What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Trinity Sunday Sermon


    In the name of God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Amen.

    So. I arrived back from my holidays all relaxed and tanned and chilled out.

    And then I looked at the preaching rota.

    First I found that I had scheduled myself one weekend to preach at a big diocesan service – that wasn’t so bad, I thought. I rather like a bit of drama.

    But when was I scheduled to preach next for the Sunday morning congregation.

    My finger ran gently down the preachers list that I had carefully constructed weeks ago.

    Ah yes. 3 June. Jubilee weekend – Hmm. Quite tricky preaching about the monarchy in Scotland these days. Lets look and see what Sunday it is. Perhaps there will be a jolly story in the gospel to build something erudite upon.

    Which Sunday is it on 3 June?

    Ah. Trinity.

    And immediately the questions begin.

    Now, you may have your questions on Trinity Sunday about the One in Three and the Three in One.

    I had just one philosophical question. (more…)

One response to “Eid, Pride and Abraham’s Sacrifice”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.

    One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
    It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
    But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).

    In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.

    Oofft.

    Reply

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