What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon for Advent 1 – 29 November 2015

30/11/2015
Here’s the sermon I preached yesterday

You can’t beat a good quiz on the internet. Two minutes completing a set of multiple choice questions and some computer somewhere out there gives a verdict on what kind of person you are.

Thus is was that this week I followed a facebook link and found myself looking at an interesting quiz about attitudes to religious and philosophical questions at just the moment when I probably should have been settling down to write a sermon.

Oh goody! I cried. A diversion.

The first question was rather profound:

“Why are you good?”

I wondered briefly whether I was in fact good at all. I’ve a hunch that it isn’t the first attribute that people think of when they think of me. But there it was – the first question in the quiz. “Why are you good?”

And the answers were these:
a) Because if I’m bad I’ll be punished in the afterlife. (No – that couldn’t be right, I think God loves me anyway).
1. b) It’s how my parents brought me up
(No, I’m not convinced by that either – I think parenting is about relationships that are very much more complex than a polarity between goodness and evil)
1. c) I’m just playing the game.
  (No – I think it is worth trying to be good even if I don’t know I’ll always succeed).
And d) I’m good to others because I think that’s the best way to be.

Yes! At last an answer I can wholly agree with.

I clicked d and moved on.

The next one was What is the purpose of life and my answer was “It’s up to us to give meaning to life. I want to help other people and make the world a better place.”

Goodness – I think I’ve preached that a few times from here.

And with almost all the questions, I was lucky – there seemed to be one each time that I agreed with.

The next one – Should everyone be treated equally?

Yes – there’s my answer: every person deserves equal respect and opportunity, irrespective of what they believe.

Click!

And so it went on.

I completed all these questions. Moral. Ethical. Personal.

And at the end – one final click. And the verdict.

YOU ARE A SECRET HUMANIST.

This is perhaps not surprising. Not because of my views but because when I looked again at the top of the webpage I realised that I was on the page of the Scottish Humanist Society. Indeed, before I left the site it had invited me to sign up.

Soemhow the humanists had produced a quiz where the most reasonable answers to the questions resulted in the inevitable view that the person answering is in fact a humanist.

It was a bit of fun and I was amused. And also very much aware of the longstanding tradition of humanism amongst religious people.

After all, I believe in my heart that God put us on earth to spread holy wisdom which also goes by the name of holy common sense. God puts us here not with a mandate to impose God’s will upon all we encounter but put us here with a mandate to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God all the length of our days. God put us here not to impose a monolithic view of God on one another but with the divine gifts of discovery, discretion and delight in what is good that lead us not into enslavement, conformity or repression but into ultimate freedom.

You can call that humanism if you like. I’ll not be upset if you call me that. But it won’t stop me being convinced that it is what God has been up to from the beginning.

But this I do know – that the days are surely coming when all this will matter very greatly.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord.

There will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars and on the earth distress amongst the nations.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord

People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming to the world.

The days are surely coming and will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth.

It seems to me that this Advent as we read of the portents in the heavens that there will be rather a lot of preachers who go on and on about how relevant it all seems this year.

For there is real fear about. There is war and talk of war. The clouds do seem to be gathering. The end times sometimes seem to be being played out on our television screens.

And people want real answers as to what to do next. And there are really difficult questions that are worth wrestling with.

Why are you good?

How do you do good?

What does goodness look like in this complex and perplexing situation?

The days are surely coming for wrestling with these questions.

Because of Isis? Because of Syria? Because of talk of war?

Well, yes and no – the situation we are in does demand some religious thinking – a much greater understanding of the religious understanding of those who would do us harm is essential to dealing with that which threatens us now.

But the truth is, advent comes around each year and each year it seems appropriate.

It is always the time to work out ultimate questions and to remind ourselves that Christians have answers as to how to deal with them.

Stand up says the gospel – don’t be cowed down. Stand up straight and raise your heads – for your redemption is near.

And that isn’t a threat, it is the promise of something good.

