What is in Kelvin's Head?

Easter Sermon 2016

27/03/2016

I never know whether he will rise.

Plenty of people who know better than me tell me not to be so stupid.

Of course he will rise they say – it is Easter.

But there’s a part of me which is never entirely convinced.

Before we get to Easter Day you see, I’m just not that sure.

Indeed, I’m not even sure that I want him to.

After the kind of holy week we keep here, you could be forgiven for hoping for a quiet weekend. And it is remarkable the number of people I know who, even knowing what I do for a living ask, “So, what are you doing for Easter?”

We live the whole drama here. From processing with our protest palms last Sunday to the betrayal of Christ in the garden on Thursday; from the cries to hosanna to the cries of crucify; from the lush intimacy of the last supper to seeing him stripped naked and led to a cross.

I end up exhausted.

By late on Good Friday, that day when the light of the world goes out, I find that somewhere in the back of my mind I’m wondering whether or not it wouldn’t be better this time if he would just stay dead.

Such is the reality of Holy Week to me.

And we didn’t need to look far to find the cross this Holy Week either. In the news from Brussels we saw innocent people attacked and targeted. We saw people killed. We saw an attack on the hopes and dreams of all who wish for an integrated peaceful world.

People’s hopes were crucified.

People’s dreams were being tortured by wicked men.

It is easy to believe that Christ will never rise from the dead.

And on the streets of this city, two horrific murders.

All too easy to believe that there will be no resurrection.

Yet disappointment, bitterness, sadness and betrayal are the very ground in which the seed of faith flourishes.

Earlier this year, I had to attend the funeral of someone I knew who had died very suddenly and unexpectedly.

I found myself going to a funeral in Clydebank Crem as a mourner rather than someone taking the funeral.

Now, I’ve been there so many times.. I’ve stood at the front of that building leading services plenty of times. But I never realised that above my head when I stand there, there is a window.

Well, there’s what used to be a window. It is a stained glass window and it is one of those that needs to be illuminated by an electric light, like those on the north side of our cathedral.

This one is left unilluminated.

Crems these days tend to be rather ambiguous religious places. Spiritual but not religious is, after all, becoming the dominant religion if people are asked to tick boxes.

I sat at this funeral, which was for someone who didn’t seem to have had an explicit faith of their own and as I sat there I saw this window that had always been hidden from me when I’d been stood at the front.

It was all dark glass. Dark shapes that didn’t seem to make sense.

And then as the service went on my mind started to see the way the glass was shaped and seeing the outlines of the pains I could suddenly see that it was a representation of a resurrected Christ, wearing a crown of glory and by his feet the word – “I am the resurrection and the life”. Though the glass was still dark it was as though a light had come on. “I am the resurrection and the life”.

Even when we don’t at first see it; even when we’d prefer him to stay dead and quiet and buried, the risen Christ is already dancing down the road ahead of us.

In the first light of dawn I came to this church and the bishop kindled a fire from which we lit the paschal candle.

And a fire was kindled in my heart that burned away the cynicism that made me wonder whether I’d prefer him to remain in the tomb.

For fires need to be kindled.

Candles of hope need to be lit right now.

The light needs to be shared.

As the light was passed around here in the first light of Easter Day, I remembered that the light of Christ will conquer any darkness.

The faith that we proclaim here is simple

We believe death is ultimately beaten.

That means that tyranny will not win.

That means that terrorism will not win.

That means that prejudice will not win either.

For love wins in the end.

We Christians have a candle of hope to share this Easter day will people of goodwill all over the world, those of faith and those who have none. Every one of us is called by current events to make the light shine. Every one of us is called to bring hope and justice and joy and peace to the world.

In this city, I think we have a message to proclaim at this time.

A Muslim man in this city was killed this week soon after wishing Christians (that’s us) a happy Easter.

Let the news go out that the wickedness of such a murder will not define us as Glaswegians. Such wickedness has no place in our city.

Death will not have the last word. Let the love of God warm every heart in this city, Muslim and Christian Glaswegians alike. And let that love show forth in new ways, that this city may flourish.

Warmed by the Easter fire, I know that Christ is risen.

Risen and working through attempts to tackle poverty.

Risen and working as prejudice against gay people gets less and less respectable each year.

