What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon preached on 10 November 2013


    What are you fighting for…in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit?

    The gospel reading that we’ve just heard is a very particular one. The question is – if a man dies and his widow marries his brother, and six brothers die and she marries her way down the family, whose bride will she be in heaven.

    What deep truth does this question and Jesus’s answer convey to us.

    Well, I wasn’t supposed to be preaching today and swapped a couple of days ago with one of my colleagues.

    The deep truth that this passage conveys to me today is always to check what the bible readings are before you agree to swap a date in the pulpit.

    I’m going to start from a different place though and work my way back to what is going on in the gospel reading this morning. For the question is not straightforward at all, never mind the answer. (more…)

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4 responses to “tae see oorsels as ithers see us”

  1. Rev Ruth Avatar
    Rev Ruth

    My children just don’t understand it. Nor do they understand why I stay.

    Reply
  2. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    I suspect that the children of very many Christians in the UK these days don’t understand and don’t stay. We can see that laid out for us in page after page of diocesan and provincial statistics.

    And still we are expected to cheer on Archbishops who propose amendements which would institutionalise treating women as having less authority than men and also Bishops who tell us that banning gay people from leadership roles is good.

    In both these cases we are supposed to believe that these actions keep the church together. Meanwhile the children leave bewildered.

    Hear what the Spirit says to the children.

    Reply
  3. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    What surprises me is that it’s the same term “evangelical” that went from connoting “student-ish” in the 90s to “happy” (reserving outright clappy for those of charismatic designation) to “evangelicals come in Open form too!” now to “traditionalist” in matters of Backwards Beyond Belief(TM).

    Now I’m used to the arguments being “our tradition, restated more-so and louder” versus “put the Bible in context” – at least one party talking theologically.
    For a fresh thought, is the CoE (in particular, but also the AC in general) a bit preoccupied with not losing any *one* bum-on-its-3-legged-seat? There is a tension in the dynamic that could be resolved well by a large-scale rotation in membership – redefine the denominational lines by issues not history – that leads to a slimy weasely position of “I sort of want to go but don’t have the honesty to get on with it so I’ll sit around being a thorn in the canonical flesh and blame the church for trying to push me out”.

    Social evolution is too slow; that is where injustice lies.

    Reply
  4. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    I often ask me why I stay, and I’m in my late fifties. In the end, it is because I feel cheated without other people to worship with, and, well, to be a kind of thorn in the canonical flesh for the conservatives!!

    Reply

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