What is in Kelvin's Head?

Midnight Mass Sermon 2015

25/12/2015

So where did you learn the Christmas story? Where did you first hear about the baby in the manger?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since a sermon that one of my colleagues preached earlier this year in which he suggested that in fact more people know about the story of Bethlehem from the film “The Life of Brian” than those who know it from the bible.

This is a particular achievement here in the City of Glasgow as the Life of Brian was banned from cinema screens for 30 years.

I remember when I first heard about this 30 year ban asking someone who had lived here then about it.

He claimed to have seen the film when it was first released. “But how did you see it when it was banned in Glasgow,” I asked.

“Oh,” he said, “you had to travel to see it. You had to go to the fleshpots on the edge of the city… places like Bearsden”.

Anyway, I’m sure that it is true that a lot of people do know about the nativity story from a film which was all about a neighbouring boy, Brian, being mistaken for Jesus.

Say anything about the coming of the Messiah amongst a certain generation and you are likely to get the response, “Oh, he’s not the Messiah, he’s just a very naughty boy”. And that applies to talk about Jesus as the Messiah. Or any Messiah. Or even a performance of Handel’s Messiah.

It was a film that was promoted with the tagline: “A motion picture destined to offend nearly two thirds of the civilized world. And severely annoy the other third.”

Yet the judgement of the self-righteous has mellowed somewhat over the years since it was first on show in cinemas all over the world (except in Glasgow). Time has scattered the proud and the haughty in the imagination of their hearts

This year there was a theological conference on the Life of Brian with an collection of worthies rightly realising that the film was a satire on those who get the wrong end of the stick about religion not particularly a satire on those who do love the Lord.

And yet there’s still plenty who do get the wrong end of the stick when it comes to understanding what religion is all about. People still often think religion is there to stop people having fun when the very opposite is true. And it is the birth, not so much the death of the beloved child of God who allows us always to look on the bright side of life.

For the birth of the Christ Child marks a moment when the world could never be the same again. A moment when all the angels sang and all of heaven danced for joy.

For the birth of the child tells us that God has come into the world and is interested in what it means to be like us.

Rather than Brian being confused for someone divine, someone divine became one of us. God got all muddled up with being human. So much so that words themselves were not enough to speak of what had happened.

For the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.

Words were never going to be enough. Only life was enough.

And so God came amongst us in the form of a child.

Tonight we celebrate that birth and in doing so we celebrate that life. We celebrate that God loves us in the dark times. That’s why we always mark this moment at midnight I think – when the world is darkest we celebrate that light will always win out. But this moment also marks a time when we know that God loves us when things are going well too.

That’s the point. God came to earth – came to live one of our lives here on earth and knows, profoundly knows what it is like to be here.

Knows hurts and sadnesses. Knows joys and delights.

And the truth we proclaim here is that God’s coming into the world means that God knows you too.

Knows you and loves you. Whoever you are and whatever you think of yourself – you are utterly and most profoundly loved. Christmas means that that’s fundamentally who you are – someone who is loved completely.

When we sing out carols at Christmas we are collectively sharing our joy that God became one of us. And the stories tell us that we are only adding our voices to a heavenly choir that sings at the birth of the babe. Announcing it to shepherds on the hills. Disturbing the sleep of Magi even yet on their way to worship. It is a birth that upsets the tyrant and yet comforts the poor and the lonely. A birth that meant that the world would never be the same again

And all this focussed on the image of a child in a manger. A new-born child who does not yet speak or teach. Does not yet heal or preach or raise the dead.

Just a babe in a manger who represents the enormous truth that you are completely loved.

I have no idea what kind of boy he grew up to be. Scripture is mostly silent on his childhood apart from one incident when he seems to have run off from his parents. But I do know that he’s not just a very naughty boy. This one actually is the Messiah. And he loves you very much indeed.

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.

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