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.

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