In the first, someone was found early in the day grasping a the church railings and in a clearly distressed state. On refusing help from an ambulance crew, the police then got involved. And after that, I’ve no idea what happened.

All this was just being explained to me when I arrived at about 9.30 only for a confused person who had been sleeping rough to appear in the church. There was violence and anger in his eyes and when startled he threatened me with his fists. It was one of those incidents in which I was unharmed physically but which shook me up a bit. I’d guess that being physically threatened at one time or another is part of the experience of most clergy though never acceptable behaviour.

This one was a clear case for a fast 999 call. Once again, the police were very helpful and once again, I don’t really know the end of the story.

This kind of thing always makes you think quite a lot about what you are about. St Mary’s aspires to be welcoming for everyone. It isn’t, of course. There are limits to that welcome and violent behaviour is way beyond our limit.

I worked in a college chaplaincy for a while which had the slogan, “Welcoming all who come in peace”. I think that is close to the kind of welcome that we can offer. Generally speaking, I think we can be a welcoming and inclusive church very easily amongst those who do not threaten others. (Some threats are not merely physical, either). Our welcome to those who threaten others is very certainly guarded and clearly partial. That is the way it is, though an uncomfortable truth.

It was then on into the Eucharist, though by this time, several of us at the front had been dealing with difficult things. Thus is was that we started to forget this and that and somewhere the priest’s host ended up on the floor before it was consecrated. It was substituted quietly and professionally by the servers who had also had to substitute a microphone which had been forgotten as nerves were jangled at the beginning.

I’d also forgotten to set the video camera, so I’m afraid you don’t get to hear John Riches’s sermon, which focussed, rather appropriately, on madness and exorcism and which lots of people wanted to talk about afterward.

So, it was one of those naught for your comfort kinds of mornings. Who said religion would be comfortable, eh?

Here is the text:

Can I say how wonderful it is to have jazz in church today. We don’t do this kind of thing often enough. I know of a number of American churches which have built up a special ministry, scheduling jazz vespers several times a year and reaching out to a whole new set of people who find their own spirituality reflected in the music.

Indeed, it is great to be able to have the jazz musicians with us today in celebratory mood. The last time I had jazz in a service it was at a funeral, probably the biggest funeral that I’ve ever taken.

It was for a University Principle who died in office. I’ve taken a number of similar services and I have learned that Universities tend to go to town on funerals for their great and their good. This one was no exception. Several thousand people gathered for it and it took place in the local town hall. Not only because none of the churches were big enough, but also because the man who had died was not supposed to be a believer. As I planned and prepared for the service, I kept getting told the same thing – He was an atheist, you know. Make sure you don’t mention God.

But when it came to music, it was decided that they would have a jazz band, for jazz had been his passion.

I dutifully prepared a careful sermon which barely mentioned God at all, only to arrive to find a Dixieland band playing Just a closer walk with thee over and over again as the coffin was brought slowly down the street and into the hall. And when all was done, the most triumphant and exuberant When the saints go marching in as the coffin was lifted to be taken out of the hall. So much for not mentioning God.

Jazz is clearly music that gets down into people’s souls, probably because that is where it comes from.

As I read the readings this morning, I found that I could hear the jazz behind the words. Firstly David weeping over Saul and Jonathan. Who cannot hear the blues when that passage is read?

David, weeping over Saul the flawed king, his predecessor and Saul’s son, Jonathan the man whom David loved above all others. Saul and Jonathan, beloved and lovely! In life and in death they were not divided; they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions. Oh how the mighty are fallen, oh how the weapons of war have perished.

You can hear the sad heartbeat of the blues right through David’s lamentation and if you can’t, you have no soul!

The same blues could be heard in the gospel too – the wailing and the weeping over the synagogue leader’s dead daughter.

I remember a long time ago when I was very much younger than I am now trying to play the blues on the piano. And I remember a pianist hearing me who just shrugged and said, “You got to go through the blues before you can play the blues”.

I now know what he meant. That blue-tone, blue mood, blue sorrow is a part of life for us all. And never trust religious people who say it is not so.

But never trust religious teachers who preach nothing else either. Sometimes, God-willing, the spark of creativity comes from the very real experiences of sorrow and sadness that we have. Sometimes it is in exactly that place that inspiration takes us by the scruff of the neck. Sometimes it is right there in the darkest places where we learn to sing a new song – a canticum novum as the choir just sang.

