What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon for Dedication Sunday 2014

27/10/2014

26 October 2014 – Dedication Sunday from Kelvin Holdsworth on Vimeo.

You have come to something that cannot be touched – in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

I suppose I should give the full verse of the text that I want to preach on this morning. The verse I’ve chosen comes from the letter to the Hebrews and the portion that Wolfgang read to us a few moments ago.

You have not come to something* that can be touched, a blazing fire, and darkness, and gloom, and a tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.

I suppose it takes a certain kind of preacher to dare to preach on the verse that refers to a voice whose words made the hearers beg that not another word be spoken to them.

But I guess I’m that kind of preacher anyway.

But I really want to leap off from that first phrase – You have come to something that cannot be touched.

For today we are celebrating our Dedication Sunday – a day when we step outside the usual cycle of Sunday readings and set aside some time to give thanks for what we have around us.

And I’m being deliberately ambiguous about that – for I give thanks not simply for the building around us but for the building that is the saints of God in this place who are all around us as we worship together each week.

St Mary’s the building can certainly be touched. Indeed if you touch it in some places a bit of it will flake off which you can take home for a souvenir. But today I think we are doing a bit more than giving thanks for lumps of sandstone.

For you have come to something that cannot be touched. You have come instead to Mount Zion – the city of God itself.

By the time the Epistle to the Hebrews was written people were gathering together in groups to worship Jesus Christ. The idea of the weekly gathering to worship was already established amongst the Jewish people and adopted by those who found God through their experience of Jesus. But it was important to remind them even at the beginning that they had come to something that could not be touched.

I remember asking one of you a while ago what it was that he thought bound everyone at St Mary’s together. He thought for a moment and said, (more…)

7 responses to “Pollokshields – These are our neighbours”

Marjorie Wilson

14/05/2021

Local people foiled yesterday’s attempt by immigration enforcers; next time they will come at night in an unmarked van. We have no chance of improving the immigration system in what you call “this country”, meaning the UK. When Scotland becomes independent, we will be able to have our own immigration policy, which will be fair, just and compassionate, in line with Christian values, and with the views of most Scottish people. Don’t you agree?

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  14/05/2021
  
  No, I don’t agree. I think that the current policy is unjust and unfair and is just as unjust if it is applied in Carlisle as in Glasgow. The whole country needs a better system, not just Scotland.
  
  I find the idea of a country set up on “Christian” values quite chilling.
  
  If we do have a new country, it needs to have a secular constitution not a Christian one.
  
  Reply
  1. Revd Kenny Macaulay
    
    14/05/2021
    
    However, the people south of Carlisle have already indicated what sort of government they want and it is very different to what the majority of Scottish people consistently vote for. The only way we will get a fairer system is in an independent Scotland with your secular constitution.
    
    Reply
    1. Kelvin
      
      14/05/2021
      
      We have no idea what the immigration policy of a Tory government would be in an independent Scotland.
      
      Reply
    2. Keith Barber
      
      15/05/2021
      
      On the contrary, us folk south of Carlisle have been saddled with a government the majority of us don’t like by the defects of our electoral system and the machinations of a far-right anti-EU obsessive so-called politician.
      
      Reply
Sue Matthew

14/05/2021

thank you Kelvin for your comments. The scenes were heartening, that a community valued the men and were determined that they should be treated fairly and heard from. Gave me a little glimmer of hope, but then thats Scotland, here in Blue heaven, may not go that way, I am 84 now and have never felt so despondent, maybe the lockdown, I am not confident so a real ray of light from Pollockshields

Reply
Catherine

15/05/2021

Hurrah for Pollokshields. We need more of that sort of thing- all over the UK.

Reply