Once upon a time there was a psychologist who worked on the fifth floor of the Emporium Building down on Front Street in Bermuda. (This is all fiction ? of course!)

One day the psychologist's friend, a local pastor in a beautiful Scottish Presbyterian Church in Warwick asked him, speaking in his beautifully mellifluous Scottish accent, if the psychologist would fill in for him while he was on vacation and preach at the beautiful Scottish Presbyterian church in Warwick. Being spellbound by the intelligence and soft eloquence in the voice of the mellifluent Scottish preacher, the psychologist said, "Sure".

Months went by without a thought to what the psychologist might preach about. As the particular Sunday approached, however, anxiety began to build in the psychologist. He wanted to do a good job. He remembered times when he used to preach while in his former career in the clergy, but he was years out of practice, and he'd actually become more of a listener and a writer than a speaker. So, when he finally sensed his subject, he began to pour over his books and to write out extensive notes. It was good writing, but would that translate into good speaking? He did not know, but what he did know was that he felt he needed the notes.

In his anxiety, he prayed. He talked with God about how it was that he got himself into such messes as this in the first place, and how he was a rotten speaker, and he asked God to help him so that he didn't make a mess of things and so that the people in the beautiful Scottish Presbyterian church in Warwick would not be let down and his friend, the mellifluent preacher, would not be embarrassed and regretful.

So, the Sunday morning in question arrived, and the psychologist realised that all his notes were on his laptop, but the printer at his home did not work. So, he packed up his laptop and walked down to his office early in the morning to use the printer there.

The sun was just coming up, and there were groups of young men roaming Reid Street. The psychologist shifted down to Front Street and continued toward his office.

When he got to the building, the elevator was broken and the stairway was locked, so he could not get up to the fifth floor and print out his notes. He noticed a number of men doing maintenance but none of them spoke English and no one could help him.

On his walk back he realised that God was answering his prayers. "Okay, Father. I get the message. I'd have been tied to the notes and would have lost the people. Okay, but now I am completely dependent on you." His mind was in this space, in another place really, as he walked along Front Street near the Supermarket.

That's when he noticed a young man with a sweatshirt and sweat pants coming toward him. He was muscular, and he looked agitated. As he got closer, the man started shouting angrily. He was puffing himself up with the energy of rage, and he started waving his arms around, bellowing at the world.

The psychologist stepped aside on the sidewalk as he passed, keeping an eye on him as the man continued on. The psychologist turned to watch what happened next, for the young man got very much louder and more angry, and then he lunged toward an old, homeless man sitting next to the wall drinking a beer, and he yelled something incomprehensible but threatening. He stole an umbrella from the homeless man.

He stood over the frail looking older man, all the time yelling and waving his arms. Then, he backed away from him and walked on down the sidewalk appeased and de-escalating.

The psychologist felt like less of a man.

His own anger began to surface, for he had just witnessed something that was not right, and he wanted to run after the young man and get the umbrella back. Instead, he stood there and shook his head. Then he noticed another person, another young man standing nearby doing the same thing.

Then he noticed a group of people who had witnessed the same incident, but had also done nothing.

A few hours later, the psychologist preached at the beautiful Scottish Presbyterian church in Warwick about the kingdom of God and about the chance to live as citizens of that kingdom here and now, tearing down the arbitrary divide between sacred and secular space.

Inside, the pathetic cries of the old, homeless man kept sounding in his mind.

They were not anywhere as mellifluous as the voice of his Scottish pastoral friend, but they were unrelenting and persistently annoying.

They invited him to live in this world so as to make a difference, not to just preach on Sunday and play church or to exchange theological banter with others while in sacred space, but to take back secular space for the kingdom of God and to live an expendable life in service of the King Himself.