What is in Kelvin's Head?

Love means love – a sermon for Midnight Mass 2018

25/12/2018

It was the middle of the night. It was dark – the night black as pitch beyond the cold bright lights which shone in our faces. And it was surprisingly cold.

Crossing the border should have been easy.

But they made us all get off the train and queue up to have our passports stamped.

September 2018 and I was trying to leave the EU.

Not for long mind. Just a week’s holiday in Istanbul and to get there, a bit of an adventure on a night train across the border.

Which led me to be standing there in the middle of the night whilst a guard checked my passport and then my visa. And then gestured me to one side.

“In there” he said gruffly.

And I found myself in a small room with a guard wearing no uniform or identification badge being interrogated, in the middle of the night.

A small room. My passport taken away. My visa taken away. All my belongings on the train which was due to move off at any moment. And here, I was being interrogated in the middle of the night.

This is not a particularly unusual thing for some members of this congregation who have come from places of danger to live in relative safety in this country. But a new experience for me.

A few questions about where I was going, where I was staying. Who I would be meeting. When would I be leaving.

Then he asked to see my phone.

“Open up!” he barked. “Let me see pictures”.

And so he went through the last 2 and half years of photographs on my phone. Pics I’d taken of friends and all the photographs of me that facebook had saved to my phone.

“What this?” he roared. “What these”.

It was pictures of me dressed head to toe in gold. Or green. Or purple. Or red. Standing here. Celebrating. Preaching.

“What you do!”

“Well, I’m a priest”

“We don’t need no priests in our country. We don’t need no preachers here!”

And I said, “…..

Well, let’s leave what I said for another time and fast forward.

Fast forward a couple of days and I find myself standing in an old church in a seldom visited quarter of Istanbul.

Around me are pictures. Mosaics. Frescos. Gold and glitz. And the frescos tell familiar stories.

An elaborate one shows a bunch of tax collectors turning up in Nazareth and telling a young woman that she and her man need to go off and be registered in their home town.

Another one next to it shows a familiar story – the same young woman clearly expecting a child riding a donkey led towards Bethlehem by Joseph – gentle, patient and maybe worried about what they will find when they get there.

Picture after picture. Mosaic after mosaic. Fresco after fresco.

Each one preaching forth the story that we are familiar with and which draws each of us here tonight for some reason or another.

The story of the One who gave up heaven and took up residence on earth.

The story of the Lord of eternity coming among us and accepting for a short lifetime all the constraints of time and place, pain and particularity.

The story of one who comes to share the story of heaven by sharing the stories of earth.

And as I stood and gazed at the glorious pictures all around me I realised that plenty of preachers had been there before me. Some of them no doubt preaching sermons and some preaching all I ever want to be able to say with nothing but pigment and paintbrush.

For God comes into this world tonight. And we bear witness to the birth at midnight. In a world which needs the light of the world to shine.

But back to that challenge at the border on another dark, cold night.

What about that suggestion that there’s no need for preachers.

I beg to differ.

This world needs more preachers. Needs you to be preachers.

This world needs those who will hear the song of the angels singing peace on earth and preach it to the nations.

This world needs those who will see the refugee family fleeing from Bethlehem and who will preach to the Herods of our own day who seek to build a hostile environment instead of proclaiming what is forever just – that those who flee for their life as refugees should be always welcome.

The world needs those who will see the tenderness of our blessed Lady towards our blessed Lord – the child in the manger and who will preach the beauty and the passion and the commitment of that love to every soul who is vulnerable. Preach not just with paintpot and pigment but with politics and passion too.

We are living through strange times in this land.

We are living out the inane reality of the absurd declaration that Brexit means Brexit.

There is far more to be said than that.

For our Blessed Lady – no mean preacher herself told us, there are the humble and the meek to exalt and those of us who love this child in the manger have a job to do making sure that those as vulnerable as he was are kept in mind through whatever political uproar occupies us.

There are those who are hungry who need to be filled. And filled by those who take their place at the manger in adoration, who are inspired to set others free with imaginations set alight by what they find in the crib.

