What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon – 16 February 2014

16/02/2014

Here’s the sermon that I preached this week. I always like a difficult gospel to try to do something with. This week the gospel was Matthew 5: 21-37

This is one of those gospel passages that just makes some people groan and turn off. It seems at face value as though we serve a moralising Saviour who has values that none of us will be able to live up to.

You know that dreich gloom that pervades Scottish theological thinking – well it is based on passages like this. We’re all sinners. None of us deserve to be loved. We’re all at risk of getting it in the end. Don’t be angry for that is tantamount to murder. Don’t look fondly at someone you shouldn’t because that’s already adultery. Rip out your eyes and pull off your hands. We’re all miserable sinners anyway so we might as well be blind miserable sinners and if we are going to be blind miserable sinners we might as well be blind miserable sinners with no hands either. Maybe if we take such extreme measures we won’t commit adultery. No-one will have us if we’re ripping bits off ourselves anyway, but that’s alright because we don’t deserve much anyway.

There’s a sense of gloom in the local psyche. A maudlin way of understanding religion that is at its happiest being gloomy and knows that we’ll never live up to who we should be anyway.

Maybe it comes from the weather.

But it exhausts me.

Is that what religion is all about? Is that who we really, truly are?

The only thing that ever perks me up about preaching on this text is that it is another excuse to trot out the best theological one-liner in all of the Christian tradition – which is: never trust a two-eyed fundamentalist.

But let’s have a look at this gospel and try to reframe it a bit and see whether there’s some good news tucked away in there.

First of all, let’s list what we’ve got.

Jesus talked about murder, debt, hatred, adultery and telling lies.

What we’ve got here is the first five minutes of every episode of Eastenders. (Or Downton Abbey for those of you who live in Hyndland).

It’s funny, isn’t it. When we read it on a Sunday in church it seems terribly harsh stuff. Put it on the television and it becomes entertainment.

We mustn’t forget that going from preacher to preacher in those days was part of the entertainment of the day. And we mustn’t forget that soap operas with all their unlikely plots reflect human reality.

Now, they might be a bit far fetched. They might be a bit over the top. They might tend towards hyperbole in the way they help us make moral judgements about their characters. But then that’s Jesus’s way of teaching too. He and the other preachers of his day. Over the top illustrations. Hyperbole. Laying it on thick. These were the ways that preachers used to make an impact and get people to remember their teaching.

And with Jesus it worked. For we are still reading it now.

Part of what Jesus is doing is telling his hearers that motives matter as much as actions.

Now, we have to beware here. The black and white way that Matthew tells stories can tempt us down paths where we might be unwise to go. The Pharisees are wrong – Jesus is right! The letter of the law is bad – the spirit of the law is good! – Jewish Law bad! Christian freedom good!

And before we know where we are we’ve constructed a mindset that sees Christianity as better than Judaism. That sees Us as primarily better than Them. And it is on such ground that the weeds of anti-Semitism and discrimination and prejudice flourish and grow.

We need to tiptoe our way through this territory with more caution.

The truth is, Jesus was Jewish and both a keeper and an interpreter of the law. And to state the perfectly obvious, Jewish people were and Jewish people now are living lives that are full of freedom, grace, humour and joy.

What Jesus is doing in his teaching, and this is part of the sermon on the mount, don’t forget, is stepping right into the thick of the debates of his day and taking a stance.

I happen not to agree with all he says here about marriage and divorce and adultery. And I can say that freely from the pulpit because our church doesn’t agree with him. Years ago now we changed our marriage discipline because the church didn’t agree with Jesus in this passage. But he wouldn’t expect all his hearers to agree anyway. He is getting stuck into debates about the law that were an essential part of Judaism. He is engaging in contemporary controversies about marriage and divorce and arguing it all out in public. He is stating a view and taking a stand.

The big mistake is to read off these pages a hard-hearted morality for ourselves and try to live by it. If we do we’ll not just be sinners we’ll be particularly miserable ones.

Remember the big themes and apply them to the world around you and you won’t go wrong. He says it is about our motives after all.

Always remember when reading the Sermon on the Mount that it starts with a demand that we see life from the margins.

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are we if we realise that we don’t have the power within us to live up to the narrowest of demands of any moral code.

Blessed are we if we grasp the bigger picture seeing life from the point of view of the marginalised and weak and try to live up to the task of building the common wealth of God’s kingdom rather than getting too muddled up in making morality into a religion.

It never was, you know. Not one that ever satisfied anyone anyway.

I don’t think it is correct to listen to this teaching about marriage and adultery and divorce and think it is merely a harsh set of rules for people to live by today that seems to be all judgement and no compassion.

I think it is correct to see Jesus getting stuck into the controversies of his day and remembering his example get stuck right into the controversies of our own.

Jesus argued about marriage in public. So must we.

That’s what has been going on in public for the last few years. And we have a new settlement. Our parliamentarians have decided that marriage is to be open to more couples than once it was.

I’ve been at the heart of that debate. And I have huge respect for all those who have made it happen. I’ve respect too for those who have taken different positions to mine in public. I respect those with whom I’ve been in public and feisty disagreement.

I have less respect for so many of our religious leaders who have sat on the fence over the questions facing us about marriage and who continue to try to do so. Sitting on the fence and hiding in the pack mentality of Episcopal collegiality.

Those who sit so firmly on the fence are at greatest risk of getting splinters where they least want splinters to be.

The bigger picture in all that debate is that fidelity, love, passion and delight are still what people hope marriage is all about.

And the bigger picture of the sermon on the mount is that God sees things from unexpected points of view.

Today, partly because of my advocacy of same-sex marriage I’m named in Scotland on Sunday as one of the people on a new Pink List of influential gay people in this land.

And I’m excited and thrilled to be recognised that way. And excited and thrilled to be listed with people who are so powerful.

But today I read from the sermon on the mount which always reminds me that it isn’t all about power at all. And it isn’t about Us and Them either. Life, true life starts when there is no such idea as a Them.

The message I take from this morning’s gospel is that Jesus engaged in his world and that gives us a mandate for engaging in our own.

And the bigger picture I take from the sermon on the mount is that justice, equality, liberty and love are the tools Jesus used to fashion his engagement with that world and they are all on offer still.

Justice, equality, liberty and love.

Try living life by those mandates this week. If you do, you’ll find yourself closer to that joyous kingdom of God than you’ll ever discover by any amount of gloomy religion at all.

In the name of the God, Creator, Redeemer and Holy Liberator. Amen

bishops, equal marriage, fences, LGBT

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