What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon for Dedication Sunday 2014

    26 October 2014 – Dedication Sunday from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo.

    You have come to something that cannot be touched – in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

    I suppose I should give the full verse of the text that I want to preach on this morning. The verse I’ve chosen comes from the letter to the Hebrews and the portion that Wolfgang read to us a few moments ago.

    You have not come to something* that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.

    I suppose it takes a certain kind of preacher to dare to preach on the verse that refers to a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.

    But I guess I’m that kind of preacher anyway.

    But I really want to leap off from that first phrase – You have come to something that cannot be touched.

    For today we are celebrating our Dedication Sunday – a day when we step outside the usual cycle of Sunday readings and set aside some time to give thanks for what we have around us.

    And I’m being deliberately ambiguous about that – for I give thanks not simply for the building around us but for the building that is the saints of God in this place who are all around us as we worship together each week.

    St Mary’s the building can certainly be touched. Indeed if you touch it in some places a bit of it will flake off which you can take home for a souvenir. But today I think we are doing a bit more than giving thanks for lumps of sandstone.

    For you have come to something that cannot be touched. You have come instead to Mount Zion – the city of God itself.

    By the time the Epistle to the Hebrews was written people were gathering together in groups to worship Jesus Christ. The idea of the weekly gathering to worship was already established amongst the Jewish people and adopted by those who found God through their experience of Jesus. But it was important to remind them even at the beginning that they had come to something that could not be touched.

    I remember asking one of you a while ago what it was that he thought bound everyone at St Mary’s together. He thought for a moment and said, (more…)

17 responses to “Praying for the Powerful”

  1. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    Those Scottish Episcopalians during the Penal Times who refused to pray for the Hanoverian monarchs did so not because they thought the Hanoverian monarchs were people too bad to be prayed for, but because they thought that they weren’t monarchs at all, but usurpers. The parallel in the case of Trump would be if Trump had fraudulently acquired the Presidency in some manner contrary to the US Constitution, and so was not, properly speaking, President at all. I suppose the nearest comparison would be if a citizen of one of the Confederate states in 1861-65 had refused to pray publicly for Jefferson Davis as President because she believed that Davis was a usurper and the constitutional President of the whole United States was Abraham Lincoln.

    BTW if you want to see snuff-taking and sneezing at the prayers for the Sovereign, come to the Royal Martyr Church Union celebration next Thursday at 11.30 in St Mary’s Cathedral, Palmerston Place, Edinburgh . . .

    Reply
    1. Kelvin Avatar
      Kelvin

      One of the two things that I remember from Fr Gian’s teaching on the Eucharist in my TISEC days was his enthusiastic snuff habit.

      Reply
    2. Grace Burson Avatar
      Grace Burson

      Well, given that Trump “won” only by the skin of his teeth and likely because of foreign interference and partisan meddling by the head of the FBI, the parallel may be pretty close, after all.

      Reply
  2. Whit Johnstone Avatar
    Whit Johnstone

    Kelvin, my objection is not to the continued tradition of the post-inaugural prayer service, but to the Cathedral Choir’s willingness to be part of the entertainment at the inauguration itself. Many entertainers have chosen to boycott the inauguration because they disapprove of the President-Elect. Many opponents of the President Elect have decided to boycott any performer who performs at the inauguration. Indeed, acts who perform at the inauguration may be subject to a no-platforming campaign. This was the threat that forced Andrea Botichelli to withdraw from Trump’s inauguration. Therefore, performing at the inauguration will be construed as a partisan gesture of support for President Trump. Of course, refusing to perform would have been construed as a partisan gesture of opposition to President Trump. And since the Trump inaguration team approached the Cathedral about performing, the Cathedral had to say yes or no. There was no neutral, nonpartisan answer. The National Cathedral seeks to be neutral and nonpartisan, and since it had been perceieved as a Democratic institution while Fr. Gary Hall was dean, I understand why Dean Hollerith felt he had to say yes, to say to Republicans, “yes you are still welcome in TEC”. But that welcome will come at the price of making opponents of Trump feel distinctly unwelcome in the National Cathedral for as long as Fr. Hollerith is dean. Yes, he’s between a rock and a hard place on this one.

    Reply
  3. Meg Rosenfeld Avatar
    Meg Rosenfeld

    Generally we say “Amen.” Speaking only for a small parish in San Francisco, depending on the celebrant’s choice of which prayer to use, we include in our petition, after mentioning the President of the US and the Governor of California, “all in civil authority” or “all leaders in the Bay Area.”

    And why not? We are, after all, praying that those who have some responsibility for our well-being will be properly disposed to behave in a just and compassionate manner; their behavior has a great effect on all our lives. And this is wrong because–?

    Reply
    1. Kelvin Avatar
      Kelvin

      I agree with you Meg – that’s exactly how I think of praying for those in authority.

      I also think the BCP collect that I quoted is a very good collect for praying for a president with whom one disagrees.