Risen and working through the urgency of new interfaith initiatives.

Risen and working in lives set alight in this and other places with the love of God.

Risen and working because there’s no other way to live than believing that love wins in the end.

For if Christ were not risen, we would not be gathered here, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

11 responses to “Providence and Vocation for Liberals in Public Life”

David Evans

29/06/2015

I was one of the Lib Dems who did foresee the calamity in 2015 and actively campaigned to get the party to change leader – after 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 it wasn’t difficult for anyone to see, but it was difficult for many nice Lib Dems to own up to the fact that they had allowed it to happen. I failed, but I don’t think it was part of anyone’s plan that I did (except possibly Ryan Coetzee and a few other true believers).

There’s a lot in your points I can agree with, particularly regarding the naivety of referring to God’s plan, when many Christian’s have a view that his/hers/its plan is to let us get on with it and find our own way to salvation. However, the most interesting question is when you say “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.” Do you really mean that you have the right to force someone else to marry you who doesn’t want to and believes it is wrong, even though you have the right to and can get someone else to do the same job for you? Do individuals have the right to insist on being married by the registrar of their choice, or just the right to get married? Are you not perhaps just a bit assuming that your tree is that bit taller than the other guy’s?

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  29/06/2015
  
  I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories. I think that the equal rights tree is bigger than my tree and the registrar’s tree.
  
  I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them, not least because I don’t think it is a very real question – few people want to be married by someone who doesn’t want them to be married. I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    30/06/2015
    
    I think you are rather changing your ground here from your original piece. You started with “The trouble is, these are not side issues, these are my rights.”
    
    You have now moved onto “I think that people should be able to expect individual people who represent the state not to discriminate against them in any of the protected categories.” So we now have a right to expect, but only against a person who works in the public sector, and even if it is against that person’s conscience and only if you are in a specially protected category.
    
    It gets even more tenuous then as you accept when you then say “I don’t claim that individuals should be able to force registrars of their choice to marry them.” So the right is not to a person wanting to be married at all.
    
    Finally we get “I do think that local authorities have not simply the right but the duty to remove public officials who can’t serve every member of the public due to their personal prejudices.” So the right is not to an individual at all, so definitely not “your rights” but to a public sector organisation. Hardly a human right, more of an employer’s right by your own statements.
    
    I rather think that your equal rights tree, however high you think it is, has decidedly peculiar roots.
    
    Reply
    1. Graham Evans
      
      05/07/2015
      
      David, I thought most liberals accepted the view that in the provision of services to the general public, whether provided by the public sector or private sector, a policy of non-discrimination was an essential ingredient of a progressive society. I accept that there is a notable exception to this rule in terms of the provision of abortion, but this arises from the broad range of medical procedures undertaken by one type of doctor or another. Surgeons are specialised medical practitioners, as are nurses who assist them, so it is most unlikely then anyone who opposed abortion on conscience grounds would actually be faced with having to refuse to conduct an abortion. The provision of most services to the general public is also a specialist activity, and no-one forces people to engage in any particular activity. The idea that a registrar should be able to opt out of undertaking a civil gay marriage represents the thin edge of a dangerous wedge. If such people wish to opt out of doing so, then they should act as part of a religious community, such as a deacon in Anglican Church, which has the legal power to conduct religious marriages, are still recognised by the State.
      
      Reply
      1. David Evans
        
        18/07/2015
        
        Quite simply Graham I disagree with your view that this is a level of discrimination in the provision of a public service of anything like the scale you imply makes it essential that every individual has to comply with it. The “go with it or get out” philosophy demanded of the state by so many in pursuit of their personal view of their rights is to my mind a greater threat to liberty than the fact that Fred or Freda don’t agree with something and don’t want to do it but George, Georgina, Harry, Harriette etc etc etc etc can do it instead. Ultimately you aren’t stopping someone from exercising their right; you are preventing someone from imposing their requirement on someone else.
        
