Here’s what I said yesterday at the centenary celebrations for Clydebank Singing Company at Clydebank Citadel of the Salvation Army.
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight O Lord our strength and our redeemer.
Major, I wonder whether you’d mind me starting with a confession.
I know it is not the Salvation Army way but in the tradition that I come from, we have confession before we have anything. I tend to work a busy Sunday – I’ve already done one service this morning before I came here and I’ve got another regular one at 6.30 pm and sometimes I’ve got a couple more on a Sunday too. And all of our services begin with confession.
(To be honest, sometimes on a Sunday I just don’t get the time to go out and have a good sin between one confession and another – but that’s another story).
But the thing I have to confess this morning is that when I came through the doors of this place last night – I kept hearing people talk of holy things. Worship long past. Friendships made. Decisions to love God made here in this place and promises made here on this platform.
I have to confess that that wasn’t the first memory that I had. When I came through the door all I could remember was being chucked out of Sunday School here one week for being disruptive.
As it happens I can’t remember exactly who it was who turfed me out but it is a fair bet that it is someone whom I was sitting on the platform with last night. Sometimes God gives us the holy gift of forgetting things.
Major – I’ll try to make amends today.
A funny thing happened to me this week.
I got a year older. And I did it by having an unglamorous birthday.
Last Thursday was my birthday. No more for me the joys of being 48. From now on it is the waiting game that is being 49. What use is 49?
Fifty may be fabulous but there’s nothing glamorous about being 49.
But here we are celebrating a birthday that isn’t just glamourous it is exiting too – the 100th anniversary of the Singing Company here in Clydebank.
It is a huge honour to be asked to say a few words this morning. In coming back here, I’m coming back to a place that I’ve not been in for about 35 years. (And I’m sure that the last time I was here it was 3 times bigger than it is today – I don’t know how you managed to shrink it). Other people will be here on this reunion weekend with their own memories and their own reminiscences of what it was like to be here a long time ago.
But my roots here go back a little further. My own grandparents were the corps officers here in the 1930s and so in coming to speak here today I’m returning to their platform. And that feels strange – not strange in an unpleasant way but strange all the same. I know all kinds of circles have been turning as people have turned up this weekend.
I couldn’t have predicted that I’d become a preacher when I sat here week by week and meeting by meeting. And certainly my Sunday School teacher (whoever it was) wouldn’t have predicted it for me either.
Perhaps that experience of being excluded was the start of the ministry that I have today for one of the themes of my life is to provoke people into thinking about who is being excluded and who is being left out. My default position is that no-one is ever excluded from the love of God. And if I learned that here one way or another then I’ve a lot to be grateful for in coming back.
But I can’t help my mind travelling back through time.
The Singing Company here has been a thread running back through the life of the corps here for 100 years. As such it has had a huge influence on a huge number of people.
As I think back through my own family history here I find myself thinking of the people who saw this town change. I think of my grandparents coming here as corps officers in confident times. And hearing the singing of a fairly newly formed singing company when they did.
I think of my mother being held as a baby in a shelter up the top of the town by parents as the bombs fell.
As they waited for the bombing to stop, they didn’t know whether her brothers, my uncles (also singing company members) would make it home from band practise.
I only heard that story this year – I’d never heard it before.
But the truth is, God doesn’t give us the gift of nostalgia – it isn’t one of the fruits of the Spirit. God gives us experience to prompt us to share in God’s loving works here on earth. That the kingdom may be brought one step closer every day that comes.
The story of my uncles picking their way up the hill really came home to me in recent weeks when I realised that the bombs are still falling on people. And that young people are not just trying to find their way to safety up Kilbowie Hill – they are walking across Europe.
And they need the same things my uncles needed. They need safety and security and someone to welcome them.
I think our task is to join with others in welcoming them in God’s name.
Inevitably this weekend, we think of both joys and sorrows. Of highs and lows.
As I stand here I think of all the things that happen to all of us that I know have been in the conversation of all who have come to this reunion weekend. Loves and partings. Births, and deaths and marriages and all the things in-between.
And there is one constant thing that we find people do through it all.
They sing.
This Singing Company has sung through changing times and through changing days.
Yet I’ve no doubt that there’s something at the core of what it does that has not changed at all.
For through all our sorrows and through all our joys we sing of a God who loves us.
I don’t know whether you are someone who comes here week by week or someone who has just turned up out of the blue for this reunion. I don’t know whether you can still remember the things that you sang years ago or whether your mind goes blank when you think about what you sang here. I don’t know who you are or why you’ve come here today.
But I do know that God loves you. And I know that simple truth was the very cause of setting up the Singing Company and the reason that people have given their time and their energy, their talent and their skills – simply because they’ve caught something of the idea that God’s love is real and God can be known and that the joy of the Lord is worth singing about.
And that’s all I’ve really got to tell you this morning. God loves you to bits.
It is the same message that my grandparents preached here. It is the same message that the singing company has sung about for a hundred years. And it is the same message that we take into the future. The love of God gives me hope that tomorrow will be better than today.
I’ve no real idea whether the Singing Company will be around in another 100 years. I hope it is but I can’t know what the future holds.
But I do know that in a 100 years it will still be the case that God loves human beings and wants everyone to be drawn into that love.
When we come to a reunion it is inevitable that we look at the way we’ve changed. But the truth is, when we sing together we find ourselves singing about things that haven’t changed at all. God still cares for us and God still loves us.
Last night the massed Singing Company sang through a concert where the love of God was the ever present theme.
We have only one life to live. And God has only one message to give.
Which is that all you need is love.
Love, love. All you need is God’s love.
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.