We see street preachers sometimes bearing placards saying “that God’s judgement is nigh”. The truth of the gospel is that is not that threatening things are nigh but that God is near. Peace and love and justice and joy are near at hand. That’s the promise we believe. So we hold our heads up and live the reality of knowing God is near.

Jesus says in our gospel that his generation would not pass away until all things have taken place. That’s at the heart of my existential version of how to live as a Christian. It isn’t that the apocalypse is around the corner it is that in every generation the things that religion talks about are all true. Yes – for some this day the apocalypse is real. No doubt for those fleeing from Syria it feels as though the end times are upon them. Yes – for some this day redemption is nigh – for people live through the rollercoaster of betrayal, death and resurrection that we call holy week in their lives all the time – sometimes in a single day.

And yes – reality is always true –that God is near. That love is near. That God can be known. That life is good and wonderful and precious.

God is near to you and near to me.

The day of the Lord is nigh.

10 responses to “Response from the College of Bishops”

Father Ron Smith

12/01/2015

Thank you, Fr, Kelvin, for making the contents of the SEC Bishops’ Response to the Letter from 50 people concerned about their attitude towards the openness of the Church to the prospect of its eirenic treatment of clergy and Church members – desirous of solemnising Same-Sex monogamous relationships in the context of Marriage.

It seems to me – an outsider, but a member of the New Zealand Anglican Church – that the Letter has challenged your Bishops to positive action on behalf of Christians – and others – who consider faithful Gay relationships to be equally acceptable to God as those of heterosexuals. The Church, surely, must act to affirm faithful monogamous relationships on both sides of the spectrum.

Let’s hope your General Synod will move ahead to affirm such relationships, so that the Church may get on with other aspects of its mission; knowing that human justice for ALL people is paramount in the propagation of the Gospel. If SEC is pro-active in this important matter, it can only encourage churches like my own – in ACANZP – to follow suit.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  12/01/2015
  
  The General Synod is, to some degree, inhibited from sorting this out until the bishops themselves decide to back a proposal which would allow all to flourish in the church.
  
  The synod contains the bishops and they have an effective veto on canonical legislation.
  
  I’m baffled at the moment as to why they have not rallied around a position which allows all of us, both those in favour and those against, to act according to our consciences in this area. I think that this is a position which would re-unite the church again. I know those who disagree with me on the substantive question about lesbian and gay relationships who are as mystified and as frustrated as I am that we are taking so long to deal with this and who, like me, want to get on with the business of letting Scotland’s people know that God loves them.
  
  Everyone I know says they want to come to a resolution which does not de-church other Episcopalians. The position that the bishops have taken comes very close to de-churching some of us and I remain greatly concerned for the Province as a whole.
  
  Reply
2. Christine McIntosh
  
  13/01/2015
  
  Amen.
  
  Reply
Pam

12/01/2015

From my reading, it’s a carefully worded document that attempts not to pre-empt what may happen at Synod. Talking to each other face-to-face is always better than written communication, in my opinion. This issue does need a resolution and I’m sure that people on both sides of the debate, in good faith, would want to honour each other. Bishops have a tough job but so do the people who don’t get the opportunity to attend Synod, for whatever reason.

Reply
Chris Hansen

12/01/2015

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of being talked about by people who would rather not talk to me. This “listening process” that the C of E is going through is bull. They’ve been doing variations on that for years. Nothing comes out of it except more conversations. No progress is made thereby.

The trick is to push the bishops to take a stand and do some prophetic leading.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  12/01/2015
  
  The current process in the Church of England is related to the Cascade Process that we’ve had in Scotland.
  
  Some people have benefitted from the process here. There’s no getting away from that. It has been a good thing for some but by no means all.
  
  Some have felt very disappointed and upset that the bishops themselves now appear not to have been working in accord with the principles of the process itself.
  
  And some, like me who have been working for change in this area for years, were excluded from the design of the process and from its major set piece provincial event.
  
