What is in Kelvin's Head?

Christmas Sermon 2013

25/12/2013

[UPDATE: The Herald newspaper covered this sermon as a front page story here:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/clergyman-calls-for-human-rights-focus-at-2014-games.23039023]

Here’s what I said in my Christmas Sermon this year.

It has become something of a commonplace that Christmas, at least in the life of the shops and the media starts all too early. Even at the end of September, the trees were being dusted down and the fairy lights for shop windows tested. The piles of mince-pies were arriving in the supermarket, all clearly marked with a best-before date of Halloween or before.

My local newsagent seemed to have done pretty well at resisting this kind of thing. I was pleased to see when I went in for a paper during the first week in Advent that they were only then getting out a new box of chocolate confectionary which was all wrapped in shiny paper. These delicacies were in a bright gold box which was placed right under my nose as I stood there on Advent Sunday. And clearly on the box was marked the slogan: “Cadbury’s Crème Eggs – your number 1 Easter Treat”.

Somehow the world seems to have become a bit muddled by when the Son of God appears.

And then the same week at the start of December I was driving down to the farthest end of the Diocese for a special service in Stranraer. I could only pick up one radio station in the car and it was one of the local stations down that way.

Come along, the announcer entreated me, come along to the shopping centre for our specially sponsored competition. Come and sing a seasonal song and see if you can win. Come down today. Maybe you will be crowned winner; the winner of our X-mas Factor Competition.

And as I was driving along I could hear myself start to splutter and exclaim. “It isn’t Xmas, it’s Christmas, I shouted at the poor unsuspecting radio announcer who was thankfully unable to hear a world.

And I drove on realising that I had suddenly become all my grandparents rolled into one. All I lacked was a walking stick to attack the radio with.

But now, the day has arrived. The Lord of Heaven and Earth has come and is wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

And it is our joy and delight to worship him today.

There is no question now. We can sing our carols with gusto. We can enjoy the feast. Food will be eaten, wine will be drunk, presents and cards exchanged and all for the sake of a child. Born in a manger. Born a long time ago.

There is such goodness there lying in that manger. For there lies joy and challenge, peace and promise, blessing and love – all wrapped in the swaddling of all our hopes and dreams and expectations.

God is come into our world.

And there’s the thing.

When the world starts to celebrate the birth in September or October or November, it isn’t entirely wrong.

For though we rejoice in the coming of the child today, the news we celebrate now is that God is in this world. Always here. At home here. An inhabitant with us of this spinning, turning world.

We celebrate today the incarnation but that is just the theological name, spruced up in its Sunday best for the truth that we celebrate every week which is that God lurks in this world.

Here in this place we preach weekly of a God who is here. A God who knows us, share our joys and shares our sorrows and loves us to distraction, come what may.

What we celebrate at Christmas is not merely that God came into the world and gurgled in a Bethlehem cowshed but that God is here in Glasgow and in every place on this earth all ready to be encountered anew. For God is only a glimpse, a breath, a prayer away.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God. In heaven, an unknown factor. But not forever, for the Word took shape and came amongst us to show, to tell, to proclaim the good news that God is with us in everything and that with God, all that is ill can be transformed.

Today, all eyes are on the manger. The city of Bethlehem is the place on all our lips. And Bethlehem is one of the cities that is twinned with this city, the city of Glasgow.

In the year that is to come, the city in which we live will become for a brief time the place that everyone is talking about. The City of Glasgow is the place where many eyes will be looking as we host the Commonwealth Games.

And we must not shirk from naming that which is ill. For all is not well in the Commonwealth. Sadly, driven by the legacy of British colonialism, several Commonwealth countries should be held to account when they come to us. After all, it will not merely be sports people who are here but their political leaders.

With Sri Lanka unable to face questions about war crimes; with Uganda and India even in these last few days attempting to turn the clock back for those who are gay, with human rights abuses across Commonwealth countries too numerous to mention, There must not simply be silence when so much of the English speaking world comes to sport and play. In these last weeks we have been reminded by the celebrations of Nelson Mandela’s life that ordinary people can bring about massive change for the better.

For all that is ill can be transformed. For God is with us, already here now, working in us in this world.

We celebrate the birth of a baby – a real live baby with lips and hands and tiny feet. And in doing so, we celebrate the fact that God’s lips and hands and feet are now those of our own bodies. God incarnate not simply in this world but God incarnate right here in our own lives.

Here in this church, we know that God is here. In fact, we know that God is here, there and everywhere. For God lurks in this world wishing and hoping and praying that we will join the conspiracy of those who seek to put the world to rights and bring in the kingdom of justice and joy that all people of goodwill ache to see.

When I was driving down in Galloway earlier in the year, in the silence, having slammed the radio off, I had enough peace in the car to hear the truth of the announcer who spoke of the Xmas Factor.

Now, of course, I know that the X is the Greek letter Chi – the first letter of the world Christ. I know that the X abbreviation has been used since Christians first celebrated the birth of their Saviour.

Here in this church today, I tell you that the Xmas Factor is here. The unknown God is born and has a name. The God who was once unknown, the Logos, the X-factor – has now been born. That God has a name, for God is found in Jesus – the wonderful counsellor, the mighty God, the prince of peace, and is here and lies in the manger.

For the God Factor is here.

The God Factor is everywhere.

The God Factor has come into this world.

And God blesses you this day as you come to this place to worship.

In the name of God, Father, Son of Righteousness, Holy Spirit.

