Sermons

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” Luke 17:5
If you were met at the entrance to Pont Street by members of our welcome team –
with the question: Good morning, how is your faith today?”
a sort of COVID era, thermometer test of spiritual health;
how would you answer?
Confident to enter? Or a little uneasy –
a sneaking suspicion that you were entering under false pretences;
uncertainties, guilts, angers – “unchristian” thoughts – all potentially infectious?
“Good morning, how is your faith today?”
Fine thank you. Excellent actually.
reasonable, sincere – mixed, faltering, frail?

American writer and theologian, Kathleen Norris recorded:
“Faith is still a surprise to me, as I lived without it for so long.
As a child and into adult years, –
she had no part in, or connection to, a church community;
she “found faith” in her forties;
Reflecting on the journey of her spiritual life:
“Now I believe faith was merely dormant,
in the years I was not conscious of its presence.
(And) now I have become better at trusting that it is there,
even when I can’t feel it, or when God seems absent from the world.”
For Norris faith is less something you have/don’t have,
more, something you do/don’t do.
“Good morning, how is your faith today?”

On the road to Jerusalem, the followers of Jesus asked/propositioned/demanded/begged (?)
“Increase our faith!” Luke 17:5

It sounds such a worthy request – to be applauded –
make us better followers, more faithful.
Yet, this doesn’t appear to make the disciples top of the class.
Why so?
The Teacher is after all not against faith.
In the Gospels he commends it on various occasions:
the woman who controversially anoints his feet,
the Samaritan leper who returns to thank him,
the hemorrhaging woman who grasps his cloak,
the Roman centurion, symbol of the hated occupiers:.
“Such faith I have not seen in all of Israel!”

Why do these receive commendations,
while the apostles’ plea appears rebuffed?

It seems the only thing those commended have in common
is that they turn to Jesus.
Even when it is difficult – particularly when it is difficult –
they trust him.

When the disciples ask for increased faith – Jesus takes a different tack.
Maybe he senses their request for more faith at this point
is actually a request for a safer passage.
A faith that will somehow carry/cushion them – inoculate/vaccinate,
against the suffering/along the way, that Jesus said was his own.

So, No – followed by the heart of Jesus’ reply:
“If you had faith the size of a mustard seed,
you could say to this mulberry tree,
‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”
A characteristic exaggeration to make the point.

Don’t overlook what you have;
no faith is too small or insignificant.
The smallest seed contains tree-like potential.
Don’t overlook what you have;
The implication: “You have faith already.”
“Make our faith greater!” “No need,” says Jesus. “You’ve already got plenty.
Do faith — and faith will increase.

The Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor writes
that we waste time and energy
“looking for the key to the treasure box of More.”
We lack the imagination that we already have everything we need.
As she puts it, the thing missing “is our consent to be where we are.”

Last week our visiting preacher, Revd Christopher Rowe spoke to us
about his parish of Colston Milton, in North Glasgow,
outlining some of the factors that make it an area of severe deprivation.
Yet, bleak as that sounded, what was clearly conveyed ,
was that he loves ministering in Milton.

At the start of their Sunday service, they begin with the call and response:
“Milton belongs to God – the City of Glasgow and all its people.”
There is no guarantee that his church building will survive
or the congregation with its minister will continue in its current form.
But they he appear to have learnt to live with that –
Remaining committed to that place and its people
whether there are recognisible signs of success or not.
The small, but growing congregation,
consent to be where they are,
Showing others, like ourselves, who have so much more available resource,
what enough might look like – enough faith that is.

“Good morning. How is our faith today?”

This week, news of the appointment of a New Archbishop of Canterbury, Dame Sarah Mullaly – former Chief Nurse and current Bishop of London.
One of her predecessors, Rowan Williams wrote:
“Faith is most fully itself and most fully life-giving
when it opens your eyes and uncovers for you
a world larger than you thought –
and of course, therefore a world that’s a bit more alarming than you ever thought.

If we were to consider/pray for/do our faith,
What would it open our eyes to?
This morning’s combination of Harvest celebration and Harvest Appeal,
combined with baptisms for Charlie, Freddie and Isla.
offer various potential avenues to explore –
inspiring some to adorn the sanctuary with the fruits of the season,
or bring food for the hungry;
some to welcome or cook, to sing or pray;
to gift money or precious time;
or parents, to place a precious child
in a circle of belonging and meaning,
beyond the familiarities and securities of home.

There are of course wider horizons, beyond our walls.
Again, the question, doing faith, what might our eyes open on to?

Over the summer, a chance meeting with the parent of a former Hill House pupil –
the school that comes to St Columba’s for its weekly Wednesday assembly.
In the course of the conversation, the mother, who is Jewish,
explained that she was considering relocating her family to Israel,
because she felt it increasingly dangerous to stay.

This week two men lost their lives, with others injured,
in the attack of the Manchester synagogue, on Yom Kippur.
I do not know what/how this touches or bypasses the life of St Columba’s,
but as the example of a small urban priority parish in North Glasgow
may have something to tell us,
so I finish with words sent this week.
They are from a letter sent from The Parish of St Clement & St James,
in the north part of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
(the borough in which St Columba’s resides.) –
the parish which encompasses the Grenfell tower –
A letter of condolence to their neighbours at Holland Park Synagogue:
“to express more our sorrow over the dreadful attack in Manchester
and our solidarity with our neighbours in the local Jewish community.”

The letter continued:
“We are blessed in this part of London to live in an area of extraordinary diversity
with, in St James’ Gardens alone,
a synagogue, a mosque and a church
and, just around the corner, the Sikh Gurdwara.
Members of the parish of St Clement & St James
cherish our relationship with the Holland Park Synagogue
and have greatly valued events like the Faith Walk
to local places of worship earlier this year,
our participation in Mitzvah Day
and the guided visits that children from our parish primary school
have been able to make to the synagogue in recent years.”

Last night at a long-planned RBKC council meeting held in St James’ church,
before the meeting began, “I thought you would want to know that everyone stood in an act of remembrance, followed by a minute’s silence out of respect for those who died yesterday.”
Signed, Fr Gareth Wardell, Vicar of The Parish of St Clement & St James, W11

“Faith is not synonymous with certainty …
(but) is the decision to keep your eyes open.”

Faith – small yet precious, fragile but resilient, battered but beautiful,
Faith – dormant or developing; hopeful and humble, serving and sufficient,
Faith Enough; already with us,
if we would but keep our eyes open.

“One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.
He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him –
and he was a Samaritan.” Luke 17:15-16

From a decade ago – a short period of children’s birthday parties;
a variety of church halls, but one particular Party Entertainer –
definitely the flavour of the month.
Rory and Rory’s routine became, for a while, familiar.
To the birthday child: What’s your name? Robbie/Sophie.
How old are you? Four
Are you married?
Squeals of giggly, shocked and indignant No!!!
I loved that joke; it never got old, even as I anticipated it.

Then having singled out/made special the birthday child,
Rory would build up the suspense for his first magic trick.
With theatrical flourish he would wave a hand over the object to be transformed.
Nothing.
He would try again – seemingly at a loss.
Nothing.
Perhaps a suggestion from the mini audience.
“Say the magic word!”
What?
Say the magic word!!
Then to the birthday child: What is the magic word?
Memorably, on one occasion – the birthday child replied shyly: “Please?”
Rory, perhaps used to more raucous crowds, remained calm.
“Please is a beautiful word, but its’ not the magic word.
Can you think of another magic word?
“Thank you?”
Half the parents in that church hall reached for their handkerchiefs –
the other half wondering why their own offspring would never give those answers.
It took a heckle from another four-year-old, impatient for the magic to happen.
“Abracadabra! That’s the magic word.”

“On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.”

Jesus, approaching his own high noon in Jerusaelm,
city where the prophets sometimes die,
in the borderlands, somewhere between Galilee and Samaria,
a place of peripheries, on the edge of elsewhere.
Confronted by those iconic outcasts – lepers.
Ritually unclean, they must abide by strict codes of conduct, cut off from normal society.
One a foreigner, the other nine, by implication, Jewish;
the disease that disregards best laid borders of men.
All ten banished from mainstream life.

Keeping their distance, “Master have mercy on us!” they call out.
The reply, sounds curt; yet contrasts the prohibition that keeps them off the road.
“Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
The priests, parole board gatekeepers, responsible for verifying ritual purity,
able to certificate the clean back into society;
custodians of who is in and who is out.

“And as they went, they were made clean.”
Something in Jesus’ attention and address persuades those roadside exiles
to begin a journey home.
Encourages the formerly hopeless, to take the first step.
And as they went, they were healed.
There is a bravery in the response of the ten.
And their reward – a reintegration to all that makes them fully human —
family, community, companionship, and intimacy.
Restored to their own skins, released to embrace and be embraced;
eat, play and pray in community,
reclaim all that the disease stole from them.

That in itself is a wondrous story,
in line with numerous other gospel encounters with a healing Jesus.
But then comes the upgrade – from healing story to wholeness story.
Ten are cured.
Nine do as instructed, turn towards the priests,
and as far as we know, re-enter former lives –
though like soldiers returning from the Front,
one wonders how easy it was to genuinely reintegrate.
But one departs the script, countering Jesus’ instruction.
And he – and this is the punchline – a foreigner.

By the first century, the enmity between the Jews and Samaritans
was old and entrenched.
The two groups disagreed about everything that mattered to them:
how to honour God, how to interpret the scriptures, where to worship.
They avoided social contact whenever possible.
So, while one wall of separation – illness – may have been dismantled –
another – foreignness – remains. Or could do.

But, remarkably – as with that most famous parable –
it is the Samaritan singled out – the unexpected one –
who turns back, praises God, gives thanks.
And imparts a vital learning – one that Jesus holds aloft and honours.

“Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine?
Has no one returned to give praise God except this foreigner.
Then Jesus said to him, “Rise and go, your faith has made you well.” Luke 1717-19

Retired Church of Scotland minister, Revd David Donald Scott
blogged this week about how as a child
his mother insisted on him writing thank-you letters at birthdays and Christmases
and after the Sunday School Christmas Party and Summer Picnic,
he was obliged to return to the kirk and give thanks to God.

“In those days, there wasn’t much medical evidence
to support the understanding that gratitude is a healthy discipline.
Now we know that expressing gratitude can lower blood pressure and heart rate,
enable people to sleep more soundly and boost self-esteem.
It decreases feelings of resentment, jealousy, frustration, stress.
It reduces the desire for more and creates positive relationships within society.”

