None of us think about listening to a sermon as tasting a sermon, do we? I certainly do not. I had never even seen the odd expression, “sermon taster,” before reading John Betjeman’s poem, "Monody on the Death of Aldersgate Street Station." Here is the quote, from the second stanza:
Sunday Silence! with every street a dead street,
Alley and courtyard empty and cobbled mews,
Till “tingle tang” the bell of St. Mildred's Bread Street
Summoned the sermon taster to high box pews,
I do not know why, but the first thought I had was the similar expression, “opium-eater,” as in Thomas De Quincey’s 1821, Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. I also thought of a food taster whose ominous task is to check the safety of food before it is consumed by another person of more value. To be sure, “sermon taster” is a very strange image.
As I contemplate this, to taste a sermon is not a completely absurd thought. When we think of tasting food well, we think of eating slowly, savoring, and pondering the mixture of flavors. A food taster ought to be attentive. I think of tasting food as a very careful and deliberate experience of food. In my mind, gluttons are not good tasters.
There ought to be some type of critical process in listening to sermons, if we are to listen well rather than scarfing them down hungrily (scarfing is a word?). When Betjeman images quiet Aldersgate Street coming alive when church bells ring, filling with “sermon tasters” who make their way to church, he may be referring to upper-crust sermon listeners, those who occupy the “high box pews.” These may be the kind of connoisseurs or gourmands who are likely to listen with critical ears (or taste buds). Do gluttons occupy these “high box pews”? I do not know.
Nevertheless, taking a slow taste seems like good advice. Take in the sermon slowly and deliberately. Focus your faculties. Eat with an engaged brain, follow the flavors, detect all provenance, consider the taste in the moment and the after-taste minutes later. Notice the surrounding environment, the aroma, the … well, perhaps I am reading too much into a small but striking phrase in lovely poem.
The poem above is found in The Collected Poems (John Murray Ltd. and Book Club Associates: London, 1975), 270-71.
