What is in Kelvin's Head?

That Damn Magnificat

16/04/2022

A sermon preached in St Mary’s Cathedral on Good Friday 2022

There’s something about spending these three hours in a church dedicated to Mary.

Through the year, we often get particular joy from keeping the Marian festivals. We’ve got more music in the choir library about her than about any of the others who accompanied Jesus in this life.

We sing with her the Magnificat every Sunday at evensong. We share her joy. We share her hopes for a world turned upside down. Where the mighty would what they deserve. At last.

In a church dedicated to Mary, because we pay attention to her, we get a unique insight into her Son Jesus. Because she was there. There at the beginning when he was born. There when he taught the learned teachers in the temple. There sometimes when he was teaching the rather more thick disciples and the adoring crowds. There when he performed the the first miracle – water into wine.

What did she think when that one happened?

Go my son. That’s the world we want. A world put right. A world where God breaks in and joy breaks out.

But the trouble for us is that having accompanied her through all of this, we now find ourselves in his company again.

Mary stands at the foot of the cross. It is almost unimaginable that she was able to stay. But presumably unimaginable for her to leave until it is over.

And a few other women comfort her and stand beside her in her agony.

And John, the beloved. He’s there too. Ready to take her in.

We enter into Mary’s experience when the going is good. How on earth do we enter into her experience today.

Can we see this day through her eyes or is it entirely beyond what we can bear to think of?

It is common in newsgathering to tell the story of disasters through the tears of parents weeping for their children. Mothers particularly.

A whole war may be too much to take in. A whole nation invaded is expressed in arrows on a map, nothing more. A whole cities get bombed and we struggle to know one from another. It happens over there.

But a mother’s tears at a crucifixion…

Harder to ignore. Harder to walk on by.

Theological concepts are broken by the crucifixion.

Theories of how we are reconciled to God circle the crucifixion scene like vultures.

They are too big to grasp. And they offer no comfort to a mother weeping either.

What does she think as she stands there?

Can she think? Can she process this?

Raw. Present. The pain. The agony. The tears.

Three hours is long enough to think. This is a cruel death for those being crucified. This is a cruel death for those watching.

I’ve been haunted by a question this year as I try to keep company with Mary at the cross.

Did she hold fast to what she had believed about God – all the things that she had taught him?

Or did it all break down on that day?

One of the things that I love about Mary is that her spirituality seems to be about two things which she ties together.

The world being put right is one of her themes.

And the joy of singing God’s praises is another.

Now you can find plenty of other saints who loved those things. But Mary uniquely brings them together.

My soul magnifies the Lord. And my spirit rejoices in God my saviour.

He has shown the strength of his arm. And the proud and the mighty and the rich have got their comeuppance at last.

It is joyful spirituality. Full of cheek and full of fun.

And oh, how often when I hear Jesus giving clever answers that bring God right into the lives of people who need God most, or when I see him turning over the tables of those who are corrupt, I think, I bet he got that from her.

But as she stands at the cross, what on earth goes through her head.

What questions does this hell scene raise for her.

Does she keep repeating to herself again and again, “The mighty will be brought low. The mighty will be brought low. The mighty will be brought low”.

Or is it worse than that.

Does she loose faith with it all today?

As she looks on and smells death all around her does she call on God.

We have no words from Mary on Good Friday. Nothing is recorded from her.

I don’t know what she said.

But I guess that had it been me, I wouldn’t be singing of the goodness of God nor of a world put right.

I’d be thinking, “Shit! The bastards have won. I wish I’d never brought him up the way I did. What could I have done differently? I should have taught him to keep his mouth shut more.

That damn Magnificat. Look where it has got him.

I sang, God has filled the hungry with good things.

But I’ve not eaten in hours and I never want to eat again. My stomach is in knots as he twists and turns in agony.

I sang, from this day all generations will call me blessed.

But from this day all generations will call me cursed.

I sang about God sending the rich and the mighty and the powerful away empty.

But they’ve won. They’ve won. They’ve beaten him.

`I sang, He has come to the help of his servant Israel.

But God hasn’t come to his aid. He hasn’t turned up at all.

I sang about the promises that God had made to our forebears to Abraham and his children forever.

But he has forgotten me today.

It is finished.

My song is finished.

And I’ll never sing again.

