What is in Kelvin's Head?

David’s Lamentation – a sermon preached on 12 August 2024

19/08/2024

David the King, was grieved and moved
He went to his chamber,
his chamber and wept
And as he wept, he wept and said…

Oh, my son, oh, my son
Would to God I had died
Would to God I had died
Would to God I had died
For thee, oh Absalom, my son, my son

Victory that day was turned into mourning
When the people did see
how the king grieved for his son
He covered his face and in a loud voice cried…

Did you ever meet someone who was better at something that you are and admire them just for that?

Meet David King of Israel who is better at doing something than I am and I love him for it.

We’ve been reading stories of David for the last couple of weeks and seen much that is unlovable. Much that we would turn our eyes from.

Two weeks ago, we heard of him sending a man to certain death in battle so that he could make off with his wife.

David’s behaviour in that reading is so outrageous that I had complaints from members of this congregation for allowing it to be read.

I tend not to believe in providence but I do believe in comeuppance and last week we saw David being confronted with righteous anger by Nathan the Prophet pointing the finger at David for his wicked behaviour. And turning David into a snivelling wreck.

David often isn’t a terribly attractive figure.

And yet he can do something that makes me admire him 3000 years since he last drew breath.

David could lament like no-one else. His cries of lament over Saul his mentor and David is lover and Absolom his son move me. Move me very deeply and make me love him despite all else we know of him.

The version of David’s Lamentation that I just sang is just one of many settings of his words thoughout the ages. His sorrow is written in the history books of the scriptures and recorded in the Book of Psalms, the hymn book that Jesus sang from.

And lament is important.

It is sometimes said that we have forgotten how to lament. Maybe we have forgotten how to lament in public, but I know that this congregation is one where lament is seldom absent in private.

Lament for the horror of wee girls killed at a dance class.

Lament for the horror of fascists turning that into something to attack those who have come to this country seeing refuge and safety.

Lament for those the stirring up of race riots online.

And Lament for schools hit by missiles in Gaza.

And people who are members of this country express lamentation for events that go back months and years as well as weeks.

Lamenting over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Lamenting for the national boundaries that Britain left behind in Africa.

Lamenting for a world being roasted by the sins of climate change denial and ignorance.

And lament for ourselves and our own sins.

For we like David have done things which we ought not to have done and no done things that we ought. And there is no help in us.

And lament for our griefs for all of us bear them.

David puts into verse his grief, He lets his troubled soul sing.

And it makes me love him.

It makes me love him because lamentation is the expression of the depth of our capacity to love. For grief is the name for love that is stronger than death.

Lament is the song of the hopeless and the despairing. But it is an urge to give voice to the deep, deep knowledge that things should not be this way. Paradoxically it contains within it hope. Hope that it will not always feel like this.

Deep in the pit, lament shines a little light on sadness and from that light, please God may seeds of hope be nourished. That knowledge that things should not be this way is the beginning, the fragile and tender beginning of doing something with the recognition that not only will all things pass but that all this could be different, better.

The hope that justice may be known.

The hope that righteousness may flourish.

The hope that peace will prevail.

The hope that the rawness of grief might change.

These are the seeds nourished by lamentation.

Christianity never denies death or grief or tragedy. Indeed, it says that all of these are all too real.

However, it says that they will not win in the end. It says that resurrection isn’t just possible but inevitable. And it says that a world put right is not just something we are called to make real but that we are called to enjoy and delight in it forever.

“Love wins” isn’t just a slogan that some of us carry about in rainbow colours at Pride. It is also the truth that those of us who bear the name Christian live by. It is our two word creed.

In the gospel reading this morning, Jesus talks about eternal life being our destiny. I am the bread of life he says. And whoever eats of me will have eternal life.

We eat of him week by week and are nourished by the comforts of the Eucharist at this table. And as we receive the bread each week we receive the challenge to make the world one in which everyone has enough to eat, people to love them and joy in great abundance.

I believe that lamentation is important and needs to be part of our song. But I also believe that lament will not be the last song that we sing.

There are alleluias to be had in putting the world to rights. There are hosannas to be sung in worship in sharing the business of a God who wills goodness and love for everyone who draws breath.

I am aware of the deep despair that people have been feeling about the world recently.

Lament and do it well. But lament and live.

In this place, every week, before we eat of the bread of life, we hear the bidding, “Lift up your hearts!”

As we hear that this week, let us hear it as a command.

For God is good. And goodness will prevail. And love wins.

Always and forever, love wins.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy Spirit. Amen.

Billings, David’s Lamentation, lament, love wins, Sermon

20 responses to “Apologies have consequences too”

Andrew Cain

15/04/2016

You say so often and so eloquently what I feel.

