What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Christmas Message from Bishop Gregor

    It is quite likely that people reading this blog won’t be aware of Bishop Gregor’s Christmas Message – I don’t think it was sent to clergy or congregations and it doesn’t appear on the diocesan website. However, it is quite a good one and so I’m putting it on here.

    gregor_duncanI heard a carol new to me last year at the Cathedral: All this time this song is best: Verbum caro factum est. That is, All this time this song is best: The Word was made flesh. (It only rhymes in Latin.)

    That carol is right, it is indeed the best song we can sing at Christmastide.

    But why? At Christmas I receive the odd circular letter folded into a Christmas card. I enjoy these letters, on the whole. Last year one came from people I used to know from Oxford days, way back in the 1970s. At the top it had a quote from the great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth:

    We may choose to live without God. God has decided from all eternity never to live without us.

    Wow! That leapt out at me.

    You see, St John’s great proclamation that The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the best song we can sing, is the best song because in singing it we sing of God’s desire, of God’s choice, from all eternity, never to live without us. Remember, for St John, the story of Christmas begins with God, in eternity. In the beginning was the Word.

    Now, when you choose to live with someone, and especially when you commit to live with someone for the whole of the rest of your life, this is to do with love, a determined love that, as St Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. A love that is patient and kind and rejoices in the right.

    This kind of love is often beyond us – though often we can come pretty close to it – but it is never ever beyond God. This is how God loves us and if we can love a little bit like that well, then, we are showing something of God’s love in the world.

    The other thing is that when you choose to live with someone faithfully and truly, you are recognising something in the other person that is attractive to you, that gives you delight, that makes you want the relationship to grow and deepen. And that’s another reason why Verbum caro factum est, the Word became flesh is the best song. For it reminds us that God finds us attractive, seeks us out, wants his relationship with us, and ours with him, to grow and deepen until it comes to glorious flower. The song is about God and it is about us and it is all about love.

    I sang another carol new to me at the Cathedral last year:

    Lord, you are love beyond all telling,
    Saviour and King we worship you;
    Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
    Make us and keep us pure and true:
    Lord, you are love beyond all telling,
    Saviour and King, we worship you.

    The Word became flesh and dwelt among us – love beyond all telling – that is the heart of Christmas, the core of our celebration, the ground of all our hope.

    ,

20 responses to “Becoming a Welcoming Cathedral”

  1. Meg Rosenfeld Avatar
    Meg Rosenfeld

    My husband and I became members of All Saints Parish, San Francisco not long after our first experience attending Sunday Mass in that charming little church in the notorious Haight-Ashbury district. At that time we’d been members for over 20 years of a parish in another diocese, but were beginning to stay in San Francisco on weekends. What inspired us to join All Saints as members was the receipt of a simple hand-written letter from the rector some two or three days later, saying it had been a pleasure to have us there and hoping we would come again. Neither of us had ever had such an experience in any church we’d attended. We were absolutely amazed (in a positive way!) and made up our minds then and there that we would, indeed, go back. Mind you, we were also welcomed by the official greeters, urged to come to coffee hour, and approached at coffee hour with friendly overtures from the regulars–which is not always the case in Episcopal churches, at least in California. I guess it was just the right balance between friendliness and respect for one’s privacy. In any event, we are still at All Saints, almost 20 years later, up to our ears in choir, committees, and activities. To me, it was the letter from the rector which did the trick. He (an introvert like myself) wasn’t too busy to acknowledge new people, and in a way which was totally unthreatening.

    Reply
    1. Kelvin Avatar
      Kelvin

      Thanks Meg – that’s a great story.

      Reply
  2. Andrew Connor Avatar
    Andrew Connor

    I go to a church which gets the coffee just right. But I don’t feel welcome.
    I go to a church which gets the welcome team just right. But I don’t feel welcome.
    I go to a church which denies that I was born gay and have chosen to love my same see partner whom I am not allowed to celebrate with. You see? I don’t feel welcome.
    The homilies never include such exclusion. Never did they mention my being part of the Us of the parish though.
    We have regular celebrations of love but not mine.
    Many speak of going home to love one another and others exhort us to reach out and love the stranger. But I am in the midst of you and m only loves if I deny my own self.
    There is indeed much still to do.
    Welcome in our Church? Discuss.

    Reply
    1. Kelvin Avatar
      Kelvin

      I know Andrew. I know it all too well. And I know that the ease with which these loves can be spoken of here in St Mary’s in pulpit and pew is tragically remarkable in its rarity.

      Reply
  3. Father Ron Smith Avatar
    Father Ron Smith

    Bravo, Kelvin. I always feel that we in the Church are standing in the place of Christ – who welcomes all. Agape, Fr. Ron, ACANZP

    Reply
  4. Dharma Nicodemus Cuthbert Avatar
    Dharma Nicodemus Cuthbert

    Strangely enough about 1 hour before you posted this, I had been in a meeting in which one of the subjects discussed was getting more people to come to the church. The comments were full of “what can we do” I know that unless someone is willing to do outreach work nothing changes. I feel that as the church, St James the great, in Dingwall, will be having an open day when the refurbishment is complete, an ideal opportunity to raise the profile of the church.
    I have taken on board the difficulties of being welcoming and at the same time not being separate, as you put it us and them. I have had experience of being both, part of a group and the new face

    Reply
  5. Janet Koch Avatar
    Janet Koch

    conscientize?

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Conscience and Compromise

    Fr Gadgetvicar has been reading Patricia Meldrum’s book about Evangelicals of yore. So have I. This is the review of the book that was published in this month’s inspires. Conscience and Compromise – Forgotten Evangelicals of Nineteenth-century Scotland Patricia Meldrum (Paternoster Press – £29.99) As the oft repeated quotation says, those who do not remember…

  • Seekers

    Doug asked in comments to a previous post how you find out what search terms people use to find your blog. The answer is that there are several ways of doing it. I host my own installation of wordpress, so I can use the blog stats plugin for wordpress. An alternative is google analytics. If…

  • Icon du Jour

    This icon du jour reminds me that I want to go and look at Keith Haring’s tryptich in St Eustace sometime. Not the first time that I will have gone to Paris to see an icon.

  • House of Cards

    I’ve been watching the first part of the House of Cards trilogy on BBC4 this week. Having seen and enjoyed the second two parts of the trilogy previously, it is all starting to make more sense on being able to see the first part of the story. It is a horribly wicked tale of hypocrisy…