        However, I note Kelvin hasn’t responded to my substantive point and I await that with interest.
Iain Brodie Browne

02/07/2015

Firstly thank you for your posting.
I have been expressing my concern elsewhere that the main voices we have heard in the debate about Tim’s faith have been firstly from those who think that it wholly a private matter and because his opinions are sincerely held and are derived from his faith the rest of us should back off and secondly those who seem to imply that having a religious faith at all is a negative factor. Until your contribution I am not aware that anyone has directly addressed the issue from different Christian understanding.
I cut my political teeth at the end of the 1960s opposing the all ‘white’ rugby and cricket tours from South Africa. The dominant voices from the churches were from Trevor Huddleston and David Sheppard. They effectively contested the assertions of those who told us (and they did) that apartheid was part of God’s plan.
Earlier in that decade Michael Ramsey spoke up clearly in support of what was then called homosexual law reform. David Steel, who pushed through the 1967 Act did so at a time when he was regularly introducing Songs of Praise.
I regret that equal marriage and the removal of other discriminations against gay people –including the issue you raise about Registrars- have not been as effectively championed by Christians as those earlier reforms. It is fair to say that in the minds of those who you describe as ‘decent people in society’ Christians are seen as opposing these reforms. The priority for the churches appears to be to gain protection for those who oppose such reforms. Imagine if that had been the approach to apartheid.
My own experience gives me hope that things are changing. Our local church got a new vicar who immediately began to pray for the defeat of the Equal Marriage legislation, got up petitions and lobbied. His views on women priests were no more in tune with ‘decent society’. In common with many churches these matters had not really been properly discussed. It was heartening how many members did openly contest his views and a significant portion of the congregation felt so strongly the eventually relocated to other churches. There is a good deal more support for liberal values amongst church goers than is popularly conceived.

My view is much the same as expressed in the Independent’s editorial this morning which endorsed Tim but added the rider that : ‘It will be for Mr Farron to make clear to party members, the public at large, and this newspaper, that his faith can indeed be reconciled with a liberal view on matters of birth, marriage and death.’ If faith is the opposite of certainty then I have enough to believe that can be achieved but if would be of assistance not only to Tim but to others struggling to reconcile their faith with liberal views if more church leaders provide a Christian narrative as effectively as did Michael Ramsey and Trevor Huddleston did in their day.

http://birkdalefocus.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/influencial-divine-former-libdem-ppc.html

Reply
Andy

18/07/2015

Personally, as a non-Christian, I find the attack on Tim Farron’s Christian faith distasteful, even disturbing. With the issue of gay marriage, something I wholly support, it is clear to me that Farron was trying to protect freedom of religious thought whilst also legislating for LGBT equality. There is nothing illiberal about that. Freedom of religion is one of the most fundamental human rights, and something liberals should defend. Any definition of liberalism which does not include freedom of conscience, is one I have no interest in supporting.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  18/07/2015
  
  Thanks for commenting, Andy.
  
  I’m not aware of people attacking Tim Farron’s faith. I am aware of people questioning whether someone who apparently has anti-gay views is an appropriate person to represent the Lib Dems as leader.
  
  When it comes to the vote about the registrars, that can either be interpreted as defending religious thought or as defending discrimination. I come to the latter view because if I substitute a couple who are gay for a couple being say mixed race (something many people would once have objected to on religious grounds) then I see clear discrimination at work.
  
  It is a strange day when people are arguing (as some are) that the leader of the Liberal Democrats has the right to hold distasteful views about gay people in private so long as he defends their rights in public. He does have that right but not the right to be taken seriously as well.
  
  Reply
  1. David Evans
    
    18/07/2015
    
    Sadly there have been many who have been attacking Tim’s faith, some directly and some more with disdain. Comments such as listening to his sky fairy are not uncommon. Also portraying his views as apparently anti-gay are without doubt over egging it massively as opposed to the simple fact that as a liberals we should all have views which take into account the “balance of fundamental values of liberty, equality and community” and that this inevitably leads to differences of judgement on lots of individual issues, but do not undermine the fundamental decency and liberalism of many people like Tim, who have proved it over a great many years.
    
    Reply
David Evans

13/11/2015

Kelvin,

It is a great disappointment to me that you have not come back to me with any further reasoning in response to my post on 30 June 02:19. Have you changed your views, reinforced them with new vigour or simply moved on?

Reply
1. Graham Evans
  
  13/11/2015
  
  David, perhaps you could clarify what your substantive point is. Having reread the whole thread it’s certainly not clear to me.
  
  Reply