St Augustine's, Dumbarton - Scottish Episcopal Church

Over the next two weeks, we will begin to see walls and a roof appearing around the foundations which have been so tenderly, yet expertly laid by our builders. Real progress will be there for all to see by mid-June!

All we need now is the money to pay for it all!

Jessica Weidman in Concert at St Augustine’s. Free entry. Free wine!

In St Patrick’s Hall tonight. Contact Tim Rhead for details. Let’s hope the Pisckie Team win!

Aberdeen Listening Day

In 1975, I arrived in Ripon College, Cuddesdon for the last part of my training.  Bishop Brian of Edinburgh was a member of staff.  One third of the students were gay.  Relationships were very difficult.  In retrospect, I can see that the College community, staff and students, failed almost completely to deal with the sexuality issue.  That failure was hurtful and destructive for all of the students, for the life of the College and for the mission of the church.

I think we are dealing with it somewhat better today – not well but a bit better.  And I hope to explain that to you briefly this morning.

Bishop Brian said recently that ‘the only people who have clarity about this issue are those who live at either end of the spectrum of response’  The rest of us are somewhere in the middle.  On one hand, we believe that we are made in God’s image – does that mean both homosexual and heterosexual?  I think it does.  God is love and we are made for relationship – for loving relationship because that is the nature of God in whose image we are made.  But we also struggle with the witness of Scripture.  And the thrust of scripture is that sexual relationships are between men and women and that they are to do with child-bearing.  And so the question is about loving gay partnerships which involve active sexual, genital relationship.  Are they a natural and wholesome expression of love or are they in Bible terms sinful?  And that obviously has a bearing on how we respond to people who are involved in such relationships and who believe that they are called to Christian ministry.

‘Why is this an issue now and what makes it so deeply contested?’  Let me offer you a quick tour …

Following very acrimonious debate, Lambeth 1998 passed Resolution 1.10 which ‘upholds faithfulness in marriage between a man and a woman in lifelong union, and believes that abstinence is right for those who are not called to marriage and rejects homosexual practice as ‘incompatible with Scripture’ ….  In 2004, Gene Robinson was consecrated as Bishop of New Hampshire – a gay man in an active gay partnership.  The consecration proceeded in spite of warnings from the instruments of the Anglican Communion that this would ‘tear the fabric of the Communion’.  At almost the same time, the Diocese of New Westminster in Canada authorised a rite for same-sex blessings.  And incursions, interventions by conservative, mainly third-world bishops into liberal mainly north American dioceses began.

Now when I ask ‘Why this issue and why now?’ – part of my own learning has been about context.  Context doesn’t justify actions.  But it does give us some insight into the reasons why people act as they do.

There is clearly a question about the Bible and its authority.  Do we take a very literal reading of every word of scripture – in which case we would probably outlaw gay relationships but impose many other limitations for example on the role of women.  Or do we take a more contextual reading – as Anglicans who shape faith pictures out of scripture, tradition and reason.  Can our understanding of God’s vision for his people change and develop.  If we do that, are we, to use the words of St Paul,  ‘being conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of our minds’

Then there is what is sometimes called a paradigm question – a question about what Christian faith is fundamentally about.  If we live in a justice paradigm, we shall be concerned to ensure that no person, no matter what their make-up or pattern of life – is disadvantaged before God and in the life of the church.  If we live in a holiness paradigm, we shall prize the idea that there is an ‘otherness’ about God’s faithful people who live not by ‘this world’ but according to God’s call.

Colonialism is also a big issue.  People in the developing world will say that this ‘human rights’ or ‘justice’ agenda is a new imperialism pushed onto the third world by a godless first world.  It makes them instinctively resistant.

And we cannot underestimate the influence of Islam, particularly in its more militant forms.  Look at the map of Africa and you will see that the places which express the most strident conservatism are also the places where the church is under pressure from Islam as it moves south in Africa.  As one of the African bishops said to me at Lambeth, people will say, ‘Of course you can go to the Anglican church – to the gay church – if you want ….. ‘  Some of that strident conservatism is about survival.

In the second part of what I say, let me tell you about what the Anglican church world-wide has been doing in response to this issue and about our situation in the SEC.  I should remind you that, contrary to appearances, we are not the only church dealing with this issue.  The Church of Scotland is dealing with its own Aberdeen issue over the appointment of an openly gay minister to Queen’s Cross Church in the city.  This months edition of Life and Work has taken a liberal stand on this question.  The Roman Catholics and the Orthodox tend not to acknowledge the issue openly.  But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t there.

The first response of the Anglican Communion was the Windsor Report – Chaired by the Primate of Ireland, Robin Eames.  The Windsor Report has largely set the Agenda – an Anglican Covenant to hold the Communion together; the call for moratoria – a cease fire – to allow time for ‘the mind of the church’ to be established and to stop events spinning out of control.