And there are inane tyrants to be mocked. For God will bring down the mighty from their seat and it is our privilege and joy to delight in their fall.

Brexit may mean Brexit. Whatever that means.

Leave may mean leave. Even though no-one seems able to define what that looks like in a way that we will all agree on.

But this night we celebrate something altogether more profound and the antidote to the inanity that we find all around us.

God comes into the world not to show us that leave means leave but to tell us once and for all that love means love.

Love means love.

Laid in a manger.

Here for you and here for me.

Love for you and love for me.

And the world does need preachers from every tribe and tongue to share this good news:

Love is come into the world. Love enough for everyone.

In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.

10 responses to “Where does the Church of Scotland stand?”

Robin

21/05/2013

I understand your sentiments, but both on this issue and on the ordination of women in the Church of England the weary words of Mrs Boyle in Sean O’Casey’s ‘Juno and the Paycock’ in reply to her son, who scorns the Irish Free State and wants an Irish Republic or nothing, are inclined to come to mind:

“To be sure, to be sure — no bread’s a lot better than half a loaf.”

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Nick Brindley

21/05/2013

I think you’re right to think this is a disastrously wrong-headed attempt to avoid having to think the issue through, although we may not agree on what would be involved in such thinking (almost nobody agrees with me!)

I think we need to revisit some pretty fundamental problems on the nature of the moral authority of the Bible, the meaning of “salvation” and what ministry is to make any real progress with this issue and there appears to be depressingly little appetite to do this in a spirit of mutual trust and of trust in the leading of the Spirit guiding our interpretation of scripture

http://loveswork.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/failing-to-be-biblical-reflections-on-church-of-scotland-sexuality-debates/

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Frank keefe

21/05/2013

This is what happens when you water down Gods truth so the secular world will think what a progressive church you are.When a small secular wedge is pushed under a church door you can bet a larger one will be pushed under it in the not to distant future.I believe a liberal minded church like the Church of Scotland is more dangerous to the Christian faith than atheists like Richard Dawkins and his followers. Jesus found it hard to convince the Pharisees of their misguided beliefs if He walked our earth today He would find those modern day Pharisees in the Church of Scotland even harder to convince.

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1. Rosemary Hannah
  
  21/05/2013
  
  Well, there you go – I think the exact opposite – that Jesus, who plucked corn, and healed, on the Sabbath, would be out partying tonight with all sorts of disreputable people. The Pharisees were the people who stuck rigidly to the law, breaking it even as they kept it. Jesus was the one who re-interpreted it.
  
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  1. Frank keefe
    
    21/05/2013
    
    I find it amazing how those who look for sin to be accepted would try and use Jesus to back them up.First Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.The Pharisees abused Gods law with their legalism.Its why He said about the rescue of a sheep on that day.He didnt re-interpret it He was showing them how it SHOULD BE KEPT as God ALWAYS intended it.Its the church who is doing the interpretation and Jesus certainly wouldnt be “out partying” such disrespect of our Lords holiness is often the way with liberal ” Christians” Instead of the church being a light to the world that worlds darkness is putting out that light.
    
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    1. kelvin
      
      21/05/2013
      
      Bless you for your faith, Frank. May it bring you happiness and joy.
      
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Graeme Cowie

21/05/2013

It’s a fudge, no doubt. And one which, far from preserving the “traditional” Kirk actually serves to undermine it in a number of ways, particularly concerning the status of “doctrine” and who gets to determine what it is, or at least what practical meaning it is for something to be “doctrine” rather than merely a personal religious sentiment. Explicitly to permit complete deviation from “doctrine” by congregations is not very Presbyterian, and the “traditionalists” either didn’t seem to realise that, or they care about preserving substantial doctrines at the expense of, well, what makes the Kirk the Kirk.

