What is in Kelvin's Head?

Teaching sermon on Confession and Absolution

13/03/2019

During Lent, I’m preaching giving simple teaching addresses focussing on different things that we do during the Eucharist.

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

I don’t know whether you’ve given something up for Lent.

These days I often tend to think of taking something up for Lent rather than giving up a bad habit.

I remember in one of the churches that I used to work there was a wonderful woman who came to the midweek service. She came from a very churchy family – the sister of a priest, was married to a priest and was a powerful church woman herself.

And she used to come along to worship at the midweek service that I usually took. We met in that church on Wednesdays and so the midweek service always carried on with the same congregation plus a few more on Ash Wednesday.

And the thing I remember about her today is an Ash Wednesday when there was a lot of chatter over the post service coffee about what they were all giving up for Lent – it certainly wasn’t biscuits.

And someone said, “What are you giving up for Lent Margaret”.

And she looked them straight in the eye and said, “I’m giving up what I usually give up”.

“What’s that they all chorused”.

And she waited just long enough to get the attention of the entire room and said, “Bad thoughts”

I thought it was the perfect answer. If only it was easier to do.

But easy isn’t what Lent is necessarily about.

The hardest Lenten discipline that I ever undertook was the first one I undertook when I joined the Episcopal Church.

I grew up in the Salvation Army where we didn’t have Lent though we did dedicate February to something similar called Self Denial.

We also didn’t have any alcohol or intoxicants.

Which is how I managed to make it to being a postgrad student in my mid twenties who had never had a drop to drink.

I recognise that it is more normal to give up alcohol for Lent.

However, I did join the Scottish Episcopal Church in my second year as a theology student and may well have been the first student in Christendom ever to give up being teetotal for Lent.

I’m not sure that I have much wisdom to offer from that time other than that whisky and cider don’t mix nicely.

And to be honest, although I’ll occasionally have a drink now, it is a very rare one.

But all of this is a long-winded way of getting me to what I’ve given up for Lent this year.

Well, I’ve given up preaching on the bible readings for Lent this year.

And am going to preach a series of teaching sermons for Lent this year and instead of focusing on the bible readings, I’m going to let them speak for themselves.

I’m going to preach us through the Eucharist for the next few weeks.

Stopping at a different key point in the order of service each week to give us pause to think about what’s going on.

This week I’ve stopped us at the Confession and Absolution. Just to rest a moment and think about what we’re doing when we say these words.

It is important because I think that if we become Eucharistic people and put ourselves in the way of the liturgy, it will resonate around inside us and reappear in our consciousness when we need it, not just when we’re in church.

The words that we say each week make and remake us. They shape us. They take their part in building us into being the people that God wants us to become.

God is love and we are his children. There is no room for fear in love. We love because he loved us first.

May those words come back to you when you need them.

There is no room for fear in love.

Countless times in scripture we encounter people being afraid. From the shepherds on the hillside at Christmas to the disciples startled by the risen Christ, the message from on high is “Do not be afraid”.

We remind ourselves of that before the confession because the confession is part of making us able to live without fear.

God our Father, we confess to you and to our fellow members in the Body of Christ that we have sinned in thought, word and deed, and in what we have failed to do.

What we acknowledge when we confess is a bit like what most people acknowledge when they think about the world today or read the papers. Things are not the way they should be.

In the confession, we acknowledge our part in it.

And we do the thing needed to sort it out.

We are truly sorry. Forgive us our sins, and deliver us from the power of evil, for the sake of your Son who died for us, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Now, confession relates to two aspects of life when we’re not together.

Firstly, confession together in church is part of what shapes us into being people who will own up when we get things wrong in our lives when we are not in church.

That how the liturgy in church is supposed to affect you.

It shapes you and makes you different.

That should be the consequence of coming here. And for goodness sake, if the liturgy here doesn’t do that, go and find somewhere where it does.

Secondly, remember that our church also offers the chance to engage in the sacrament of confession privately with a priest.

I have received the sacrament both as a penitent and a confessor and I would describe both as being a gift and a place where God does business with us.

The rule in our church about private confession is very clear – all may, some should, none must.

