What is in Kelvin's Head?

Easter Sermon 2022

18/04/2022

https://youtu.be/738ChTRb61I?t=2104

Years ago I remember going on holiday. It was my kind of travel – ferries and trains and buses and then a sailing trip with friends who used to take me despite and not because of my sailing abilities.

And there was this one morning that I remember. Will always remember. I’d managed to get myself off the boat without much incident. And rowed ashore and went for a walk in the first light of the day.

And on the walk I heard something. A tiny bird singing. And not just singing but singing its heart out. Trilling its way up and down in a way that even the best singers could only dream of.

I caught sight of it. And I recognised it. I knew what it was immediately. It was a tiny little wren singing in the morning air.

And it was one of those special, perfect holiday moments. The kind of thing you never forget.

And I felt particularly blessed. It was so rare to see a wren and hear it sing. And it sang just for me.

What a journey it had been to get to hear it. Travelling right across the country. Sailing and paddling my way across the sea. I had come a long way. And it was all worth it for the rare sound of the wren in the morning air.

It felt like a very special moment.

Fast forward a few years.

And lockdown came along.

And with the first lockdown the instruction to go out and walk every day for half an hour. And I did.

The world was still. The roads silent. The traffic gone.

And I got three hundred yards from my front door. Nearer to where I live than we are now.

And I heard a sound. Familiar.

Imagine that. I’d heard it once on holiday. So many miles away.

Well what do you know, I said. Three hundred yards from my front door.

And I listened and then went on. Another couple of hundred yards. And another tiny bird was singing.

And then another and then from across the canal, another.

The lockdowns were long. The pandemic has been long and it isn’t over yet. I think we’ve seen enormous generosity sometimes. And enormous selfishness at others.

All of human life was changed, but all of human life was there, the best of life and the worst.

For the last two Easters we have been telling one another the stories of Easter in ways that we never expected to have to do.

And it was good to do so. But I longed, oh how I longed to be able to bring people together do tell them again in this place.

For Holy Week matters to me.

For the stories of Holy Week are our stories of today. Always. All human life is here.

In Holy Week we encounter the worst of human behaviour.

A week in which we hear of bitter betrayal by Jesus.

Violence whipped up by unscrupulous leaders.

Pilate literally washing his hands to try to pin the blame for the crucifixion on others.

And a broken man buried with no ceremony, and no proper funeral whilst others celebrated a feast.

We do not need to look far to see the passion played out in our midst.

The violence being experienced by Ukraine at the hands of Putin is a real-life crucifixion story.

The agony of those of us who experienced heart numbingly difficult funerals whilst others partied in Downing Street is a bitter passion tale.

The suggestion that we should send those seeking refuge in this country on a one-way ticket to Rwanda is a bitter betrayal. A betrayal of this country’s international commitments. A betrayal of those in desperate need. Not one passion story but thousands of stories of people betrayed by those who should offer friendship, fairness and common decency.

The government’s proposal to export the neediest and the most desperate to a land far away for “processing” is immoral, shameless and obscene.

I say to the government today – You can’t outsource compassion. We are better than this.

Seldom was resurrection hope, the message of Easter Day more needed than today.

But Christians do not simply wring their hands on Easter Day.

On Easter Day, we proclaim that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

And it isn’t just that if that is possible for Jesus then it could happen to us. The Christian believe is that if that happened to Jesus then it will happen for us.

It isn’t just our believe that if Jesus gets new life then the world might get new life. It is our conviction that it will! And that it does.

We believe that death and betrayal, corruption and selfishness, bitterness and anger, violence and destruction… these things will never have the last word.

These are not things to live by.

Jesus Christ is risen from the dead and with his rising comes the news that the world is changed.

We have known love so many times by the pain it has caused us during the pandemic. The pain of separation. The pain of death. The pain of not being able to comfort one another.

Love is deep within us. And sometimes it hurts.

But love is the root of God’s mission to the world. Love that will not let us go.

It was love that brought Jesus into the world. And it is love that reaches into the very depths of hell to haul him out and us with him.

And it is love that causes us to encounter the world through the resurrection of Christ. Love that tells us to proclaim that new life has come; that death is not the end.

It is love, love buried deep, deep, deep within us that tells us to hope for, work for and believe in a world where pain and suffering will be gone. Where the tears will be wiped away from every eye.

Where we will encounter love and hope and joy in every human life so that everyone who lives and breathes on earth may be able to hear that every bird is singing.

Something happens at Easter which breaks the pattern of sin and death for good.

And I tell you that it has happened this day.

For if Christ were not risen from the dead, we would not be gathered here.