To an extent, though, you could see it coming. I think the traditionalist wing sensed they would lose if it was a straight choice (unfortunate phrase) between 2A and 2B, and so tried to push for something that retains a symbolic attachment to historical doctrine whilst letting liberals have the lion’s share of the cake they want, which is to be able to ordain those in committed same-sex relationships and to be done with it. I know for a fact that a fair whack of liberal commissioners were swayed by 2D (not including my parents, who are CofS ministers who voted with option 2A), many seeing it as a way of letting the traditionalists have some sort of phyric victory whilst in fact enabling ministers to be in civil partnerships without any lasting problems. It is much more likely that 2D will make it through Barrier Act procedure now that it’s got the traditionalists’ name on it, and notwithstanding the extra year it’s going to take to turn it into a proper overture, I think the consensus of the Kirk is that they really want to stop talking about this.

The new system ought to be fairly robust once the Legal Questions Committee have had their teeth dug into it. The clear intention was conceded by the movers that they did not intend for Presbyteries to be able to discipline or annul decisions made by Kirk Sessions seeking to be allowed to appoint ministers in civil partnerships, and for a lot of liberals (and actually, a lot of those on the conservative wing too) this will be seen as a critical part of the compromise if it is to be laid to rest. My only real concern is that if the traditionalists are for any reason unhappy with the implementation by LQC it could lead to the whole debate re-opening in GA 2014.

It’s clearly not enough for many liberal ministers, elders and members of the Church of Scotland, for whom this still presents a partial sense of “separate not equal” for congregation and minister alike, and it probably makes it more difficult for the theological position of the kirk formally to be moved away from same sex relationships being sinful, now that the “practical harms” are in a significant sense out of the way, but by Church of Scotland standards, it’s a major step forward for a very broad church, and one which has probably saved it from a major schism (though a handful of churches may still leave over and above The Tron and Gilc South). For those of us in the Kirk 5 years ago, this would have been virtually unthinkable, and momentum has picked up since the Rennie case 4 years ago. The good fight goes on, and hurdles remain, but if it gets through Barrier Act procedure I think the practical objectives, in a Kirk which already offers substantial liberty of personal opinion in matters of doctrine which do not enter into the substance of faith, have largely been met, albeit in a roundabout way.

For more of my thoughts on this matter, see:

http://www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2013/05/church-of-scotland-religious-progress.html

and

http://www.predictableparadox.co.uk/2013/05/presbyterianism-cracking-at-seems-cost.html

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Margaret of the Sea of Galilee

22/05/2013

And it still does not properly address how LGBTQ people (single or in civil partnerships) will be dealt with (dealt to?) when they offer themselves to Presbyteries as feeling called to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. Will they be asked about their orientation? Questioned? Interrogated? What responses will allow them to or prevent them from pursuing that call?

Who is this Albert Bogle anyway – is he about to become the first to be beatified by the Kirk and for what exactly? By-passing (even disregarding) Kirk “Order”, convincing his important friends to let him bulldoze ahead and his less important friends to print off 700 and something copies of a Deliverance which is incoherent and unimplementable.
Off to read Revelation for other signs of The End Times…
.

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Peter W Nimmo

25/05/2013

Kelvin, you make lots of good points in your post. But just to clarify- what is the doctrine and practice of the Scottish Episcopal Church on this issue? Does your doctrine approve of persons in civil partnerships being clergy, and is that put into practice?

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1. kelvin
  
  25/05/2013
  
  Yes – there are quite a number of clergy in civil partnerships. In England, Anglican clergy in civil partnerships are supposed to declare that they are “celibate”. That isn’t the case in Scotland.
  
  The pension scheme in Scotland recognises Civil Partnerships by giving such partners the same benefits as wives or husbands in marriages. Civil Partners also are treated in the same way with regard to housing as a straight spouse if a relationship breaks down.
  
  Any candidate for ordination who is in a Civil Partnership is expected to be honest about that at selection.
  
  The bishops of the church announced a few years ago that they would not consecrate anyone as bishop who was in a Civil Partnership. They were clear at the time that this was a moratorium. However it is not clear to me whether that moratorium still stands. I do expect there to be questions about that at the coming Synod.
  
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