“The aim is to try not to be dull,” as Neuhaus said in the blog below. I will take that advice to heart as I enter the pulpit for the first time in about six years tomorrow at St Patrick’s Church, Murrumbeena, for their Week of Prayer for Christian Unity service at 1:30pm tomorrow.
Don’t worry, I won’t post my sermon here. Not good style for preacher/bloggers, I reckon. Sermons are preached into a specific context and are meant to be listened to rather than read.
I propose that
1) We replace the absentee monarch of Australia (who is also the Monarch of Great Britain) with an elected Australian monarchy.
2) The elected monarch exactly replaces the current monarch in the current constition.
3) The elected monarch has exactly the same powers, duties and responsibilities as those of the current absentee monarch. All the monarch's functions are carried out by his/her personal representatives (as is currently the case): federally by the Governor General, and in the states by the State Governors.
4) The Governor General and the Governors continue to be selected and appointed as they currently are, that is, by the premier with the approval of the monarch.
5) The monarch is elected to sovereignty over Australia for life, but his/her sovereignty is strictly non-hereditary.
6) The elective body is the "college of electors" comprised of the state governors and federal governor general.
7) The election of the monarch must be a unanimous decision on the part of the college of electors.
“And thirty-seventhly, dearest brethren…”
;-)
But so many sermons make good reading. Surely you have read many sermons.
But don’t worry – I won’t be posting mine!
No, not really. Well, apart from the sermons of the Fathers, and Newman, and Luther and perhaps a few others (I’m sounding like Paul saying he has never baptised anyone, aren’t I?).
But it takes a remarkably good orator to both be good listening AND good reading.
Few have the skill to make a sermon both. Many have the ability to make it neither.