What is in Kelvin's Head?

Midnight Mass 2014 Sermon for Glasgow

25/12/2014

Where does the light of Christ most need to shine?

A long time ago on the first holiday that I went on with a friend rather than my parents, I travelled partly by train, partly by boat and partly hitchhiking, to the Orkney Isles. And one of my strongest memories of being there was crawling through the narrow entrance of the great Neolithic Maeshowe cairn. Built probably nearly 5000 years ago, my friend and I sat in the gloom of the interior hearing that the whole edifice was aligned so that the light of the winter solstice sunset would shine down the narrow passageway and perfectly illuminate a stone in the interior.

And of course, it still works. Nowadays people try to capture the same effect and spread it around the world using webcams.

But what were those who built the cairn trying to say?

The truth is, we don’t know. Was the sun itself the focus of what they were doing at midwinter or was the sunlight being caused to shine onto something stuck in some way on that stone?

What did they want the light to shine on?

Sometimes you see guidebooks of Manhattan with pictures taken of the sun setting perfectly behind the skyscrapers as though they had been built for that very purpose.

And Great Western Road itself, outside this cathedral, aligned as it is, works just as well as any stone cairn at predicting the rise and fall of the sun.

Will archaeologists in 5000 years wonder at our devotion in laying out the West End of this city to align with sunrise and sunset?

Will they presume that what we built was aligned to the light?

Will they wonder where we wanted the light to shine?

Where do you want the light to shine this year?

Once again we come to Christmas with a very public tragedy in our minds. Things hard to think about. Things difficult to contemplate.

People do ask me whether it is hard to speak of the love of God when difficult things happen.

Well, it is sometimes hard to find the right word but the truth is, the love of God coming to illuminate the darkest of times is what we always celebrate at Christmas no matter what year we are in and no matter what has happened. The light comes into the world. That is the truth we gather here to proclaim right at the darkest time of year.

It is the truth which made the angels sing. It is the truth which made the heavens ring.

God is come into the world and the fact that we celebrate that at night has always meant a lot to me.

We gather at night to remind ourselves that the light shines in the darkness and that the song of the angels matters – for they sing of peace on earth.

We gather at night to remind ourselves that God’s coming makes a difference and the peace-prayer of the angels is a song we can dare to sing for ourselves.

We gather at night to remind ourselves that nothing is impossible with God, and the song of the angels is the song the world needs to hear.

The song is “peace to God’s people on earth” and it is as catchy as Charpentier’s Noels that we are enjoying tonight.

Where does the light need to shine this year. Do you know?

I know that you do.

You know the hearts and the places and the situations where peace on earth is needed most.

And in gathering here in the night-time, the story of the light coming into the world, the song of peace on earth becomes our story, becomes our song.

That’s why we do this.

God came to Bethlehem to become someone who would weep with those who suffered and walk alongside them in their troubles.

God came to Bethlehem.

God comes to Glasgow.

We know where the light needs to shine. We know places and people who need God’s peace.

Don’t forget that Bethlehem and Glasgow are twin cities.

Tonight as we remember the light of the world arriving in Bethlehem, ask yourself where you want the light of Christ to shine. Who needs to know God’s presence. Who needs to hear the angel’s song of peace.

Whoever it is, remember them in this holy place tonight.

Our gospel reading tonight reminds us that our first sight of Jesus, the babe in the manger was hardly the first time God cared about the world. What began there had a greater beginning – for in the beginning itself was the Word.

God has always loved us. In the stories and songs of Christmas we get to retell and replay in our minds a narrative that also tells us that God already loves us.

Go from this place tonight knowing that God loves you.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And God came. Light shines. Love is real. And a peaceful world is a birthright and a destiny and a manifesto for everyone who draws breath.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

We know all about darkness. But the light has come. Love is here and love is real. For where there is human life there is love. And where there is love there is God.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. Did not overcome it in Bethlehem. Will not overcome it in Glasgow. Will not overcome it in any place at all. Amen

7 responses to “Whither the Kirk?”

Pausing Place

25/08/2010

I missed last night’s programme, but I thought your comments were interesting.

In a sense, perhaps it’s unsurprising if the SEC is inwardly more positive about itself than the CofS. My take is that in the recent past, at least, the SEC started from a lower common denominator, not being the “local” church in the same way as the Kirk, and so it doesn’t have to contend with others saying of it “look how the mighty have fallen” in quite the same way.

