What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon preached on 9 December 2018 – People Look East!

09/12/2018

[Apologies for the poor audio in the video this week]

“People Look East!” the prophet Baruch commanded in our first reading. And he wasn’t talking about Edinburgh.

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

“Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look towards the east” says Baruch, echoed rather brilliantly in the Advent Carol that the choir will be singing at communion this morning.

People look East. But what is so special about the East?

The truth is, at different times and in different places, people seem to allow tradition to hang on various points of the compass.

When I was a newly ordained priest, I worked in our cathedral in Perth and in those days, you proclaimed the gospel in a particular way.

We make much of the fact that the gospel is proclaimed right amongst the people here. The idea is that the gospel book is brought right amongst people as we remember that Jesus himself came amongst us and shared our tears and laughter and humanity whilst sharing the stories and chatter and love of heaven with us.

God’s coming amongst us is enacted ever time we raise the gospel book and carry it amongst the people and read it there.

Oh, but not when I was a curate in Perth. Yes, sure enough we processed the gospel to the middle of the church and everyone turned and looked at it. But whoever was reading it took a curious right turn when they got there and very definitely proclaimed it in a certain direction.

The gospel in Perth was proclaimed to the North – a lingering liturgical tradition that was common in Scotland and the Nordic countries at some times. You proclaimed the gospel to the North because it was the North that needed it. The place where all the cold came from and in so many northern myths, where all the ghosts and Ghoulies came from.

In some parts of Scandinavia they don’t have windows on the North side of a church in order to keep the cold and the Ghoulies firmly at bay.

So every time I read the gospel in my curacy, I did that right turn, and proclaimed the gospel to the North.

It was a rather picturesque liturgical tradition, even if it did seem to make is appear that the devil lived in Pitlochry.

Just a few months before going to Perth, I found myself in the desert in Egypt, exploring the spirituality of the desert fathers – monks who still live there.

(It is amazing the amount of effort and creativity Scottish ordinands at that time were putting into not being in Edinburgh where they were supposed to be training for ordination, but that’s another story).

Anyway, I was in the desert and the most extraordinary storm blew up. A sandstorm you could see coming towards you right across the horizon.

And it brought terror not only to those I was staying with in the Wadi Natrun monasteries but terror on the streets of Cairo. Was it the ferocity of the storm that caused the terror? Well, partly – it was the kind of storm you might wait 50 years for and hugely destructive.

But the terror was caused by its direction. The tradition in that part of the world is that Armageddon, the war that ends all things will come from the South. And that storm came very much from the South.

People look East, Baruch says.

Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look towards the east,

and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.

So who is Baruch and what’s this all about.

My suspicion is that not that many people would be able to easily find the book of Baruch, never mind be able to say much about who Baruch was.

Well, we know Baruch’s words already. He was Jeremiah’s scribe, disciple, devotee and some have even speculated bidie-in.

He travelled with Jeremiah into exile and it was he who preserved the prophet’s words and popularised them.

So the Book of Baruch – obviously his own prophetic writings, right?

Well, not so fast. If only early religious writings worked like that.

No – the book of Baruch is named after him. Someone not so much passing themselves off as him as taking up his tradition.

So even though these words are not by Baruch himself, they are by someone wanting us to remember him and Jeremiah being carted off into exile.

Exile in Babylon.

Yes, exile in the East.

Whoever bids us to look to the east is reminding us of those who were carted off to Babylon.

But is it the remembrance of lament? No.

Is it the remembrance of bitterness? No.

Is it the remembrance of hatred and despair? A thousand times no.

Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look towards the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot,
led away by their enemies;
but God will bring them back to you,
carried in glory, as on a royal throne.

People look East says the Book of Baruch – and see those of the East and of West united in joy.

And in that joy, this new Baruch remembers all the prophesies of justice from Isaiah that a royal way be made by levelling the ground for all people. High places made plain, valleys lifted up and all the people of God treated as royalty.

It is the same memory that the Baptist has in the gospel. The valleys being filled and the hills be made low and all flesh seeing salvation.

The Baptist proposes a baptism of repentance surely necessary.

Baruch proposes what seems like a baptism of joy. Also necessary.

The baptism of repentance necessary because things are not right yet and we must commit to turn our lives around in order to turn this world back to rights.

And being baptised by, drenched by, suffused by joy because the Lord will never forget his exiled people.

No matter how far we feel from a place of justice and peace and integrity and honesty and goodness and plenty, the Lord calls us back to that place.

And we return to that singing. And full of joy.

For God will lead us with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness and love that come from him.

From the north and from the south, from the east and from the west, we are called to abide together in the kingdom where love is the rule and love the ruler.

Behold. Behold. In these advent days, know that the kingdom of justice and peace and love and joy is coming soon.

With a human face.

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.

Reply
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.

Reply
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?

Reply
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.
  
  Reply
  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.

Reply
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.
  
  Reply