What is in Kelvin's Head?

“God swipes right” – a sermon for Lent 4, 2026

21/03/2026

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

From time to time, every couple of years or so, someone decides that it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good cathedral, must be in want of a man.

Now, I am not in principle opposed to this idea. Though the practicalities of making such a thing happen have always eluded me.

“Ah” they say with some enthusiasm, “what apps are you on?” And they proceed to list a bewildering number of apps that I could download onto my phone in order to seal the deal.

I am not on any apps, I explain. I’ve never been convinced that they would work for me.

“Oh no!” they cry, “you need to be on an app. That’s how it works for everyone these days, even people like you.”

Reader, I have never been brave enough to enquire what, “people like you” actually means.

But we go through the whole pantomime again. They show me some app on their phone and get me to download one to mine. “Put a smile on your face” they say as they take my picture. A few dozen intrusive questions later and lo and behold, it is serving me up other people’s profiles.

And I look. And I am encouraged to swipe. Right for any possibles. Left for any impossibles.

And it tends to be left, left, left, left. And then I get fed up and very quickly delete the app and proclaim this will never work for me.

I heard an interesting statistic recently – it was that someone had measured one of the apps and the

average time that people took to reject someone was 3.2 seconds. On the other hand, if they were interested in someone they tended to linger for about two and a half minutes thinking about it before swiping right.

Let us turn our thoughts to our first reading this morning. Where we find the Lord our God in an interesting mood.

Saul the king has died. In the end, the project of making him the King of Israel hadn’t ended well. Samuel the prophet grieves the way it all ended, no doubt carrying the despair of the people with him.

Come on says the Lord. Put a smile on your face and let’s be going. You need to find a new man. A new man to anoint as King. And off they go to the home of Jesse the Bethlehemite to assess the possibilities.

And I’ve always thought that this passage is one of those in the bible that has inherent comedy written right into it. The whole process is genuinely funny.

Along comes the first candidate. He’s a maybe thinks Samuel but the Lord has better ideas. No, swipe left on that one he says. He’s not the one.

We’re looking for someone who is lovely on the inside remember, not just someone who looks good.

And along comes another son. No, says the Lord. I don’t fancy this one’s chances. And tells to swipe left and dismiss him.

And so it goes on. One after another, a parade of possibilities. But none cut the mustard.

But there’s just one left. The youngest. Who just happens to be ruddy and handsome and has beautiful eyes.

Hey ho, says the Lord and lingers, I’m sure of it for 2.5 minutes before telling Samuel that this one, this must be the one. And the choice is made.

What are the qualities that we look for in someone, either as a partner or as a leader.

It seems to me that that question of what we are looking for in our leaders is central to a series of overlapping crises that beset our modern life.

For what it is worth, I think we are capable of getting into incredible muddles when trying to choose religious leaders. But the kind of person and the kind of leadership we want in our common political life is simply something we no longer agree on.

I want someone with integrity, who tells the truth and who looks out for those who need to be looked out for. I want leaders who hear the call of peace more clearly than the siren voices who cry out for war and vengeance. I want those who govern and guide to be wise, knowledgeable and in it for the common good and not individual gain.

In both politics and religion I have met many such people. But I have come to the reluctant conclusion that those values are less shared universally than they have ever been in my lifetime.

And this is partly what has led us into a world where oligarchs and autocrats (religious and secular) hold sway. And war seems an inevitable consequence of broken systems and human greed.

As it happens, I am not a pacifist. I think that some things are worth fighting for. However, it is probably worth saying publicly that the most prominent war we hear of in these days seems to have neither legal basis nor any moral justification. It is war for war’s sake. A tool of chaos where no-one knows the long term consequences.

Those of us who life in democracies who wish for something different have much to think about and much of it will bring us no comfort.

Peace, it seems, must be built.

Decency must be argued for and cannot be assumed.

And I want leaders who talk about the wellbeing of all rather than the enrichment of the few.

I come to those views from a religious perspective. But I think I have common cause with many others.

My faith gives me hope in a time where hope seems scarce.

My faith gives me hope because my conviction is very deep that God cares not only for the few, nor even for the many but for all.

Notwithstanding the comic story that we read of God (through a strangely confident Samuel) rejecting one person after another until he got to the most handsome one… notwithstanding the exitance of that story. I believe without any doubt at all that everyone is included in the love of God, everyone deserves the

peace of God and everyone should expect nothing less than all the blessings of God.

For God swipes right on everyone. God choses each of us.

Whatever our profile looks like.

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

choosing leaders, dating, dating apps, jane austen, love

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.

Reply
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.
  
  Reply
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