Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Rev David Gordon, who is the minister of Kirkintilloch Baptist church.
The Rev David Gordon (Kirkintilloch Baptist Church)
Presiding Officer, members of the Scottish Parliament, ladies and gentlemen. Early on 16 May 1998, a bus left from Kirkintilloch Baptist church with people of all ages. The destination was Birmingham. The purpose was to participate in the Jubilee 2000 campaign to form a human chain around the International convention centre to coincide with the meeting of the G7 leaders. The aim was to agitate for the cancellation of debts owed by some of the world’s poorest countries.
They resisted the temptation to privatise the gospel concerned only with personal salvation but insisted that it was also about their relations with brothers and sisters all around the world and the structural sins that deny so many of them an opportunity in life.
The churches went into glorious overdrive, with a public and political mission to cancel debt and change the world in favour of the poorest. They became as biased as God. One of our convictions as Baptist Christians is a long-held belief in prophetic and dissident sociopolitical engagement: believing in the separation of church and state, yet actively challenging—often from the margins—established policies and institutions from a gospel perspective.
In our following of Jesus, that means having a double vision of the way that things are and the way that things can be from the perspective of the kingdom of God. Perhaps this poem, which is entitled “The Prophet’s Speech” and is based on the vision of the apostle John in the book of Revelation, is a reminder to all of us not only of how society should be, but of how it one day will be.
“I was standing on the Necropolis, looking down over the city;
and the cold blue autumn sky broke open over my head;
I saw Glasgow, the holy city, coming down out of heaven;
shining like a rare jewel, sparkling like clear water in the eye of the sun;
and all the sickness was gone from the city,
and there were no more suburbs or schemes;
no difference between Bearsden and Drumchapel.
I saw the Clyde running with the water of life;
as bright as crystal,
as clear as glass,
the children of Glasgow swimming in it.
And the Spirit showed me the tree of life
growing on Glasgow Green.
I looked out, and there were no more homeless people,
no women working the streets,
no more junkies up the closes,
no more rapists,
no more stabbings,
no more IRA graffiti; no more Orange marches,
because there was no more hate!
And none of the children were ever abused,
because the people’s sex was full of justice and of joy.
I saw an old woman throw back her hair,
and laugh like a girl;
and when the sky closed back, her laughter rang in my head
for days and days.
This is what I saw, looking over the Gallowgate,
Looking up from the city of death;
and I knew then that there would be a day of resurrection,
and I believe
there will be a day of resurrection.”
Thank you.