I wonder whether you have heard of a place called Edinburgh.
It is a place about 50 miles away from here.
And it is a wonderful diverse, international city…for at least three weeks a year.
Now the East of Scotland and the West of Scotland are different one from another.
Amongst other things, religion is different over there to over here.
I’ve always said that if you preach the same sermon in Edinburgh and Glasgow and say something funny, in Edinburgh you have to give a warning that there’s a joke coming up by saying, “And that reminds me of a joke…” and only then do they have permission to laugh.
In Glasgow however… [everyone knows the punchline before you get there]
Anyways, those three weeks are upon us when Edinburgh is en fete. And yesterday I took myself over for the final service of the Festival of the Sacred Arts that has been running for the last few weeks. I’d missed everything else but there was a special service to round it off in a church not unknown to me, being conducted by a former vice provost also not unknown to me with good music and scattered flower petals and our Blessed Lady Mary much to the fore. And I’d decided it was right up my street.
So, I looked up the details and decided to go along.
And something hit me between the eyes when I looked up the details on the Fringe Website.
It was a warning.
Alongside every show in the Fringe programme they publish warnings in case you might be upset about something.
Different shows have different warnings.
Warning: Offensive language.
Warning: Graphic nudity from the beginning.
Warning: Not suitable for under 18s.
And Choral Evensong at the end of Festival of Sacred Music bore a clear warning next to its listing.
I wonder if you could guess what the content warning was for Choral Evensong.
It said, “Warning: Audience Participation”.
Now, I think that it is really interesting and really quite funny that you have to warn people that there might be Audience Participation at a service of Choral Evensong.
I went along and sure enough, forewarned is forearmed. We were all indeed expected to belt out the hymns.
How ridiculous I thought, to give such a warning on a website…
Warning: Audience Participation.
Warning: Audience Participation.
Some through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.
Well, that’s a bit more than belting out a few hymns.
Warning: Audience Participation.
Others were tortured, refusing to accept release, in order to obtain a better resurrection. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword.
Audience participation.
Faith has always required audience participation.
And yes, probably does demand content warnings.
The great paeon to faith from the Epistle to the Hebrews that we’ve been reading over a couple of weeks is one of the great rhetorical passages of scripture.
We come, it declares, from a heritage of faith which has made demands. Which has included audience participation of the greatest and most profound kinds.
The heritage of Christianity should carry content warnings.
And health warnings.
And life warnings.
And yet that is the paradox.
Even knowing the risks of professing faith in God publicly, people have through centuries lived out their faith through persecution and tribulation.
For they have found within their faith something worth living and dying for.
The next bit of Hebrews that we get next week declares that we have come to the City of the Living God.
Let me give you a content warning.
To approach that City and to draw close to that Living God is to risk profound change.
The Christian faith neither promises that everything will be nice, nor that everything will be easy nor that everything in your life will be unchanged if you take it seriously.
Just the opposite.
Jesus is laying it on thick in the gospel today. He knew that people living out his message would cause division and not bring immediate unity.
And he speaks realistically about how that can feel within communities and families where faith is not shared.
What Christianity offers is change. Change for every one of us who takes it seriously. Change to the world around us. For yes, we hope to see a world transformed and transfigured and born anew.
We believe in ethical living acknowledging our that we are creatures made in the image of a loving God. And we believe in a Saviour, who taught us to try to be so kind, so peace-loving and so good that it would enrage a world that is hell bent on a quite different set of values and ethics. And we believe that God’s spirit inspires us to seek ever new ways of proclaiming the kingdom of justice and joy and our beloved saviour announced to the world.
And yes, we are a people who want others to join in. For this way of living we have found is good for us and good for the world around us.
If you are trying to put this altogether, and trying to work out what living as one of God’s friends is all about, then come and talk. And remember, we’re going to be running a Christian basics course sometime between now and Christmas where it will be possible to explore the extraordinary claims that the Christian faith makes.
Perhaps you are trying to work out for yourself a way of living the Christian faith.
Well, here’s a content warning for you. Audience participation isn’t optional. It is a requirement of being one of God’s beloved.
And the kinds of things that Christians have encouraged one another in since our Lord himself walked the earth don’t change much through the centuries.