It is simply available and something which every priest in the church has to offer to everyone or point the person towards another priest who can hear their confession.

That is available in this church and the clergy are happen to be approached about it at any time. Lent being a particularly good time.

I was involved in a trial recently and one of the most important bits of it was when the sherrif said, “I have heard the crown witnesses and they have been both credible and reliable”.

I already knew I was telling the truth.

But it was something else to hear someone say they believed me.

Confession is about telling the truth to God. Knowing who we really are in the world and facing up to the stuff we would rather not face.

And the promise is the same.

If we do so. We will be forgiven.

For God, who is both power and love, will forgive us and will free us from our sins,

Will heal and strengthen us by his Spirit, and will raise us to new life in Christ our Lord.

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

absolution, confession, confession and absolution, Lent, Sermon

41 responses to “The Columba Declaration”

Edward Andrews

11/02/2016

As Anglicans get down to the important issue of the niceties of Theology, lets get into the broad brush situation.
The relationships between the Churches of the Celtic tradition and the Southern tradition have been fraught since the 7th Century (Whitby). Part of the whole question surrounding the war of Independence (and before with King David was teh independence of the Scottish Church.
The irony is that the present attempt is to bring the Churches of the united Kingdom together may well blow back on them. While the Kirk today doesn’t mean much in Scotland the most secular part of the UK I’m not convinsed that playing footise over Bishops is going to impress the older members – the ones who voted No.
The fact is that the Scottish Episcopal Church has the Anglican franchise in Scotland. It is an authentic Scottish Church (especially if you ignore the instances when it has gone to England for Episcopal ordination.) and to negotiate over its head about something so sensitive it at the best discourteous.
Those of the reformed tradition don’t get wound up by the antics of a few Episcopalians. We seek whatever degree of true unity is available to us, but do not see the need for uniformity. I spent some very pleasant years as a guest of the Scottish Episcopal Church when the climate of the Kirk became unattractive to me, and am grateful for the table fellowship which I received.
The site of two big boys presuming to set things up is not pleasing. For the information of those who want to get up tight about the real presence, that is what the reformed tradition believes, we are Calvinists not followers of Zwingli. I am not going to seek to discuss which Greer philosopher we get our understanding of existence from.

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Father David

12/02/2016

Father Ron: let us not forget that the great Arthur Michael Ramsey was born an ecumenical baby. His maternal Grandfather was Vicar of Horbling in Lincolnshire and his paternal Grandfather was a Congregationalist Minister. His Anglican Grandfather baptised him and when in adult years he visited Horbling parish church he was deeply moved when standing by the font – the place where this great man of God began his Christian pilgrim journey. However, as a child he worshipped with his family at the Congregationalist church in Cambridge. To the great benefit of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion – the kind of High Jinks that took place next door at Little St. Mary’s proved to be an attractive magnet and so the pull of Anglo-Catholicism brought to us a spiritual giant and a contender (in company with William Temple) for the title of the greatest Archbishop of Canterbury of the 20th century and a man who yearned and longed for Christian Unity.
Edward Andrews: Even as we all long and hope for the unity of all Christians your words are wise when you point to unity not uniformity.

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Keith Barber

12/02/2016

Cynic I may be, but my first response is to ask what is the hidden agenda. For I’m pretty certain there will be one, whether it’s about trying to create an ecclesiastical bulwark against disintegration of the UK or get ++Welby an ally or two in the aftermath of the huge and hostile reaction to the Anglican Primates’ decision to punish TEC (sorry Kelvin) for its moves towards inclusion of LGBT people.

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1. Jeremy Bates
  
  13/02/2016
  
  Or perhaps it’s like the Easter-calendar announcement–a convenient way of changing the subject, at Synod and elsewhere.
  
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Father Ron Smith

12/02/2016

Whatever the motivation for this ‘secret’ accord with the Church of Scotland; simple courtesy would require that the Church of England promoters consult with their Episcopally governed equivalent in Scotia.

Another point is this; do the Presbyerians realise that they may have signed up to the catholic premise of recognition of the Real Presence of Christ in the Sacrament of the Holy Communion? Are they happy with that?

