There's always likely to be an argument about what matters most, who we are, or what we do. Now and again someone comes along and shows how daft that distinction is. Such people's actions flow directly from who they are; in such people action and being are congruent. Bobby Gemmell was a man like that.
As a young Baptist pastor in High Blantyre from 1967-71, Bobby gathered a large crowd of local lads at the church for games, friendship and a safe place. The clerical collar, polo-neck jumper, jeans and Chelsea boots were his preferred dress code. These were important early statements of Bobby's effectiveness as an approachable and reliable presence in a local community.
When in 1972 he preached at Drumchapel Baptist Church as a possible candidate, his sermon was interrupted by a chip pan thrown through the church window mid-sermon. Thinking there was no chance he would now become their minister, the congregation learned from the start that Bobby sensed God's call as it came through desperate people's calls for help, and for attention and to be heard. The right man in the right place - as he would often be for so many people.
Drumchapel in the 1970's was tougher than almost anywhere else in Scotland. Bobby and Marion, with their three young children moved to Drumchapel, and Bob kept doing what he always did. In the context of a small church community in a large housing estate with huge challenges for those who lived there, he asked how the good news of Jesus could be shown and shared. He quickly realised that the problems of a crowded and socially deprived housing estate couldn't be solved by a wee church just doing its usual thing.
The church gave him permission to go part time and qualify in social work, a move that enabled him to begin tackling the systems and attitudes that made life in his neighbourhood so hard for folk. He took time to learn where the levers were, and what the mechanisms that ground people down no matter how hard they tried. Poverty and addictions, violence and insecurity, truancy and criminality all have root causes, and they have to be understood and confronted, and resources found to start to sort them.
For that to happen someone has to be an advocate for the vulnerable, a voice for the marginalised, and a presence amongst those who need a trusted friend who will be there in the dark places. Bob was what he did, and what he did flowed from a grace often humbly unaware of the way he invited and attracted such trust. Some people talk about speaking truth to power. Oh Bobby could do that, but he could also teach truth to the powerless, the truth of their worth, the truth of God's love, and the truth that keeps hope alive when so much else tries to kill it.
Throughout his ministry, (and Bob was a minister of Christ his whole life from ordination till the day he died), Bobby saw the Gospel as showing the love of Christ to 'the least of these'. For 5 years in Glasgow, Bobby was a pioneer minister in social care, overseeing the Elpis Centre for homeless girls to help them off the street, supervising several flats for people with addictions, and advising on various other expressions of Christian social care within and beyond the Baptist communities in Scotland.
This was a man who heard Jesus parable as the core of his calling - "I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me a drink, sick and in prison and you visited me, naked and you clothed me..." Bobby never spiritualised those words; this text he took with glad and serious literalness, 'forasmuch as you did it to the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it for me." Forget the more sophisticated hermeneutics of suspicion and reduction. He lived by the hermeneutic of trust and compassion and a vision that could see behind a presented persona, a person to be related to, cared for, listened to, understood, helped - and in that person the presence and call of Christ.
Bob Gemmell loved Scotland, especially the Highlands and Islands. When local authority funding dried up and the Elpis Centre faced closure, Bob found generous and widespread sponsor support for his walk of the West Highland Way, and prolonged the life of the Centre and the provision for its residents. Dozens of men from Glasgow whose lives were a long struggle with addictions, were taken to the beauty and healing quietness of Colonsay to stay in the manse for a week or two. Bob took the island church services, and arranged whatever travel, catering and activities were needed to make a holiday for people whose lives had previously been so restless, and driven, and often despairing.
He returned for some years to Baptist Ministry in Duncan Street Edinburgh, then moved into social care for the elderly. From then on he was bi-vocational, preaching most Sundays, available for pastoral support and spiritual direction, and managing a number of care homes until his retirement about 15 years ago. Even since then, he was regularly preaching, helping out local churches as interim minister, and always, but always, a warm and sensible advisor of those looking for spiritual guidance, common sense, and a friend to walk some hard miles with them.
Bobby's daughter Fiona shared a lovely and loving tribute about her dad yesterday. Amongst the words she used three seemed to sum up Bobby's way of being: fairness, humility and generosity. These are barcode qualities of Christian service. Justice, the right of each person to have a chance in life, to have support when they're in trouble, to have a friend in the loneliest places. Humility, the capacity to achieve so much without ever thinking they have, the gentleness that doesn't force the issue but persuades, and hopes and stays faithful. Generosity, which is essentially self-giving, that habit of the heart that looks at people and situations and responds with what they have to give, to make it better.
Bobby's wife Marion, described Bobby as 'a sower of seeds'. Much of his ministry and investment in people was like Jesus' parable of the sower. Like Jesus, throwing seed all around him, not worried about where the seed landed, knowing that some of it would grow and some of it wouldn't. But on he went, sowing, scattering, and believing in the power of the seed. Bobby Gemmell's combination of shrewd realism and non-judgemental acceptance of people where they are, was a gift of the Holy Spirit. He rarely tried to double guess where the good soil was - he sowed seeds, of encouragement, accompaniment, kindness, understanding, and always, a loving respect for 'the least of these.' And he rejoiced every time the green shoots began to show.
Bobby's theology arose out of his lifelong struggle on behalf of those who needed a supporting voice, or a second chance, or someone to believe in them, or a strong advocate who knew what he was talking about and could push back at systems that are seldom designed to fulfil their own purpose of social welfare and supported living. And so for Bobby, theology shaped his political vision, and both arose out of a robust ethic of Christian love and a Christian humanism by which each person is valued because made in the image of God. Bob saw the inherent dignity in people, looked on each person as God-loved and one in whom Christ is to be met - 'inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these...you did it to me.' And undergirding his theology, politics and ethics, his deep love of Christ crucified for the sins of the world, and risen in the triumph of love over hate, hope over despair, and forgiveness over every guilt. Bobby's vocation was to make that Gospel credible by enacting and speaking the love of God.
On a last personal note. Bobby and Marion have been our friends for over 50 years. Bobby married Sheila and I in High Blantyre in 1972. We have stayed good friends, and though years could go past without us seeing them, they have been guiding landmarks in our own ways, as we too have tried to live the Christ-life in the service of the church and beyond. Many people will miss Bobby; but many, many people will also thank God that, by a providence we can never explain or second-guess, Bobby Gemmell touched their lives, and sowed seeds that made life better for them. Bobby was one of very few people I've known who actually lived out Frederick Buechner's definition of vocation: "Vocation is where our deep gladness meets the world's deep need."
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