  Reply
FakePete

13/01/2015

I feel very angry reading that.

Reply
Steven

13/01/2015

Dear Kelvin

Interesting developments. Not much in that letter really.

What would you do if you were Primus?

The reality is the SEC has always (at least in my mind) been open to a more progressive stance on this kind of issue and yet does contain those for whom this would be (very?) difficult.

Would you seek to maintain unity by some kind of compromise (CoE and women Bishops) or would you forge on ahead with prophetic change leaving those who didn’t like it to make their own choices (like the Episcopal Church)…?

The New Testament Christians didn’t seem to care much for unity at the expense of integrity and justice.

For my own part I think it is better for churches not to try and fudge this issue (look at the terrible mess in the Church of Scotland) but to agree a position and then firmly pursue same, come what may. People would not tolerate an institution that allowed a minority of people to adopt racist positions and so it should not really be any different for those who want to maintain positions that discriminate against same-sex couples.

All this is – of course – easy for me to say.

Steven

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  13/01/2015
  
  What would I do if I were the Primus? Well that’s a good question.
  
  The first thing I’d remember is that the Primus is simply the spokesperson for the College of Bishops and doesn’t have the authority that, for example, an archbishop might think he possesses.
  
  I would however as a bishop argue in a favour of a solution which allowed people to act according to their conscience in this area. I don’t agree that people should be forced to “firmly pursue” a particular stance over this issue. It isn’t who we are. In fact I think the problem at the moment is that people are being forced to pursue a position that they don’t agree with and that situation is unsustainable.
  
  The reasons for not forcing people to marry gay couples are these:
  
  1 – No gay couple wants to be married by someone who has been forced to do so but who would really prefer not to.
  
  2 – It would be illegal anyway and our canon law determines that we will abide by Scots Law.
  
  3 – We already have a precedent with divorce – no-one is forced to marry anyone who is divorced, they can chose whether or not to do so. I think that is a reasonable compromise and it has served the church well.
  
  4 – I don’t think anyone should be compelled to marry anyone and that is the situation that we currently have.
  
  However there are some positive things that a Scottish bishop could do at the moment. Although I agree that same-sex marriages cannot take place in churches or be done by SEC priests until there is a decision made by General Synod I don’t agree that it is the case that someone cannot affirm allegiance to the canons of the church because they happen to be in a same-sex marriage.
  
  I think de-coupling those two issues is urgent.
  
  I would argue in favour of an equal opportunities policy for the church.
  
  I would try to seek a way of bringing forward a synodical resolution which would allow same-sex marriage, allow those who don’t want to be party to it not to have to be and I’d argue in favour of that as a godly compromise that would allow us to get on with our gospel business of sharing the good news.
  
  If I were the Primus I would probably be encouraging the College of Bishops to allow me to say publicly that we regretted that some people had been excluded from the Cascade Process and I’d seek to commit the College to a more consultative leadership style. In particular I’d want to say that there should never be a process about people that did not include them in the design of the structures of the conversation. I’d want to say that we would never construct a conversation about the ministry of women without women being involved, we would never construct a conversation about ethnic minorities in the church without appropriate consultation with people who belong to ethnic minorities and I’d commit the church never to make the mistake that has been repeatedly made of constructing a conversation about LGBT people without their involvement.
  
  If I were wise, I’d be learning a lot more about the experience of trans people because I’d realise that trans issues are inevitably coming our way.
  
  Does that answer the question?
  
  Reply
  1. Steven
    
    13/01/2015
    
    Yes, it does rather. Thanks.
    
    For the avoidance of doubt I would not advocate forcing anyone to marry anyone. When I said it is better to adopt a position and then pursue that I meant in terms of whether or not to permit equal marriage in the SEC (which is not the same as saying that all priests would therefore be compelled to marry gay folk).
    
    We have just filed an equal marriage petition in Belfast, so thoughts and prayers all welcome!
    
    Steven
    
    Reply