What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • A sermon for Y’All

    Here is a sermon that I preached on Sunday. You can find the audio here. (This one is more fun to listen to than to read, I think).

    I have learned in the course of my travels that it sometimes takes people a few minutes to atune to the way I speak. I’ve learned that people sometimes need a few sentences before they get used to my accent – the way that I speak.

    And of course, it works the other way around too.

    I am getting used to listening to the sounds of voices that I am not used to hearing. And of course, coming to here, the first time I’ve been in the South has meant me having to listen extra carefully.

    Before I came on this here I decided to lose weight and get fit. Over the course of a year I managed to lose 30 pounds. What I hadn’t realised was that when I came to the South, the hospitality would be such that I would put those 30 pounds back on. During breakfast.

    Whilst I was eating that first breakfast, I had something to ponder. For the very first night that I was here I had the strangest of dreams. I’ve been up at Sewanee, the University of the South. It is a beautiful university and an excellent seminary and I was their guest. That first night, I dreamed that I had encountered angels. It is a strange dream to have these days though it would not have been particularly unusual in Biblical times. [Indeed, one might think that a very great deal of John’s Revelation, part of which we heard this morning, was just such a dream].

    Anyway, I woke up on my first full day in the South absolutely sure that I’d encountered angels in my dreams. And as I came to, I desperately tried to remember what they had been saying. I knew that something was important. I tried and tried.
    However, to this day, I can’t remember anything of the conversation.

    I do remember one thing though. (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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