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 “The Church of England and its Bishops”

Joan H Craig

20/11/2012

You put it well, and I agree with all that you say. In one sense it is a very sad day for priests who are women. In another, parity is crucial 🙁

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Patrick Smith

20/11/2012

I am not a regular C of E communicant now but have been so in my life and I unequivocally support the proper human rights entitlement of women to serve equally as Bishops.I think that the women priests appear to have been too inclined, cap in hand, to compromise that would still have deemed women bishops, as second class.This Vote, according to some of their spokespersons was as far as the talented women priests could get, amongst the conservative antis, in the C of E.

Surely,that in our enlightened world men do not hold a monopoly on either the aspiration to achieve good in their work or to eclipse human goodness in prayer,mission and faith in the ranks of the C of E? The Bishops and Clergy have seen that women are now do one third of active work in the C of E but do not have parity at the top table.

Why is it the case that women are ordained in the US and NZ and have served their communities equally, as men, over 20 years? Whereas, in the C of E at home, the vision of the Laity Synod threatens to derrogate the status of women, as if the clock had been turned back into Victorian times and before the Suffragettes had started their quest for universal suffrage and equality in work for women.

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Duncan MacLaren

20/11/2012

Nigel McCulloch said in the debate, “If you wait for the perfect piece of legislation, you’ll be waiting for ever.”
I can understand the principled position that you don’t want to pass flawed and discriminatory legislation: but I can’t help thinking this would be better than acquiescing for another 5 years in an even more discriminatory status quo.
Had women bishops been voted in, they would have had five years to demonstrate practically to their opponents that they were competent, valuable, indispensable, talented and undeniably called leaders in the church. Instead, we now have the task of creating legislation the opponents will like even less (because it won’t make space for their position), and then trying to get it voted through. And five years of practical experience – perhaps the best argument – wasted.
If there were six lay liberals (the margin of votes) who voted ‘no’ on principle this evening, I wonder how long before they will rue the day? Principle is all very well, but possession is nine-tenths of the law. Had women been granted this possession, we could have spent the next five years chasing down the discriminatory clauses: as it is, we are back to square one. Barren theological argument now prevails over the witness and example of flesh and blood women.

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1. kelvin
  
  20/11/2012
  
  I understand that view, Duncan. I’d agree with it if there was any evidence in the last 20 years of anyone either trying or succeeding to eliminate the flying bishops that were created last time around. It is much, much easier to create good legislation than to repeal, tinker and undo bad legislation.
  
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2. Augur Pearce
  
  21/11/2012
  
  As I see it part of the problem was the large number of Synod members who wanted to see women bishops but thought that unity was more important than principle, and were therefore prepared to compromise. The ideal scenario would not have been rejection of the Measure, but an amendment to get rid of the discriminatory clauses. That wasn’t possible because the ‘unity party’ (for want of a better name) would have allied with the fundamentalists to defeat it. I hope that those who made up this ‘unity party’ will now realise the time for compromise is past and support legislation which, as you say, the opponents will like even less because it wonâ€™t make space for their position. I believe such legislation would pass, but would lead the fundamentalists to dissent from the C of E and form their own conventicles (as many have done before them, for better reasons). There would then be some hope of the General Synod addressing other equality issues, such as marriage…
  
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Tim

20/11/2012

Could it be said that it spent too long cooking?

The impression I get is that the SEC was quite decisive in dealing with the Covenant earlier.
What I’ve seen with the CoE looks like internalized via-media meeting a half-open door – and no wonder some people use the word “irrelevant”. As such, I’m wondering if it shouldn’t have simply been “women bishops, yes or no?” a while ago and then there wouldn’t have been such clumsy inaccuracy of reporting, at least…

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Ritualist Robert

21/11/2012

I have to say, regretfully, that I am relieved it didn’t pass because, imho, it allowed for far too many ‘provisions’ for so-called traditionalists. Their arguments seem to be based on one of the most vile theological concepts ever invented – ‘taint’ – though, of course, nobody admits to it. I understand the Evangelicals’ objections (though I disagree with them), but I am flummoxed by things like the ‘traditionalist’ catholics’ demand for ‘flying bishops’ (a concept which fails any test for catholicity) and attacks the very basis of Anglican Church structure and order – that of a bishop acting as the Ordinary in his/her diocese. Choosing one’s bishop based on whether one likes their theological outlook is quite a novelty, but it’s one that the so-called traditionalists insist on being allowed. Moreover, to claim to be catholic surely means to support the Church. When the Church of England ordained women for the first time surely it was up to those catholics who disagreed to either (a) conform their minds to the mind of the Church – surely the duty of anyone who calls themselves catholic – or (b) to have enough integrity to part with the Church and find another spiritual home.

Instead we have so-called traditionalists promoting what are essentially congregationalist novelties whilst claiming – falsely, I believe – to be catholics, all the while arguing for a distinctly non-catholic version of the Church.

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Justin Reynolds

22/11/2012

If politics is ‘the art of the possible’ then surely all liberals should have backed the measure, whatever its flaws. The notion that one day we will all be marching hand in hand towards the sunlit progressive uplands is somewhat fantastic, I think.

Everyone who joins the C of E, or indeed the SEC, knows what kind of church it is: essentially progressive (as witnessed by the Synod vote) but with significant minorities opposed to change. And it isn’t like a political party where arguments are conducted in the field of political philosophy and politics with a realistic hope that the mind of the party might change decisively over time in one direction or other. In the case of the church disputes are necessarily more intransigent, concerned with the interpretation of revelation and long standing traditions. These disagreements take decades, indeed centuries, to resolve, in so far as they can be resolved at all.

Perhaps those who can’t live with compromise, be they conservative or liberal, should consider whether they are actually in the right denomination at all, rather than hoping that one day – sooner rather than later – everyone will agree with them. It’s often noted that conservatives can go Orthodox or Roman Catholic, as indeed some have. It’s less often suggested that liberals might consider Unitarianism or Quakerism. I say that as a liberal who has at various times wavered between those two – and others – and Episcopalianism. I’ve ended up as an Episcopalian, but I did so knowing full well the intractable nature of the disagreements besetting the denomination, and that I had to live with them or simply go elsewhere. It seems to me that Christians are far too sentimental and attached to particular denominations.

Also, with respect Rowan Williams’ tenure can hardly be seen as an ‘abject failure’. Everyone knew he believed in conciliation and compromise when he was selected. His liberalism on a number of issues only formed a component of his theology. And his intellectual contribution over the past decade to British national life has been significant, particularly in regard to political and economic issues. His archepiscopate has gone some way towards restoring Anglicanism’s intellectual credibility: witness the tributes from secular as well as religious quarters on news of his retirement.

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Seph

22/11/2012

Apparently Diana Johnson MP (Lab., Hull North) is planning to bring a ten-minute rule bill in the new year which will include a clause calling for women bishops. Parliament could succeed here where General Synod failed.

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Rosie Bates

02/12/2012

Check out Bristol Diocese action re Vote of No Confidence in Synod! How lovely on the mountains are the feet of Him who brings Good News! Hope the rest take note and follow a fine example. Hope in this Advent message. Bishop Mike was an Area Bishop in Oxford Diocese and likely to be very clued up to certain of their Synod Reps games which cannot be stopped before July without reform or, at the very least, tough love.

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