David Scott concludes: “We are all tempted to view the world negatively,
framing our understanding by creating stereotypes –
othering people who do not belong to our kirk, our village, our country.
Stereotypes which Jesus clearly challenges.”

“Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?
Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.’”

Today’s gospel brings to light, those who live in the shadows,
Jesus’ heart for the isolated.
Today also marks the beginning of Prisons Week.
The aim is to encourage prayer for, and awareness of,
the needs of prisoners and their families, victims of offenders, prisons staff
and all those who care within the justice system.
The prayer resources (in your Order of Service today
or available via the Prisons Week website)
take their text from Timothy – the word of God is unchained.
also heard this morning.

A prison chaplain writes:
“Sometimes, and quite understandably,
most of us really don’t want to think about prison,
or about those who populate such institutions.
Relentlessly, the media portray these places as either dark and miserable
or jolly holiday camps where anything goes.

The chaplain’s own inside experience reflects:
“What leads an individual to prison
cannot and should never be played down or justified
but for the prison chaplain who regularly meets prisoners, a bigger picture emerges.
It looks at the whole person’s life,
including the offence, previous trauma, childhood development,
relationship-deficiencies, life-choices, spirituality
and the general direction in which a person’s life up that point is heading.

The task ahead is never easy, but when faced properly and lucidly,
a solution to a person’s offending behaviour may become apparent
and the possibility of restoration or making amends can begin.”
Marcel McCarron, Managing Chaplain, HMP & YOI Bronzefield

“One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice.
He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him –
and he was a Samaritan.” Luke 17:15-16

Today’s familiar gospel is of course about the grateful Samaritan;
about the “magic” words: Thank you.
About recognising the truest source of life and wellness.
But I wonder if we overlook what the encounter meant to Jesus –
as he approached his own severest, terminal trial.
Perhaps a time of his own questioning:
Is this really to be my lot – the cup I am required to drink?
Have I got what it will take?

At yesterday’s immense and moving Memorial Service
for a teenage girl who died in tragic circumstances,
as so often, beyond the lovely spoken tributes,
it was perhaps the music that spoke most eloquently –
poignant, beautiful, sad, healing.

The deceased, was a lover of musical theatre –
So, a song from Wicked, entitled For Good.
Amongst its words:
“I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason
bringing something we must learn
and we are led to those who help us most to grow
if we let them.

That we will never meet again in this lifetime
so let me say before we part
so much of me is made of what I learned from you.

Who can say if I have been changed for the better?
Because I knew you
I have been changed for good.”

On the road to Jerusalem: ten lepers, one Jesus,
disciples then and now, looking on.
By the grace of God, each of us, changed for good.

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” Luke 14

On the day that we celebrate Lachlan’s baptism,
the allotted Gospel reading apparently declares war on family harmony.
To which you might ask: Really?
Is this the message on a day of beginning that best represents our faith?

Many years ago, a wise Roman Catholic nun confessed to me
that as a teenager, her mother had found the piece of paper
on which the daughter had written – repeatedly:
“I hate my mother! I hate my mother! I hate my mother!”
She didn’t of course; and her mother knew it.
But sometimes exaggeration is the thing.

So, to the customs and context of today’s alarming declaration.
Journeying to Jerusalem, Jesus now has something of a circus in tow –
large crowds are now follow in his wake.
Among them the committed, the curious, the critical,
the day-trippers, the what’s the latest trend hangers-on.
It is to this audience he unleashes his uncompromising words:
(versions of which occur five times in the gospels):
“If you’re not willing to take what is dearest to you,
whether plans or people, and kiss it good-bye,
you can’t be my disciple.” (The Message)

Jesus does not mean we should treat our families with antipathy or aversion.
Family, is not only a legitimate concern,
but often the source of great love and joy.
Hating parents, spouses, siblings and children is hyperbole,
to express a different truth –
authentic discipleship, may/will demand
renunciation of other priorities –
even good ones –
family, work, career,
sport, hobby, possessions, money,
club, country, tradition, even religion –
if it is distracting from the things of God.
Jesus’s calls for an allegiance above all these:
His meaning, not so much – hate the family –
But – love God most.

It is a big ask.
Jesus knows it’s hard, so he advises his listeners to stop and count the costs.
A careful builder, never breaks ground
without taking a good, hard look at his/her budget.
A wise general doesn’t declare war
unless he’s sure his troops are equipped and battle-ready.
Discipleship, Jesus warns, is not a weekend hobby or a holiday destination.
It is a is reordering of identities and priorities.
A “hating” of that which is too narrow, too exclusive;
a loyalty to that which is broad, inclusive, boundless.

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Discipleship is costly.
In parts of the world being a follower of Jesus comes with costs.
Brutal costs.
Mercifully we do not come to church under threat of violence or persecution.
But speaking out through conscience or engaging in contemporary issues
because of the demands of the gospel demands a price.

As one observer commented:
“When you invite homeless people into a respectable church,
or advocate that asylum seekers are people with the same rights as the rest of us,
or march for peace against the drum beat of war,
regardless of the cost,
Christians will not be automatically admired or applauded.
There will be accusations of irresponsibility,
a failure to honour certain precious things –
like honour and dignity, tradition, family, church and country;
The competing loyalties that Jesus warned about.”

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Jesus surveys the large crowds along for the ride:
“Go big or go home. Are you all in?
Because you will need to be, if you’re coming all the way.”

When we hear Jesus words that seem particularly harsh, uncomfortable,
it is worth remembering that his intention is always loving.
If he is critical, it is because he knows a better way.
Discipleship is costly – but so too is non-discipleship.
To not follow also comes at cost –
a kind of loss, a life half-lived.
In the phrase of a character from an Anne Tyler novel: The Amateur Marriage,
Michael Anton lived no major dramas but retained a sense of regret:
“He wished he had inhabited more of his life, used it better, filled it fuller.”

Jesus’ call to following him is the invitation to push out into deeper water –
not necessarily knowing where it will lead,
but given the promise that it will always be in the company of Christ.
Luke emphasizes what is gained:
“There is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God,
who will not get back very much more in this age,
and in the age to come eternal life.” (Luke 18:29-30)

If it is encouragement to persevere is required,
or discernment of what is ultimately of worth,
and perhaps as partial redress to “hate your family” on this baptismal day –
let me finish with words received this week –
delivered in the lyrics of a song,
Entitled, “Love behind it all.”.

Composed by a father, written for his daughter, now away from home.
It references childhood days:
Listening for a baby’s cry through the night.
Or teaching the child to ride a bike – arms out catch a fall.

All those petty rules
the don’t be lates for school
The tidy up your room
when your homework is done
That drove us both up the wall.
But there was love behind it all.

And at its conclusion:
And they say you’ll love me,
then you’ll judge me,
and maybe you’ll forgive me.
So I live in hope that one day you’ll recall
that it was love behind it all.

Parenting love a small echo of the Divine Parental Love,
Jesus words: One day I hope you’ll recall that it was love behind it all.

“Rejoice with me, for I have found the sheep that was lost.
Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that was lost.” Luke 15

A good many years ago we baptised a young girl at St Columba’s.
She was old enough to be part of the discussions
that we have before a baptismal day.
Her circumstances were a little different. She was an adopted child.
While talking with the child and her mother, I asked the girl:
“What is the best thing about family life?”
Her reply, addressing her mother: “That you found me.”

Lost and found is at the heart of today’s gospel:
Once again, (as Luke tells it)
Jesus is in trouble for hanging out with the wrong crowd;
in the eyes of respectable religious society – the deplorables.
Worse still, breaking bread together.
So, while some grumbling stomachs are being filled,
other grumbling minds are left discontent – a muttered chorus of legalism.
The “sinners,” needless to say, are fascinated by this unexpected welcome.
Their delight/incredulity, matched by Pharisee indignation.

In response, Jesus tells the guardians of religion two parables.
A shepherd leaves his flock of ninety-nine
to look for a single lamb that is lost.
He searches until he finds it, and when he does,
he carries that one lamb home on his shoulders,
Leaving the ninety nine in the wilderness?
Intent only on holding a party in celebration
of the one who had wandered off.
Not so much amazing grace as ridiculous shepherding.
No way to keep a flock; utterly irresponsible.
No bother: This shepherd just wants to celebrate.
“Come rejoice with me, neighbours, look who I’ve found.”

In the second, a woman loses one of her ten silver coins.
Immediately, she lights a lamp and sweeps her entire house,
Searching every dusty nook and cob-webbed cranny,
until she finds it.
Then, like the shepherd, she calls the community to celebrate:
“Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.”
A nun who I used to visit regularly
would always answer her apartment doorbell ring with:
“Come in, come in. Welcome and rejoice!”
Before you would then hear the click of the building’s front door latch.
Welcome and rejoice. Rejoice, says the shepherd. Rejoice says the homemaker.

The beauty of parables – their durability –
is surely because as stories
they will not be constrained by single explanation –
like a mathematical formula.
Parables shift in significance and understanding,
as we hear them at different stages of life and circumstance.
So, it is quite possible to hear these parables as promise of mercy;
or challenge to hard-heartedness. Or both.

Who are the lost sheep? Who comes to mind?
Rough sleeper, the addict not yet in recovery,
the reckless teenager, the embittered neighbour?
Maybe – but what about us –
members of a well-established Christian congregation,
with a history of which we are proud?

According to the parables,
being lost happens to the “faithful”.
The sheep that goes astray is already part of the flock;
the tenth coin was already precious to the woman.
These tales are not about lost outsiders finding salvation and joining the flock.
They are about the already-believers who lose their way.

There are many forms of lostness and many causes –
sometimes through poor choices, of course,
but sometimes through circumstances beyond our making.
A serious illness, a premature death;
a redundancy or a relationship dies;
children go off the rails;
an addiction or despair finds a stranglehold.

Things can go either way:
for some it is the moment that they lean most heavily –
perhaps for the first time – on their faith.
The belief that God holds them still – even in the dark.

For others – the faith they thought was there,
secure for so many years – turns to ash.
Scripture, prayer, worship, belief dries up –
while the Almighty goes AWOL.

To which these parables might remind:
Being lost is not blasphemous;
it is part and parcel of the life of faith.
[“Lostness is not a blasphemous aberration;
it’s part and parcel of the life of faith.” (Debie Thomas, Journey with Jesus, Sep 19)]
Being lost happens to God’s people – good people.
Being lost reminds us of our humanity – frail, vulnerable, precious.
And being lost reminds us, who God is.

