What is in Kelvin's Head?

Emerging glistening from the water – sermon preached on 7 July 2019

07/07/2019

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

I emerged from the water, radiant and glistening in the sunlight and made my way up onto the beach.

Not like Daniel Craig emerging from the sea in Casino Royale.

Not even like Ursula Andress coming up out of the waves in Dr No.

No – I emerged from the waves more like Venus, the goddess of Love arriving on the shore in Botticelli’s famous painting.

Not that there were many witnesses. Not for me the crowds of people in the Uffizi Gallery looking upon the goddess of Love.

My only company as I emerged onto the beach a fortnight ago was a friendly grey seal whom I had put on watch when I flung off my clothes and ran into the exhilarating waters of the Atlantic when on holiday in the Western Isles.

And now I emerged joyful and feeling incredible.

If you can swim in the Atlantic off Scotland, even in July you can do anything. Emerging from the freezing water, you suddenly feel warm. You suddenly feel invincible.

But that seems to be quite a long way from Naaman’s experience.

I rather love the story of Naaman the commander of the army of Aram. He is a man with great power who finds himself in great need.

There are so many ways to dive into his story. Let me just pick on three… the way power works in the story, the sevenfold advice that Elisha gives and what happened to the servant girl.

Power first. Naaman is clearly man with great power but someone who finds himself in great need.

But this is the bible. The usual conventions about power are very obviously going to be turned upside down. There’s the obvious way that the ability to unlock his suffering comes not from conventional power, privilege and prestige but from someone who is enslaved and owned by him. The slave girl has no power and no agency. But still the word comes from her that directs Naaman to his place of healing.

But there is also the disruptive fact that Naaman is an enemy. According to the conventions of his day he doesn’t deserve anything from an enslaved woman from the people of Israel. But he doesn’t deserve anything from the God of Israel either.

I love the way this story undermines the idea that God is only with us. If Naaman can be healed, God must also be with them, whoever they are.

So many of the stories in the bible are about the human ability to divide the world into us and them – this story very clearly undermines that.

On this weekend when Glasgow has had its biggest Orange Walk, I warm to a biblical story which undermines the idea of religion being about dividing people.

The religious practise that Elisha advocates is as available for the outsider and the enemy of Israel as it is available for the insider and the regular worshipper.

Religion that undermines sectarian divisions is religion worth taking notice of and diving into.

Secondly, I notice that Naaman isn’t just told to go and bathe in a river but to bathe again and again. A sevenfold bathing.

(The truth is, once was enough in the chilly Atlantic waters for me so I might have some sympathy for Naaman if he objected to having to jump in seven times).

Religion is often about finding that building rhythm into life is healthy and lifegiving.

I’m not sure we talk about that enough.

It happens to be the case that if Christians could reacquire the habit of weekly attendance at worship, most of the decline that has been experienced by Christianity in this country would be wiped out overnight.

But even that isn’t the point. We need to do liturgical acts regularly because that is how they work.

Whether it is the ritual act of bathing seven times or encouraging one another in regular weekly holy habits of coming to church, it is the repetition that gives the experience greater depth and somehow unlocks things inside us.

When we do things again and again, we become part of the thing we are doing. Instead of us doing something to the thing, the thing starts to do something to us.

We are shaped and changed and made whole by repeatedly doing things that give us life.

Those things change us and make us act and behave differently in future.

And the future is the last thing I notice about the story.

The bit missing for me is when Naaman goes home and sets the slave girl free in acknowledgement that as he is free, the person who unlocked his freedom needs to be freed from her slavery. He’s been freed from his affliction. Why shouldn’t she be freed from the affliction of being owned?

But that didn’t happen. Or at least we never heard of it. The bible is silent on what happened to her.

It is too late for her. Naaman appears not to have freed her.

But it isn’t too late for many who are still enslaved.

This week a horrendous case came to light of modern slavery.

It isn’t too late to set slaves free. It is still an imperative laid upon us.

If Naaman didn’t get work out that should have come next, we can.

When those in the past practised obvious injustice – obvious to us in our own day then it falls upon us to do the good in the future that didn’t happen in their day.

Slave girls and slave boys, slave women and slave men can still be set free.

People need to be freed from real modern slavery today. And people need to be set free from all kinds of other things that harm them too.

And as I ran up and down on the stunning empty beach miles from anywhere I started to feel warm and joyful and whole. And I felt invincible. I felt as though I could do anything.

And that it what it is like for people plunged into the goodness that is God’s love.

We enact that in baptism.

Once we are out of that water, we are invincible, for we emerge encouraged by the very God of Love who walks this world and loves us very much.

Together with God, we are invincible.

We can do anything.

There is no wrong that can’t be righted.

For God’s love is real, and strong, wonderful.

And that love is with you.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

7 responses to “Twitter and the Church”

Justin

18/06/2009

First, congratulations Kelvin on your appointment as I&C Board convenor, and thanks to you and all who contributed to the SEC’s Synod Twitter coverage, which worked really well.

Some thoughts:

Next year, as was suggested by some of the Synod ‘Twitterarti’ we should have a proper Synod 2009 Twitter account, like that set up by the Church of Scotland for their Assembly. And it needs to be integrated into the Synod pages on the Provincial website from the outset.

It would also be good to integrate the #pisky Twitter stream into the Provincial site on a permanent basis, or to set up an SEC account for that purpose. I would also suggest making the site’s SEC blogroll more prominent. And the SEC Flickr streams.

I understand the concerns some have about the impossibility of monitoring what’s said on Twitter and the blogosphere, and its undeniable that sometimes people will say insensitive and daft things that will offend and hurt.

