The sermon is a strange beast, being as it is, a monologue during which the preacher traditionally stands six feet above contradiction. As such it has become the vehicle of much comic parody. As so I thought for this Sunday I would share with you the best of these parodies because as preachers we need to be able to laugh at ourselves – it helps us to keep things in perpective.
Here is the classic sermon by Alan Bennett from Beyond The Fringe from 1961. The sermon preached from the text “My brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man” – a nice contrast, followed up by some fine examples of repetition, rhetorical questions, similes and anecdotes – but more or less completely devoid of content. This wonderful sketch ‘Take a Pew’ may resonate with fewer and fewer people as time goes on, but for those of us brought up on the sermons of the Anglican church, it’s still hilarious.
It was inevitable that Ronnie Barker a master wordsmith would not be able to resist the format as a vehicle for his humour. This example is taken from the fifth series of The Two Ronnies first broadcast in 1976. Not only is there a delightful use of cockney rhyming slang to tell the story, it is a wonderful example of misdirection.
In 1982, ‘Not the Nine O’Clock News’ produced this well drawn satire on the attraction that the television cameras can have on the numbers attending the Sunday service. Rowan Atkinson plays the frustrated cleryman taking aim at those who have magically turned up at the mention of a BBC film crew. Atkinson would adopt this persona on a number of occasions.
Here in the guise of his alter ego Mr Bean he reminds the preacher what the experience of those in the pews can often be like. He is accompanied in the sketch by that doyen of TV comedy, Richard Briers who amazingly keeps a straight face throughout. I have never had this happen to me in such an extreme way but I am sure that many the time people have felt themselves being enticed into the arms of Morpheus.
Finally here he is in a clip from the film ‘Keeping Mum’ from 2005, speaking on the subject of ‘God’s Mysterious Ways’. The clip shows him preparing the sermon on his won in church and wrestling with the message he is trying to impart. The scene then cuts to the event for which the message was prepared and as he delivers it, the revelation comes upon him of the truth of his words. This is something that often occured to me in my preaching. There is even a story from Cornwall of a vicar who was converted by his own preaching.
