What is in Kelvin's Head?

Love your enemies

24/02/2019

This is the sermon I preached for 24 February 2019

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

Almost exactly two years ago, I walked up the stairs to this pulpit on a Sunday morning and I saw something that I cannot see today.

As I grasped the rail and walked up the steps and the organ played a jolly improvisation to get me into place, I saw a flash of colour outside the door at that back of the church.

Someone in a dark uniform and a yellow jacket standing guard at the door. And two thoughts flashed through my head that I had never thought before whilst getting into the pulpit.

I thought… Well, I’ll come back to that in a moment.

But anyway, I preached the sermon. And life went on.

Two years ago, it did feel a little bit as though we were under siege. In response to a service at which we shared our experience of Christ’s birth with local Muslim friends and asked them to share their tradition of that birth with ourselves, this church received a considerable amount of correspondence.

Some of it was positive and encouraging. Some of it was the most vile messages of hate that I’ve ever read.

It was coming in many forms. Email, online messages and old fashioned letters through the post.

And it was some of those old fashioned letters through the post which contributed particularly to us having a police presence at church. The content was sufficiently unpleasant that there was deemed to be an unknown risk to my safety in particular and to us as a congregation.

I have to say that Police Scotland helped us deal with that situation in an exemplary manner and I will forever be grateful for the way in which they dealt with us.

At one time, the civil authorities in this city would have been less supportive of this congregation but things have changed over a couple of centuries and we’ve been wonderfully supported by people who take risks on our behalf.

Last week, on Thursday, the person who sent the worst of all those messages was convicted in the Sherriff Court of Serious and Threatening Behaviour through sending sexually abusive messages aggravated by homophobia and transphobia.

He will face sentencing next month.

Dealing with the court system has been lengthy and not terribly pleasant. The person accused chose to defend himself and thus, those of us giving evidence had to be cross-examined by the person who had sent the original abuse.

But a conviction came in the end.

The end of a process and it felt very much to me as though that page was finally turned over and life could begin again.

And so I came home from the court and fished out the readings for today to begin thinking about what to preach about.

And Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Scripture has a way of cutting through to how things really are.

And so I’ve had to think about what that means to me, right now, right this week, with all that going on.

The first thing I think as I reflect on that reading is that the person who sent this material doesn’t feel like an enemy at all. I’d never met him before the court case. He isn’t someone in my life. He may regard those of us preaching an inclusive version of Christianity as enemies.

But I have no response to make to hatred but the love of God.

Jesus is right. A blessing on the heads of all who hate. May their hatred be dissolved by love. May they be blessed, completely blessed by love.

Let us have no enemies except poverty, homophobia, sexism, abusive behaviour, ignorance, anti-Semitism, domestic and corporate expressions of violence, transphobia, addiction, racism and all that makes people fear the other.

And let them each melt under the power of love.

A properly working criminal justice system takes revenge out of our hands anyway. Thank God.

So, let love be all we say in response to hate.

For it is all the teaching we have.

Love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

Kindness, I think has the gospel planted deep inside it.

Two years ago, as I climbed the steps up into the pulpit, I thought, “This is the moment when someone might try to shoot me”.

I’ve never thought that before though I do remember vividly sitting next to Gene Robinson in 2008 when he was here and facing active death threats.

I never want to think that again. And that makes me want to speak out against the experience of those who worship in fear every week, including those in this and other Scottish cities for whom fear is a way of life.

And the second thought that I had as I climbed into the pulpit two years ago was that I was grateful that the sermon was already printed and sitting in the pulpit.

I remember thinking – “well if anything happens to me, there’s something up there that tells people they are utterly loved by God”.

You’ve heard me preach for years, most of you. You know that’s pretty much all I have to say.

And it is sufficient.

This year during Lent there will be devotional addresses at Choral Evensong. I’ve asked Matthew, Audrey, Helena and John to join me in reflecting on the topic – “If I had just one more sermon to preach”.

And I have my suspicions that there will be much to link those sermons together.

Christianity has something simple at its core.

For all we do inspired by Jesus is to keep on preaching and living and telling the same good news….

You are loved.

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

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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