What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Remembering and Forgetting

    A sermon preached on 14 November 2021

    We live in precedented times.

    Oh yes, I know what everyone has been saying for the best part of the last two years. They’ve been saying that we live in unprecedented times.

    Times we could never have imagined.

    Times we could never have foreseen.

    Times that were different to every time before them.

    Yes, said, every newspaper and media outlet. These are unprecedented times.

    But we only think that these times are unprecedented because in order to cope and survive, our species has developed ways of forgetting things alongside ways of remembering them.

    I think I may already have spoken from the pulpit about the dinner that I had just before lockdown when someone connected to the debate about how to address the climate crisis said to me, “We’ve just got to turn to the apocalyptic passages in the bible – it is the apocalypse that makes most sense now”.

    The gospel reading today has more than a whiff of the apocalypse about it.

    Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.

    It is easy to get carried away with this kind of thing. Easy to see that it predicts our own panic, our own fears, our own sense of desperation.

    In my wanderings through different religious experiences before I found the practice of faith that I now have, I met the apocalyptic in several places. And prophets too sometimes – prophets of doom who could see the signs of the end times all around. And thought that bad things happened to remind people to turn to God because God is cross.

    And some of them would take it far too far, trying to use all kinds on nonsense to predict the precise time and date on which the world would come to an end and Christ would return to save the saved and damn the damned.

    Many of them were harmless despite their gloom. Some were trouble though.

    And as I’ve grown older, I’ve learned that there’s more to be learned about God by seeing the good things in life as reasons to turn to God in thankfulness rather than seeing the bad things in life as reasons to conjure up a God wants to harm us.

    God never desires our harm. Not for a moment.

    We are God’s beloved. Not the object of God’s anger.

    Beloved in times of war. Beloved in times of plague. Beloved in times of famine.

    Beloved when we need most to be beloved.

    When bad things happen they remind me now that God is good. And God loves us in the places where we are afraid most of all.

    When we turn to the apocalyptic in the bible for our readings – and a lot of them come to us in the lectionary over the next few weeks, it is important to remember that we are not reading fortune cookies. These are not predictions of what’s coming next.

    You can read the apocalyptic in scripture as a foretelling of your own fears if you like. But a more authentic way to read it, I think, is to read it more as an outpouring of how it felt to be the writer in desperate times. It may give us compassion for those who were desperate. It may give us compassion for those who are desperate now.

    And the love of God puts down deep roots in compassionate soil.

    The apocalyptic fascinates us because the human psyche finds it easy to forget where people have gone before. That’s why we sometimes need explicit calls to remember.

    It feels as though our time is particularly barbaric, particularly cruel, particularly insidious.

    And yet reading the apocalyptic can maybe remind us that it has often felt that way. Maybe that it has always felt that way.

    Modern newsgathering and social media have particular ways of amplifying the horrors of the current age. The apocalypse comes to us in newsprint and on our phones in bite sized tweets daily, hourly, by the second.

    And yet, a human being is less likely to die in battle than at any time in recorded history. Thank God.

    And yet, modern science makes facing this pandemic utterly unlike facing any before. Thank God.

    And yet, we have means of communicating with one another that have given us companionship and connection that we could never have dreamt of before – even allowing us to worship like this today. Thank God.

    Apocalyptic writing is a tool for us not a statement of fact.

    It is, and probably always was, both a statement of fear and a call to action.

    When we hear wars and rumours of wars – we are called to peace.

    When we hear of earthquakes and natural disasters – we are called to exercise compassion.

    When we hear of destruction and devastation just around the corner – Climate Change is our most present example of a dawning apocalypse – we are called to change our ways and make change happen on a global scale. Called to love this planet. Called to exercise redeeming love.

    These things are attributes of God. Peace. Compassion. Redeeming love.

    We are made in the image and likeness of God. These things are hard-wired. We have them within. And we can let them roam free in this world.

    The apocalyptic writing that we hear in today’s gospel and the apocalyptic writing that we see in today’s newspapers are, each alike, calls to join in God’s mission.

    Peace. Compassion. Redeeming love.

    For all people. For every place on earth. Forever.

    Amen

9 responses to “RSA Animations”

  1. annie t Avatar
    annie t

    Fascinating stuff; like watching a (very) animated Paulo Freire! Loved the insight ‘collaboration is the stuff of growth’. Interesting implications for a congregational paradigm for theological education. Thanks Kelvin.

    Reply
  2. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Yes – I was also reminded of my synod question about TISEC, which I still don’t think I’ve received an adequate answer to, which was something like this: “Is learning through TISEC driven by normalised marking or learning outcomes?”

    Reply
  3. Kimberly Avatar
    Kimberly

    presumably neither, but by the grace of God?

    (‘normal’, ‘outcomes’, and ‘TISEC’ all in the same sentence could lead to much fun. But I suspect I’d head down the via negativa again.)