Reply
1. Father Ron Smith
  
  16/04/2016
  
  Food for serious thought, Father Kelvin. I don’t suppose there has been any objection raised by the Church of England Bishops about the liberalising ativity of our Norwegian partner’s in Christ. It is this continuing double-mindedness that exposes us Anglicans to the charge of structured hypocrisy. Keep up the good work you are doing on your web-site. Christ IS risen, Alleluia!
  
  Reply
Alan Wilson

15/04/2016

Thank you, Kelvin. It’s certainly a change of the mood music going on, but self-lacerating apologies are subject to the law of diminishing returns unless they indicate what we call “Metanoia” – change of mind, aka repentance. This means things real change. Without it, apologies breed cynicism, not hope. When, for example, a bishop tells us he is ashamed whenever he encounters homophobia in the church, curious minds want to ask him “when did you last encounter what you call homophobia in the church? What was it like? How was it separable from the ideology that validated it? And since it’s such a shameful thing, what are you going to do about it?”

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1. Kelvin
  
  16/04/2016
  
  The real disconnect for me is that Justin Welby is someone who clearly does know something about what reconcilliation is. He can’t have done that job in Coventry and not known and he can’t have named reconcilliation as one of the key strands of his time as Archbishop without knowing that metanoia is part of the deal if that is what you are chasing after.
  
  However, I can only come back again and again to the possibility that there are those who simply think that LGBT are indeed actually worth less than real people.
  
  Reply
  1. June Butler
    
    18/04/2016
    
    Kelvin, after I read your words about the empty apologies by authorities in the church after which their behavior does not change, I could not help but think what you stated in your comment, that the leaders, with exceptions like Alan Wilson, believe LGTB folks are lesser. What else can we think? My advice would be to stop apologizing and be honest, which would be a step in the right direction, because at least the hypocrisy would end.
    
    Reply
adrian copping

16/04/2016

Thank you for this. Something similar has been happening here in Wales in the past week or so where our Bishops have apologised AND issued some prayers which are authorised for use in connnection with ministry to LGBTI people. This is to be welcomed as a sign of a step in a positive direction but, at the same time, leaves a lot of questions and many disappointed.

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Bob Webster

16/04/2016

Saying it is a “constant source of deep sadness that people are persecuted for their sexuality” is not an apology. At best it is a request that someone should stop making him feel bad. That could be the people doing the persecuting, or it could be us who should just be quiet and preferably go away. An apology would be “I apologize for the hurt I have caused and as a consequence of recognizing my sin I will cease that behaviour and do everything I can to get others to stop as well.”

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Ruth Richards-Hill

16/04/2016

Kelvin, you are an expert at stating things so eloquently that makes everyone else in the Anglican communion squirm.

I was not oblivious to the fact that as a lesbian woman I entered a family of churches with a huge diversity of attitudes towards my sexuality. It was only because of the grace and love of Jesus Christ that I felt safe to come into the church despite my “flaws” and receive baptism. Is my baptism any less valid because I am a lesbian?

As a convert from Orthodox Judaism I suspect that I am sometimes more acutely aware than others at what should be in my mind a glaring hypocrisy. Rabbinical thought always looks for an alternatives to explain why a certain situation does or does not apply according to halachah (ecclesiastical law – much like the canons). But the balance either exists or it doesnt. Jesus speaks about divorce and makes it quite clear that its not really an option, while in rabbinical law, it certainly is an option. We are taught that he came to fulfil the law and yet we his church are part of a new covenant are we not? The church seems to have taken the easy way out and will marry people who have divorced, but will not marry gay couples. So if divorced people are part of the new covenant, why arent us gay folk?

I could get into all the biblical quotation arguments and as someone that reads Classical Hebrew better than most Anglicans I know, I have no fear in taking a stand on my point. (My Greek needs a little more work however.) That said, I dont see a balanced biblical foundation for excluding some that are automatically excluded by literal translation of scripture, but not others, but rather an inherited bigotry and hypocrisy that continues to thrive simply to satisy the whims of member churches whose societies havent quite experienced the journey that ours has. While that doesnt invalidate their position, neither does it invalidate the position of our society and our spiritual progress should not be hindered to satisy the agenda of those religious leaders that appear to be pandering to the demands of those churches that have not walked the path of ours.

I have arguments that cover more than simple translations and exegesis particularly surrounding what the rules were both before and after the death of Christ, but those are for another day. I know that I am a baptised Christian and Jesus loves me as much as any other, not because I am gay or straight, but because I am one of his, and therefore he wants me to thrive within his covenant rather than the stifling, unreasonable and hair splitting laws that came before – Ones that I personally know how incredibly impossible they are to live by, no matter what your sexuality, or colour, or intellectual ability. – I was there once.

When our Bishops and leaders realise that Christ died exactly to make the Christian lives of the likes of me equally valid as straight people, then perhaps we’ll make a little more progress and not see these “apologies” as merely lip service. Its almost embarrassing to LGBT people for whom their faith is a core part of their lives. It certainly is for me.