That Agenda has at times looked scarily inadequate.  But I think that, particularly since the Lambeth Conference of 2008, there are signs that we are gradually moving forwards.  There is a desire to cohere and not to fragment.  We wonder if much of the energy and divisiveness lies in the sharply defined liberalisms and conservatisms of The Episcopal Church in the USA – and that some of that sharpness has been exported to the rest of the world.

The Lambeth Conference, far from marking the end, seems to have marked a new kind of beginning.  The embracing of the Indaba process – basically African patterns of talking through deeply-held difference – seems to have been helpful and there are plans now for ‘continuing Indaba’ in which groups of dioceses in the first and third world will commit together to Indaba.  The Covenant design process is moving forward – the final version will be submitted to the ACC in Jamaica next week.  Prescriptive covenants which would allow provinces to unchurch each other have failed to gain support.  What we have is a much more relational covenant which attempts to square the circle – how do you hold together a church of 34 independent provinces when there are no central structures which can compel anybody to do anything.  The most recent version talks about us being ‘in communion with autonomy and accountablity’.  This is a serious attempt to explore how a church, fragile and failed community as it is, can cohere in faith and life through mutual respect, prayer and a shared attempt to discern God’s way.

But we need time.  And so we came from Lambeth with three moratoria and a plea that we should exercise what we call gracious restraint.  The moratoria are – no further elections of bishops in active same-sex relationships; no authorised rites of same-sex blessing; no incursions.  Those are fragile – particularly the third one.  But we are doing our best.

The SEC tends to see itself as a liberal church.  That is of course inaccurate.  The SEC includes in its membership congregations which are very liberal and very conservative.  We are a divided church in a divided communion.  But partly because of our close links with America, we have tended to align ourselves with liberal North America – and that has not been altogether helpful.  What we need to do is to attempt to do in our own life what the communion as a whole has been doing – attempt to find a way forward under God.

The most recent statement from the College of Bishops – and this is important as we face into two Episcopal Elections before the end of the year – is to make clear that we regard the moratoria as binding on us – that we too shall exercise gracious restraint.

So this issue is very live for us.  It is not about what happens in America or what Archbishop Akinola in Nigeria says.  It is about real people and real feelings here in Scotland.  Most of all it is about the mission of the church.  Serious issues in our life have to be dealt with.  But they should not be allowed to absorb all the energy of the church which should be there for the mission of God.

Sometimes as your priest, I think we ask too much of you. As a congregation, as individuals, I ask too much.

I’m proud of my parish and I’m proud of the sort of congregation we are… I think this place buzzes in a way that leaves other parishes miles behind. People often comment that we have one of the busiest and most lively congregations in the Diocese, and I’m proud of that, but I often reflect that it comes with a cost attached.

And that is the stresses and strains that can be put upon individuals. There are a million and one jobs to get done, things to organise, we feed the 5000 regularly, Friends Events, meetings, study groups, lunches and coffee mornings,  building of a hall and all the work entailed in the move across here… it goes on and on and on.. and some of you, I know, are getting stressed and extremely tired.

Others, I know, are equally stressed with things going on in your family, or in your workplace, or in your relationships.

And believe it or not, clergy get stressed out too! About 40% of pastors in America, it’s said, will quit before retiral because of stress.

Somebody took the 23^rd Psalm, which we sang just now, and turned it into this bit of poetry that describes the problem we are having with stress, worry, and deadlines:

The clock is my dictator; I shall not rest.
It makes me lie down only when exhausted;
It leads me to deep depression,
It hounds my soul;
It leads me in circles of frenzy for activity sake; 
Even though I run frantically from task to task
I will never get it all done, 
For my “ideal” is with me;

Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me.

They demand performance from me, beyond the
limits of my schedule; 
They anoint my head with migraines;
My in-tray overflows;
Surely fatigue and time pressure shall follow 
me all the days of my life;
And I will dwell in the bonds of frustration 
forever.

Do you ever feel like you’re burning the candle at both ends?

Stress is robbing us of our rest, and the lack of rest is increasing our stress, and many of us are caught in a vicious cycle of physical, emotional, and spiritual fatigue that never seems to end. But there is a solution. There is a bridge over troubled waters.

When we take on board Jesus Christ as our shepherd, and we follow Him as one of His sheep, here’s what He promises to do for us: “He makes me to lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the still waters.”

That’s why I want to give you three simple words to remember on how to get on that bridge that will always cross over any troubled waters you might be in.

First of all we need to learn to—Stop. Stop every earthly activity you are doing and go to a quiet place and get alone. We need to find a space in our lives which is our time. “He makes me lie down”

Secondly—Look. He wants us to stop and lie down in the green grass! Your soul needs fed, so find something relaxing, and also maybe something to read that will stimulate your brain. Sometimes a wee reading from the Gospels in our quiet time can help us! Let God speak to you and give you strength for your journey.

