FIFTH SUNDAY OF EASTER 2016 JOHN 13:31-35 Sometimes it's good to be me. When I remember that my country's general election campaigns last just three weeks, it is good to be me. When I recall that my head of state just turned 90 without ever having asked for a single vote from anyone in her entire life, it's good to be me. But it is also good to be me because I am living in this country. So, I am allowed, and even expected, to drop pointless letters from words like the 'u' in honour, colour and saviour; and I can even evict entire syllables that are deemed just too much effort to bother with, like the fourth syllable of alluminium, and, of course, the second syllable of squirrel (it's a small gray creature that lives in trees). It is good to be me because I can talk as if the letter 'r' at the end of a word isn't really there and people think it's kind of cute instead of just normal. It is also good to be me because people then think I'm from Boston and buy me a lager.

It is good to be me when people bow and scrape and give me reverential titles and assume I am a holy, wise, and excellent person just because I wear a white piece of plastic instead of a tie. It's good to be me when members of Mt Calvary take me out to dinner. And they do. Or at least, they did until last Friday when a couple took me to a restaurant very close to this building, but after I tell this story no one will take me anywhere ever again. You see, Friday night in that establishment happens to be belly dancing night. Now this isn't belly dancing on a stage or even in the center of a large room, where people can turn their chairs and unself-consciously enjoy the show or choose to ignore it as they wish. This is more like a personal service. The dancer gyrates her way over to each individual table and does her thing, about a foot from side of the table. The side of the table on which I happened to be seated. So, picture this, I'm staring as hard as I can, with every fiber of my concentration across the table into the eyes of the people opposite me, and the dancer is like just here. And they're staring right back at me. And I know that if I glance to my right for just a Nano-second my life here is over. I'm having to resign. Camp Hill. You can't get a drink, but you can have someone's belly button jiggled in your face.

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you blush at belly dancing. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you.... (Read the full Sermon here: A Bellyful of Dancing )