The lost and found parables are portraits,
both of the life and priorities Jesus embodied,
and of the nature of God.
God who searches; perseveres, over hill and dale,
looking, looking, looking – until we are found.
God the determined, dogged finder.
God who turns the house upside down,
until she discovers the glimmer of silver in the out of sight place.
“I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out.” Ezekiel 34:11
Then, marks such moments of rediscovery with rejoicing;
unnecessary parties and fatted calf feasts.
Where the angels high five.

I hope – if that is what is most needed today –
you can hear the mercy and welcome in those parables.
That stories of being found can strengthen or reassure you for the week ahead.
On any given Sunday, there will be some among us who need that.

But are we prepared to also hear the challenge in these parables?
The jab of their telling to the original target audience?
The Pharisees: God-fearing devoted disciples,
who do not merely talk about faith but try to live it.
They are not uninterested in sinners;
They just believe the best way to help them
is to exemplify a high standard, inviting others to emulate that.
Some will have what it takes – others not.
Rules/lines are clear.
Yes, there are winners and losers – and each knows who they are.
That’s just the way life is.
Repentance requires confession
and resolve to not act the same way again.

The problem is – Jesus’ parable messes up those formulas,
proving problematic for the religiously good,
for those already in the fold.
In the story, neither the sheep or the coin exhibit any sense of repentance.
They are simply found; restored because of God’s action, not theirs.
Isn’t Jesus condoning bad behaviour,
robbing unfortunates of motivation to do better?
Why should they buy what the Pharisees are offering,
If he’s giving it away free?

As we were reminded at Presbytery yesterday: Trappist monk, Thomas Merton
“Our job is to love others
without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.”

The Shepherd, and those he calls disciples, continue to search and continue to find.
That is both promise and commission.
An invitation to join Jesus in the great round-up;
recoverers of precious treasure; discoverers of the joy of finding.

Is not my word like fire, says the Lord,
and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? Jeremiah 23:29

‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
… Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?
No, I tell you, but rather division! Luke 12:56, 57

Two fiery-sounding, fierce biblical verses to disturb our sabbath calm.
Dramatic, disruptive – divisive?
But first, an encounter earlier this week.

“Are you Anglican?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you Anglican?”
The somewhat unexpected question put to me
as I paid for my lunchtime, supermarket sandwich.
A young man, bearded, clutching in one hand a string of wooden beads – a rosary perhaps.
“Are you Anglican?”
Slightly primly I replied. “No, I’m Presbyterian” –
not at all sure where this was leading.
“I hope you become a catholic.”
Slightly stunned by this, I eventually said:
“I like to think we are all catholic – just not necessarily Roman Catholic.”
(In my mind, words of our baptismal service:
We receive and welcome this child as member
of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church:
The young man considered this.)
“I hope you become a catholic.”

Anglican, Orthodox, Baptist, Kirk or Roman Catholic:
Two Sundays ago, I worshipped in a Church of Scotland on the Isle of Skye.
Last Sunday in a “high” Anglican parish.
One offered large screens saying Welcome and no pews;
the other housed statues of Mary and stations of the Cross.
In one a tattooed, former addict gave testimony about coming to the Lord,
in the other the priest doused the altar with incense before we received communion.
Planets apart?
Proof pure and simple of the division Jesus promised?
Or source for amazement – made curious at the breadth of expression,
the authenticity and variety of response,
to that single, haunting life?

“Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.
From now on five in one household will be divided,
three against two and two against three; they will be divided:
father against son and son against father,
mother against daughter and daughter against mother,
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Harsh sounding predictions; but hardly a surprise.
Recall the infant Jesus carried to the Temple –
old Simeon declaring this child would be “a sign of contradiction,”
piercing even his own mother’s heart.

As an adult, Jesus was rejected by his home town of Nazareth – almost lynched.
A Samaritan village wouldn’t even let him enter their town.
Detractors called him demon-possessed and “raving mad.”
The religious elite “opposed him fiercely.”
Disciples quit, denied or betrayed.
And finally, execution by foreign imperialists,
who could not risk his sustained, subversive popularity.
Both in life and death, Jesus was a divisive figure,
attracting as much anger as delight.
Paul, who would stand on both sides of that fence,
would summarise Jesus as
“… stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.”

“Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.”

This is Jesus in the tradition/the musical key of the prophets –
Jeremiah – contrasting the straw of the false prophets
who promise peace, but ignore injustice,
with the wheat of those who speak God’s word faithfully:
“Is not my word like fire, says the Lord,
and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” Jeremiah 23:29

Jesus’ uncomfortable, urgent words
issue from uncomfortable, urgent circumstances,
marching towards High Noon – Jerusalem’s final show down.
Well aware of forces, religious and political, gathering against him, time running out:
“I have a baptism with which to be baptized,
and what stress I am under until it is completed!”
That baptism is surely his own death.
So, now Jesus warns his followers – once more –
that speaking truth to power, that discipleship,
keeping the footsteps of Christ – comes at a cost.
The risks of putting one’s head above the parapet;
the what may happen if we pursue the imperatives of God.
A reminder that when/if we stand for something important,
not everyone is going to stand with us.

Amnesty International are currently drawing attention to 2024,
as the deadliest year for journalists ever recorded.
They advocate for the protection of journalists who uncover facts,
investigate abuses and speak truth to power.
“Press jackets used to offer protection, but today, they make you a target.”
Christina Lamb OBE, chief foreign correspondent, The Sunday Times.

So, Amnesty International channel the spirit of original words from Pastor Martin Niemöller:
“First they came for the journalists and I did not speak out,
because they said it was fake news;
then they came for the protestors, and I did not speak out,
because at least the disruption stopped;
then they came for our laws, and I did not speak out,
because I thought that could not happen here;
then they came for the truth and I did not speak out,
because I didn’t know what the truth was anymore.”

Peace or division?
It’s not Jesus’s desire or purpose
to set fathers against sons, or mothers against daughters.
Not conflict, for conflict’s sake.
But, in the tradition of the prophets he will disrupt the uneasy calm
that masks denial, dishonesty, or harmful accommodation;
prepared to name realities we’d rather not;
not because he wants us to suffer,
but because real peace is worth fighting for.

That finds echo in the passage from the Letter to the Hebrews read this morning:
First, the great litany of the heroic figures that inhabit Faith’s Hall of Fame:
but then, the insults and injuries that may befall the faithful.
Mockery, persecution, imprisonment, torture;
Forced to wander in the deserts and mountains,
inhabiting caves and holes in the ground –
of whom the world was not worthy. (Hebrews 11, various.)]

As people of faith, or people considering faith –
this is the race, we are called to persevere in.
Hard, wearisome and divisive, as it sometimes may seem.
But it comes with the reminding promise – the promising reminder –
“Since we are surrounded.”
We do not do this alone.
We are accompanied/inspired by all those who have gone before us,
in the sprawling, global, complex, compromised, glorious history of faith.
Persevere, because we are not alone.
“Consider him (pioneer and perfecter of our faith)
who endured such hostility against himself from sinners,
so that you may not grow weary or lose heart.” Hebrews 12:3

In the week of the 80th Anniversary of VJ Day –
eighty years since the end of World War II.
I finish with a voice from that time and conflict.
A voice from the cloud of witnesses.

Ted Baker had two children – Pat and Peter.
Pat was only three when her dad left home with uniform and kitbag
to serve in the Second World War.
He had been in the forces for only ten months when he was killed in action.
It was a whole year before his death was confirmed.

Shortly before he left home, Ted wrote three letters –
one each to his daughter, his son and his wife
to be opened ‘in the event of my death’.
Although Pat was five when news of her dad’s death was confirmed,
she didn’t receive the letter until she was fourteen
when her mum thought her old enough to read it.

‘My Darling little Pat – I have been thinking things over while waiting for my boat,
and as I might not return,
I think it is only right that you should have a letter from me
which you can keep, to remember me by …’ he wrote.

The letter is full of little pieces of advice,
‘Don’t be selfish … Try not to talk about people …
Be a sport … Be a pal to your mother …’
Woven through the whole letter are little declarations of the father’s love.
‘Remember me as your dad and pal who worshipped the ground you walked on.’

The letter had a profound effect on Pat.
‘I used to read it a lot when I was worried or upset about something.’ she said.
‘It makes me feel my father’s looking over me and keeping an eye on me.’
Its influence never waned throughout her life.
‘It has made me think about my life and how I live it.’ she said.
‘It makes you stop and think about how you treat other people …
I can’t remember anything else he ever said to me.
That letter filled that void.’

The minister who brought this story to my attention
(Revd David Donald Scott, Blog on the Learig, August 2025)
reflected how, despite the absence created by his sacrificial death,
the words of a father’s letter have inhabited his child’s life
with a sense of his presence.
“This is like Jesus”.
Absence, filled with a living Word
and a uniting love that endures forever.

“On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees
to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.” Luke 14:1

What were the rules you were taught growing up round table manners?
Were particular commandments drilled into you?
Have you in turn attempted to pass on certain parameters –
the do’s and don’t of communal eating.
Don’t start eating until everyone is served.
No pudding until you finish your main.
Finish everything on your plate.
Don’t stretch to reach the mashed potato.
In event of shortage, if guests present, family hold back.
Or that contemporary 11th Commandment: No screens at table.

Debie Thomas is an American writer/theologian; her family came to the USA from India.
She tells the story of her father, aged four,
growing up in her grandparents’ home in rural India
The grandparents were devoted members of their church;
it was often the case that elders and preachers spontaneously showed up
at their home for lunch after Sunday service.
Food wasn’t always plentiful
and cooking rice and curry over a wood stove took time.
Because the rules of hospitality dictated that “men of God” eat first,
Thomas’ father and his siblings had to wait a while to eat on Sundays.
Only when the honoured guests had had their fill and left
would the mother gather the leftovers and feed the kids.

One memorable occasion Thomas’ father, as a child,
lost patience with the unsatisfactory arrangement.
One Sunday afternoon, feeling especially hungry,
and already chased out of the kitchen on multiple occasions,
he “lost it”.
Marching into the dining room where the guests were relishing their second helpings,
the diminutive figure stuck his hands to his hips and yelled,
“Get out! Hurry up and leave so I can eat!”

Debie Thomas reflecting on this vignette of family folklore:
“I think Jesus would have relished this story,
because he wasn’t known for his politeness around food, either.”

“On one occasion Jesus went to the house of a leader of the Pharisees
to eat a meal on the sabbath, and they were watching him closely.”
Luke 14:1

Scripture takes food pretty seriously.
Eating is just about always, about more than nutrition.
We cannot live without bread, for sure – but we do not live by bread alone.
Food and its consuming are potentially deeply entwined with our spiritual lives.
The children of Israel celebrated their liberation from the slavery with a Passover meal.
Many of their religious laws concerned the preparation, eating and sharing of food.