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

Media reports

Priti Patel’s Rwanda plan ‘immoral, shameless and obscene’, says Glasgow cathedral provost – Scotsman

Sending asylum seekers to Rwanda a bitter betrayal, says senior church leader – The Times

Boris Johnson attacked by Glasgow priest over Rwanda scheme and partygate – The National

Radio Scotland interview with Lucy Whyte – Good Morning Scotland 18 April 2022

7 responses to “Ask! Tell!”

Eamonn

20/09/2011

Count me in as a straight supporter of gay people, clergy or lay. But count me in, too, as one who respects people’s right to privacy. As a hetersexual male, I would not expect to be asked about my sexuality, or to be pressurised into being explicit about it, had I chosen to remain unmarried.

Reply
kelvin

20/09/2011

I think that issues of privacy are a long way away from issues of whether one’s life should suffer for chosing to be open.

Both important issues but they are very different issues one from another.

Reply
Steven

20/09/2011

I am about to “out” myself as a straight supporter of gay clergy in the Church of Ireland by getting a letter published in my local paper!

It is one thing to have a personal (private) opinion and whole different thing to go public with that view. Feels quite liberating actually!

I sort of wonder how I got to this point given that I used to be a fairly moderately against full inclusion in the life of the Church…

I suppose it is the natural result of the way my thinking has been developing over some time, especially by engagement with liberal/progressive anglican thought and seeing that there IS another way to be Christian (as opposed to the dominant conservative evangelical ethos that prevails in my part of Ireland).

Reply
1. kelvin
  
  20/09/2011
  
  Good for you, Steven.
  
  My guess is that the repercussions of the Very Rev Tom Gordon and his partner coming out about their partnership are shining little rays of light all over the Church of Ireland at the moment, occassionally illuminating things which some would prefer to be kept in darkness.
  
  > I sort of wonder how I got to this point given that I used to be a fairly moderately against full inclusion in the life of the Churchâ€¦
  
  Don’t be surprised – so was I. So were most of the people I know who now advocate on behalf of progressive causes in the church. One of the things that is happening at the moment is that the really hard line anti-gay voices are being undermined by the people they thought they could rely on. It makes loud, cross voices crosser and louder. The sound of those shrill voices is the sound of people who are being squeezed from every direction.
  
  Reply
william

20/09/2011

What’s in Kelvin’s Head?
Confusion? Compassion?
Wisdom? Folly?
Light?Darkness?[in the Johannine sense]
Humility? Arrogance?
Obedience?Disobedience?
Hopefully there’s a “next bishop” somewhere near!!

Reply
Steven

20/09/2011

I agree with you. One of the points I make in the letter to the Portadown Times (the original clergy statement was published in that paper on 16th Sept – see Thinking Anglicans) is that it seems that evangelical clergy in Ireland were happy with a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and it is the publicity that is causing the problem now – after all it must have been well known that Tom Gordon was living with his partner over the last 20 years!

It is also ironic that three of the signatories of the clergy statement were women – i.e., those previously ordained following the development of a generous and inclusive theology of Christian leadership (in spite of Saint Paul’s issues). They now seek to use their authority to prevent others from benefiting from the very development that they benefited from…

The only issue, I suppose, is that this development did take the Church of Ireland by surprise and the silence from the Bishops has been unhelpful.

I would be interested to know your views on the tension between acting innovatively (perhaps, unilaterally) and the need to respect the whole body of Christ etc…

The situation in TEC in respect of the ordination of Gene Robinson as Bishop, by contrast, involved an open and transparent development that went through the standard procedures of the Church. I know that in this case the issue is in respect of a civil partnership – which it was Dean Gordon’s “right” to enter under the law of the RoI but the significance of this move for the wider Church of Ireland would not have been lost in either himself or his Bishop.

I still think he did the right thing but I am sympathetic to the criticism that these issues should not, in general, be dealt with an ad hoc manner… Although in fairness to Dean Gordon I am not sure if the debate would have ever got on the table if he had not acted as he has done.

Reply
kelvin

20/09/2011

I think that there is a difference between electing a bishop and who a person choses to make a committment to.

One is very clearly a public office that needs the consent of the people. The other falls within someone’s personal life.

I wouldn’t say that is irrelevant and nor would I be so stupid as the recent Church of Scotland statement that said of a Church of Scotland minister entering a Civil Partnership that it was entirely a personal matter. It very clearly isn’t.

However, I would say that it requires a very different level of consent to being a bishop.

Clergy living arrangements get complicated very much more quickly than those of other people because very often they are living in housing provided by the congregation. That, if anywhere is where issues of public consent come in.

Generally speaking, I think that the provision of housing infantilises the clergy and is undesirable.

Once civil partnerships were introduced, people had the choice of either liking them or lumping them really. Clergy entering into them were an inevitable consequence of their existence.

Most people I know think that the demands of the Church of England that clergy in civil partnerships promise to be celibate demonstrate a quite disgusting pruriance on the part of bishops making such demands.

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