Version 1 (!!!)
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So: why are we here?
Provost, Councillors, Council staff, and your guests; you, this morning, are our guests. More importantly, we are all Christ’s guests, we here at UCB receive his welcome and extend it to you – and it’s enormously important that you know how welcome you are. So I have to begin with an apology.
If you looked at our UCB Facebook page in the last few days, you will have seen a small poster advertising this service. Against a warm, dark background, a large pair of cradled hands, in which rests a representation – a map, in fact – of Argyll and Bute; and down the side, and along the bottom, in elegant script, a few words of welcome to our “Kirking of the Council.” Unfortunately, perhaps the font I chose was a tad too elegant; several people got back to me, concerned that the poster, at first glance, appeared to read “Kicking of the Council.” One person, pastorally concerned at how bruising the campaign trail to last May had been for our councillors, feared we were planning some sort of re-run of the Council elections.
In horror, I changed the font, though I had hoped that the gentle, cradling hands would have been the hint as to the tenor of this service.
So why are you here? Don’t get me wrong. It’s lovely, and a privilege, to have you. But why are you here?
You’re here, in the first place, to be prayed for. Whether or not you share our faith as Christians, whether or not you come in any faith, you come, this morning, to a place where no-one here wants to do anything but support and uphold you, as our elected representatives with difficult jobs to do, as people who want to serve people, and want to do the best job you can – and as fellow human beings.
And that “fellow human beings” bit is terribly important. It’s what we the Church share with people who don’t share our faith. It’s what we the Church share with all your constituents, of every religion, persuasion, conviction – and none. Our shared humanity, our common humanity, our being human beings, of flesh and blood, wants and needs, dignity and vulnerability, stupidity and wisdom.
The shared humanity of all your constituents is what you address with roads, drains, housing, education, in the tough decisions with multiple possible answers that you disagree about among yourselves, passionately and with conviction. But our shared humanity is also what you respect about each other, across the divisions of party or grouping.
And I’m not naïve enough to believe it’s quite that simple! But maybe it’s not a bad thing for you to come here, to a place of studied neutrality and unconditional welcome – which is what a church should always be – and hear that we the punters also notice those signs of respect-across-the-aisles, at Lochgoilhead, Holyrood and Westminster, and we like them, and are reassured by them.
William Temple, one of the greatest of all Archbishops of Canterbury. Was chosen by Churchill, to his Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s astonishment, despite the fact that Temple was an outspoken Labour supporter. Attlee asked Churchill why. “Because he was the only half-crown item in a sixpenny bazaar!” said Churchill. We’ll get back to Temple in a moment, too.
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Humanity is something we share irrespective of faith or belief. It’s also by the way something we share with Jesus of Nazareth. (Actually, the Church believes – or should, and should always act on it – that in Jesus, God shares our common humanity, and that our faith makes us one with the whole of humanity, not just other Christians. And it’s a scandal when we don’t live up to that.)
So you come here to be supported and affirmed, as human beings with important jobs to do.
And it’s not a passive thing. James Hay Hamilton, who was the Minister of the High Kirk during the Second World War, and also my predecessor at Colmonell, in Ayrshire, told me once that it takes eighteen months to move into a manse. At twenty months and counting, we’re almost there. And opening one of the very last boxes in the study, I came across my Calls, to my successive charges.
Now the call is a very precious document to a Minister. We, too, you see, know what it is to be voted on. And it’s a nerve-racking business, no matter how often you have been through it. A year last January, after counting the votes, David Mitchell, the Interim Moderator, came down to me in the vestry, extended a gentle, sympathetic hand, and simply said “120-nil…”
You can gauge my state of mind from my reply: “Did it go the right way?”
But after the vote comes the Call. Left to lie for signatures, it’s a crucial document. People are expected to sign it, but they mustn’t be forced. If it’s signed by too few, it can be sent back by the Presbytery for more signatures, or they can even decline to sustain the Call.
And the Call means this: “You are coming to be our Minister. Whether I voted for you or not, you are my Minister. I – we – will support you, sustain you, and play our part in what we have to do as a community of faith together…”
I bet you wish you had something like that, after you’ve been voted on! Well – today, you do.
This is public worship, and we’re delighted to welcome here people of all faiths and none to join with us. Together we say “You are our Council. Whether we voted for you or not, you are our Councillors. I – we – will support you, sustain you, and play our part in what we have to do as a community together…”
I hope we, as constituents, realize this. Being part of a community, being part of a complex postmodern society, isn’t a passive thing.
So we have the privilege of saying to you, on behalf of all your constituents of good will, of all faiths and none “You are our Council. Whether we voted for you or not, you are our Councillors. I – we – will support you, sustain you, and play our part in what we have to do as a community together…”
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But we are the Church. And that means there’s something I need to add to all of this.
We are the Church. And we speak into society from a position, and a perspective of faith, that we have to be true to.
We don’t have a privileged position in society any more. What we do have is a place in society. From the most secular of perspectives, when we say something worth hearing, we have as much right to be heard as any other group, any other voice.
There’s a public dimension to our faith. And that means, among other things, that we are publicly accountable. That’s what the Archbishop of Canterbury meant this last week, when, reflecting on the public accountability of the Church of England – a denomination which does have a privileged position in her society – he said, poignantly that his church “has a lot of explaining to do.”