In Luke’s gospel, food regularly frames moments of significant encounter –
a meal in the home of a despised tax gatherer (Levi, Chapter 5);
among the respectable religious leaders (Simon the Pharisee, Chapter 7);
in the fields along the road (plucking the heads of grain);
on a hillside with many, in an upper room with a few;
in a village called Emmaus.
Stories too – about farming and harvest,
about the poor begging crumbs from the rich,
about homecoming parties and fatted calves.
And in today’s reading, encounter at the table of a leader of the Pharisees;
where Jesus’ fellow guests were watching him closely –
suggesting the invitation bore the whiff of a trap being set.

The occasion gets off to a memorable start with Jesus healing on the sabbath.,
demonstrating that for him, relationship wins over regulation.
Restoration to health trumps religious rectitude.
Wouldn’t you relieve the suffering of one of your animals on the Sabbath,
if that was required?
Silence.

Gathering for food now becomes moment of illumination,
revealing attitudes and identities.
Jesus observes.
Two things catch his eye – seating plans and guest lists.
Perhaps words from Proverbs came to mind:
“Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence
or stand in the place of the great;
for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here’,
than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.” Proverbs 25:6-7

Jesus witnesses exactly that sort of jockeying for position.
Guests clamouring for the seats of conspicuous stature –
top table prestige, status recognition.
(There is probably a bit of that in all of us.)

Jesus issues the warning.
Save yourself the embarrassment.
If you are modest in your claiming of seats
it may be that your host will honour you publicly
by inviting you to come up higher.
Promotion, preferable to relegation.

At another level, Jesus is illustrating deeper realities.
For Jesus’ listeners the wedding feast – the setting of his parable –
was a metaphor for the kingdom of God,
with its invitations, joy and abundance.
And if it is really the kingdom of God that Jesus is describing;
Best to remember:
At that banquet, God is host – the seating plan, God’s alone.
As guests, an attitude of gratitude;
not comparison and superiority.

Just as seating plans, real or imagined,
tell us something about inner lives,
so too our guest lists.
Hence, Jesus’ second piece of observation and advice.

When drawing up the guest list, remember your own blessings.
Share them; don’t be strategic.
The kingdom of God is not Corporate Hospitality,
favours funded for future returns.
Jesus advocates an alternative business plan:
be extravagantly, forgetfully, uncalculatingly generous.

Invite the most unlikely, the most unexpected of guests –
the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind –
And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you,
for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’
[Invite them into neighbourhood, home, club, church;]

Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, writing in the papers this weekend:
Draws attention to asylum seekers and hotel crowds –
That is currently playing out in our media.

Williams flags up how debate about migration is framed
as if it is a stand-off between ordinary people
and a consolidated mass of threatening, predatory, incomprehensible strangers –
typically the young, foreign (and usually minority ethnic) male.

So, he searches for common ground:
“No one in their right mind thinks accommodating asylum seekers in hotels is a good idea.
No one in their right mind thinks we should just live
with undocumented, life-threatening migration routes into the UK.
And no one in their right mind thinks the experiences endured by most migrants
could be a rational choice for anyone.
… begin from these shared acknowledgments.”

Not a new issue: “I have vivid memories of meetings more than 25 years ago
in the post-industrial town in south Wales where I then worked,
trying to broker discussion
between local groups from socially deprived areas
and various community and religious organisations,
in the wake of what came across as a casual announcement from the government
of a new initiative to settle significant numbers of asylum seekers in the town.
Anger and bewilderment, yes, and an element of real hostility –
but also a plaintive sense that yet again
local voices had been completely ignored in a way that was all too familiar.

But here’s the point of contact.
Williams principal point:
“But the truth is that the migrant, too, is an ordinary person.
Anyone who has spent time with refugees –
in Ukraine, in Syria, in Sudan, in Kent or Swansea –
knows the conversations that are likely to happen.
I never thought I could find myself here.
I only want to make sure my children are safe.
I miss my garden.
I don’t know where my parents are.
I don’t know how I can continue my education.”

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,
for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13
As the poet, Mary Oliver writes,
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”

“On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees
to eat a meal on the sabbath, they were watching him closely.”
Jesus asks us to believe that table manners matter.
Where we sit and who we sit with
a witness about ourselves
and the kingdom of God.

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET,
MORNING WORSHIP & BAPTISMS
SUNDAY 20th JULY 2025 11.00 A.M.,
SIXTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

“Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet,
and rest yourselves under the tree.
Let me bring a little bread, that you may refresh yourselves,” Genesis18

“Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a certain village,
where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.” Luke 10

Scripture serves up a two-course taster menu today –
A double helping: dinner and distraction, appetisers and attention.
Two recipes from the biblical Hospitality Committee.

But first an anecdotal observation:
(From the pen of Tom Friedman – New York Times piece: “The Taxi Driver”)
On a taxi ride from Charles de Gaulle Airport to central Paris,
the journalist reflected that between he and the taxi driver –
they did six things simultaneously:
The taxi driver – drove, talked on his mobile phone, and disconcertingly, watched a video.
Meanwhile, the passenger rode in the back,
worked on his laptop to prepare a column, and listened to his i-pod.
“There is only one thing we never did – talk to each other.”
Illustration for the journalist, of the disease of the internet age:
“… continuous partial attention.”

If that resonates, a partial reflection of our own inattention,
what refocusing might our scriptures offer in this hour set aside for God?

First course: Abraham and Sarah’s epic pilgrimage tale.
Abraham called out in old age by God, to become a wanderer –
given the unlikely promise that he would be father to generations,
as innumerable as the stars in the heavens.
The journey – long, hard and dangerous –
the likelihood of parenthood, apparently always diminishing.

Then the visit of the three travelers to Abraham’s desert camp by the oaks of Mamre.
Abraham rushing in the heat of the day to welcome the unknown guests.
Let a little water be brought; wash your feet; rest in the shade of the tree.
Let me bring you a little bread.
Infact the household brings forth a whole lot more.
Fresh baked bread, a calf, tender and good, selected from the flock, curds and milk –
all prepared with urgency.
Finally, the attentive standing, while his guests ate – ready to respond to their request.
Ancient customs and courtesies of hospitality offered and received.
All of which leads to the extraordinary prediction;
In a year’s time Sarah will have a child in her arms.

[And if we continued reading]:
Sarah, eavesdropping from behind the tent curtain.
Her first, unguarded response to this astonishing promise – to laugh.
Incredulous mirth, sceptical snigger, or a youthful giggle refound?
“After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure?”
Then God to Abraham: “Why did Sarah laugh, and say,
“Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?”
Is anything too wonderful for the Lord?
At the set time I will return to you, in due season, and Sarah shall have a son.”
Caught in the headlights, Sarah blurts out: “I did not laugh.”
Words explained by the author: For she was afraid.
To which God emphatically replies: “Oh yes, you did laugh.”
(Genesis17:17; 18:10–15).

In fact, this was the second time that Abraham had received this fertility memo.
Noteworthy, that when he heard it the first time,
“he fell face down, laughed, and said to himself,
“Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old?”
Sarah, perhaps more famous/notorious for her laughter,
was actually echoing her husband’s earlier response.

The story plays out:
“The Lord was gracious to Sarah as he had said,
and the Lord did for Sarah what he had promised.”
In the lovely pun/double entendre, Sarah and Abraham name their son Isaac,
which in Hebrew means “he laughs.”
Thus, their son of laughter would always remind them of two things;
Their incredulity/disbelief – and God’s faithfulness.
In time, Sarah’s doubt blossoms into the declaration:
“God has brought me laughter,
and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” (21:1–7).

As an aside: Prayer composed by a Chicago Women’s Group:
“I have had enough of sad saints and sour religion.
I havee had enough of sin spotting and grace doubting.
I need some laughter, Lord,
The kind you planted in Sarah.
But please may I not have to wait
until I am ninety and pregnant.”

A second report from the biblical Hospitality Committee,
according only to the Gospel of Luke.
Martha and Mary’s contrasting responses to the guests in their front room.
Depending on your own responsibilities and regularity in the kitchen,
sympathy may align with the overwhelmed, pan-bashing Martha –
an icon of distracted worthiness.
Unequivocally Jesus makes a plea for some prime-time attention –
as we would give to any friend, if we wanted to remain close.
(“There is only one thing we never did – talk to each other.”)

The late and 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey
was asked by an American journalist:
“Archbishop, did you say your prayers this morning?
I did.
What did you say?
I talked to God.
For how long?
One minute – but it took me twenty-nine minutes to get there.”

Minutes of silence, stillness and waiting.
The commentator who retold this story recently observed:
We are not very good at being still; we always have to be doing something.
But concluded: If you love truth, be a lover of silence – silence unites us to God.
Or as the poet Mary Oliver has it: “Stillness. One of the doors into the temple.”
(From Today, Mary Oliver)
Listening Mary – the better part?

This Gospel passage is most regularly preached as a gentle/tepid suggestion of balance –
a nurturing of a little bit of Martha and a little bit of Mary,
in ourselves – in the lives of a congregation.
Service and worship; prayer and practicality;
Word of God and needs of the world.
As the sisters lived under the same roof,
shouldn’t our lives reflect both/and, rather than an either/or?

But what about if this story is not about balance at all?
(Alternative, sharper reading of our Gospel – Debie Thomas, Journey with Jesus, July 2019)
What if this is a story telling us to be single-minded and undistracted,
in pursuit of the better part –
the pearl of great price; the buried treasure in the field.
What if Jesus’ home visit is absolutely not some genteel parlour room tea party,
but as disruptive as the overturning of the money-lenders tables in the Jerusalem Temple.

Entering Martha’s house, Jesus upsets the status quo,
messing with Martha’s expectations and routines?
Is this encounter, actually a monument to a massive miscalculation;
Martha believing she can invite Jesus into her life,
then carry on as normal – Jesus, on her terms;
maintaining control and her own long-cherished agenda and priorities?
In contrast, Mary recognises that Jesus’s presence in her house
requires a radical shift. A role change. A wholehearted surrender.
In our own lives and the collective life of a congregation,
where are we devoted and where are we distracted?

So we dine today on our two-taster menu;
oaks of Mamre and Bethany house of friends.
Abraham and Sarah, Martha and Mary, appetisers and attention;
Two disconcerting outcomes – laughter and rebuke –
Two precious reminders:
Is anything impossible for God? And: Choose the better part.

