What is in Kelvin's Head?

Can you preach about the Road to Emmaus?

20/04/2015

This sermon was preached on 19 April 2015 in St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow using ideas that were also explored in the sermon preached for Fr Chucks Iwuagwu in Haslemere, Surrey.

Sermon preached by Kelvin Holdsworth on 19 April 2015 from St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow on Vimeo.

There are a number of texts in the bible about which it is almost impossible to preach. If I were to ask you which texts were there which preachers really shouldn’t attempt to tackle then I fancy that you might come up with some of the genealogies – the lists of who begat whom. Or maybe some of the more obscure purity laws in Leviticus which have little to do with our lives in a modern world.

And it is true – some of those texts are next to useless for anyone trying to preach the gospel.

But there are also a small number of texts about which sermons are pretty tricky for the opposite reason. If I’m honest, I’ve never heard (or preached) a sermon on the good Samaritan which actually improved on the story itself. It is the same with the Love Chapter – that glorious paean to love which St Paul sent to the fractious church in Corinth. No matter how badly it is read at so many weddings the ultimate truth shines out.

Love is patient, love is kind. (And that just can’t be improved upon.

And the same might be said of Psalm 23 – when did you ever hear a sermon on it that improved on the poetry or the pathos of the human condition so precisely observed.

And so it is with the gospel reading this morning.

The road to Emmaus is the Easter reading par excellence – it is familiar and comforting and disturbing all at once because it contains within it the surprise of recognising the Lord himself who appears, as is our experience with the breaking of bread and the fellowship that results from the breaking down of barriers between people.

But who can improve on the story?

What preacher ever beat Luke at his own game?

The answer, if there is one is to presume that we’ve never heard Luke telling of the story at all.

The answer is to put ourselves into the shoes – or probably the dusty sandals of the two who made their way to this place called Emmaus.

And the thing to remember is that they’ve not heard the story. They’ve no idea what’s about to happen to them much less any idea that we might still be talking about them these centuries later.

As they walk along, can we walk with them and overhear their conversation.

Before the stranger catches up with them, what are they saying?

Luke just tells us that they were talking about what had happened. Jesus had been put to death and Jesus had been buried. He was gone. No doubt there was a lot to talk about.

If we read this as pious Christians who know how the story turns out then we might presume that they were having prayerful discussions about how Jesus’s death fitted in with the prophecies of the Hebrew scriptures. If we read the story as empathetic fellow travellers on a spiritual tradition we can probably see into their grief and share it.

But what makes us so sure that is what they were talking about.

What makes us so sure that they were not angry with Jesus for provoking just about everyone and finally going that one step too far and getting himself killed off long before his time.

They may not have been experiencing pious thoughts at all. They may have been really rather cross.

And surely they must have been wondering what was coming next.

They’d been part of a great movement. And they’d lost their Messiah – what comes next? Who will replace him?

How do you replace a Messiah anyway?

Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? You just put an advert in the Church Times for a new one. Maybe that’s what they were talking about as they made their way along the road.

How to write the advert for a new Messiah.

I’ve got this week’s edition of the Church Times here. This is how those adverts usually sound.

• City based church seeks Messiah. Our priorities are missional leadership, imaginative outreach and children and young people. We seek a Messiah who has a personal relationship with God. (These adverts are all written in code).

• Here’s another one – Honorary Assistant Messiah needed for 8 rural parishes in Norfolk. House provided but no stipend. Must be self-motivated.

• Messiah required to be rector of beautiful rural parish in the Garden of England. Good schools, lovely people, well-appointed Rectory. Resolutions A, B and C have been passed. (That’s code for – no female Messiah’s need apply).

It is funny the things they put in these adverts.

If I’m ever tempted to read these out in the office on a Friday morning when the Church Times comes I have to make sure that there are no coffee pots near to the Vice Provost. He has been known to get over excited and break crockery in his fury at what they say.

You would think sometimes that the Christian Gospel had been spread for 2000 years by mission development plans, people able to accomplish goal based ministry and those who have a passion for “innovative work with families and children”.

Fortunately, I think that I worked out some time ago that this simply isn’t true.

The Christian Gospel is spread by kindness, good humour, by people who bear the marks of Christ in their souls to enable them to reach out to a world that needs to know more about God’s love. It is spread by the enthusiastic witness of those who know the love of God to be true and to be the most wonderful thing in the whole world. But somehow the adverts don’t usually mention those things.

The stranger reached over the table and picked up the bread and gave thanks and broke it and their eyes were opened.

Opened I suspect to the good company that he had been on the road. The good humour he had exhibited that made them invite him in. The kindness he had shown them at a difficult time. Familiar factors. Familiar signs. Familiar symbols.

And all of a sudden their eyes are opened. And all of a sudden he doesn’t seem to be there.

Or is he?

All of a sudden they have a burning desire to rush back to Jerusalem. All of a sudden they have a burning desire to tell their friends that all it not lost. Love has not died. Kindness has not gone. The one who broke bread with them before has broken into their world again.

They don’t need a new Messiah.

It is worth remembering sometimes that the church doesn’t need any new Messiahs. One was always enough and he’s still around.

Still around and still turning up where bread is broken, stories shared and God’s people with humour and kindness celebrate the greatest news in the world – that God is love.

Turned up there in Emmaus. And turns up here.

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