The blues may be real for all of us, but it is not the only song we sing.

And it is in music sometimes that we are lifted beyond ourselves. Let us celebrate this day, at the end of the choir term this morning the fact that music lifts us up. Many people come here week by week and many simply drop in from time to time who can testify to the fact that the music that we make here has lifted and encouraged and inspired and refreshed them. Long may that be so.

The jazz that we share on this special occasion has all kinds of metaphors that we could think about for living a spiritual, connected, vibrant life.

We’ve thought about the reality of singing the blues. I’ve mentioned the sparks of creativity in this music. There is more too. What about the call and response patterns of jazz. One musician calling to another and then getting a reply, a response, and answer. Taking a theme and then playing with it. Throwing it back changed.

It is a great metaphor for living a life with God. We are thrown great themes – life, death, the mystery and complexity of relationship. These themes are God’s call to us. The way we improvise our responses is our answer to that calling. And we are thrown back creative riffs by the divine musician – here is love, here is passion, here is creativity and here is growth.

Let the spirit within us flourish. Let the music sing!

And in that singing is the hope we preach here in this church. That though the blues are real, that though our sorrows are true on this earth, even yet, our God will wipe away the tear from every eye and every soul end up singing for joy, when the saints go marching in.

I don’t know what brought you here today. I don’t know what you were expecting. I don’t know what hopes or dreams you brought through the door with you when you arrived.

I ask you only this – to let the music sing within you. You know how it is when you hear a catchy beat and your foot begins to tap. Or you catch a tune in your head and you can’t let it go. Or you hear someone singing and can’t help but sing along.

Let it be so and let it be so with the news that God loves you and those you love and those you find hardest to love too.

And let your feet dance and your heart sing and let us improvise and create a whole new heavenly chorus to the rhythm of the heartbeat of faith:

God is love. God is love. God is love.

This morning seems to be a morning for boating stories – so here is one of mine. I remember a June evening some ago – I was away on holiday, sailing with my friends who have a boat. And I remember hearing the forecast come on the radio. Winds force six to seven, eight for a time. And even as I stand here now, I can remember what it felt like to hear those words. Force six to seven, eight for a time.

Those words meant that we had to run for the relative safety of a loch. Put down the anchor and wait for the night to pass. And I can remember the wind. Force six, force seven, maybe force eight for a time. And I can remember the boat hurling around its anchor. And I can remember feeling sick even though we were not going anywhere. And I can remember looking out increasingly often as the night went on, to check how close we were to the nearby rocks.

And I remember trying to sleep in the midst of the storm. And I remember this story coming to mind, of Jesus in the boat. And I can remember myself, desperate for it to be over. Praying for peace.

And that is the first way of reading the story – to take it at face value. The disciples were in a boat. They got into trouble on the water. They were frightened. They were anxious. They turned to Jesus who said – peace be still and even the wind and wave obeyed him.

But what about another way of reading the story? On a calm June evening this week I saw the sea, and I was thinking about this text for Sunday. And there was a gentle breeze and the sun was shining. And as I thought, I thought, "how could I ever believe that God could calm a storm? Storms are a part of the life God has given us – he couldn't stop a storm just because I asked him to."

And as I turned this over, I thought to myself, perhaps it was a story that the disciples told years later to remind themselves of what life was like when Jesus walked with them. Whenever life was hard. Whenever there was a struggle, whenever they felt blown about, they only had to turn to him and everything seemed calm. When I was safe, I was able to see this story as an allegory of life. Whenever we need calm and peace, all we have to do is call on God.

So there we are – two different was in which I have thought about this story. Which one was right?

Which one comes most naturally to you this morning?

I wouldn't like to say which one was right. Each interpretation is possible. Perhaps it just emphasises that we have to build up our repertoire of bible stories and call on them when we need them.

In our first bible story this morning, we read of someone for whom the storms of life were raging within. Saul had what we might call in our euphemistic age an anger management problem. His rage was violent. His emotions knew no calm. He is a reminder that sometimes those whom God knows themselves know no peace. Religion guarantees no immunity from torment. And it felt as though God had departed from Saul and he was jealous of David.

The mental illness that Saul suffers makes him unbearable. The strife and torment, the raging storm inside him is something all of us will know either in ourselves or someone we know.

What clues are there as to what to do about it?

For Christians, turning to God is a part of our response to trouble. But I think we need to wise up and get real about what that means. For that can seem all too pious.

