Right of Admission Reserved?

Campedown Methodist Church
22 January 2012, 09h00
Rev Steven Jones

Once upon a time there was a young man walking down a road. As he walked, he noticed that everything had a shadow. The trees, the buildings, even the stones – all had shadows. And the people, especially the people, had shadows with many shapes and intensities. The shadows of the people were part of the world in which he lived.

He could hardly bring himself to look at his own shadow because it was very dark and very long, as if a bright sun was setting behind him. Even thinking about it, he felt ugly. Very ugly indeed. When he looked inside of himself he saw the kinds of things you would expect to find in sewerage pipes and drains.

The amazing thing about this young man was that he was quite beautiful to look at. Quite beautiful indeed. In fact, as he walked down the road, people thought to themselves, “What a healthy, strong, good-looking young man that is. How I wish I had some excuse to talk to him and get to know him.”

But the young man was not able to be friendly in return, because he absolutely did not think anything of himself. He would just look at his own dark, long shadow and feel, “What would such a friendly person want with me if they could see me for real? If they could see my shadow, they would want to get far away from me as far as possible! They would want to go home and have a good, hot shower with some strong antiseptic soap.” [To read the rest of this sermon, click here; to access the video clip for "In My Room", click here (please ignore some of the comments under the clip - the language is less than savoury, but that's the price one pays for the benefit of accessing an open file-sharing platform)]