11 responses to “We should be wary of declaring martyrs”

Eamonn

08/04/2015

Agree totally. I find myself in a comparable position vis-à-vis the mass canonisations of the ‘martyrs’ of the Spanish Civil War, which assume that all those worthy of commemoration were on the same side.

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Michael Russell

08/04/2015

Anyone killed for professing their faith is a martyr. ISIS is an equal opportunity martyring machine. The various faith communities targeted, including Islamic ones, should build common ground to dismember ISIS. I simply fail to see the point in quibbling about who is a real martyr and who is not.

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1. Kelvin
  
  08/04/2015
  
  Is it your view that someone is a martyr for Christianity because they cannot recite a verse from the Qur’an?
  
  It seems to me that whilst some men and women of violence are being claimed to be martyrs if they should be shot by law enforcement agencies whilst pursuing paths of terror that there’s a huge amount to be gained by determining who is a martyr and who isn’t.
  
  Reply
  1. Bro David
    
    08/04/2015
    
    Not being able to explain a quranic verse was merely a way of discerning if someone was not Muslim. However, is it not just as great a presumption to think they weren’t martyrs, as to think that they were.
    
    The early church seemed to accept that all who were crucified or sent to the lions for their Christianity were martyrs. Perhaps not all did so as a statement of faith, but were nominal Christians caught up with the rest. But the church didn’t seem obliged to footnote who didn’t qualify.
    
    I’m not sure that I understand why your are hesitant. It seems a quibble. I don’t think anyone is leaning toward canonization here, just speaking of them as a whole.
    
    Reply
Jo

08/04/2015

The SEC still keeps the feast of Charles, King and Martyr. I don’t think we get to be too narrow in defining who is or isn’t a martyr.

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1. Kelvin
  
  09/04/2015
  
  Actually, Jo – that’s not quite right. The SEC keeps the commemoration of “Charles I, King, 1649”
  
  There’s no mention of him being a martyr in the calendar (and the current calendar superseded and replaced the one in the prayer book). There are plenty of people who are named as martyrs such as Agnes the week before Charles or indeed “Charles Mackenzie of Central Africa, Bishop, Missionary, Martyr, 1862” the very day after Charles.
  
  It would appear that rather careful thought was given to whether to describe Charles as a martyr and though he is included in the calendar (not least for founding one of our dioceses) any notion of martyrdom is absent.
  
  Reply
  1. Jo
    
    09/04/2015
    
    Thanks for the correction, I hadn’t realised there was that detail of difference between the SEC and CofE.
    
    Reply
Father David

10/04/2015

Of course, King Charles was a Martyr and is commemorated as such on January 31st each year. The trouble is that Anglicans have no real mechanism for declaring people to be saints or martyrs. Having referred to two recent horrific incidents on the African continent where Christians were slaughtered simply for being Christians, I wonder what the Provost of Glasgow thinks about the Ugandan Martyrs of the 19th century and would you personally regard them to be martyrs? As you know 23 Anglicans and 22 Roman Catholics were killed by the Kabaka for refusing to submit to King Mwanga’s corporal intimacies. The Roman Catholics were beatified in 1920 and canonised in 1964 but what of our Anglican Ugandan brothers – where they equally to be regarded as martyrs, or would you deny them that honorific title?

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1. Kelvin
  
  10/04/2015
  
  The Scottish Episcopal Calendar is again very clear: “Charles Lwanga and his companions, 1886, Janani Luwum, Bishop, 1977, Martyrs of Uganda”
  
  I have no idea why anyone would say that the SEC has no means of declaring someone to be a martyr. Not only do we have such a mechanism, we use it.
  
  Reply
Father David

10/04/2015

It would be interesting to know how this mechanism works in the SEC in deciding who is eligible to join the noble army of martyrs? Bishop Edward King of Lincoln is widely regarded as a saint South of the Border. I think it was Archbishop Lang who was asked how it was decided that Bishop King had reached sainthood status and the answer was that he was given a Collect, Epistle and Gospel to commemorate his saint’s day – 8th March, the day of his Heavenly Birthday.

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Harry Campbell

19/04/2015

“We strongly condemn such atrocities, whether they are Ethiopians are not,” the Ethiopian communications minister Redwan Hussein told AFP.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/19/isis-video-purports-to-show-massacre-of-two-groups-of-ethiopian-christians

What a shame the Archbishop couldn’t have said something similarly inclusive about the victims of the Kenyan massacre, and all such massacres, without caring about what their religion affiliation may or may not have been.

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