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET, 
SUNDAY 8th JUNE 2025 11.00 A.M., 
NEW MEMBERS’ SERVICE & HOLY COMMUNION
FOR PENTECOST & ST COLUMBA’S DAY 

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, 
and let us make a name for ourselves; 
otherwise, we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11

Wings composed of feathers and wax give lift off to a famous Greek myth.
Icarus – wings invented by his father, Daedalus, 
parent and son make their escape from captivity on the island of Crete.
Dad warns junior not to fly too low, 
which would cause the feathers to get wet with seawater 
or too high, too close to the sun, 
causing the wax to melt. 
Unfortunately, the desire to rise higher, risk further, 
the reluctance to heed wise advice – prove the young man’s destruction.
Higher and higher Icarus soars – till too close to the sun – 
melted wax and freefall.

Former Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy gave the tale a modern twist.
From her collection of poems envisioning the perspective of wives of famous men: 
The World’s Wife – Mrs Icarus:

I’m not the first or the last to stand on a hillock
watching the man she married prove to the world
he’s a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock.

Vaulting ambition; pride before a fall; Vanitas, vanitas.
A more sombre take on hubris, from the pen of Percey Shelley: (Ozymandias)
Portrayal of a once mighty royal statue, now an abandoned wreck:

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said— “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies,
 (A sculptured face suggesting cruelty – wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command.)

… … 

And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

“Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, 
and let us make a name for ourselves; 
otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” 

Gathered round the campfire, 
cloaks pulled close against the night air,
the Hebrews told their ancient tales.
Once upon a time, long, long ago,
the first families, descendants of Noah and his sons,
came from the east to the great plain of Shinar 
and there they settled awhile.
There, with one language they spoke;
there too, they made a discovery – bricks and mortar.
And soon they urged each other:
“Let us build ourselves a city with a tower that touches heaven.
Let us make a name for ourselves.”
Why? “So, we will not be scattered across the face of the earth.
Here, fortified and strong, we will not be vulnerable or dependent.”

Another elder stirred the fire’s embers, took up the tale:
“But God was little pleased.”
“Why?” asked a child? “Wouldn’t a stairway to heaven be good?
Was God frightened – the people more powerful than God?” 

The elder considered a moment: “No, I don’t think the Holy One feared that.
I think He feared/foresaw for the arrogance of that place – 
the city, the tower, the name they craved – 
the fame they wished to forge for themselves.
God knew it would end badly – to over-reach like that.
They thought that tower was their route to security and control;
vantage point, from which life’s ambiguities and vicissitudes would be removed.
Yet, from where God viewed it, even for the mighty tower
God required to come down.
God’s scale, God’s view, vaster than the tower builders could imagine.

So, the Lord said: “Come let us go down, let us confuse their language there, 
so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”
Soon it was bickering and incomprehension:
“Hand me a hammer – he was given a sandwich.” 
Soon, the city abandoned, the tower a half-finished folly,
the peoples, wandering across the face of the earth.

They planned to make a name for themselves – ambition, to ascend like gods.
They did secure a name – Babel – babble – place of confusion.
Following on the story of Noah and the Flood, 
biblically, Babel represents another wrong turn, 
because God scatters all the builders, 
then moves swiftly to summon Abraham, 
thus beginning an entirely new chapter in the religious story of humankind. 

Language/languages, remain one of humanity’s great glories,
gifting variety, musicality and deftness of expression.
But language also divides, can be weaponised, a dog whistle, 
us and them, prejudiced, violent.

The Babel tale begins: “The entire land had one language and a common speech.” 
Though that sounds like a kind of nirvana, 
it may not refer to a primal, pristine state of humanity, before a division of languages.
Scholars point out that Genesis Chapter 10, 
with its exhaustive list of Noah’s descendants, 
describes the division of humanity into seventy nations and seventy languages. 
In contrast, Genesis 11, read today, 
records one “power”, established over smaller nations;
With it has come the imposition of a single language and culture. 
When at the end of the Babel story God “confuses the language” of the builders, 
God not creating a new state of affairs but restoring an older diversity.
Babel as cautionary tale, against every form of totalitarianism or imperialism 
that seeks domination through elimination of difference.
The late Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks concluded on the Babel story:
“The miracle of monotheism 
is that unity in Heaven creates diversity on earth, 
and God asks us (with obvious conditions) to respect that diversity.”

Confused language, incomprehension, Babel – may be warning, 
but is not final word; particularly, as we celebrate Pentecost.
Rushing winds. Tongues, as of fire. A cacophony of languages. 
Accusations of drunkenness. Mass baptism.  
The birthday/birth-story, the Church’s “big-bang.” 
Pentecost ignites the dream to heal confusion.
Not by uniformity imposed, but by diversity recognised and valued.
The Spirt at Pentecost doesn’t restore a single language;
it declares all languages holy; all languages worthy of God’s stories. 

No single language, no single people, no single group within a people, 
can muster, or monopolise, the words sufficient to describe or praise God. 
From the outset, the fledging church of Pentecost, is designed to be humble in its hierarchies,
and invitational to all, irrespective of geography or gender. 
“Sons and daughters shall prophesy, young men see visions, old men dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”

A good message for the day we welcome New Members – 
Peter, Vivien, Lena, Margaret, Sarah and Lorrayne.
A good reminder to us all – “who know the Lord a little and seek to know Him more.”

Some decades ago, an anonymous couple came to a small garrison church in Edinburgh.
At the door after service, they explained they had come that day, 
following a recent difficult circumstance.
They explained: “We came to see what the church had for us, 
and maybe what we had for the church.”
May that source and motivation,
for our seeking and finding; 
our offering and receiving – 
inspire us this Pentecost day and beyond.

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET,
MORNING WORSHIP
SUNDAY 22^nd JUNE 2025 11.00 A.M.,
SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Jesus said to the Gerasene who he had healed:
“Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.” Luke 8

“No farmer leaves his/her land through choice.
No mother wants to pack a bag and pick up her children
to leave all she knows.
No father wants to risk the lives of his family.
No grandmother wants to walk hundreds of miles
to spend the remains of her life in a camp or a country
where she understands nothing and is made to feel worthless.”

Today is Sanctuary Sunday (also referred to as Refugee Sunday),
The words quoted, are from prayers prepared by
Scottish Faiths Action for Refugees (‘SFAR’).
Sanctuary/Refugee Sunday asks churches around the world
to remember and pray for refugees, for those displaced from their homes.
Eritrea, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Sudan –
you could add to the list.

Scripture is full of stories of people on the move.
Joseph offered his father and brothers sanctuary in Egypt,
when their homeland was ravaged by famine.
Four hundred years later, Moses led that same people
out of Egypt to freedom and a new land.
Ruth left her home as a penniless widow
and worked as a migrant labourer in Bethlehem.
Mary and Joseph fled the violent persecution of Herod,
seeking asylum once more in Egypt.
(Throughout such tales, God exhibits loving concern
for the exiled and the stranger.)

This morning’s scriptures give a story of flight –
Elijah escaping the vengeance of Jezebel,
frightened to the point of wishing to end his own life.
Jesus’ journey on the other hand, is one of choice; the geography is significant.
“They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee.”
Opposite on the map – opposite, culturally and spiritually?
For reasons unspecified, Jesus chooses to cross a border,
with all the attendant dangers and potential misunderstandings.

The voyage itself is no pleasure cruise,
becoming occasion for the dramatic stilling of the storm (Luke 8:22-25.)
Jesus asleep, the boat being swamped, disciples despairing,
Jesus awaking, rebuking the raging waters – calm.
“Who is this, that even the winds and the waves obey him?”

Upon arrival on the foreign shore, another tempest.
Jesus encountering – or rather, encountered by –
the fiercely, feral, possessed man from the town –
shunned by the people’s fear and isolated by the internal furies
that lead to violent outbreak and self-harm –
confined to the shadow-world of tombs,
shackled by a society that cannot handle his demons.

In anger the figure approaches Jesus,
not to ask for help, but to demand that he go away.
‘What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God?
I beg you, do not torment, do not torture me.”
Confronted, Jesus does not dismiss or turn away;
does not assess the strange stranger as too different,
too broken or too dangerous.
Instead, engaging, he asks:
Not, What do you want? Or, What is wrong with you?
But, “What is your name?”
A reminder of first things – the name his parents gave/called.
A family name. A recognition/recall of original humanity.

The question of course identifies something of the man’s circumstances.
“My name is Legion.”
In the parlance of the story – legion, meaning many –
a reference perhaps to the hated imperial occupiers of distant Rome?
Legion – multiple malevolent spirits that disturb, confuse, torment,
robbing him of agency and freedom.
My name is “mob”.

The tale now takes a wild turn; echo of the recent storm?
“Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding;
and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these.
So he gave them permission. 
Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine,
and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
When the swineherds saw what had happened,
they ran off and told it in the city and in the country. 
Then people came out to see what had happened,
and when they came to Jesus,
they found the man from whom the demons had gone
sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind.”

“Clothed and in his right mind.”
Echo: “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. Galatians 3

If we fast forward from today’s reading, the very next encounter in Chapter 8,
is the healing of the woman with haemorrhages:
“If I touch only the hem of his garment,
one woman thought, I will be healed.” (Luke 8:43–48).
Healing and clothing – clothing and healing –
power of Christ and restoration of dignity –
restoration of dignity and power of Christ.

Cue celebrations?
When those in town and beyond learn about Jesus’s exorcism,
they flock to see. Of course they did.
But there is no warm return for the tomb dwelling, prodigal son;
nor is there welcome for Jesus the tomb raider.
No relief, no gratitude, no hospitality, no awe. 
Instead, fear in the face of an inclusiveness
that transforms individuals and upends expectations and hierarchies.
They beg Jesus to leave them – go back to where you came from.
(a Galilee deportee.)

Recognising how unsettling the reality of Jesus’ ways and demands can be,
one commentator warns:
How do we move beyond the temptation to ask Jesus to leave?

“Return to your home and declare how much God has done for you.’
Mary Oliver, in her poem, “Sometimes” there is a stanza:

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

Unsurprisingly, the restored Gerasene begs to stay close
to the one who called him by name,
even if it means leaving his homeland.
But Jesus directs him back to the very people who shunned him.
Jesus commissions him to be a storyteller,
With yarns that will help heal the world.  
“So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city
how much Jesus had done for him.”

This morning began with Psalm 42
Referencing Jerusalem’s temple:
These things I remember, as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng and led them in procession to the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

From that city which is currently home, reports in recent days from
Very Rev Canon Richard Sewell, Dean of St George’s College, Jerusalem
and from Stewart and Muriel, the ministers of the Church of Scotland congregations
in Jerusalem and Tiberias:
What follows is a little of their “telling about it.”

