What is in Kelvin's Head?

Christmas Day 2014 – Sermon

25/12/2014

Come with me to Bethlehem. Come and see the babe in the manger. Come and worship and adore the Lord of Heaven and Earth with the shepherds at the manger.

But don’t come with me to Bethlehem of Judea. Not yet anyway.

Come with me instead in your mind to the city of Venice where I had part of my main holiday this year.

I stepped off the train and walked out of the station and gasped at the scene in front of me. The grand canale, the vaporetto water busses. The astonishing modern Canalettoesque scene. A city completely without roads and cars.

And I quickly got used to it and started to enjoy finding my way about down the little alleys and along the byways along the canals.

Now, some of you will have been to Venice yourself. You’ll know that walking about can be a bit of a struggle.

It is crowded and busy. The pathways are narrow and crowded. And it is insanely pretty so you just want to stop and gaze at everything.

And everyone is feeling the heat and everyone needs to pause for breath sometimes.

And one of the hazards are the bridges that you have to use to get over the canels. Every hundred and fifty yards or so you go up steps and over the bridge and down steps.

And that adds to the weariness.

And this year there is an added hazard on the bridges of Venice. Not just people sitting on their suitcases having an ice-cream and getting in everyone’s way. Not just people stopping to admire the view. No, there’s something new.

Someone has come up with one of those bright ideas which seems like such a good idea until you see it in practise.

Someone has come up with a pole a couple of feet long, upon which you can mount your phone or camera to allow you to take photographs of yourself with a background view behind you.

And there’s nothing so pretty as the Venetian canals and so people stand on those bridges waving these dangerous sticks about trying to get the perfect picture of themselves, a canal and the whole of St Mark’s Basilica in the frame of a small smartphone.

Yes – this is the year of the selfie and tourist spots like Venice are falling victim to the selfie pole menace. For sometimes you could barely get across a bridge without being poked or prodded by one of these infernal poles.

Well, Venice is lovely. I completely fell in love with it. But oh, it can hard work.

And so it was one day I found myself going along the alleyways in the heat, up and down the bridges and through the crowds. And I was hot and tired. And I needed a rest.

Well the only thing to do in Venice when you need a rest is to slip into a church. Cool marble and shade from the sun was what I needed and so I pushed open the door of one of the many churches and found my way inside.

And immediately I realised that I was in one of the churches that has significant pieces of art. I was hot and bothered so I don’t remember whether it was a San Maggiore or a San Benedissimus or what it was. And I’d seen so much art that I’d long since stopped being able to remember which was a Giotto and which was a Tintoretto.

But I knew what was featured in the large painting in this particular church. It was at once completely familiar.

The adoration of the shepherds in Bethlehem.

Instantly recognisable. Somehow the image of the poor shepherds worshipping at the manger had appealed to some Venetian dignitary with enough money to commission art big enough to fill a wall.

And in the picture were the holy family – Joseph, Mary and the babe.

And in front of the picture, with their backs turned away, looking towards me was another family. Guiseppe, Maria and a rather hot and bothered babe.

And the parents stood there in front of the great piece of art smiling.

The family stood there grinning but with their backs to the great painting.

For as they stood, the father was holding one of those selfie poles to ensure that they could get a picture of what mattered to them that day.

There they were. This modern hot and bothered family putting themselves into the scene with the holy and beloved family. Putting themselves into Bethlehem.

Come with me to Bethlehem.

Come with me to Bethlehem and put yourself in the scene.

For if the shepherds are invited then so are you.

The invitation to the shepherds are a clue that God was setting up an open, inclusive and welcoming stable.

For shepherds were not smart but scruffy. They were not respectable but rapscallions. They were not gentry but general riff raff.

But the word came to the shepherds that something was going on. God had come into their neck of the woods and they had better pick themselves up and rush down and see what it was all about. The invitation to the shepherds implies that anyone is welcome.

Come with me to Bethlehem and put yourself into the scene. For you are invited too.

You are invited to know that God has come into your world.

You are invited to know that God has come close to you.

You are invited to know that God is near to you.

And in Glasgow this week we need to know that God is near us, that God loves us and that God is right beside us – no matter what.

All those selfie photographs in Venice and no doubt every other tourist spot speak of the desire to put ourselves into the picture.

But we are already made in the image and likeness of God.

A God who chose to put his own self into the picture; who opted to enter into our frame of reference.

God came into the world long ago so that I could tell you right now that God is here in this city today.

For the word of God in scripture, for the word of God in Glasgow, for the word of God within us.

Thanks be to God.

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