What is in Kelvin's Head?

Easter Sermon 2021

03/04/2021

Lent has been long enough.

This Lent particularly has been long enough.

Just over a year ago we locked down in the middle of Lent. And it feels as though that existence has been going on in one form or another ever since.

Most people have embraced the need for the lockdown lives that we have been living. And this itself is a miracle that we should not ignore.

Collective altruistic action on such a mass scale to protect life and human flourishing is a miracle of no small stature.

But Lent has still been long enough.

We have known discipline in our lives from last year’s Lent to this year’s Lent like never before.

And Lent has been long enough.

One of the ways that I’ve learned to keep holy week is to look for resonances of the Passion stories around me in life today.

Back on the streets of Jerusalem, one of the stories of holy week that always troubles me is that it is the same crowd that cries hosanna in the streets that goes on to cry crucify.

This year it is the same society that clapped for carers in the streets that has been unable to agree decent pay and conditions for those whom they once applauded.

Lent has been long enough.

Back in Jerusalem it is an out of town African – Simon of Cyrene who carries the weight of the cross on Good Friday and then disappears from view.

In our own times, black and ethnic minority people in our land have carried the weight of the corona pandemic in far more disproportionate numbers than they should have done. And that fact seems to be disappearing from view.

It is no help for a government report to claim there is no structural racism in society when black and ethnic minority folk have been dying in greater numbers than everyone else.

Indeed, that kind of claim is what structural racism looks like and sounds like.

Lent has been long enough.

Back in a garden close to Calvary a stone is rolled in front of a tomb by a group far too small to have been the only mourners at Jesus’s funeral.

And dear God, have we known the tomb this year? And how we have known the pain of being banished from the sides of those whom we love, as they have lived, and died and been buried.

Lent has been long enough.

But Lent, in our tradition, doesn’t go on forever.

It comes to an abrupt end with startling news – that Jesus Christ is risen from the grave. Death is not the end. All that we ever assumed is turned on its head.

Jesus is alive. And with us. And nothing will ever be the same again.

The discovery of the resurrection on that first Easter day was hard to comprehend. It is hard to comprehend now.

Yet for two thousand years, Christians have proclaimed that death does not have the last word, that all that rots the human Spirit is defeated, that new life is our heritage and our hope.

New life is the new normal.

The Easter proclamation means – and has always meant, that the old normal wasn’t working. Something new – so very new is here.

And yes, you can feel and know that it is real it in our own times too.

The resurrection is proclaimed in the kindness of strangers – and there has been much of that this year.

The resurrection is proclaimed in those searching for a new and sustainable way of living on this earth.

The resurrection is proclaimed when those fighting for justice taste its sweetness.

The new normal is faith and hope and joy and love.

And it is all, yes all that we need in our lives today.

I see it when the flowers bloom from an earth that was frozen and hard and cold.

I hear it in the song of the robin and the wren.

I feel it as love, wherever love is found.

Jesus is risen from the grave. The old has passed. Lent has been long enough.

New life – the new normal is here.

A year ago, I thought that as a congregation we were in serious trouble. How could we survive being locked down and closed?

As a congregation we thrive on meeting new people every year and sharing with them the open, inclusive, welcoming love of God that we proclaim in this place.

I thought we would be facing serious decline because no-one would be turning up in lockdown.

In fact, people have continued to turn up – online for some, in person for others.

And there are people worshipping both online and in church this Easter who simply were not around last year.

This is what I want to say to anyone who is discovering Jesus for the first time.

Christians don’t always get things right. We bumble along, just like the first disciples, misunderstanding God, betraying the new life that we hope to live into and make a mess of all kinds of things.

But we have met, in Jesus Christ, someone who has changed us and whose message matters so much more than that.

God loved us enough to want to join in with all the mess and dirt of our world. In the person of Jesus, we get to know God with a human face.

He shared all our sufferings and sorrows whilst he was with us on earth.

All the reality of human struggle and human pain.

And he is risen from the grave.

From beyond the tomb, he calls us to live as new people. People for whom life is the new normal, love is the new normal. Joy, goodness and peace are the new normal.

And nothing will ever be the same again.

You want to know whether all this is true?

Well, if Christ were not risen from the grave, we would not be gathered here.

Especially this year.

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