      Reply
      1. Meg Rosenfeld Avatar
        Meg Rosenfeld

        Absolutely! And that’s just what we’ll be doing for a few years now . . . .

        Reply
  4. Gillian Barr Avatar
    Gillian Barr

    You are, along w/ many others, conflating the prayer service at the Cathedral on the day after the inauguration with the choir singing in the prelude to the inauguration ceremony itself. Few are objecting to the former, though some are disappointed that the PEOTUS’s team was allowed to declare that there would not be a sermon in the service. No one is objecting to praying for Trump, either in the service or in our weekly parish services. Almost all the objections are to the performance by the choirs in the inauguration. The prelude has almost nothing to do w/ prayer, at least in the eyes of those who will witness the inauguration. They see it as a performance, not a sung prayer.

    Reply
    1. Kelvin Avatar
      Kelvin

      Actually, I’ve seen a number of people complaining about praying for Trump in weekly parish services chatting about it on facebook.

      I do see that the inauguration is different to the service in the cathedral. However, I can still see this from both sides.

      Reply
  5. Ronnie Smith Avatar
    Ronnie Smith

    Dear Father Kerlvin,

    We do, indeed, all need prayer, with the bible advising that we should pray for our enemies as well as our friends. My heart goes out to you in Glasgow, when the conservative minority criticizes you for cooperating with the Muslim community in your city. Mistakes can be made with the content of prayers offered and statements made in God’s house; but God must by now be used to our mistakes and allows for them: “Where charity and love are, there is God”
    Agape, Father Ron Smith, ACANZP

    Reply
  6. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    On the Sunday after the Dunblane massacre in the church I then attended, the intercessions included a prayer for the repose of the soul of Thomas Hamilton, the gunman. To my horror and incredulity, one person vociferously objected to this. If you accept the propriety of offering prayers for the dead, surely it’s hard to imagine someone who needed them more than Thomas Hamilton?

    Reply
  7. Eamonn Avatar
    Eamonn

    Perhaps the most appropriate prayer might be, ‘…ne POTUS noceat’.

    Reply
  8. Ann Avatar
    Ann

    I can see both sides of this – but the hinge is where we have been praying by name for Barack and now won’t say Donald — a pick and choose – reminds me of a priest who when happy with you would press the wafer into your hand and say your name – but when mad would drop the wafer from about a foot over your hand and not say your name.
    And the US Constitution says “Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” — different nuance from separation of church and state.

    Reply
  9. Martha Underwood. Avatar
    Martha Underwood.

    You get an Amen from this American Episcopalian.

    Reply
  10. John-Julian. OJN Avatar
    John-Julian. OJN

    At the root of all this discussion is the unasked and unanswered question:”What does ‘praying for someone’ do for her or him?” I mean, do these people think our praying for (or against!) Trump will affect him in any way? Will he be happier, healthier, stronger, louder, less mean, less nasty if prayed for than if not prayed for? What is gained (or lost) by either praying for him or omitting prayers for him?
    It seems to me that the issue here is not the actual prayers but our feeling ABOUT those prayers (or absence of them).
    If we use Aquinas’s definition of love as “willing the good for the other” and apply it to prayer—it seems that we are unquestionably bidden to “will good” for our neighbor and so it seems that it doesn’t matter if we like her or him, we have a mandate to love—and intercessory prayer could surely be said to be a branch on the tree of love! Praying for Trump is not going to affect him at all—but it will definitely affect us who pray……..for the better.
    (I quickly add that I believe Trump is a monster—but a monster who happens to be our neighbor!)

    Reply
    1. Ann Avatar
      Ann

      Yes– keeps me centered and less reactive. Part of respecting the dignity of every human being (Baptismal Covenant – BCP) — hard as that is. Michelle Obama – they go low — we go high.

      Reply
      1. Kelvin Avatar
        Kelvin

        Yes, I can understand that, even though we don’t have a baptismal covenant.

        Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Prayer for the Day

    Don’t forget everyone! Up early tomorrow morning for Prayer for the Day on Radio 4. Mark sure you are listening at 0543 when the whole of the BBC sinks to its knees for morning devotions. Lest you miss it, because you are already up and out at that time doing works of corporate mercy, you…

  • Haiti – how to give online

    If you are in the UK, the easiest way to give money to the appeal to help Haiti is through this page: http://www.dec.org.uk/ Its the Disasters Emergency Committee, which represents different agencies working together. You can also give to this appeal by going to any post office.

  • Mission Service

    There are some glorious photographs of Bishop Idris which have just come to light in which he is shown teaching the faith in the mission field. The whole set can be seen on Flickr here. If you want a couple of individual starting points, try here or here or here.

  • Mungo, the loved one

    Went off to Glasgow’s medieval cathedral last night for a Glasgow Churches Together service celebrating St Mungo, the loved one, who settled in this place and preached the gospel here. I’d never been to a service there before and it was the first time I’d been there at night. I think the building looked better…