We have a place in society as a voice, or rather, a chorus of voices, speaking from where we are, (I’ll say a bit more about that in a moment) and contributing to the public debates which shape the direction of our society. There are other voices, including religious and philosophical voices, There are times when we have to learn and re-learn, that we are not a privileged voice, nor should we be. Today’s Gospel reading reminds us why.
In a nutshell – Jesus wasn’t.
“Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over… But as it is, my kingdom is not from here…’
“You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.’”
There are times when the Church claims to speak with Jesus’ voice and doesn’t. “The Gospel of God’s love loses something in the telling when it’s put across by the Spanish Inquisition!” said someone, and lots of good Presbyterians thought something similar when, in 1697 the Kirk burned the youth Thomas Aikenhead for heresy and blasphemy, or in 1831, when she put out of her ministry perhaps Scotland’s greatest theologian, John MacLeod Campbell of Rhu, for teaching, against the Westminster Confession, but with Scripture, that Christ died for all, not just the elect.
Yet there are times when the Church unmistakeably does speak with a Christlike love and grace and acceptance. One of the loveliest features of this island is the ecumenical warmth that binds us as a congregation to our Roman Catholic, Baptist, Episcopalian and Christian Fellowship sisters and brothers, and our sister-congregation of Trinity, and I believe makes this place such an inclusive and welcoming place for people whoever they are and whatever they believe.
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So when does the Church speak with Christ’s inflections, and not just with the voice of Christian prejudice, not just with a blasphemous parody of Jesus’ voice?
When, like Jesus, she stands before power, and irritates it.
Sorry about that!
When she stands before power and points beyond how things are now. When she stands before power and pricks the consciences that want to do what needs to be done, but are so desperately aware of the difficulties, the obstacles, the risks. When she says “We can’t stop here. We can’t settle down, we can’t acquiesce. We aren’t there yet. This isn’t it.”
It was William Temple, the wartime Archbishop of Canterbury, who said “The Church exists to comfort the disturbed, and to disturb the comfortable.” That’s why I went to such pains to start this sermon by making it clear that you are welcome here as Councillors weary and heavy-laden. I’m not suggesting that you are in any way disturbed – though if it’s a consolation, I did hear somebody say recently about my own profession that “Anybody who wants to be a Minister should be committed…”
However professionally tough you are, however resilient, you, too, need to hear that people esteem and value you and your work, and want to support you and affirm you.
But you’re also here because part of your calling is to listen to the voices of the “Public Square,” as the Americans call it. And we are one such, and you will hear from us, and sometimes the Church can be really irritating. And I’m not apologizing for that!
Our calling is to point beyond things as they are. Our calling is to point to the Kingdom of God, and say “We’re not there yet.”
Other voices say similar things, from a different perspective – the perspective of other faiths, of no faith, sometimes. It was that great self-proclaimed “Presbyterian Atheist” Hugh MacDiarmid who said
“He canna’ Scotland see, wha canna’ yet
See the infinite,
And Scotland in true scale to it…”
A Drunk Man Looks At The Thistle should be on every Scottish divinity syllabus.
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Bute, Argyll and Bute, Scotland, in true scale to the infinite. That’s certainly our business as the Church, but we don’t have a monopoly on it. What we do have is an orientation that is utterly distinctive, and this is why Christian faith raises an utterly distinctive voice in the Public Square.
“Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not from this world…’”
Not that we have no interest in politics, and our faith no locus in the life of society.
Quite the reverse.
Our job is to be unsatisfied, and to be unsatisfied in an infectious, contagious way.
When we start throwing our weight about, when we line up as a pressure group, when we try to exert control on society, that’s when you need to stop listening to us. Because that’s when we will have settled down to be a lobby, a wannabe political party, a force in society, and a power in the land.
We will have sold out to the present – and that’s just exactly what you don’t want us doing.
Our job is to be a compass-needle pointing away from the present towards God’s future, towards the Kingdom which comes from God, towards what theologians call the “eschatological”, the last things, the real journey’s end, encouraging you to press on, because we aren’t there yet. The great American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s view was that “When the church is not sufficiently eschatological, it is in danger of becoming an Antichrist.” (1) When we assume that we run things, or should be running things. When we assume that we can sit in judgment, and bully you into following our agenda.
“The Church is capable of being the Antichrist. And when she denies that, she is the Antichrist…” (2)
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But when we are true to our calling, we are going to sound like the weans in the back seat of the car, ten minutes into the holiday, saying “Are we there yet” – when we know we’re not, and you know we know we’re not.
Our job is to bear witness, sometimes profoundly irritating, to the Kingdom, and to the fact that this isn’t it. Our job, in the light of our faith, is to see the infinite, and Scotland in true scale to it.
And in a very different way, so is yours.
Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not from this world…’
Our job is to say “Because of that, we can’t stay here!”
Your job is to plot the course to where we go next.
And then our job is to pray for you!
NOTES:
1) http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=3279&C=2739 Reinhold Niebuhr by Howard G. Patton
2) I can’t find this quote in these words anywhere. I scribbled it down after a lecture I heard, where it was attributed, in so many words, to Niebuhr. It seems oddly unnuanced for him – but then difficilior lectio potior…
Loci Communes 
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