What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon preached on 7 June 2015

07/06/2015

St Mary’s is a special place for all kinds of reasons.

This place is a joy and a wonder and it is a place where I really enjoy preaching.

I almost never come away from a Sunday or a feast day without feeling moved, inspired and thankful for the worship that we manage offer here together. And that’s a wonderful thing for a priest. Too many clergy, I suspect, conduct worship which doesn’t really excite them and which they wouldn’t go to if they didn’t have to.

But not me. This is a special place.

Just occasionally, Sunday’s can be a bit more stressful than you hope they will be. And what I have in mind this morning is the very occasional times when someone has taken ill during the course of the service.

Now, the thing is, different churches deal with that in different ways. The best organised churches have someone at the door all ready to call an ambulance if one is needed.

Here in St Mary’s, what usually happens is that a perfectly formed medical team seems to instantaneously form around the person who is laid low.

I remember on one occasion someone leaning over to me and asking whether they should call 999 and my response was that they could do but there was much more chance of the person seeing an A and E doctor quickly here than actually at A and E.

On one Sunday someone rather dramatically told me that someone in the congregation had died in church and asked me to bring the holy oil to anoint them. I sent for the oils and rather tentatively approached. As I did so, I found the “corpse” sitting up and fighting people off with the words, “Will someone get all these doctors away from me”.

Not only is there suddenly a bunch of medics all set to do what they can but right behind them there seems to come a team of trained counsellors all ready to step in to offer comfort and concern to anyone who needs it.

It is all very St Mary’s.

I feel as though this morning’s gospel is a bit of an accident and emergency this morning.

• Jesus’s family thinking he has completely lost the plot and needing saving from himself.

• This line about the sin against the holy ghost that can never be forgiven.

• And then Jesus comprehensively rejecting his mother and siblings.

It is a tricky piece for any preacher.

And if we had all the time in the world, I’d tell you to get into groups and try to sort it all out. And you know what I’d do, I’d have a group of medics trying to work out what was wrong with Jesus over here. And a bunch of psychiatrists over there trying to work out whether his issues with the devil were psychological ones.

And the team of trained therapists could move in on the business with him rejecting his family. Some might want to spend time with Mary and his siblings trying to help them deal with his rejection and some might want to give Jesus himself a good listening to.

And I think we could probably manage a team of theologians in another corner to try to work out the stuff about blasphemy against the holy ghost and to say what all that was about.

And when they fell out about what that means, as I think it is probably inevitable that they would do because (trust me on this) no-one really knows what it means, we could send the counsellors over to that corner to help them listen more effectively to one another and do a little emergency pouring of oil on troubled waters.

And then those who are in management might raise the question of problem solving in multi-disciplinary teams and suggest a significant reorganisation of resources.

But by this stage we might have the justice and aid network forming themselves over in one coffee corner to remind us that blasphemy is a serious business in some parts of the world and people can be killed simply for being accused of blasphemy and asking whether or not we can have a forum speaker about this very important issue and reminding us that some in this very congregation come from those very countries and that all local issues are global issues and all global issues are local ones.

And then you might get the lesbian and group having a subversive bible study group in another corner and having a very long conversation about the idea of first tying up the strong man in order to plunder his house and asking whether or not that is a prophecy of the overthrow of hetero-normative sexist homophobic society and whether or not we are about to usher in the commonwealth of God where all it justice and joy. And peace and light will appear to break out until someone suggests that this means we need to change from speaking about the kingdom of God to speaking about the queendom of God.

And then we’ll need the team of trained counsellors and therapists all over again. And the musicians could come up with a chant on the important text, “Blessed are the peacemakers”.

And pretty soon the God Factor people zoom into action to gather the questions that the congregation might have about the gospel of the day. And they’d be busily putting them all up on a sticky label wall so we can all see one another’s questions and then we would add more questions on top of the first questions. And it would never be too late to ask another question because accepting the questions is what it is all about.

And then, this being St Mary’s, you’ll get some smart alec preacher in the pulpit going on and on about Jesus rejecting his mother and siblings and wondering whether this means that it is time for single people to remind those who live in couples and families that Jesus seemed pretty decisively to reject their way of life. And thanking God we don’t have family services here in St Mary’s because we’re a church for everyone.

And on hearing this, the therapists decide they will work most effectively running a triage system and employing their talents to those who are most in need. And they split themselves into teams that quickly get to work here, here, here and here.

And all the while, the poor gospel is lying there gasping for breath and saying, “All I wanted to do for you people was to bring you a bit of life”.

So.

What will we really take away from hearing it today?

Can I suggest three little things.

Firstly,

That God’s compassion is so exciting that when it is found in Jesus it draws a crowd.

And as a congregation we need to be ready for that to happen.

Secondly, that God’s compassion is disruptive of our expectations and of our identities. And as the people of God we’d better be ready to be able to learn more about the expansive love of God than we already know. (And if we can’t do that we’re not the people God wants us to be).

And finally – that God’s compassion comes to us as individuals. The love of God doesn’t come because of who we think we are – neither by profession nor, as this gospel teaches us via family or friends. This is not the news that Jesus regards his mother and siblings as unimportant. It is the better news that he regards every one of us as being just as close and loved by himself as as all of them.

Because God loves us each, utterly and forever. And in God’s world, no-one comes first and we all belong to another.

And after the service you can get into your teams and discuss the sermon.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

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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