“In the College we have the benefit of the security of the Cathedral Close
and a very secure bomb shelter in the basement.
We have had to take shelter here intermittently through the past twenty months.
But we have been down there several times each day and night since last Friday.
Before we get to the bunker we can see missiles in the sky
being intercepted by the defence system
and we can feel/hear windows and sometimes the ground shake.

Most of the College staff live in parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank
where there are no accessible bomb shelters.
They and their families can feel more vulnerable than we do in the College.

Iran is also part of our Anglican Province and Archbishop Hosam has jurisdiction,
So, we also feel great concern for civilians in Iran
and especially for the vulnerable Christians there.

While all of this understandably fills the news agenda everywhere,
for us a primary concern is still for the people of Gaza
who are being starved and bombed with no shelters or defence systems.
Attention must remain there too.
Also, on the West Bank which is being subjected to an almost total lockdown
and suffers painfully in many diverse ways.”

And from Tiberias, by the Lake of Galilee:
“The sirens that sounded Friday night,
as missiles launched in Iran began to arrive over Israel,
warned of more than the need to move to the nearest protected location.
The sirens warn of the long-term psychosocial and political consequences
of decades of Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territories,
and of the violence of resistance to it;
of the ongoing reverberations of the attack by Hamas on 7 October
and 20 months of IDF attacks by air and land in Gaza.

All parties have been dehumanised – Palestinian, Israeli, and International –
by the ongoing death, destruction and degradation of life.

War is not the answer and killing people is neither holy nor useful.”

SUNDAY 11th MAY 2025 11.00 a.m.
MORNING WORSHIP, VE DAY 80th ANNIVERSARY
ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET 
(FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER)

“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, 
whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, 
if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.” Philippians 4:8

From a collection of World War II verse, selected phrases from a poem entitled,
War Has become official, old friend, Geoffrey Matthews,
evoking the new landscape of a country at war in 1939.

“The searchlights lean their wigwam patterns 
over a minster peeled of glass, 
No tactless light breaks through the muffled streets,
kind for the lovers, the County Council and the thief.

Today I am sick of sandbags, news, announcements, 
and cycle in calm September sunshine 
across the plain at Ampleforth 

Sheffield and Hull, Bradford and Leeds 
have billeted children in these chequered villages, 
happy and pale they pull the unripe apples down, 
and what a sin it is, I think, 
to carry a gas mask through cornfields like these.”

Six years later, the jubilant scenes of VE Day – crowds in London,
Dancing in the fountains – relief and joy.
On Tuesday, when Scots in London hosted an evening of discussion 
about the significance of VE Day – then and now – 
what emerged was the variety of experience, on May 8th, 1945.
Yes, there were the jubilant throngs in London, 
but there were other smaller episodes, eloquent of humanity.

A member of the RAF (writing for Mass Observation): 
Serving on a base near Luton:
On the evening of 7th May I was in the local village church 
with a young chap 
who had promised to show me the basic ideas of playing the organ – 
a thing I’ve always wanted to do. 
We were still there at 10:00pm when a very elderly and decrepit lady 
inquired if she might lock the church. 
She said that the news had come through of complete German surrender. 
My friend said just a minute, and went back to the keyboard to play, 
“Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” 
Then we switched off the bellows, turned off the lights 
and went down to the village 
where people were singing and dancing outside the pub, 
while others were decorating the houses with flags and streamers. 
When the pub closed the people seemed to melt away. 
We went to a transport cafe and ate fish and chips. 

When we got back to camp, we found a great deal of excitement 
as we were to close down from midnight until 8:00am Thursday. 
Passes were arranged for all who could possibly get home, 
and it was arranged to run transport from Luton at 4:30am, 
which would serve those waiting for the first trains 
both for London and the north. 
(p188 The People’s Victory).

A stark contrast from the front, 
is the recollection of member of our linked congregation, St Andrew’s, Newcastle.
Ian Gillespie – Normandy veteran and recently celebrating his 105th birthday in style,
records in the Scots in London 80th Anniversary publication.

“That day I happened to be the company Orderly Officer. 
The main duties were company admin and security, involving setting the guard. 
Uniquely, I was also guarding a captain in the Pioneer Corps who had shot his major 
and was on a murder charge. 
Everyone in the company was given a bottle of champagne to celebrate. 
So you can imagine me guarding this captain, 
both of us drinking the champagne; 
I with my revolver at the ready, and he on a murder charge – a macabre scene. 
He was shipped back to the UK for his court martial. 
I don’t know the sentence. 
Today he would have been treated medically for post-traumatic stress disorder.” 

Ian has always kept a diary and when he opened the page for VE Day 
he found the label from the champagne bottle, 
Moet et Chandon, Epernay, France, Brut, 1937. 
A friend advised him he shouldn’t have drunk the champagne – 
today it would be worth £1,000. 

Sydney Jary, another Normandy veteran who ended the war in Germany observed –
“Reaction to the end of the war, like aggression, increased 
the further behind the lines you went. 
The natural aristocracy of the battlefield, the infantry, 
having fired a feu de joie of Very lights, 
curled up and slept. 
We had learned too much to indulge in shallow demonstrations.”
(!8 Platoon, p122)

For many of course there was continuing anxiety for loved ones – 
those still away, those missing, those who had been prisoners of war – 
and of course those who were still fighting. 
VE Day was the end of fighting in Europe, 
it was very clearly not the end of the war.

At St Columba’s, as the account read earlier by Stuart Steele explained – 
there was no church building, following its devastation in 1941.
Instead, thanks to neighbouring St Saviours, 
the congregation gathered to give thanks – 
in the same way that there were services across the nation.
(At Westminster Abbey there were services held every hour, throughout the day.)

At St Saviours, the minster, Revd Dr Scott began:
“Dearly beloved members of Saint Columba’s, 
it was in God’s house that the tidings of war were made known to us 
on Sunday, the 3rd September 1939. 
Today, the 8th of May 1945, we meet again in God’s house, 
to give thanks to Him for final victory 
achieved in the European theatre of this worldwide struggle 
against the forces of tyranny and oppression. 

It is not the same house in which we meet, 
but it is the same God whom we worship. 
The enemy has taken from us a cherished building. 
He has not taken from us our unshakeable belief 
in the God of righteousness and peace 
revealed to us in Jesus Christ, our Lord.” 

From these voices speaking to us across the years, what will we glean?
Simply nostalgia – an outing for the historian, if you like that sort of thing?
As with the annual Remembrance Day services, 
perhaps the 80th Anniversary of VE Day is primarily a chance simply to listen –
to hear and honour the voices of those who were there – 
old and young, serving personnel and civilian. 
To comprehend, if only a little, their experience.
As one veteran summed up: 
“Just ordinary people called to do extraordinary things.”

But in this house of prayer – a wondrous gift that has grown from the ashes,
We might choose to search for more.
Christian, currently serving, read Psalm 23.
So often sung or read – a go-to for many, in demanding times, danger or sorrow.
It’s most remembered image, is God as shepherd.
But, it also describes God as faithful, trustworthy, generous host:
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

This afternoon we will retell, largely in his own words, 
the wartime story of the Very Revd Fraser McLuskey, chaplain to the SAS;
longtime, and much revered, minister of this congregation. 
Parachuted behind enemy lines into central France in 1944,
he lived the nomadic, dangerous life of the unit he was serving with.
Of church services held in secret forest camps he wrote:

“… our worship seemed natural and meaningful.
We worshipped where we lived; 
in the clearing where we slept, round the campfire which was home. 
In the most obvious and concrete fashion 
worship was a part of daily life 
and not divorced in any way from it.
The ground on which we cooked and ate and slept, 
the ground on which at any moment 
we might find ourselves defending our possessions and our lives, 
was the ground on which we worshipped. 
Common ground was sacred ground.”

And of communion – the meal and sacrament at the heart of our faith – 
which he often celebrated – 
“…circumstances robbed our celebrations of much of the usual ceremony.
(But) we lost nothing by the smallness of our numbers 
and the simplicity of the service.
We gained rather a new realisation of the character of this family act 
instituted by Christ, with a handful of men 
as ordinary and human as we were, 
in a home where a family lived its life
and did its work.
That first celebration was simple and unpretentious enough, 
and we had the same essentials, 
bread and wine, a group of unworthy believers,
and the presence of the Master.”

“…, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, 
whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, 
if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.” Philippians 4:8

SUNDAY 25th MAY 2025 11.00 a.m.
MORNING WORSHIP,
ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET 
(SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER)

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal,

flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 

through the middle of the street of the city.

On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit,

producing its fruit each month;

and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.” Revelation 22

The Thames and the Tyne, the Tiber;

The Euphrates, the Danube, the Mississippi, the Amazon.

River names that evoke histories and imaginings, romantic or terrible.

Which is your favourite/special river – and why?

What stories would your river tell?

Some profound things might emerge, I’m sure.

But what if rivers voice something of themselves,

Not dependent upon the tales of the cities that have grown upon their banks?

The American poet, the late Mary Oliver wrote, “At the River Clarion”; it begins.

I don’t know who God is exactly.
But I’ll tell you this.
I was sitting in the river named Clarion, on a water splashed stone
and all afternoon I listened to the voices of the river talking.

And though “it’s difficult to hear anything anyway,

through all the traffic, the ambition.

[And] slowly, very slowly, it became clear to me what it [they were] was saying.
Said the river: I am part of holiness.

The poet goes onto muse about various mysteries in life,

but circles back to contemplate the river:

“I only know that the river kept singing.
It wasn’t a persuasion, it was all the river’s own constant joy
which was better by far than a lecture, which was comfortable, exciting, unforgettable.”

Music of water over stone, not a persuasion or lecture,

but a constant joy, based on fixed attention.

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal,

To observe the vision of the new Jerusalem,

John is granted a high mountain –

the biblically well-proven vantage point, for thin places and holy things.

The new Jerusalem descends from the heavens.

Forged from pure gold, adorned with every jewel imaginable;

this culmination of a city, a pearl beyond price.

No temple in its midst.

The former focus for the faithful, no longer necessary,

for in this final version, God is present, dwelling with the people –

no need for a house set aside, to represent God –

God is there.

If more evidence is required:

No need for sun or moon – God provides/God will be the light perpetual.

The city gates, always open, a metropolis free from fear.

From the throne at its centre flows a river

and on its banks stands the tree of life

whose fruit is never out of season.

The inhabitants of this city will see the face of God

upending traditional understanding,

that no one can see God’s face and survive.

