Sermons often evoke two different kinds of experience for us. Have you ever mentally compiled lists of things to do during the delivery of the Sunday sermon? I know I have! Have you ever been struck by a word or phrase in the sermon and thought, I hope I can remember this - only to find that within minutes it has gone from recollection? For me this happens all the time. In my own experience and listening to others share their experience with me I think it's fair to say that mostly, we expect to be bored by the sermon, and only occasionally have the experience of coming-to, jerked-out of our reverie by a word or phrase from the pulpit.

In the readings, we hear God's invitation to conversation. The sermon is a response from within the experience of the community to what God is saying. The importance of the spoken word is that it is a word in time, or a timely word, breaking into our momentary awareness, but then having done its work becoming illusive again. What we also need is a way of sitting with the sermon in a form that allows us to go back to the text so that it embeds not only in our momentary awareness, but in our more enduring consciousness. Both spoken and written word feeds us in different ways, and we need both. Thank goodness for the invention of the blog to offer a more attractive and accessible format for reflection on the text.

The Gospel for last Sunday, the 3rd Sunday in the season of Pentecost contained the seeds of what I am sure has been, and will continue to be, an ongoing conversation between God and the parish community of St Martin.