Learning to worship together and catching a glimpse together of a God who lurks in this world longing to love us more.
Learning to pray together and learning to pray alone.
Learning to read scripture with all our God given gifts of intellect and holy common sense.
Learning to be generous and to recognise that time and money are gifts we have been given that are enriched and not diminished when we in turn give them away.
Learning to light candles in the darkness. And to see a scattered flower petal as being one square inch of this world where the whole of God’s glory shines.
Learning to be holy. Learning to love. Learning to be still. Learning to see that the world will only make sense when tyrants and megalomaniacs are toppled over and the lowly lifted up.
This is the way of life that Jesus invites us to participate in.
It is not without cost and it is not simply for spectators. It is certainly not for those who never want to join in.
And we who are Christians believe it is worth heaven and earth.
For Jesus in his love and compassion simply says this: “Who is with me in this journey? Who will walk in my way?”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
AMEN.
37 responses to “Keeping the faith”
It was an inspiring recitation. Following the English translation in the service sheet provided added insight to the life of Mary. All the more so as the cathedral is dedicated to St Mary. You are reminded of Mary every time you walk into the building with the Gwyneth Leech mural over the High Altar.
Kelvin is quite right. The very self-righteous defenders of the Bible (including the ones who trolled a brave young Muslim woman, for days, with the most vile language, and those who did not reprimand them) totally ignored the Biblical instructions for raising concerns with a brother in faith (Matthew 18:15; 2 Tim 23). Very practical instruction too! As anyone who has ever lived in community can verify. Could all these obsessive men *please* stop trying to divide our communities in Glasgow. We will not be divided. At the first sign of trouble we rush out to embrace one another. These abusers have much to repent of, even if *just* standing by while others throw stones.
I HATE it when the wrong tune is picked for a hymn … it is simply an abomination before God.
However, helping people to think about how we share hospitality, welcome and learn from each other is the WAY of God! Blessings on you Kelvin.
Some reasons why this time was different:
1. The other quaran recitations you mentioned happened at Nine Lessons and Carols, or special ecuminical and interfaith events. While 9L&C was originally a modified Evensong, nowadays it’s usually considered a seasonal community musical recitial with a religious tinge, so having a Muslim from the community recite something from their faith would seem natural enough. Civic and interfaith services will likewise naturally include representatives of every faith in the community. By contrast the Eucharist is the central act of Christian worship and people expect to hear ONLY Christian doctrine proclaimed in the Holy Eucharist. In other words, this was the wrong venue for showing hospitality to Muslim neighbors. You did not intend to practice syncretism, but I think the outcome was syncretic despite your good intentions.
2. Post Brexit (and post Trump) British Muslims are now seen as alien invaders rather than fellow members of the community.
3. Because hostility to Muslims is now fashionable, the Express and rest of the gutter press decided that this was a story worth reporting. Since conservative Americans often read the online editions of the British gutter press, the story then went global.
4. Because you are gay and out, your every action is scrutinized for any possible hint of heresy by GAFCON and Co.
Of all these reasons, only reason #1 is a legitimate criticism, but I hope you do think about criticism #1 as well as defending yourself from other, illegitimate criticisms.
Thank you for your comment Whit J – all the more because it is a thoughtful criticism.
I’ve plenty to reflect on about the how and the when we do things like that and I do hear loudly and clearly that many people think this was an inappropriate context. Though of course, I’d be bound to say that some are saying that the Eucharist is precisely the place indeed there are some saying that is what it is for.
I’m not going to get into a back and forth with all the comments on this post and I’m deliberately not letting through things that have already been said but be assured that I’ve heard the criticism and will reflect on it not simply now but over coming months. (I’ve learned a lot about where God is this week that will take a long time to process). I’m grateful for the way you’ve made your point.