They will bear God’s name on their foreheads,

sealed for eternity by God’s protection.

At first glance the “new heaven and new earth” look narrowly Jewish —

with twelve gates, twelve guardian angels

representing the twelve tribes of Israel. 

Actually, John’s heavenly Jerusalem is cosmopolitan;

its citizens drawn from “every nation, tribe, people, and language.”

The tree of life watered by the crystal river,

reminiscent of Eden’s tree of knowledge of good and evil,

is for the healing of the nations,

not the fall of humanity.

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal,

If Revelation deals in poetry to set us hankering for its waters,

the prose of Acts keeps us grounded.

Where Revelation dreams broadly and ecstatically,

Acts reminds that God works in specifics – one encounter at a time –

face to face, in meeting places that appear on maps,

between individuals whose names become known.

On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river,

where we supposed there was a place of prayer;

and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there. 

Lydia was a Gentile businesswoman and “God-fearer” from the Greek city of Thyatira, famous for its reddish-purple dye.

On a business trip, 300 miles from home, in the Roman colony of Philippi.

 A “purple seller” (porphyropolis) marketing a luxury product to the wealthy elite. 

(In the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, for example,

the rich man was “dressed in purple, and lived in luxury every day.”)

Lydia was clearly a woman of means, agency and authority.

There are no men in this story – no husband, father, son, or brother.

Maybe she was divorced or widowed.

After her own conversion and baptism,

Lydia commandeers her entire household to be baptised,

meaning she employed servants, possibly family members.

When Lydia hosted Paul and his entourage

there was sufficient space to accommodate them.

And after the apostles were imprisoned,

and then released with strict orders to leave town,

they “returned to Lydia’s house”.

A brave decision on her part,

given that the apostles had been stripped, beaten, and jailed by a violent mob

because of their preaching about a strange sect that Lydia herself had joined.

She was effectively harbouring criminals.

Lydia’s decision appears to have had a domino effect.

Immediately following Lydia’s conversion in Philippi,

in Thessalonica “a few prominent women” believed (17:4).

At the next stop in Berea, “a number of prominent Greek women” converted (17:12).

And after Berea, Paul engaged the intellectual elites at the famous Areopagus in Athens, where many in the audience “sneered,”

but some believed, including a woman named Damaris (17:34).

Since this story is set in Paul’s first foray into what we now call Europe,

Lydia is honoured as the first Christian convert in Europe.

Her house was the first church in Europe,

the business woman-householder-convert-host its leader and patron.

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal.”

Thames, Tyne, Tiber – Euphrates.

Mary Chapin Carpenter, American country singer begins her song “On and on it goes.”

“River starts with a drop of rain somewhere in this world.”

Earlier we sang: (CH4 707 Healing river of the Spirit )

Living stream that heals the nations, make us channels of your power.
All the world is torn by conflict; wars are raging at this hour.
We know this to be only too true.

Yet hours before his death, Jesus told his friends:

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.

I do not give to you as the world gives.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Strangely, in these troubled times I have heard in recent days,

two separate appeals for monuments to peace.

From someone much involved with the recent 80^th Anniversary VE Day commemorations.

“Why is there no national monument or plaque commemorating the moment,

where people can gather to remember?” 

He followed that with a suggestion and an invitation:

“Now that most of the participants are gone,

it seems appropriate that the commemoration should be reshaped

to celebrate the 80 years of largely unbroken peace

that Europe has enjoyed since 1945.

Perhaps from now on it should be Peace in Europe Day?

My Italian and German friends much prefer this approach.

I am sure it is true of others and much more resonant with young people. 

It seems logical that Christians should emphasise this theme in future.

That is why I led the Monte Cassino to Rome Peace Walk through Italy.

The walk was non-denominational:

we had Catholics, Anglicans, non-denominational people, a Jew and agnostics.

What mattered was celebrating peace. Scots on the walk in 2026?”

And this week, a second appeal for a monument to peace.

On Thursday, International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers.

at Whitehall’s Cenotaph, remembering amongst others,

sixty-five peacekeepers have died in the last twelve months.

“They chose to serve their country.

Their country chose them to serve the world, (to serve us.)

They died in a country with which their own had no dispute.

They are mourned by a mother, a father, a widow, by family, by friends.”

{Two hundred and eighty members of that large family

working for the UN Relief and Works Administration, UNRWA, in Gaza.

We mourn loss of their colleagues there, members of the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

“We look forward to the day when we in this country have a memorial

to those who have died in the cause of peace as do other nations;

a memorial that recognises the sacrifice of all peacekeepers

from wherever they came.”

The search for peace, the search for still waters,

unending as a river’s flow?

Mary Oliver’s River poem concludes:

Sometimes the river murmurs, sometimes it raves.

And still, pressed deep into my mind, the river
keeps coming, touching me, passing by on its
long journey, its pale, infallible voice
singing.

May we hear the music of the river of life, bright as crystal;

a song, of nations healed and humanity united.

Mindful that such a river starts with a drop of rain somewhere in this world.

Perhaps with us.

Prayer: Living God, may we rejoice in the hope of this day,
be immersed in the wonder of its purpose,
give ourselves to the joy of its meaning,
and bind ourselves to the love it reveals. Amen (Tom Gordon, Easter Day 2025)

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,
Mary Magdalene came to the tomb
and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran…” John 20:1

Perhaps when I know you better, or have spent more time with a therapist,
I will tell you, how two years ago, I didn’t win the Dads’ race,
in the June of my daughter’s final, primary-school sports day.
It would require speaking of caution unwisely discarded,
some treacherously, uneven ground,
a cartoon-esque, headlong fall, severely skinned knees,
a last place finish and enduring humiliation.
As indicated: “Too soon.”

Such hauntings resurfaced this week, with a short piece of film on the BBC News website.
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is a three-time Olympic champion,
the third fastest woman in history.
She also just competed in her young son’s school sports day, mums’ race, 100metre dash.
She demolished the competition.
Seemingly launched from the start line by a rocket,
she was so far ahead by race conclusion
that the phone camera couldn’t contain winner and followers in the same shot.
Post-race, the Olympian explained: “They haven’t banned me yet, so I’m at the line.”

Running maintains a lane in the Scriptures:
“Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:30-31

Paul the Apostle advised the Hebrews:
“… let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,
who for the sake of the joy that was set before him
endured the cross, disregarding its shame,
and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Running – a metaphor for the way/life of faith – particularly the call to perseverance.
But then there is just running –
running as action, or reaction, to the impulse of the moment.
The Father of the Prodigal Son,
running to embrace the wayward child, presumed dead.
Or, (according to the Gospel of John), the running of the first Easter – the resurrection relay.
Mary running through Jerusalem’s dark, pre-dawn alleyways.
Then retracing those steps, back to the garden,
the footrace between the Beloved Disciple and Peter.
What prompts this pre-dawn dash?

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,
A grieving woman returns to the only place left to go –
the place where they had wrapped and laid his shattered body
at the end of that hideous day.
She remembered the oppressive heat of the morning,
an intolerable, indifferent sun,
until the clouds gathered like ugly bruises,
a slow suffocation of agony and anger.
In those stretched out hours the light fled,
as if the world itself screamed its horror at those shameful gallows.

She neared the tomb; panic, distress. The stone aside. Dark emptiness.
One final indignity? The double grief of the disappeared?
Robbers? The Romans? The priests?
Could they never leave her Jesus alone, even in death?
Easter starts in distress and unknowns.

Then the rush to let the disciples know.
Peter and the Beloved Disciple racing each other to confirm Mary’s tale;
the former, arriving at the tomb first, but pausing at the entrance;
Peter, arriving second, ploughing straight in – his gospel character, entirely.
Incredulity in the doorway.
Grave clothes. Discarded, set apart.
What did it mean?
For the two men, the tomb was evidence but not a place for answers.
They leave, unwilling or unable, to comfort Mary.

 So, it is Mary, alone, who is first;
first, not only to discover the absence,
but first also, to be changed by its mysteries.
It is the grieving, apparently abandoned Mary,
who encounters the angels, shimmering like candles on a tablecloth of bandages.

Why are you weeping?
They have taken my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.
In the circumstances, a lifeless body would at least be some consolation.
Then, turning, looking outward from the tomb,
Mary encounters the gardener.
Do you know where they have taken him?

The unknown one speaks her name – Mary –
a greeting, an awakening, an invitation – all in one.
Mary – all is changed, all astonishingly new.
Rabbouni! she responds, Teacher! Recognition, return, renewal.

Three runners on resurrection race day.
And striking – three differing experiences.
Mary Magdalene sees Jesus first
because she chooses to remain, even in the darkness, bereft and bewildered.
She gives grief its due.
Refuses to abandon what is real, even when that seems unbearable.
Sorrow is her legitimate and faithful pathway to Easter.

In contrast, Peter runs headlong into the tomb – and runs back out again.
He cannot bear the rawness of the moment. 
Perhaps too proud, exhausted, or ashamed to share Mary’s grief.
For him Easter will take time, before it catches him up.
Meanwhile, the Beloved Disciple believes without understanding.
Believes what? That the body has been stolen? That Jesus is alive?
That God has vanquished death?
We are not told. Only “he sees and believes”;
trusts the evidence of his own experience.
Holds onto what he can in that strange, confusing moment,
leaves the door open for faith to deepen further.

Three runners on resurrection race day –
three encounters with Christ – each different.
Reminder, that we come to the empty tomb and Easter,
as ourselves, not identikits –
with different expectations and experiences;
in running parlance, differing PB’s –
our own personal bests, our own slowest times.

Mary, Peter and the Beloved Disciple remind us,
if we are to encounter the risen Christ,
it will be only, can be only,
in the circumstances of our own lives –
complicated, compromised, incomplete, imperfect,
miraculous or mysterious,
as they may well be or feel.

We might wish that things were different, or easier;
but if those Easter tomb runners pass a baton to us –
it is that the absence and presence, they first stumbled upon,
is the same absence and presence
that moves and motivates, sustains and inspires our lives today.

And whether Olympian, or also-ran: we too can relay the astonishing wonder of Easter:
Fighting the good fight, finishing the race, keeping the faith. II Timothy 4:7
“Not banned yet – so each and all of us – at the line.”