As to the health of the Kirk (and the SEC for that matter), I think we need to reflect on our self-perception and to consider carefully the points and places in which a dying church (congregation or denomination) should be allowed to die gracefully, and the ways in which we might see new life emerge from the rubble.

As a young(ish!), relatively new Christian I have seen examples of (both urban and rural) SEC and Kirk congregations where there are few signs of new growth, little to draw in younger (under 50 year olds, to pick a random-ish number) new folk, and much to sustain negative preconceptions of church as boring, irrelevant and so forth.

We as a faith community need to get much better at stepping up to the mark in our creativity and engagement with our society. The sad truth is that most young adults do not know and have not heard about Jesus Christ, and unless we engage with them in ways culturally relevant to them, and which do not presuppose previous knowledge (too often taken for granted) they never will.

It troubles me, but I do think it’s true to say that in the SEC and in the Kirk we have a church sustained by the traditions and cultural reference points taught to a previous generation. Culture has shifted radically, with the result that the same will not be able to be said in 20 years time.

Our challenge is clear. Whether the Kirk and the SEC can step up to the mark to address what it means to live out the Great Commission in the 21st century is less so.

Reply
Cal

25/08/2010

I didn’t really understand who this programme was aimed at, or even what its aim was.

Yes, numbers have fallen, but perhaps the small number of people who remain are there because they actually want to be, not because it’s the done thing on a Sunday morning.

And personally, I rather like the idea of a church “sustained by traditions”. Clearly the church has to be relevant to modern society, but in abandoning the traditions of worship then you lose the centre of why the church exists in the first place.

There was something very Presbyterian about the programme with its “we’re doomed” mentality. I find the SEC generally more positive in outlook.

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John

25/08/2010

The only book the presenter seemed to have used in his research was ‘The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation 1800-2000’ By Callum G Brown – indeed Callum Brown was one of the speakers. The thesis of this well argued sociological study is that “quite suddenly in 1963 something very profound ruptured the character of the nation and its people sending organised Christianity on a downward spiral to the margins of social significanceâ€. That something he identifies as new media, new gender roles and a moral revolution which has dramatically ended peopleâ€™s conception that they lived Christian lives.â€ It could be said to have happened as â€œsex beganâ€ between the end of the Chatterly ban and the Beatles first LP as the poet Philip Larkin so famously put it.”
To balance this statistical decline the programme flagged up some of the “church without walls ” iniatives in a lame sort of way. All in all a most unsatisfactory programme that only told half the story.

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Kenny

25/08/2010

Good crit Kelvin. My reflection at the end of the programme was, “Lord, we visited this stuff over 30 years ago, and have come out of it stronger and better Church in the SEC.” Hopefully, we stopped longing for ‘the good old days’ a long time ago!

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MartinRitchie

26/08/2010

I thinking “Pausing Place” makes a good point about needing to creatively engage with society. From my own experience of working with a CofS congregation, this creative engagement is a weak spot for many.

As a counterpoint to the programme, interesting to note in the latest “Life and Work” a very positive article about a growing CofS congregation in Stornoway – and I mean really growing! So not all doom and gloom, and I’m sure there are many more examples of bright spots, just as there are in the SEC!

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Graham Vahey

28/08/2010

If the C of S disappeared completely we would be at a loss. During the dark and bleak years of Thatcher’s reign she refused to visit Scotland for 5 years. When she did she expressed shock that we had Royal Regalia and ordered it to be removed immediately for safe-keeping to England. Her ‘Sermon on the Mound’ is now historical for its condescension to the Scots. She was none too pleased to be handed two reports on poverty in Scotland by the powerful Church and Nation Committee. Indeed, it was to this Committee that the population turned to for a moral lead during Thatcherism. When James VI (‘Jamie the Saxt’) became James I in England, the population turned to senior Scottish earls for a moral lead. Unfortunately, the Piskie Church does not give a moral lead in Scotland, apart from the work of the Scottish Constitutional Convention in the recent past. The RC Church does pronounce on moral issues. Could it not be conceivable that all the major Churches could unite in a Committee to pronounce for Scotland on moral issues as the Church & Nation Committee once did?

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Aldous N. Gaiters

01/09/2010

Speaking as a Nonjuror myself I am sure the SEC has a right to a moral voice in Scotland. Taking the US daughter church of the SEC as a model you could see where the fissures would appear. There is room for a modern liberal Christian voice, but even I an old Liberal myself, would have to fear that such a voice might appeal to only a select few.

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