved your comment to the effect that "you can still be full of a dead man's bones." I always read the Vigil lesson on Ezekiel and that line really hit me.... and Hardiman. It's so powerful.

~Susan