But that is part of the very nature of online communication. The days when organisations could manage their channels of communication through press releases and a limited number of printed publications are gone. The web has democratised communications media, offering a low cost platform for all members of an organisation: the concept of gatekeepers at the top approving and filtering information is redundant.

Like all organisations the SEC needs to embrace and engage with things like Twitter, blogs and other social networking tools, or people will simply bypass the ‘official’ channels and jump straight to where the real conversation is happening, like your blog.

It’s not just Twitter we need to embrace, but the existing web platforms we’ve already got in place. I’ve been honoured to be asked to develop a number of websites for the SEC over the past couple of years, including the Provincial site and a few diocesan sites.

Some good use has been made of these – Kennedy in particular has been doing some great stuff on the Glasgow site over the past few weeks. But my perception is that the web still plays a very muted second fiddle to print as a means of communication within our church.

At Provincial level I don’t see why all the good news material should be kept for inspires magazine. I think it should go straight onto the website as soon as it becomes available. If it’s kept in inspires nobody outside the church can see what’s going on. I don’t think subscription rates to the magazine would be affected at all if inspires material also appeared online: most commercial magazines have found that putting selected material online serves to promote rather than threaten their presence on the newstands. There are now more printed magazines than ever, and they all have websites.

I think we should allow the boards and committees to post their material direct to the SEC News section. That would, I think, encourage far more of them to contribute their material to the website.

The same applies at diocesan level: nearly all the good news is kept back for the diocesan magazines, and almost none of it makes its way to the website (again, I know Kennedy is doing his best for the Glasgow site).

News and events functionality, RSS feeds, photo galleries: they are all there on the diocesan websites waiting to be used. I have to be frank and say that communicating our diocesan news through rather poorly designed newsletters (where the Comic-Sans wars are still taking place) received only by insiders, makes us look very old-fashioned and insular.

I realise that sounds rather harsh, and that people are volunteering their time to put together the magazines. But I don’t see why we are spending so much time and money doing it that way when the web is there waiting to be used. I love the church and want it to grow, not continue to decline. The web is our friend, offering so many exciting possibilities, and its importance as a means of communication will not be grasped unless we keep banging on about it!

My tuppenceworth. Very interested to hear what others think. Congrats again and best wishes in the new post.

Reply
gaielle

19/06/2009

Congrats and Best Wishes indeed, Kelvin. A most demanding role and requirement.

Encouraged by Justin, I shall add a penny-ha’pennies-worth.

Communication in the world of today is a serious and complex undertaking, isn’t it, not least because there are so many across-generation and accessibilty issues involved, leaving the ‘non-tech’ community disenfranchised if the ‘old fashioned’ hard copy approach is neglected – or perceived to be neglected. Hard copy will continue to be an essential medium for a while yet – and rightly so.

But equally important, and especially for reaching, including and empowering the youngest generations in the SEC, is the recognition and inclusion of new and newest technologies. Perhaps the teenagers in our midst have some useful insights to offer us for Developing Mission Outreach. The Good News was given to us to share – with everyone.

Good – effective – communication is a great thing when you encounter it. Rare Creature tho it be. Fully – and clearly intended to BE – fully inclusive, and therefore encompassing and using ALL practical and available methods of communication.

Problems in achieving Good Communication so often seem to be due to omission, oversight and a lack of appreciation of The Need To Try.

So, for instance, I Receive Information From Other, I process this internally with every intention that my Final Response will then be shared comprehensively – but I first neglected to Assure The Other that I had Actually Understood What They Were Saying. In consequence the Information I have Taken On Board may be incomplete or flawed – hence I have (inadvertently no doubt) neglected that very important step of Ensuring My Understanding Of Information Matched what Was Being Said…….

“What Is Said”, what is “Intended To Be Heard”, “What Is Heard” and “What Is Understood” are frequently 4 different things. However, effective/”good” communication requires a thorough appreciation of such likely mis-match, and also requires enormous strategic endeavour (until the skill becomes second nature) to outwit the intervention of MisUnderstanding.

As with anything in life, a little digging, hoeing, watering, general nurture and attention will reap a fine result. It takes time, and it takes effort. Such, however, are well worth investment.

But you will know these things. There is no need for me to be teaching you to suck eggs. I was just mulling out loud.

All Very Best Wishes for balancing the new hat. (I assume the new post includes a hat ?)

Reply
gaielle

19/06/2009

PS. If there is currently no hat, maybe we could invent one…………..

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Kennedy

22/06/2009

Perhaps one of our issues is that in the absence of any centrally provided forums for discussion – eg. we don’t normally have a letters page in Inspires – then the blogs and other social media just step in and provide the forum for the sort of discussion that people obviously seek.

If staff at GSO aren’t involved then the discussion is the poorer for that.

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jaye richards

23/06/2009

Just a little point, and I’m curious as to your thoughts on this, but how would you feel about someone tweeting during , say, one of your sermons or during a particularly uplifting piece of music ? is there a time and a place for this kind of communication, and might this include a religious service

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Kelvin

23/06/2009

I’d be bothered if someone was disturbing others with their tweeting. However, I was chastened a couple of years ago when I became a little distracted by someone near the front apparently unable to sit still and seeming to send lots of text messages.

It turned out however that he had the whole bible on his mobile phone and was simply looking up the passages as they were being talked about.

So, I’m not bothered about discreet twittering, I don’t think, though someone might well choose not to twitter in order to be able to concentrate more on what was going on. Part of a spiritual life in most traditions is about learning not to be distracted sometimes, and choosing not to be distracted during worship would be an admirable path to try to follow.

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jaye richards

24/06/2009

I have to admit to being disturbed sometimes during conference presentations by those around me twittering, although I do it myself so perhaps I shouldn’t complain ! I do think there’s a time and a place though, and for me, anyway, a sacred service is not the place to tweet from.

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