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1. Edward Andrews
  
  12/02/2016
  
  Well actually the Presbyterians believe “Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and indeed, yet not carnally and corporally but spiritually, receive and feed upon, Christ crucified, and all benefits of His death: the body and blood of Christ being then, not corporally or carnally, in, with, or under the bread and wine; yet, as really, but spiritually, present to the faith of believers in that ordinance, as the elements themselves are to their outward senses.” You will see the word real is there. Don’t know what the 39 articles say you believe.
  Those of us who are big on the real presence use the Platonic rather than the Aristotelian understanding of reality.
  
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  1. Father Ron Smith
    
    12/02/2016
    
    Not believers, then, in con-substantiation? Freely translated as bread and wine ‘together with’ the Body and Blood of Christ? Note, not the more literal trans-substantiation, which would nean the disappearance of the bread and wine. (although as some of my more scientific friends would say, this is a tautology.
    
    What all must agree on, though, is that some members of the Church of England, and many of its constituent partner Churches of the Anglican Communion, do have a problem with the ‘Real Presence’ – a reality that, for me, and I suspect most Anglican Catholics, means that the substance of the bread and wine consecrated at the Eucharist is truly “The Body and Blood of Christ” in accordance with the dominical instruction: “This IS my Body, my Blood” (Not, you will notice, “this REPRESENTS my Body, my Blood”). ‘A Sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace’ – this saying sums it all up pretty well, I think
    
    Reply
    1. Kelvin
      
      12/02/2016
      
      I think it is time to draw the discussion about the real presence to a close on this comment thread. It is hardly the main point and I’ve never ever known a comment thread about transubstantiation to be constructive.
      
      Comments on the Columba Declaration welcome. Comments trying to explain what transubstantiation *really* means – not so much.
      
      Reply
      1. Edward Andrews
        
        12/02/2016
        
        Thank you Kelvin. As I see it the C of E has come poaching in your preserves. This is wrong and unhelpful. If there were going to be Anglican/Presbyterian dialogue the SEC should be the lead player. I have my own problems with the declaration as a Member of the Church of Scotland who seeks an end to the United Kingdom. However as a Catholic Christian I am in solidarity with my SEC brothers and sisters who have been left out of the loop. Both the Cof E synod and the Kirk’ General Assembly should reject the document, but I don’t suppose that they will.
Augur Pearce

16/02/2016

A contribution to the ‘establishment’ discussion: In my book the terms ‘establish’ and ‘Church of England’ both have more than one meaning. ‘Establish’, for example, can mean ‘set up, bring into existence’ (sense E1), or it can mean ‘endow, privilege’ (sense E2).

Most people who use it of the C of E use it in sense E2, and they understand the C of E (in what I might call sense C3) as an association with its own rules, distinct from the English nation but privileged by law in various ways (with some concomitant obligations).

In fact I think this describes the C of S position fairly well, but is quite wrong as regards the C of E. The C of E (I contend) is not distinct from the kingdom of England, it is that kingdom ‘wearing its spiritual hat’ (sense C1). England, as church, has various spiritual responsibilities to discharge, and in order to do so, it establishes (=creates; sense E1), by its law, a complex of specialist institutions, offices, rules, and assets which itself becomes known derivatively as the C of E (sense C2).

One clear example of how the C of E (in sense C1) and the C of S have been differently understood from very early times is found in comparing Richard Hooker’s well-known words ‘There is not any man of the Church of England, but the same man is also a member of the commonwealth, nor any man a member of the commonwealth which is not also of the Church of England…’ with the Church Act 1567, declaring those ‘quha outher gainsayis the word of the Evangell ressavit and apprevit as the heidis of the Confessioun of Faith professit in Parliament of befoir in the yeir of God 1560 … or that refusis the participatioun of the haly sacramentis as thay ar now ministrat, to be na memberis of the said Kirk within this realme now presently professit’.

The Church of England, in short, is simply England; the Church of Scotland is a privileged sectional group.

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1. Seph
  
  17/02/2016
  
  If this be so, it strikes me as uncomfortably caesaropapist. This may be one of the things that makes me uncomfortable when I am down south and find myself in a C of E church.
  
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