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      The answer that I got was “both” though I’ve never believed that can be possible. I do believe that TISEC at one time or another took on the trappings of each of those learning models, but that is not the same thing at all.

      Reply
  4. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    Can I gently suggest that the Tisec you love to hate has over the years changes significantly?

    Reply
  5. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    TISEC has always claimed to be changing – in that way it always is the same.

    I do accept that things have changed but have no way of knowing whether they have changed for the better. I still know people whom it appears to suit and I still know people who get distressed by what is done to them within it. In that respect at least, again, it remains the same.

    I’ve said before now that one of the reasons that TISEC is something that still presents unresolved issues for some of us who went through it is that there was never any public accountability within the church over what was done to us. No-one was ever held responsible and even though TISEC itself went through several reviews, the reasons for those reviews being carried out were never transparent.

    I’d still be happy to receive a coherent answer to the question. Incidentally, when I was in TISEC, the answer was clear – it was driven by learning goals and outcomes.

    I was at the General Synod where we voted for TISEC to cease to be a teaching institution. That was a pretty strong decision and one which was enthusiastically celebrated by some. (I went to the celebratory lunch afterwards and some folk came up from England for it). That does make it hard to understand what has happened subsequently.

    Reply
  6. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    More than it would be appropriate for me as a staff member to answer to, and more than I am the most appropriate person to answer to, educational theory not being my speciality. However, FWIW I can answer to the fact that normalised marking is firmly in place, and that our external examiner is more than happy with the standards our students achieve. Beyond doubt all those who get a diploma from us have achieved the educational equivalent of the first two years of University education.

    Reply
  7. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Well, this isn’t comparing like with like as the current external examiner acts for an institution (albeit one which may have a financial interest) that had nothing to do with TISEC when I was in it, however, I can say that the external reports on TISEC were always astonishingly good.

    All the more astonishing for those of us who were in TISEC at the time I was, actually.

    It would be interesting to compare the quantifiable academic achievements of Scottish ordinands over time. I’ve a notion that two years of university study falls short of the standards for ordinands which the General Synod was hoping for when it last voted on a report about TISEC.

    Reply
  8. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    The current external examiner is, it is true, employed; however he is not a member of the qualifying institution. He is a member of another independent academic institution, thereby bringing to his examination direct knowledge of at least three bodies (theirs, ours and his as it were). The work of our students is scrutinised by two markers at Tisec, and each piece of work scrutinised by the external examiner who checks it is achieving the same standards as YSJ. The over-all standard of YSJ is likewise scrutinised to ensure it too is achieving work of the same standard for the same level as other Universities.

    The question of whether standards nationally have risen or fallen is a different question, and harder to ascertain. We may indeed have our own different opinions. But I think it beyond doubt that the general level of the work of Tisec students is the same as the level (qualification for qualification) as the standard of students nation wide. So very much work goes into ensuring this.

    Personally, I would not be prepared to grant a degree in anything involving Biblical studies without knowledge of the Biblical languages. However it is a fact that the Universities now often do this – and indeed even forty years ago it was possible to obtain a M. Theol at St Andrews with only Greek. However regrettable this is, insisting on a full degree will not restore this.

    For those who study for a qualification with Tisec while working, as indeed for those who study with other bodies while working, to achieve two years of degree level study while in a full time job is a considerable achievement. To reach degree standard would take another 18 months I suppose – and that is a decision for the church to take.

    While I would be very sympathetic to the idea of encouraging more students to undertake a full time degree at a University, the funding of such things is a decision for the denomination, not Tisec. To ensure this in the present economic climate would be expensive, and for students who already have personal commitments, not always possible. This is why most English dioceses offer part-time training. The brief for Tisec is to offer a course that those NOT taking a full-time a course can follow, together with specifically vocational study which the Universities do not provide.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • The sun comes up it’s a new day dawning

    At about 4.30 this morning I found myself awake, wide awake in my hotel room in Edinburgh. The sun was streaming into the room despite the curtains trying to block it out. And my first thought was words that we sang at morning prayer yesterday in the General Synod meeting. The sun comes up, it’s…

  • General Synod: Come for all now is ready

    I’ve commented before that you can tell almost all you need to know about a Christian community by the way that they invite people to communion. Yesterday, General Synod started to meet in Edinburgh and by some distance the most significant theological statement came, not in the debates about how we will talk about same-sex…

  • Sermon preached on 7 June 2015

    St Mary’s is a special place for all kinds of reasons. This place is a joy and a wonder and it is a place where I really enjoy preaching. I almost never come away from a Sunday or a feast day without feeling moved, inspired and thankful for the worship that we manage offer here…

  • Dear Deans – a Scottish Response

    Within the last week, a rather provocative blog post emerged about the experience of going to cathedrals. It was particularly focussed, I think on the experience of going to a cathedral in England. (You can find it here: Dear Deans – by A Reasonable Enthusiast). Richard Moy, its author writes rather articulately about going to…