Turning to God sometimes means turning to God’s presence in other people. Turning to God in the stability of friends and letting them shield us from the storm. Turning to God sometimes in looking for help from a therapist or someone to accompany us through trouble as a pilot nudges a ship into safe harbour. Turning to God when the storms of life rage inside us sometimes means turning to modern medicines created by people in whom God’s creative spark was active as they have studied and developed things that can sometimes be what we need to put us on an even keel once again.

For Christians turning to God is a part of our response to trouble, but we should not limit that to simply sitting on our own beseeching God to help us. Sometimes that is a part of our experience and sometimes peace and meditation and prayer can help. But God is alive and in the world in people other than ourselves and that is sometimes where we need to look for help.

Turning to God to search for peace is a part of the answer to storm force emotions. For peace is part of the promise. Peace is what we bid one another at the beginning and the middle and the end of our liturgy. And peace is the hope in the beginning, the middle and the end of all our emotions.

Turning to God was what the disciples did in the boat. And Jesus said "Peace be still!"

And I find it easy to imagine Jesus saying that "Peace, be still!" but I find it harder to work out whether he was speaking to the sea as Mark suggests, or to the disciple who was fearful.

And as we turn to God, we do draw closer to the one in the boat who was able to sleep through the storm unafraid.

There is someone to speak to. There is someone to cry to. There is someone who knew what it was like to walk this earth. To live, to weep, to hurt, to suffer, to mourn, to die.

And as we draw nearer to Jesus – the sleeper in the boat we may discover the quiet power of God. Calm in the midst of the storm, a voice coming from the whirlwinds of life saying over and over again – Peace,… be still.

Amen

I was asked this week if I would go to Edinburgh to speak at Pride Scotia, the annual Scottish Gay Pride march and celebration. Thus it was that at 1230 yesterday I was standing on the top of an open-topped bus alongside some a number of politicians addressing the addressing the assembled crowd through a slightly underpowered microphone system. Along with the politicians I was also asked to carry the banner at the front of the march. As you can probably tell from this photograph, it did rain, just a little, on our parade. However spirits were not dampened. (There are lots more pics being uploaded to Flickr – see here).

Thanks to those Episcopalians who showed up. It is always great to know you have friends in an unpredicatable crowd.

As it was, there was a certain amount of whooping and a-hollering when it was my turn.

Here is what I said:

Good afternoon. My name is Kelvin Holdsworth, I am a priest of the Scottish Episcopal Church. I am a gay man and I am proud to be here.

This afternoon, I’m proud to stand alongside Patrick Harvey and other Scottish Parliamentarians. Together, they have recently made Scotland safer for those of us who are gay. The passing of the hate crimes legislation is a huge milestone. It is great news.

But what I want to say today is that we want more.

The hate crimes legislation means that people will be dealt with more severely if their crimes are motivated by homophobia. That will make Scotland safer for us all. It is great news. But it isn’t enough yet. We must not rest until every street in Scotland is safe for every member of our community. We will not have achieved what we want until every street is a safe place. And we need every workplace to be a safe place for gay people. And we need every school to be a safe place for gay kids and gay teachers. And we need every church and faith community to be a safe place for gay people too. Those are the things that we need to make homophobia unthinkable.

This afternoon, the LGBT Network and the Equality network are urging people to sign a petition to the Scottish Parliament to change the law even more. Before you go today, make sure you sign the petition calling on the Scottish Parliament to allow gay and lesbian couples to get married. It is one of the next steps we are campaigning for.

I want every gay couple to be able to walk down the street holding hands if they want to do so.

And I want every gay couple to be able to walk down the aisle holding hands if they want to too.

We can make that happen. We can get our parliamentarians to change the law.

When you go past the parliament today, make as much noise as you can. Whistle and yell and cheer for all that has been accomplished in making Scotland a better place for LGBT people. And whistle and yell and shout for more. It is time to say, Separate is not Equal. Our relationships are as passionate and loving as anyone else’s. We have the same potential for commitment as anyone else does. We deserve the same rights as anyone else has.

Today you will also see people wearing something new. The white knot. Its a campaigning symbol that people are taking up all over the world in this campaign for equal marriage rights. A simple white ribbon tied in a knot is being worn in America and all over the world. A white knot because we believe that every couple should have the right to tie the knot.