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Ruth Harley

16/04/2016

Any child in my Sunday School group could tell you that repentance is not just “saying sorry” it is “saying sorry, being sorry, and changing”. Possibly ++Justin’s words make it as far as the first of these, but I’m not convinced they signify the second, and the third is nowhere in sight. Perhaps I should send my 5 year old theologians to Lambeth and/or Lusaka to explain! Or perhaps it’s just that those who are issuing these ‘apologies’ aren’t really thinking in terms of repentance, or seeing the need for it, at all.

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Mark Falby

16/04/2016

Apologies mean nothing if not backed by action.

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Junia

16/04/2016

Well I did recently get brutally and spectacularly dumped by an American lesbian, so perhaps they just are naturally more wicked over there…

In seriousness though, thank you for this wonderfully elegant post, Kelvin, summarising so much of what I have felt since ++Justin’s statement in January. I’m starting to get a little sick of being apologised to.

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1. Cynthia
  
  17/04/2016
  
  Speaking as an American lesbian, I’m sure the Norwegian lesbians are much better people, and that we are “naturally more wicked…” 😉
  
  Kelvin expresses well the debacle of January. But interestingly, Justin just delivered an amazing sermon at ACC-16 that marks a major change of heart and theology if he’s sincere. We’ll see. A lot has happened since January.
  
  Have a look at the sermon, it’s in the Anglican Communion news. I’d hate to think that those are just empty words. Time will tell. But I want hope.
  
  Reply
  1. Kelvin
    
    17/04/2016
    
    Could you point us towards the sermon, Cynthia. I’m not seeing anything at all that’s new in relation to the things I’ve written about above.
    
    Reply
    1. Cynthia Katsarelis
      
      17/04/2016
      
      Here it is: http://www.anglicannews.org/news/2016/04/new-calls-for-new-times-archbishop-welbys-presidential-address-to-acc-16.aspx
      
      To me this seems like a new direction, born of recent realities, and perhaps inspired by the Holy Spirit.
      
      Of course, my hopes could be typical, off-the-charts American optimism. We wicked American Episcopal lesbians just know that the Promised Land is at the end of the next rainbow.
      
      Reply
      1. Kelvin
        
        17/04/2016
        
        Cynthia – this is what I was writing about above. It isn’t a new direction. It is what I’m complaining of. Talk of reconciliation whilst not engaging in it.
        
        There’s not a word in it about a new direction on the way the ABC relates to the Anglican Communion’s troubles. Not one.
      2. Cynthia Katsarelis
        
        17/04/2016
        
        It seems like he was asking people to focus on the major characters, climate change and religious violence, and to work together within our diversity. That sounds like a new tack. Of course, it will be interesting to see if this translates into action. Will the discrimination against married clergy stop? Will the ABC stop pandering to the primates who didn’t show up to ACC-16?
        
        You might be right, you seem very prophetic to me. But I want you to be wrong this time. I want hope, and to work together on things that actually matter.
      3. Kelvin
        
        17/04/2016
        
        There are simply no signs of what you hope for, Cynthia. None.
      4. Cynthia Katsarelis
        
        17/04/2016
        
        Perhaps not. But I was recently a TEC delegate to the UN Commission on the Status of Women where I met a posse of awesome women from the Anglican Communion Women delegation. We had great interaction and they affirmed a “walking together” statement they wrote in 2007. It says they are staying in communion, no matter what the guys do. We women in TEC are drafting a response, graciously receiving and affirming the statement. Against this, Justin doesn’t stand a chance and he might as well change his tune.
        
        PS. One of the awesome delegates was a Rachel from St. Andrew’s, Scotland.
Richard Barnes

17/04/2016

I was really hopeful about the Anglican Communion’s purpose from reading Rachael’s blogs from UN CSW last month. But not for long. ABC Welby’s Sermon reads like a random speech generator and says much the same as he’s been doing for months in global fora.
It’s like a couple who talk about the garden and the difficult neighbours because they don’t want to talk about their sex life.
Clever way to end ACC with everyone apparently united by talking about bigger issues.
But to read ++Welby asking for nuanced theology, when he’s totally binary (Christian=happy, healthy, wealthy & wise) just made me laugh.

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Robin

19/04/2016

> In the last week we’ve had the latest document on family life to come from the Vatican and it is very clear that there’s a change in tone from the current pope and it is hard not to welcome that.

I don’t see any change of tone in the following, which is the beginning of paragraph 251 of “Amoris Laetitia”.

> 251. In discussing the dignity and mission of
the family, the Synod Fathers observed that, “as
for proposals to place unions between homosexual
persons on the same level as marriage,
there are absolutely no grounds for considering
homosexual unions to be in any way similar or
even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage
and family”.

I’d call that a monumental snub, deliberately administered, or an equally deliberately administered drenching with cold water.

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