Amen

Christmas, Commonwealth Games, gay rights, In the beginning was the word, India, Sri Lanka, Uganda

10 responses to “The Tim Farron Question and the Archbishop of Canterbury”

Bro David

09/05/2017

This brings up an interesting memory with the long-time leader of Changing Attitude England (CA). This leader was taken in by Andrew Marin, founder of the Marin Foundation (MF) when he visited the UK in conjunction with some big outdoor Christian festival you lot hold anually. Marin and his followers were attending Pride Marches/Parades around the US and getting their photos taken hunging GLBTQ folks in the marches. His foundation claims to be attempting to build a bridge between the LGBTQ community and conservative Christian communities.
Marin was invited to comment on the CA blog. He spouted his pablum message of love for LGBTQ folks. Then, in a comment, I point blank asked Marin if he believed that we LGBTQ folks were sinners and needed to repent and become straight. He refused to answer the question. He said that I was asking the “wrong” question. Then he gave this answer verbatim from the Marin Foundation website;
“We call these the “Big 5.” They are:
Do you think that gays and lesbians are born that way?
Do you think homosexuality is a sin?
Can a LGBTQ person “change?”
Do you think that someone can be gay and Christian?
Are LGBTQ people going to hell?
“The one common theme of these “Big 5” is that they are all close-ended, yes-or-no questions. Each of them must be answered with one word and they are all meant to end conversation. Based solely on one’s close-ended answers, it is easy to label, judge and dismiss the other community entirely. Thus we dehumanize a community based off of a word rather than create a productive conversation. In essence, by close-ended answers either the conservative or the LGBTQ community judges who you are, what you believe, whose team you’re on and how you should be treated.
“Rather than answering close-ended questions, The Marin Foundation seeks to elevate the conversation and continual fruitful dialogue, as tense as that may be. This is a model taken from Jesus throughout the Gospels. Of the 25 times Jesus was asked close-ended questions, only three times did he respond with a yes or no. These three times were only after he was arrested and admitting he was the Messiah. Prior to this, Jesus never answered close-ended questions with a yes or a no. Instead, he elevated the conversation.”
I spent the next three days searching the MF website and reading through articles and white papers. I realized that it was a ministry to the LGBTQ of wolves in sheep’s clothing. These people were trying to love vulnerable LGBTQ folks into their embrace, to slowly chip away at them until they had brought them to realize that their sexual/gender orientation was false, acting upon it was a sin and they needed to seek the help of Jesus to beome heterosexual and accept their gender assigned by birth.
I posted my findings on the CA blog and was promply chastized and barred from further posts. In a personal email from the leader of CA I was ripped a new arsehole and declared anathema. Sadly, even LGBTQ folks in prominent positions are taken in by these folks. I think that we need to continually ask the Big 5, of everyone, epsecially those non-LGBTQ folks who profess to be our allies and supporters, secular or religious.

Reply
Peter Davison

09/05/2017

Good column.
So who is entitled to express opinions on ethical issues? I’ve long understood it’s the duty of all of us to have INFORMED consciences and to obey them. We may wish to consult people we believe to be more informed than we are, such as our presumed leaders, but in the end, when asked, we should at least be ready to state, however firmly or tentatively, where we stand. As for our leaders, they may or may not be better informed than we are; but we also know that ‘experts’ may be people who know more and more about less and less – and that politics often intrude into our public morality. Much of ethics is situational. That said, Jesus seems to have had much more compassion for alleged ‘sinners’ than for those who chose to label them as such. And much of our present troubles seem to stem from our desire to label and scapegoat people who appear to be different. What would happen if we simply accepted people for who they are and learned to accept that love is indeed ‘a many splendoured thing’?

Reply
Graham Evans

09/05/2017

A very interesting new perspective and certainly a question that should be put to all the Anglican bishops who sit in the house of Lords.

Reply
The Rev Sr Helena Barrett, OSB

09/05/2017

Absolutely spot on, Kelvin. The ABC should be asked The Question until he is sufficiently exhausted to give a clear and honest answer (whatever it may turn out to be) instead of the usual yards of ecclesiastical flannel.

Reply
1. June B Butler
  
  18/06/2017
  
  “The ABC should be asked The Question until he is sufficiently exhausted to give a clear and honest answer…”
  
  Justin Welby wails piteously: “I’m not the pope.”
  
  Reply
the Rev. Grant Barber

09/05/2017

I always wondered how the preachers in Pepys’ diary could preach such long sermons. I think I understand better now. So glad we’ve already settled the matter in the Episcopal Church. (Oh, the answer can be a succinct “no, not sin just by its nature).

Reply
Bernard Silverman

11/05/2017

if I asked an archbishop whether deliberately stamping on someone’s toe is a sin they would give a direct answer. So they should be asked the Farron question over and over again until they do similarly. If the Prime Minister can do that so can they. Indeed the question should be “the PM thinks that gay sex is not a sin. Was she right?”

Reply
Alan Wilson

17/06/2017

Spot On…

Reply
Kate Odling

10/01/2018

Very interesting. I always think that if someone does not give a clear answer to a question that they have something to hide or that their true belief/thought would be unpopular. I think the ABC has looked very uncomfortable when any direct questioning about LGBT issues are raised. So someone should ask & not accept anything but a straightforward answer. My final thought is that we are all qualified to have an opinion – what’s wrong with that?

Reply
Bruce Gulland

15/01/2018

Whatever I think about the answer to the question, I did rather enjoy the style of your post – you had me on the edge of my seat!

Reply