So sign the petition. Make a big noise by the parliament. Wear your White Knot with pride. Thank you for listening. My name is Kelvin Holdsworth from the Scottish Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow. Have a great Pride. Keep safe. And God bless you all.

1030 am. All welcome.

You just want to be there, don’t you?

Scottish Episcopalians who want to join the march together are encouraged to meet at the top of Carrubers Close at 12 noon. Carrubers Close is the set of steps up from Jeffrey Street to the Royal Mile which have Old St Paul’s side entrance half way up. Kimberly will be waiting at the top of the stairs to rally the troops. Dress: clerical shirt (optional) + ear plugs + white knot + rainbows. (Steal the regalia from a Cursillista if necessary). Straight friends and family members are particularly welcome.

I’ll be speaking about the worldwide white knot movement seeking equal rights for gay and lesbian couples to tie the knot.

Last year, blogging was much more mainstream at synod. We have internet access in the hall now and you don’t need to dash out to have coffee in a wifi enabled coffee show to post updates as I did the first year I did it.

This year it was the turn of twitter to fascinate the episcopalian technorati. A number of us were doing the one line updates directly from the synod floor. If you don’t know what twitter is, check out this article which will tell you more.

One of the things that the I and C Board had arranged was for Mother Dunblane to come and give a lunchtime seminar on twittering for beginners. It certainly had the desired effect, with a number of people, including the Bishop of Edinburgh having a go.

We had feedback via twitter during the synod from, amongst others, clergy who could not be at synod, someone in the Alban Institute in the states, someone in Kentucky (one of Glasgow and Galloway’s companion dioceses) and Dave Walker the Cartoon Blogger (who put it on the Church Times blog).

Meanwhile, out in a world made darker by repression and violence, twitter is allowing Iranians to tell the truth about what they are seeing on the streets.

Twitter is just fast and furious one-line blogging. And as Bishop Pierre has observed, it gives us revolutionary power.

It is a revolution inside the church, as well as outside, and you can find me revolting, twittering here.

Any ideas what we should use it for next?

And all this came up again last week. In the long debate about mission and in other parts of the synod, the ethos of the Scottish Episcopal Church was claimed to be being an inclusive church. I’ve long had a suspicion that part of this is that Episcopalians in Scotland are all a bit odd in one way or another and when we say we are an inclusive church, part of what we mean is, “Thank God, I’ve found a church that welcomes me. There is no-where else to go”.

Anyway, on and on it went. “We are an inclusive church” sayeth the crowd.

Yet I’ve come to the conclusion that this is aspirational talk rather than something that we have already achieved. Some of the most interesting things said at the synod were when people said things that suggested that perhaps the church was not quite yet as inclusive as they would like it to be.

Marion Chatterley got us to agree to a gender audit.

Analu Waller reminded us that cutting grants for buildings could mean cutting support for access for disabled people. She also challenged us to go back to our congregations and count the disabled people there and then ask whether we are really an inclusive church.

Ian Ferguson from the big evangelical congregation Trinity Westhill in Aberdeenshire said, “Inclusion is not just about the gay commmunity”. (And everyone nodded along).

I said that the bishops’ current policy on gay blessings and ministry was not something we could all support. (The bishops are directly stating that they are discriminating against gay people for the first time in our history).

And then there was the Faith and Order Board saying that inclusive language amendments to the liturgy would do tucked into the back of the book as an appendix of permitted texts. It was me again, who reminded them that the liturgy committee has been trying to get us to think of liturgy as formative for faith and that making inclusive language merely optional was not really the kind of thing that lots of us are hoping for.

All these things were comments from people complaining that we are not inclusive enough for them. Yet still we say (and indeed our new Primus seemed to reiterate), “We are an inclusive church”. It is a distinct theme and one which needs a bit of thought throughout the church.

What’s the most important next step?

Highlights were the Amnesty stall, the astonishing Falun Gong people meditating in absolute stillness whilst all around them was noisy and busy and the LGBT Youth stall. I’ve not seen LGBT Youth take a stall at the W E Festival before but they certainly knew what they were doing – a steady line of parents and children queuing for facepainting. Brilliant.

Is it next week that it is the Gibson Street Fair? Must try to pop in on St Silas – they are having their open church afternoon which was fab last year. Oh, and I received a request for liturgical equipment from Nick Cox who is organising some of it. Must get in touch to pass over the goods.

Congratulations to Bishop David and best wishes for the next part of his journey