Snappy sermons

SIR – The test of a good sermon (Letters, May 12) is not how funny it is but how short it is, and how much you remember afterwards.

Years ago it was the habit in my local church to skip the sermon completely at the 8am Holy Communion. Then a new priest came to the altar and said: “I have good news and bad news. The bad is that, as church law requires, there will be a sermon at this service. The good news is that I will never preach for more than three minutes.”

This was followed by years of the best sermons I have ever heard. Brian Foster Shrivenham, Oxfordshire