What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon – Pigs Might Fly

    Here’s the sermon that I preached on Sunday morning.
    (The video is also available on the Cathedral website).

    Because of the peculiarities of the clergy rota and the fact that we’ve had one or two special things going on like baptisms and hosting visiting preachers, it feels like a long time since I’ve been in the pulpit preaching. Indeed, I think it is about eight weeks since I stood here.

    Whenever I have a break like that from preaching and I sit down to write something new I tend to find my mind goes all blank. This game is actually easier if you play it every week.

    And as I sat this week, my mind went back to one of the people who taught me how to preach. He was someone who used to go around listening to students preach most Sundays and could tend towards the caustic in what he had to say about them. “Ah,” he used to say, “the traditional Scots sermon – three points, a poem and a death bed scene”.

    I don’t have a deathbed scene but let’s take three points – which today will be three ways of reading the story. Firstly looking at it at face value, then looking at it as an allegory and finally looking at it existentially.

    But let’s start with a poem. (more…)

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3 responses to “Brexit – Five First Quick Thoughts”

  1. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    Almost everybody I meet on a regular basis, except my family and one educated friend, were voting out. and that in Scotland. I am shattered but unsurprised. My partner reports that, in her office, those with a degree and under 35 all intended to vote remain, and those without and over 35 to leave.

    Reply
  2. Ruth Gillett Avatar
    Ruth Gillett

    Some people I know didn’t vote at all because they were annoyed that their ‘first ever in their fairly long lives’ voting experience (Independence) didn’t go the correct way. Strangely two friends who spend half the year living in Europe (and benefit from the reciprocal healthcare arrangements) voted leave and I’m bewildered by a dear friend of 60 years who unexpectedly climbed angrily aboard the anti immigration juggernaut. I’d dared to hope (and ignore the signs online) because everyone else I knew seemed to be voting remain…

    Reply
  3. Guy Whitehouse Avatar
    Guy Whitehouse

    I fear ultimately that Brexit won in part because the EU became a rather soulless bureaucracy to which people could not emotionally attach. Financial benefit does not always secure attachment on a large-scale and if enough people start to perceive themselves to suffer and not participate in those benefits then the inevitable happens.

    I fear the UK is going the same way but for different reasons. Since the 80s there has been a tendency amongst those seeking power to focus on groups and not the country as a whole; remember election night and the swingometer and the presenter saying things like “such and such an area has gone red but in order to win the Conservatives just need to win over Essex man and Worcester woman….”? Of course Labour did something similar in 1997 and in later elections.

    So any uniting sentiments have been undermined which means that the problem is no longer just with politicians but with the electorates also.

    I liked what Kelvin said in his referendum sermon, and more than ever the churches need to discover their ministry of reconciliation and think about what it means to try to offer everyone a spiritual home. It would be ironic if the church became the main place that differences could be dropped. but I have to confess I’m rather gloomy about even that looking at the way other controversial issues within the church have been dealt with.

    Reply

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