What is in Kelvin's Head?

Easter Day Sermon 2024 – It is started

02/04/2024
It comes in waves, grief does.

It is not a constant thing. And when you think that you are moving on another wave can hit you by surprise and leave you right back in the place you were trying to crawl out of.

A big part of my life over the last 18 months has been adjusting to a world in which two of my friends are no longer present. Unexpected deaths, relatively young. Lives cut short. Ministries in the church unfinished. And friends left behind.

I am a friend left behind.

And so I find as I approach the Easter story this year, that my eye is drawn very strongly to those who make their way to the tomb to anoint the body of the Lord. Those who were grieving.

The gospels tell of a number of people who make their way to the tomb in the first light of the day. Women first and foremost in their love. And in their grief.

What are they thinking as they make their way to the tomb? Well, I don’t just know what they are thinking, I can feel it.

Waves of grief, numbness and despair.

Grief comes in waves.

And in those depths, grief is a most bitter companion.

I will admit to not having always been myself when I have felt those waves of grief. I have not been the person I’d want to be.

And this year I have found myself not living in the kind of world that I want to live in either. There is much that leaves me grieving for a better world that we glimpsed and then saw snatched away.

The continuing Russian war directed against Ukraine has destabilised a Europe which seemed to have found the way of peace.

The ongoing horror in the Middle East has not simply destabilised the world, it has disturbed our minds and made peace – salaam and shalom feel agonisingly out of reach.

Warmongering, terrorism and the weaponizing of civilians leave me grieving for the world I had hoped for. For too many months, gross injustice in Gaza has been played out on our newscreens, For too many months kidnapped hostages have been away from all whom they love.

It is easy to feel that hope has been killed, and has been buried forever in a cold, stone-sealed tomb.

But comes the dawn and come the women to the tomb.

They come weeping. They return rejoicing.

The news that they proclaim on Easter Day is that death never has the last word. And hope triumphs when all seems lost.

Have we ever needed to hear the news of Easter more – that Jesus is risen from the grave, that despair doesn’t win, that green blades of growth rise from all that seemed buried and gone.

Grief comes in waves. But so does love.

And the waves of love that spread out from what those women shared in the first light of the first Easter Day changed their world, change our world and will go on changing the world as we spread it ever further.
- God has not forgotten the broken hearted.
- God has not forgotten the grief-stricken.
- God has not forgotten those for whom despair has become almost who they are.
That wave of God’s love did not begin on Easter Day, for it is as old as time, but Christ risen from the grave is when we witness its greatest triumph.

Love, hope and belief in new life are not optional extras for Christian people. They are the reason we are who we are and do what we do.

Despair and grief are real, even the bitter grief of hopes dashed. But the story of who we are doesn’t conclude by the side of a grave. Our story begins at an empty tomb.

Yes, the world is a mess.

But it has you and I in it and we know by the story that we preach and proclaim that new life is our inheritance and our hope. Things never have to remain the way they are.

This year will be a year of great change in this world. Momentous change. This is the year in which more people will vote in elections than have ever done since the democratic era began.

Every part of the world needs people in it who believe in a better world, a world where justice for the poor, integrity for those who govern and kindness for the troubled are the building blocks of the world we wish to see.

This year our election process in this country could well be a painful and hurtful time.

It demeans us all when an election is portrayed in the simplistic banality of a phrase such as stop the boats. Such language threatens those who need help most and diminishes us all. It is the language of the tomb. We need to move the conversation away from Stop the Boats towards Stop the Hatred. Xenophobia, fear of foreigners and naked racism are already dancing behind the words of too much electioneering.

But ultimately it will not win.

Good people believe in better things.

God’s people believe in better things.

Sometimes hope feels like something you have determinedly try to drag out of yourself. Sometimes though it bursts forth from no-where. A wave of love joy, hope and peace bursts unexpectedly from our inner tomb.

The promise of Easter is not that new life is possible it is the promise that it is inevitable.

And I believe it.

Christians believe in a better world than we already have. We believe in a world where the poor are fed, the lonely are comforted and the sound of war is heard no more in any land. We believe in salvation – the healing of the world.

The story that we are caught up in as Christian people on Easter Day is the story of salvation. And salvation is not the church bobbing around on the waves of this world plucking a few lucky souls to safety. Salvation is the great wave of God’s love that will sweep us all home.

Early this morning, we baptised people into this story, confident that they will bring new life into this world and confident that they will rise with Christ.

Early this morning we lit a fire and brought candlelight into this church to proclaim that gloom will not win. Light and glory will cast every shadow away.

Early this morning, Christ rose from the grave. Not only is death not the end but new life is real. The wave of God’s love has reached all the world. It has even reached us here. It has come to you.

I believe in things worth believing in.

New life for all. Love, joy and peace in abundance.

And I believe that Jesus Christ is risen from the grave. For if Christ were not risen from the grave then we would not be gathered here, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen
Easter Day sermon, waves

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