Number three—Listen. Take time to hear His voice; take time in prayer to speak to Him and let Him speak to you. We need to drink in some of the peace which he offers us!

Someone once said, the more I pray, the more time I find to do all that needs to be done.

You see – If we don’t attend to these things we will be no use to anyone, and certainly no use to God.

In the deep jungles of Africa a traveller was making a long trek. He had engaged the natives from a certain tribe to carry all of his loads. Well, the first day they marched rapidly and they went very far, much farther than he anticipated. This traveller had high hopes that the journey could be completed quicker than he thought.

But the next morning the jungle tribesmen refused to move. For some strange reason they just sat and ate and drank and rested. When he asked the leader of this tribe why they would not get up and go to work, he said, “Because we went too fast yesterday, and we are now waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies.”

Isn’t that a wonderful image? Waiting for our souls to catch up with our bodies!

When you allow your Shepherd, the Lord Jesus to make you lie down in the grass of His word and lead you beside the water of His Spirit, while others are drowning in a sea of difficulty, you will be standing on that bridge over troubled waters

This month we will read much more in the Scottish press about the issue of gay clergy. The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland will meet and a decision will be made on whether or not to ratify the appointment of a gay man, living with a partner in a lifelong union, to a parish in the city of Aberdeen.

Already the discussions are taking place, and minds are being made up, one way or the other. Entrenched 

positions are being consolidated, and there is a real risk that the Church of Scotland will experience schism over the issue, with ministers threatening to walk out of Assembly and resign from their charges if this appointment is allowed to go through.

Of course we, in the Anglican Communion, have been having this debate for a long while now, and we have a married gay bishop in Gene Robinson in charge of the Diocese of New Hampshire in the United States. As most of you know, he has become a focal point for those in our own Communion with entrenched positions, one way or another.

It could be argued that the Anglican Communion is already in bits, with several African Bishops joining others of the evangelical right, forming a coalition of their own which tells us all that they alone are the guardians of biblical truth, while the liberal minded are selling the Gospel short by allowing gay clergy to operate at all, far less if they are in a relationship with a member of the same sex.

It’s all very sad, and the Anglican Communion is being held together by a very thin thread at this moment. We have a moratorium, which some have simply ignored, on ordaining openly gay clergy to the Episcopate, as well as preventing us all from making provision for same-sex unions. This moratorium, in 

my understanding, would also prevent us ordaining gay men and women to Holy Orders if they were in a 

same-sex relationship.

Whether you agree with this or not, that is where we are, in the hope that, as time goes by, solutions will be found to bring us all together again so that we can live together happily ever after. I doubt if this will happen.

I don’t think we should have any say whatsoever on what the Church of Scotland decides to do about this 

issue, and really, we have our own problem here. The difference is that now the issue will hit the Scot-

tish press in a big way, and we’ll find that we are drawn into discussion on the street and in our pubs 

and clubs!

At the moment, what is being highlighted here is the broken-ness of the Body of Christ. In our division, in 

the differing stances that are being taken, we should be finding the Christ wounded and bleeding in the 

midst of it all, crying out for resurrection and healing and wholeness.

“The living bread is broken for the life of the world - Lord unite us in this sign!” These are words from our 

1982 Liturgy and they should be reverberating through our parishes and churches as we go through 

this experience of broken-ness.

Unless St Augustine’s is different from every other parish, there will be division on this issue within our 

church family as there is everywhere else. There will be different opinions on what is acceptable and what 

is not. There will be different levels of experience and different levels of theological and biblical knowledge. 

However, we mustn’t let the whole debate divide us as a congregation. We have to respect the opinion 

and stance of others even if it is not our own, and learn to live with this broken-ness within the Body of 

Christ. We look to healing, we look for wholeness.

The discussion will go on, and on and on, until at the end, Synods and Bishops and Provincial Boards and 

Committees will make recommendations, after seeking our opinions and listening to the debate from 

every angle. We simply have to trust that Our Lord will guide the Church into all truth.

Theological and biblical stances can be compared with each camp making their own sandcastles on the 

beach. Churches of different denominations can be compared in a similar fashion. We like and admire 

our own sandcastles, and think them to be just the job. “If only the rest of the people on the beach had 

sandcastles like ours, then the beach would be a better place to be!”, say some. Others wonder at the di-

versity of the sandcastles and say, “Isn’t it wonderful that we are not all the same, and that differing opin-

ions on how a sandcastle should look make this beach such a wonderful place to be!”

Such is the Body of Christ, and we all have our own castles in the sand.

One day the tide will come in and wash all our castles away, and there will be left only one thing – a big 

man with outstretched arms and bleeding palms, crying out for resurrection.

Little Jackie Brown is to be baptised this morning.

Come one, come all to a night of brilliant African Praise from the people of The Chat House in Maryhill.

Friends’ AGM plus snacks and glass of wine. (After main Service)