What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon – At the Well

    Here’s this morning’s sermon. I went a little off piste from the text, but essentially what I wanted to say is in both the video and the words below.

    Let me begin this morning with a poem. Just a short poem – so slight that you need to listen or it will pass you by. Water – by Philip Larkin.

    If I were called in
    To construct a religion
    I should make use of water.

    Going to church
    Would entail a fording
    To dry, different clothes;

    My liturgy would employ
    Images of sousing,
    A furious devout drench,

    And I should raise in the east
    A glass of water
    Where any-angled light
    Would congregate endlessly.

    I want us to think this morning about what it means to construct a religion – a way of being spiritual and to reflect on that with the woman at the well – the source of the water, that Jesus himself wanted to drink from.

    Now. We seem to have forgotten what significance wells have had in attempts to learn to be spiritual.

    Later today, those of you who are here with the Friends of Cathedral Music will make your way to the Medieval Cathedral in Glasgow to take part in a service there. It is the rock from which we were hewn – or the well from which we here once drew water. For the people who became this congregation were turfed out of there for keeping the Episcopal faith in 1689.

    Should anyone find their way into the under-church in the Medieval Cathedral they will find one of the clues as to why that church is where it is. Just by Mungo’s tomb, set now into the walls is a well. It is easy to ask why they would build a well into the walls of a church but of course that is to get it the wrong way round. The Saint Mungo came to a holy place to minister. Came to a holy well where he lived and died and was buried. And above and around him and the well, grew the building that now stands there today.

    If I were called in
    To construct a religion
    I should make use of water.

    So great is our need of water, so powerful is the need to quench our thirst that it should not be difficult to understand why wells were holy places. (more…)

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3 responses to “Power needs to be baptised by love”

  1. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    A very good and thought-provoking sermon. I’ve always thought of the Ethiopian eunuch as a man of great power and authority, and of great learning and devotion too, which points me to your third interpretation. But what startles me about the story – partly because of my thinking of the eunuch as someone of great power and authority compared to Philip, and partly because of a tendency on my part to be dogma-bound – is the sheer simplicity of how Philip welcomes him into the Church.

    There is no complicated initiation process. There are no doctrinal tests. The eunuch sees water, and asks Philip in a businesslike way if there’s any reason why he shouldn’t be baptised. Philip’s answer couldn’t be more direct and straightforward: “If you believe with all your heart, you may be baptised.” And the eunuch’s response couldn’t be more direct and straightforward either: no lengthy creed, no question and answer interrogation, but simply, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

    No doubt the eunuch continued his studies after his baptism, being that sort of man. But in a complicated world and (sometimes) a complicated Church I often turn to this passage for reassurance that it needn’t always be so.

    Reply
    1. Father Ron Smith Avatar
      Father Ron Smith

      Thank you, Father Kelvin. What a lovely and refreshing new insight into the identity and provenance of the ethiopian Eunuch! Philip’s acceptance and Baptism of the Eunuch reflects the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19:122, where he speaks of 3 types of eunuch; made so by others (the Ethiopian, castrati); those who become so for the sake of the Kingdom (monks, nuns, celibate clergy);
      and then, of course; those so ‘from their mother’s womb’ (intrinsic Gays).

      Reply
  2. Aleks Avatar
    Aleks

    Really profound. You’ve given me a lot to think about.

    Reply

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