What is in Kelvin's Head?

Easter Sermon 2014

20/04/2014
What a joy to be in this place today celebrating the resurrection. We began on a high last Sunday and have made our way though this Holy Week. People sometimes call that a journey, a waymarked path, a pilgrimage.

But for me, that doesn’t begin to describe it. For me it is more like being on a rollercoaster of emotions.
- The glory of processing on Palm Sunday. Local pipes and drums somehow taking us right into the holy city of Jerusalem here in the West End itself.
- The intimacy of washing feet on Thursday Night – an exercise that somehow always confirms for me a deep theological truth which is that I have the ugliest feet in all of Christendom.
- The brutal reality of the stripping of the altar – somehow as all the beautiful things are violently removed from the church we find ourselves taking part in the arrest and trial of Jesus.
- The stark reality of a bare church on Good Friday –the one day when the Scottish Episcopal Church somehow turns Free Presbyterian and likes it.
- And the spruce and polish yesterday when we try to make sense of the awful things we have seen and get ready.
And through it all – people and stories from the passion of Christ 2000 years ago interweaving with the people and stories of right here and right now.

Every year I learn something new about the story.

I remember one year I was working in a church which had just appointed a new sacristan before Easter – that’s the person who looks after all the kit in a church.

This person was a great support. And like so many people at this time of year, very keen to help.

At this particular place the stripping of the church was particularly effective. Just like here, everything that could be moved was hauled out of the church. Here we drag out the choir pews, steal the cross from the altar and remove everything that shines and glitters.

Doing it in any church results in two things – firstly a church just right for Good Friday. Stark and plain. The bitter, stark reality of the cross represented by a plain undecorated building. Shocking. Moving. Bewildering. You want the whole church on Good Friday to feel empty. To be still.

Secondly, the stripping of the altar results in a sacristy absolutely full of the rubble of the night before. Carpets and pews and silverware and statues and goodness knows what all upended in a hurry into a small room. And there it stays to keep the church plain and pure for the devotions.

On this particular year, I remember getting a phone call from the new sacristan at 9 am on Good Friday when we had a service at 10 am.

She came on the phone and told me that she’d been in church since 7.30 am. I have to admit that I was pleased and awed by her devotion. Sitting praying in a plain church all that time is surely commendable.

Until she said the words that no priest wants to hear on Good Friday – “Don’t worry Rector, I’ve been into the sacristy and the church and managed to get all the stuff back. The church is looking lovely.”

That year the church was stripped twice and I pulled muscles I never knew could be pulled.

There is a truth there though – Jesus won’t stay dead.

By the time I get to the end of Good Friday – one service after another where we go through the agony of the crucifixion I find myself at the last service of the day hoping that if we crucify him properly then maybe this time he’ll stay dead.

But of course…

But of course, he won’t stay dead. And our message today is very much that nothing will keep him in the grave.

Death has been vanquished. The grave has lost its sting.

Christ the Lord is risen from the dead not simply long, long ago but here and now and in our lives and in our world.

What we celebrate today is that the seed of hope grows in the human heart.

What we celebrate today is that the grave – the place of destruction, violence, decay, boredom and pain is ultimately empty.

What we celebrate today is that life is stronger, yes stronger than death.

Our God has conquered. For love, true love will always win.

I stand here because I believe goodness is always stronger than evil. Because love is stronger than hate. Because the joy of resurrection power is the new life that belongs to us to share with all people of goodwill.

You don’t have to go far to find Good Friday.

But love wins out in the end.

I remain in Good Friday though if I accept that violence is the best way to solve differences.

I remain in Good Friday if I do not challenge prejudice when it comes from any man, woman or archbishop in the street.

I remain in Good Friday if I do not share my belief that a better world than this is not only possible but essential.

This week there has been yet more sickening violence and terrorism in Nigeria and in other places around the world.

Well we as God’s people believe in a better way and are committed to a better world. We stand against the tyrant, the bomber and the bully.

And, this week, the Archbishop of Canterbury has once again tried to link in the public mind the action of terrorists in Africa with the acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the West.

Such careless disregard for gay lives has the stench of Good Friday all over it.

Love wins in the end. And love will win an end to discrimination in the church just as we’ve been winning it in the life of the state.

And this week, the Prime Minister has been courting Christian opinion by speaking about his own faith.

I’m pleased that Mr Cameron can speak of his own connections with church life.

But, Mr Cameron – if you want to court Christian opinion and make Christian people think better of you then help this country build a society far, far away, a resurrection world away, from the food-bank Britain we currently seem to find ourselves living in.

I believe in love. I believe in compassion. I believe in resurrection. And I believe we can build a better world than this.

Jesus won’t stay in the grave. Beauty won’t stay locked away in a sacristy for long.

Jesus won’t stay buried in the tomb. Justice won’t be subdued by violence but will leap up and dance and cry to the heavens for change.

Jesus won’t stay buried in the tomb.

For love wins. New life wins. Joy wins out.

And Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

For if Christ were not risen, we would not be gathered here.

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!
  
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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.
  
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  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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