What is in Kelvin's Head?

Farewell to Oliver Brewer-Lennon – a sermon preached on 18 August 2024

19/08/2024

Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the uttermost ends of the earth. When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”

Oh Oliver. If only your manner of going was the same as that of our Lord. Jesus is simply surrounded by a cloud and then he is gone.

If only I could shake the thurible at you and surround you with a cloud of incense only for you to appear from a similar puff of heaven over in St Michael and All Saints freshly minted as their new Rector.

Jesus does not seem to have had to go through much admin in his departure.

He didn’t need to think about handing over his keys – he’d already given them to Peter some time ago.

He didn’t need to book the removers to remove all his stuff in a wagon – foxes have holes and the birds have their nests but the Son of Man never seemed to have a need for a place in which to put all his mid-century modern furniture and his other half’s Hornsea pottery mugs and strange Apple computers that I will never understand, so there was nothing to take with him in the cloud when he moved on.

He didn’t need to clear out his office. He didn’t need to clear out his desk. He didn’t need to give up his email address. He didn’t need to hand over his University Chaplain’s keycard. And he didn’t need to change any of his login details for anything.

He was just … gone.

Oliver – it turns out that you and Jesus are not in fact the same.

And you are having to do something this evening which Jesus, when he moved on never seemed to do.

You are saying goodbye. Our Lord, rather surprisingly, never did. It is one of the most significant things about the Great Commission that he gave his disciples. He told them what to do but he never said goodbye. Somehow he knew something that they didn’t yet know- that he would be with them always.

This is the day that you have been working towards for some time now. And although I know that you are looking forward to your new role in Edinburgh with great anticipation – for it is the thing that you want to be doing and need to be doing, I also know that you’ve been anxious about today for it does mean saying goodbye.

Goodbyes are tough and I know that there is much that you have come to love in Glasgow and much that you and Joe have loved here.

I don’t know what you knew about the city before coming here. Maybe you looked it up.

The city has several slogans that have been attached to it. The first that we know of us the motto.

The motto of the city is “Let Glasgow flourish”. The full thing is “Let Glasgow flourish by the the preaching of thy word and the praising of thy name”.

Well, you’ve lived up to that. You have helped this cathedral in this city flourish.

Your job when you came here was to help me and to help this congregation to build itself up. It has not been the rebuilding that we expected to do. For just months after you arrived the world fell apart and we were no longer building the congregation up from a strong and stable base but building it pretty much from scratch all over again.

And I’ll never forget you saying to me with absolute confidence on the day that the first lockdown was announced, “Don’t worry, I know exactly what we need to do…”

It has taken considerable effort to rebuild this congregation and to build the new ministry that we have shared at the University of Glasgow. You were not in fact the Son of Man, the ruler of the Universe, the King of Kings or the risen and ascended Lord, but you were the perfect person to help us to do so much. You and I have had an unusual working relationship and along with others who are here this night and people who can’t be here, I’ve much to thank you for in helping us flourish, much of it by your confident preaching of God’s word and your passion for praising God’s name in worship.

Another of the slogans that Glasgow used for many years was “Glasgow’s Miles Better”.

That slogan never said exactly where Glasgow was miles better than. (But I’m pretty sure we all know the answer to that).

Oliver, I rejoice in your positive outlook. I rejoice that you can look at the church and think that it can always be better. And that you want to offer to God the very best that human beings can offer. You are not frightened of trying to do things well and of offering gold quality worship.

As you have done that here others have come to join you in doing the same. As you do that in Edinburgh, others will join you in doing it there. It is who you are.

I thank God for your commitment to doing things well as a mission strategy and hope that is a prayer-borne infection that others will catch from you.

Oliver, you can’t just zoom off in a cloud like Jesus. You have goodbyes to say tonight, you have things to do in order to get yourself to your new responsibilities. But before you go, know this. You have done what you came here to do. You have built this congregation up. You have loved us and we have loved you for coming here to share this strange and bewildering five years with us.

You have shared the love of God with us. And that love will remain here amongst us and help us flourish in the future. God doesn’t say goodbye,

But the time has come for you to go and share the same love of God with others.

Oliver, God is calling you to a congregation that I have much love and affection for. My sadness at you leaving here is tempered by my joy and delight that you will be the priest at St Michael and All Saints’ Tollcross.

They need you. And you need them too.

Oliver. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
In the name of Christ. Amen.

farewell, Glasgow, Great Commission, Oliver Brewer-Lennon, Scottish Episcopal Church, St Mary’s Cathedral, St Michael and All Saints

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.”

Reply
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/

Reply
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.

Reply
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.
  
  Reply
  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.
    
    Reply
    1. kelvin
      
      21/05/2013
      
      Bless you for your faith, Frank. May it bring you happiness and joy.
      
      Reply
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

Reply
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…
.

Reply
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?

Reply
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.
  
  Reply