What is in Kelvin's Head?

Bathsheba, our Sister

27/07/2015

Here’s the sermon I preached on Bathsheba on 27 June 2015

Sermon preached by Kelvin Holdsworth on 26 July 2015

It so happens that later today I’m going to be on the television in a short slot on Songs of Praise. Blink and you’ll miss me – it won’t be long.

From time to time I get the chance to be on both television and radio. And I’ve learned to treat them very differently and prepare what I have to say to suit the medium.

Generally speaking, I really like doing radio work because, as people often say, the pictures on the radio are far better.

Its true. Radio is about painting pictures and television is about telling stories.

And I think Radio and Preaching are very similar, which is why my preaching is very visual. My aim is to get you to see things in your head as I’m speaking.

And so I find today my own gaze turning over to my left as I look amongst the high windows of the church for one of the protagonists of the Old Testament story which is what I’m going to preach about today.

For every day, he catches my gaze when I’m over there saying morning prayer and you can’t see him from where you are, so this is going to be like radio with me describing him.

As I recite the psalms at Morning Prayer, as often as not, I’m looking up at him. David in Stained Glass. High and mighty. Bearded and wise. Colourful. Powerful. Present.

He’s a familiarly figure to me. As I recite God’s praises using words that he himself wrote, I have him directly in view, God bless him.

King. Poet. Warrior. And downright naughty but do utterly beloved rogue.

He’s a complex character. Though peaceful in stained glass. He is portrayed playing the lyre he made music with as a younger man in order to calm King Saul’s insane rages.

He concentrates on his lyre. Making music. As I look at him I wonder who he makes music for now. For Saul? For Michal his first love. For Jonathan his great love? For Bathsheba his great…. Well, what was it? Was it love? I’m not so sure.

And as he makes his music up there in stained glass I fancy him hearing us reciting his psalms down below.

As I gaze up and him, I imagine him gazing down at me.

But as I look in his direction, I see him dropping the lyre and transported. Transported out of the stained glass and standing on a balcony on a rooftop.

And he’s not looking down at me, he’s looking down at someone else entirely. Yes. Bathsheba on her own roof taking what she suspects is a private bath.

And we’ll leave him there for a moment. Gazing. Desiring. Lusting after another man’s wife.

And we’ll think about her.

It suddenly occurred to me on Friday that though I’m relatively used to seeing David depicted in stained glass, it is at least interesting that we don’t have a corresponding picture of her. She’s a significant figure in her own right in the events that were to follow today’s story.

Is it, I wondered, that we are prepared to forgive him in our collective memory and put him in stained glass simply because he is a man. She, the floosy, not so much.

I’m not sure.

Anyway, on Friday morning, I decided to take a look around the known world for Bathsheba and see if I could work out what she looked like. Now, google has an image search these days. You put in a search term and instead of giving you links, it gives you pictures.

So, into the search box, I typed Bathsheba’s name and pressed the button and immediately was taken aback by what I saw.

Immediately, I encountered the flesh.

Picture after picture of a rather voluptuous figure.

Breasts bare. Rising from baths, fountains, bathing ponds.

Curiously, she seemed rather pale and western looking. I fancy that her peely wally skin wouldn’t survive terribly long on the beach at Saltcoats, never mind on the rooftops of Jerusalem.

But the overwhelming impression was the sheer amount of bare flesh.

And somewhere in most of the pictures, King David casting a sly eye over what was on offer to him in the heat of the day.

My mind boggled at the ogling. It was as though google had suddenly become booble.

And I realised in an instant that we are very used to reading the story of Bathsheba from King David’s point of view.

We are used to reading the story of Bathsheba from King Patriarchy’s point of view. Where women are to be goggled at and ogled at. And owned and taken and possessed.

As I looked at all these medieval manuscripts and more recent paintings containing all these naked Bathshebas I realised that I was seeing transmission of the male gaze through time.

So many monks in scriptoriums painting saucy Bathsheba in the margins and passing the books down from one to another through the ages. What fantasies she must have conjured up just from reading the story.

And remember we had a story a couple of weeks ago of David leaping about in the dance and losing his clothes. But guess what, there are far more bare Bathshebas in the manuscripts and far, far fewer naked Davids.

Women and men are not equal in our tradition.

And once you see such inequality you can start to make the tradition change. (Because that’s what traditions do – they change surprisingly often when people want them to).

I’ve often said that that by a long way, the greatest change that the Scottish Episcopal Church has made in relation to marriage was to produce a liturgy a few years ago where the two participants were equals. A man and a woman getting married in our modern tradition are married as equals and it is a huge lurch away not only from biblical tradition and Victorian traditions of human relationships with which I sometimes think we are obsessed.

This morning’s gospel was the story of the feeding of the five thousand. Well, I think it was the story of the feeding of the five thousand and one. Or five thousand and two. Or five thousand and three.

For what it is trying to tell us is that there is always room for another at the picnic.

(And that’s a metaphor for heaven by the way).

As we re-read the stories of old, we need to read them from different perspectives and I want you to try to read the story from Bathsheba’s point of view this morning.

Manipulated by a powerful man who then murdered her husband in order to take control of her. And then ogled through the ages by churchmen who should have known better.

We must listen to her, for women are trafficked seemingly more and more. Too many are treated as things rather than people because they don’t measure up to the false expectations of patriarchy. Those with power in their hands still refuse to help us build a world based on fairness and human dignity for everyone.

So, I invite you to think again about Bathsheba. Let her prompt your prayers this week. There’s room for her at the heavenly picnic. And it is time her experience is listened to.

And in case you were wondering, there’s room for you too.

Amen.

20 responses to “Apologies have consequences too”

Andrew Cain

15/04/2016

You say so often and so eloquently what I feel.

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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!
  
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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.
    
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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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