I think there is a good deal in what Whit J says, although I am not sure the effect actually was syncretic. I think one does perhaps have to be a regular worshipper at St Mary’s to understand how totally orthodox the worship there is, and how much Jesus is the focus of worship – how utterly unlikely it is that anyone there would make the mistake of thinking he was not revered by the congregation as a whole as very God from very God. It would be impossible for them not to realise that all the clergy there rejoice in this belief. The congregation saw the words of the Qu’ran in an English translation which portrayed that book’s far-from-easy-to-follow account of Islam’s view of the conception of Jesus, in which there was nothing offensive, and heard a very beautiful voice singing in a strange and glorious language. These were clearly indicated to be the beliefs of another faith. We certainly neither saw or heard or understood any insult to the person of Christ. I am sure none was intended, either. Whereas, and this bears repeating, I am totally sure that many of those commenting (not of course by any means all of them, and nobody whose comments are published here) simply wish harm to relationships between the great faiths in Glasgow.
I have spent my whole adult life in dialogue with people of other religious traditions, it has been deeply rewarding. However I feel that what happened at this service was profoundly wrong. When we are truly ourselves we allow other people to be profoundly themselves. The truth of Christianity is not compatible with any other religion. To avoid that incompatibility is to avoid reality. Worship of Jesus is the fountain of our faith the Qu’ran is opposed to that. I love Jesus and therefore cannot conceive of reading the Qu’ran in an act of worship – no problem doing so in other contexts but not in worship. I am profoundly disturbed that you cannot see this Kelvin.
There are so many things aren’t there, not just around this issue which we hold dear in faith and which we can’t see from another perspective?
I can hear and see that people are upset by this and clearly there are many people not upset by it too. And obviously, at least I hope obviously, I love Jesus too.
The trouble with religious questions and the questions that religious people have I think is that so often that our love for our faith can make it impossible to comprehend others who also claim to love the same faith but who take different views about things. We can hear them claim that love but be intellectually unable to process it because it leads them to different conclusions.
I’ve found the same thing to be true in the sexuality debates very frequently though I perceive that to be changing sometimes now. Similarly with other identity issues and some political issues. Israel/Palestine conversations for example often seem to be conducted (when they are conducted at all) by people who seem to behave like ships passing in the night.
I happen to have views about Church Schools which are pretty intransigent and negative. You are one of the few people, no the only person, who ever made me really think there might be a point of view about them other than mine which might have an integrity I could respect. And I’m very grateful for that.
Kelvin, thank you for your reply. I have enormous respect for you. I have no doubt that church schools can be argued against from perfectly respectable positions. Worship of Jesus is simply a different order, it cannot include a reading from the Qu’ran. Worship is one thing, study, dialogue, relationship something else.
I am really grateful to Richard for the phrase “When we are truly ourselves we allow other people to be profoundly themselves” which reflects my experience of interfacing with sincere people of other faiths. Is a Christian Eucharist a place this should happen? I can understand some Christians feeling it is not, but as long as everything was clearly labelled as what it was and the integrity of the liturgy was intact, I can also understand some feeling it is.
Brother Kelvin,
Although I do not agree with allowing the Koran to be read in our Christian churches, I truly appreciated your firm and resolute stand for the deity of Jesus. He is our great God and Savior and I love Him very much. Blessings from Tennessee.
Just as a perhaps amusing point of reference, the 1982 hymnal of the Episcopal church in the USA has “Brightest and best of the STARS” (caps mine) “of the morning,” apparently so as to avoid offending any daughters who might be present, and the two tunes included are “Morning Star” by James Proctor Harding (1850-1911) and “Star in the East” from The Southern Harmony (1835). The Harding tune was also in the 1940 Hymnal, wherein the word “sons” was still used.
I am not clear as to whether the hospitality at St Mary’s anticipates infinite extension of parallel lines between Islam and the Church in Glasgow. Are you planning some opportunities for Glasgow Muslims to understand the Christian faith and prepare for Baptism and the glorious liberty of regeneration by the Holy Spirit? (In whichever order; no axe about that!) As you move around the Glasgow community and meet more Christians of Islamic background, why not invite such to participate in groups for new Muslim enquirers? The testimony of an ex-Muslim can express vibrantly “How I know He lives” (as your SA brethren would sing). You might find not only new hearts from a divine work of grace among your Muslim neighbours but in other neighbours too. Amen. Inshallah!
There are a small number of people in St Mary’s who are converts from Islam to Christianity just as there are a small number of people in local mosques who are converts from Christianity to Islam.
St Mary’s regularly puts on events and courses for people discovering and exploring Christianity. Most living religions do the same thing.