What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon preached on 15 July 2018 (Pride Weekend)

16/07/2018

Is this the word of the Lord?

Is this the gospel?

“What should I ask for” said Herodias.

“The head of the Baptist” said her mother.

And it was so.

And where is the good news in any of that?

It is one of the worst, most barbaric and miserable stories in all of scripture.

Herodias whom we know by the name of Salome in popular culture danced before the tyrant and demanded the head of the one who had stood up to Herod as he rode roughshod over the law.

(David on the other hand, danced through the streets for joy in the first reading and distributed food for everyone – but we’ll get to him later).

What about Salome? Why do we read this sorry and sordid tale?

This is not some saucy burlesque after all but a dance of death.

Where is the good news to be found?

This story comes around quite a lot – we get rather a lot about the Baptist in the lectionary. We get this story on this Sunday and we also get it for the day we remember John the Baptist’s death too.

This is not a story which ends with all the boys being brought safely from the dark and frightening cave. It is the story that ends with John’s state sponsored arbitrary execution.

Every time I read it, someone asks why.

If I’m honest, I sometimes feel the same when I am reading it too.

People will know that I rather like the theatre.

Going to the theatre is what I do when I have time off.

I am apt to get myself to places where there are lots of shows on and just book things that I fancy on the off chance that they might be that great night out that you will remember forever.

(Which is how I once booked myself tickets for the Tempest and spent the first few lines thinking that I didn’t remember the sailors in the storm being Russian sailors and got a full five minutes into what is, to say the least a long and complex night out before realising that the whole thing was going to be in Russian).

And I did the same with a production by a famous theatre producer of a play by the famously witty Oscar Wilde and glued to my seat in horror when I realised that Salome, the title of the play was not the story of some saucy socialite but just a retelling of the horror story that I’ve just read from the bible.

To put it bluntly – there are no jokes here.

But when people ask why we read it in church my answer is always the same.

We read it because it is true. We read it because brothers and sisters are suffering. We read it because John the Baptists who stand up to power still end up in prison cells. We read it because conniving plotters like Herodias and her ma still send good people to needless and pointless deaths. We read it because people still suffer under Herods.

We read it in short because tyrants still exist. And it is fear of similar tyranny that brought people out onto George Square in protest on Friday evening.

We stories like this it because notwithstanding the good news that Jesus came to share, he came to share good news so that we could share it with those who need it most.

We read it because it is true. And we’ll keep on reading it until it is true no more.

For standing up to abuses of power is surely a part of who we are and what we do.

Yesterday, I stood for hours, literally hours, in Kelvingrove Park listening to people talk about their experiences of faith and of the church.

It is a shock for people to see someone in a dog collar at a Pride celebration (or an anti-Trump protest come to that) and dozens of people wanted to chat.

And I spoke to people who wanted to change the world like John the Baptist and speak truth to power – not least yesterday, those leading the campaign for Inclusive Education in Scotland – their time has come.

Scotland’s children need them to win what they asking for.

And over the last 28 hours, I’ve spoken to people who were dressed a little differently to most of you here this morning. People who, like John the Baptist like to dress in things that wouldn’t look so respectable in Byers Road. There were not so many hair shirts on display yesterday but there were one of two leather girdles a bit like John used to wear.

But my predominant memory is of speaking to one John the Baptist after another who are trapped in caves of despair. And who think that the church is the evil empire and that Herod is in fact one of us – for people who look like me look all too much like the oppressor to them.

A particular memory of yesterday is of speaking to dozens of heart-broken Roman Catholics who feel lost and abandoned by their faith.

We never talk about that kind of thing in ecumenical conversations, which is why so many ecumenical conversations are so utterly futile and why the ecumenical age is all but over.

There will be no new ecumenical spring until we can talk about the difficult things like heartbroken Roman Catholics at Pride and about the way our streets in the summer are taken over by those claiming to be protestants banging drums of hatred.

There was different drumming on our streets yesterday.

The Scottish Episcopalians at Pride were just in front of the Co-Op brass band who encouraged us around town and up Blythswood Hill to a small selection of well-known disco hits.

As the road became steep they broke out into Abba songs of years ago.

“Do I look like a Dancing Queen?” I wondered as they blasted it out behind us before deciding that I probably did and that the only way to keep going was to shimmy.

Which brings us to David dancing for joy before the Ark of the Covenant.

The murder of the Baptist by Herod with the connivance of Herodias and her wicked mother is one of my least favourite readings in the bible. But we read it because it is true.

The story of David dancing through the city in a linen kilt to the scandal of those who thought they knew better including his wife, is one of my absolute favourites.

We read that story because it is true too.

We dance when we’re in love.

We dance because we are happy and full of joy.

And we dance because God is good.

David dances as though no-one is watching, even when he knows they are.

And if ever there was an example from scripture to emulate, I want to dance like David before the Lord.

The things we read in scripture are true – all of them. The horrors as well as the loves.

The Lord gives us choices.

To walk the way of the tyrant. Or to protest and shout for justice from the earth.

To dance the dance of death with Herodias. Or to dance the dance of life with David.

Choose life – and all the earth will be fed.

Choose life – and dance through the streets for joy like no-one is watching.

Choose life – for what other choice is worth making.

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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