legends · 3 min read ·
Sermon Draft
A vicar's sermon draft acquires a margin in a second pencil, and a congregation that fills the church.
**Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity**
*St. Cuthbert's, Dunmere. Text: Psalm 139. Rev. Mark Ellery.*
*Margin notes in pencil, by the preacher.*
· · ·
"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?"
*(Slow here. Look up.)*
Brothers and sisters, there is no place so dark, no hour so late, that we are not known there. That is the comfort of the psalm. Read it with me.
"If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there."
*(Pause. The congregation says "Amen" here, in St. Cuthbert's, always a beat early. Hold for it.)*
· · ·
"If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me."
*(Congregation: Amen.)*
I have been your vicar for nineteen years and I have preached on this psalm every year, and each year I find I have less to say. There is a point where words are only an obstruction. We are known. We are held. That is all.
*(Margin: Keep this short.)*
· · ·
"If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me."
*(Margin: Light the second candle here.)*
"Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee."
*(Congregation: Amen.)*
*(Margin, in a different pencil, a hand I don't recognise: And the fourth line. You've left out the fourth line.)*
· · ·
"For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother's womb."
*(Margin: Slowly.)*
*(Margin, other pencil: "Thou hast counted my bones, and I am yet with thee.")*
I stopped. I read the psalm again, from the Prayer Book, on the lectern. There is no such verse. But the preacher's notes are mine. I wrote this sermon on Wednesday, at the desk, in my study, by the lamp. The margin note was not there on Wednesday.
*(Margin: Do not read the fourth line.)*
· · ·
*(The text continues in the preacher's hand.)*
"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."
*(Congregation: Amen.)*
*(Margin, other pencil: "Marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.")*
That is the genuine verse. I breathed again. I read on.
"My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth."
*(Margin, other pencil: Louder. Say it to the one at the back.)*
· · ·
*(The text, in the preacher's hand, breaks off.)*
I looked up from the pulpit. The church was full. It is never full. I counted the pews and found them crowded to the doors, and people standing at the back, and in the side aisles, in their Sunday clothes, quiet. I did not know them. I knew none of them. They looked up at me with great gentleness.
And at the very back, by the font, one more, a man in a black coat, standing apart, with his hands folded. He met my eyes. He gave a small nod, as one does to a speaker who has said something kind.
I had not read the next line. I was holding the page. But I heard the congregation answer it, all together, in a murmur like water: **"Amen."**
· · ·
*(The manuscript ends here. The rest of the page is blank except for two lines in the second pencil.)*
*"Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written."*
*"And so they are. Come down now. We would like to hear the rest from the floor."*