The process of finding inspiration for a worship service in the Unitarian tradition is a complex one. We don't have a lectionary to follow, and every service has to be put together from scratch. Some are time-sensitive (for Christmas, Easter, Harvest, Remembrance Sunday, the Wheel of the Year for example) but most are "ordinary" services, dependent on the inspiration found by the worship leader.
This inspiration may come from many places - a snippet of news, an overheard conversation, a few lines (or an entire section) from a book or a poem or a blogpost. Or something on social media may get our creative juices flowing. The very title of this blogpost comes from a book I have read and re-read: Sensible Shoes by Sharon Garlough Brown. One of the four main characters, Hannah, is a minister, and if something unusual happens, her first thought is, "That'll preach."
It is a comment I have taken for my own, and it happened again yesterday. I was driving back down the M6, returning from a gorgeous few days in the Lake District with my best friend, and listening (as is my wont) to a talking book. The "book" in this instance was a series of talks given by Richard Rohr on The Sermon on the Mount, from the Gospel of Matthew. In the sixth session (it is a long journey there and back) he mentioned the three great temptations with which the devil tempted Jesus during his 40 days in the wilderness, and summarised them as Prestige, Power, and Possessions.
It occurred to me that the desire for one (or a combination of) these three leads to almost every war, every act of violence... That'll Preach.
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