What is in Kelvin's Head?

How Awesome is this Place – sermon preached for Dedication Sunday 2019

29/10/2019

How awesome is this place!

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

How awesome is this place – it is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven.

Now Jacob was on the move. He wasn’t at home when he had that dream about Jacob’s ladder.

The truth is, his father Isaac seems to have become fed up of him moping around on his own in the Promised Land and had decided that the only thing that could be done with him was to tell him to pack his bags and head off out of the Promised Land and go back to where the family had come from.

In the verses just before the story of the dream about the ladder things are very clear.

Isaac basically tells him to go off on a quest and not come back until he’s got a wife to come back with.

Isaac had met his wife as she drew water from a well and he more or less orders Jacob to go off and do likewise. Go back to the homeland. Hang around the wateringholes and don’t come back until you’ve found a wife just like your mother.

I don’t know whether anyone here has ever been put in a similar situation. I do know that such an order would have been unlikely to work on me, for a number of reasons, but Jacob wasn’t me.

Yes father he says. And off he trots to the old country.

We know what his dream was at night, but what were his daydreams as he travelled.

Did he dream of finding the perfect spouse?

Or did he just dream of shutting up his old man?

Did he dream, as young men sometimes do, of riches and wealth and possessing many camels?

Or was his the journey of someone satisfied by the simple life?

Did he dream of winning the equivalent of the lottery of his day by coming home in possession of a wife or two, who would bring land and livestock into the family business?

Or did he never intend to go back at all?

Did he dream of becoming a patriarch himself? Or did he dream of smashing the patriarchy and establishing equity and peace once and for all and an end to fathers projecting their own impossible dreams onto the lives of their sons.

We don’t know. But we do know that somewhere, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, he had to rest and fell asleep and had a dream that has captured the imagination of countless people through the ages. A ladder. With angels. And the angels moved up and down. And heaven and earth were connected. And God was there.

I don’t know what your dreams are as you make your way through life. I might guess I suppose – there will be people here who do dream of the lottery win and riches and wealth being theirs. There will be others who dream of academic success. Or to climb another step up their workplace ladder. Or for a child. Or for a spouse with lovely eyes.

When two or three are gathered together there are many dreams amongst them.

And some may have loftier dreams that are not just about themselves. A dream of a calmer and more rational politics to re-emerge from our current chaos. A dream of safety for those who are beloved but in danger, far, far away. A dream of a world that can recover from our climate vandalism and be a nourishing and safe place for all of God’s children.

Such is the stuff that dreams are made on.

But not Jacob.

His dream is one of those that seems to come from outside himself.

In the turmoil of his journey to satisfy his father’s desire for grandweans, he stops and rests and to his considerable surprise, God is there.

I don’t know exactly what the dreams of those who laid the foundation stone of this place were.

They were surely seeking a place to worship safely. They were surely seeking a place to worship magnificently. They were surely seeking a place to know God and from which they could make God known.

Their exact dreams I cannot quite know. But I know that God was already there.

As it happens, I also do not know exactly where the foundation stone is that was laid to mark the beginnings of this place.

We know it was laid with some ceremony but try as we might, we can’t find it.

(One theory is that this pulpit may have been built in front of it and if so I may be standing more or less on top of it).

But surely those who laid it brought all their dreams and turned them into prayers that day.

I don’t know what they dreamed of. But I know that God was with them.

I don’t know what those who come after us will dream. But I know that God will be with them.

And I don’t know all of your dreams and hopes and desires. But I know that God is with you today.

Today on this dedication Sunday, we celebrate this place, giving thanks for all who built it for those who have kept it and for those who have loved it through time.

This is a place that has been the place of so many thousands of people coming and going through life. Some for a fleeting moment. Some for a lifetime.

But finding in this place that Jacob’s dream is kept alive and is shared by a living, loving, open, inclusive and welcoming community at this point in time who believe that God is here, right here and ready to share love and blessing with those who scarcely dare suspect that might ever be true.

Jacob’s dream of the ladder is sometimes criticised these days. It seems to suggest a universe in which heaven is up there and the earth down here and a separation of all that is earthly from all that is holy.

And that notion of having to climb up the ladder to heaven rung by rung – that seems to suggest superhuman effort needed to find God.

But no. Read it again.

The point of the dream is that one little line that gets so overlooked. In the middle of the dream Jacob sees a ladder stretching from earth to heaven but finds that God is standing beside him.

It isn’t that we have to push the angels out of the way and haul ourselves up to heaven.

It is that God has come down that ladder. God is already here. And we are already loved.

How awesome is this place said Jacob.

How awesome is this place, say I, as I look around me today.

This is none other than the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.

Amen.

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…………..

Reply
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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