“As Moses came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand,
he did not know that the skin of his face shone
because he had been talking with God.” Exodus 34:29

“Now about eight days after these sayings Jesus took with him Peter and John and James,
and went up on the mountain to pray.
And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed,
and his clothes became dazzling white.” Luke 9:28

Do you recognise these words? Locate their time and place?
“Current Guidance: We encourage people to wear face coverings in the building
(unless exempt), but the requirement to do so has now been lifted.
Some people will be more comfortable maintaining social distancing:
please be respectful of their choices.
Our arrangements are under review –
the Out of Lock Down working group will meet this week.
We will publicise any changes as promptly as possible, should the need arise.”

The St Columba’s intimation sheet three years ago.
Time of masks and direction arrows –
their faded outline, still visible on wooden floors,
ghostly reminder of strange days.
Today, seemingly barely believable – Did that really happen?

You will have your own COVID memories.
People had such differing experiences.
We went from livestreaming services in an empty church,
to gradual readmission of worshippers into the sanctuary – spaced and masked.
I was often asked: Did it feel lonely to conduct worship with a
musician and a technician and no one else?
To which I always answered:
That was easy – when people came back that was difficult!
(Which needs a little explaining):
When the church was empty there was never a sense that nothing was happening.
On the contrary, the leading of worship felt more important than ever –
and though the pews were empty, there was always a sense,
that in ways we couldn’t fathom,
we were connected and sharing something profound.
In contrast, the return of “live” worshippers was much more disconcerting:
A sprinkling of people – thinly spread – faces covered – unable to sing.
That felt much more disconnected.
It turns out, faces were/faces are important.

We shouldn’t be surprised:
A wedding couple choose lines from by Scots poet, Edwin Muir’s “The Confirmation”
to be included in their ceremony:
“Yes, yours my love, is the right human face,
I in my mind had waited for this long,
Seeing the false and searching for the true,
Then found you as a traveller finds a place
Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong
Valleys and rocks and twisting roads.”

Or today, a baptismal day; welcoming, celebrating, Winifred,
words that we sang together:
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make his face to shine upon you…”
The presence of an infant, a fresh reminder of the wondrousness/the shiningness
of a human face;
a double delight: both to really look into the face of an infant;
but also, to behold a child looking at the world;
their curiosity and attention re-teaching jaded adult eyesight the G K Chesterton truth:
“The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”

Today’s focus on faces and accompanying masked musings,
prompted by scripture; serving up two notable faces,
masked and revealed; revealed and masked.
The link appears to be mountains and faces.
Moses at Mount Sinai (receiving the Commandments)
then returning to the children of Israel with a face all aglow.
Mask on, mask off.
Then Jesus echoing much of Moses’ experience:
Taking the high road, clues and symbol abound –
mountain, dazzling light, glowing countenance –
The presence and commendation of Moses and Elijah –
dignitaries, representing the Law and the Prophets.
Lest we be in any doubt: A cloud descending – very presence of God;
and that Voice: “This is my Son, the Chosen. Listen to him!”

Luke’s account really starts:
“Now about eight days after these sayings…”
Which sayings?
“Who do you say that I am?” asks Jesus. “The Christ” trumpets Peter.
But to Crown, Jesus responds, Cross.
“The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, be rejected…be killed
and on the third day be raised.”
…
“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves
and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

Eight days later the great witnesses, Moses and Elijah talk with Jesus;
“speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.”
Our translation is departure; but the word Luke uses is exodus –
a profound, loaded word, for those shaped
by Israel’s long walk to freedom, out of Egypt’s chains.
Luke uses exodus both in the sense of journey and more profoundly, death.
The Transfiguration/the Big Reveal is an assurance,
before the end, about the end.
A glimpse, a confidence, a provision for the way, –
something to feed on when the going gets tough.

Perhaps it is Jesus who most needs to comprehend the confirmation.
Given the journey ahead, he will need all the affirmation of purpose he can get.
The Transfiguration representsa recognition/commendation of his true self –
chosen and beloved of the Father.
And for disciples, something in time,
that will defy the apparent meaninglessness
of Jesus’ vicious, filthy, tortured passing.
His exodus, not a dead end, but gateway to a Promised Land.

Peter, patron saint of the foot in mouth comment,
makes the mistake of wanting to tabernacle the moment,
harness the holy, contain/perpetuate it for posterity.
The sight of Jesus striding down the hill, educates him swiftly,
to what Jesus thinks of that idea.
Neither the rabbi, nor Gd, appear much concerned with permanent mountaintop real estate.

What happened next?”
All three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) tell the story of the Transfiguration –
and all three conclude the story with the healing of a “demon-possessed” boy,
down in the valley.

In the Vatican Museum, the last painting of the Renaissance artist, Raphael
depicts this gospel account; entitled The Transfiguration of Christ,
it divides in two parts.
The upper, bathed in light, portrays the events on the mountain-top;
Peter, John and James witness Christ in glory.
But, scrolling down to the people at the foot of the hill,
one becomes aware of a darker scene;
a jostling crowd, and a boy with agitated features, looking up to the Risen Christ.
His father seeks help; the other nine disciples are there,
some arguing with the scribes, as others look on.

Layered as it is, it is a single piece – its unity, an amalgam or fusion,
conveying a difficult truth.
The Christ story will not be neatly segmented –
beauty and order and light in one domain –
life’s difficulties – illness, intolerance, anger, disappointment,
somehow exiled to a lesser, non-sacred category.
Artist and the gospel author, weave the two together –
the glory and the grey, certainties and doubt, vision and gloom,
hope and despair, belief and unbelief.
Mountain “God” moments may come, unanticipated, gifted –
but more reliably, Christ is to be found in the valley,
amidst the sorrows and beauties of everyday, messy, imperfect human life.

Debie Thomas highlights the danger of “God on the mountaintop” Christianity:
“As if God is somehow more present during a rousing choral anthem,
a stirring sermon, or a silent retreat in a seaside monastery,
than God is when I’m doing the laundry, buying my groceries,
or sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. 
Desperate for the mountain, we miss the God of the valley,
the conference room, the pharmacy, the school yard.” 

Peter eventually learns that the compassionate heart of God
is most powerfully revealed amidst the lost and the lonely;
shines most brightly against the backdrop of the parent who grieves,
the child who cries, the “demons” who oppress,
and the disciples who try but fail to manufacture the holy

So, with Peter, John and James, after our worship together,
we are invited back to the world,
imperfect and flawed, complex and complicated;
there to seek and serve the face of Christ:
Found “…. as a traveller finds a place
Of welcome suddenly amid the wrong
Valleys and rocks and twisting roads.”

Or as another poet penned:
“… for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.”
(As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Gerard manly Hopkins)

ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 30th MARCH 2025,
4th SUNDAY OF LENT & MOTHERING SUNDAY

“There was a man who had two sons.” Luke 15:11 

A poem entitled, The Parent’s farewell:
[The Geese Flew Over my Heart (Lyn McCrave)]
A fragment of dialogue, between youth setting out, and parental remaining:

“I always seem to be saying goodbye,
Packing your boat, launching you out
Into the deep.

Then I stand and wait for your wave,
that smile that says
“Here I go; stay there.
Be my harbour.”

Leaving home, letting go, escaping or setting free;
independence, defiance, departure, homecoming, slipway and harbour.
Suitable themes for a sabbath that coincides Mothering Sunday
and the Gospel parable of Parent and Sons.
And lest we fret at the thought of sermon on fathers and sons,
on a day for celebrating the role of mothering –
whether in families, Church, or the numerous other ways it can be dispensed –
let us remind ourselves God is beyond gender,
and the Scriptures are quite capable of offering feminine images:
“As a mother comforts her child, so will I [God] comfort you;
and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 66:13).
Or as Jesus said over that same city:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you,
how often I have longed to gather your children together,
as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings,
and you were not willing.” (Matthew 23:37; Luke 13:34)

The late Henri Nouwen, Dutch Roman Catholic priest, writer and theologian
authored “The Return of the Prodigal Son”.
It offers an extended reflection on the Rembrandt picture
housed in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. (Check out this week’s Newsletter).
The picture depicts the moment the prodigal son returns
and is embraced by the father –
while the elder brother watches from the shadows.

One of Nouwen’s observations is that one of the hands of the father
can be interpreted as being more feminine, showing God our Mother,
as well as God our Father.
A church friend sent me this week – a quote found in a family prayer book:
“God couldn’t be everywhere, so invented Mothers”.

However you hear/feel about that suggestion, it might be helpful to consider:
“Language about God should help us to understand and encounter God,
but we should not confuse the reality of God with the limits of our language.”
Theologian Lynn Japinga: (Feminism and Christianity: An Essential Guide, Abingdon: 1999, p. 64)

“There was a parent who had two sons.”
In quick time, the youngest son turns his back on family,
forsakes the familiarity of his homeland, loses sight of his religious heritage.
Despite the insult, the father gives what the son demands.
Though painful, perhaps the father knows
you can’t return home, without leaving first.

In honesty, we tend to resonate with the elder son; his resentments mirror our own.
Elder brother has been responsible, behaved well,
prudently kept his inheritance secure.
Meanwhile little brother has been profligate,
enjoyed it and is “punished” with the party of the year!
Isn’t elder brother entitled to reprimand his Dad for being … weak?
Why does Jesus tell this story which seems to have an unfairness, injustice at its heart?

The Gospels leave little doubt,
that Jesus made a lot of enemies in a short time.
Broadly speaking, his detractors fell into two categories —
the politically powerful of Rome,
who executed him as a subversive enemy of the state,
and the religiously self-righteous, who are the subject of Luke 15 this week.

Jesus’ trouble is of his own making, hanging out with the wrong crowd.
“… there were many sinful people who followed him.”
This entourage of moral outcasts feel safe with Jesus; sheltered, not judged.
In a society of religious food laws,
Jesus is unfussy about what is placed before him;
and unfussy about who shares the feast.
Hence the grumbling:
Does this Jesus – a drunk and a glutton – not know who these people are?
Does he condone their messed-up lives?
The elder brothers saw and were appalled.

“So he told them this parable.” 
Actually, he told them three:
One about a lost sheep, one about a lost coin and one about a lost son –
or one might suggest – two lost sons.

The abrasive truth is that this most beloved of all tales,
the Parable of the Prodigal Son – the gospel within the gospel –
is a story aimed at the enemies of Jesus.
The son who finds his way home, and the Father running to meet him,
is actually a challenge to the religiously respectable, with their mutterings:
“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

The poignancy of the story – somewhere along the way,
despite his proximity to the father,
the dutiful, loyal, elder son has become just as lost as his tearaway sibling.
The elder brother has reduced the green pastures of home to scorched earth –
a barren land of score-keeping, bereft of gratitude, forgiveness or mirth.
In differing ways, both sons squander their inheritance –
one recklessly over-spending, the other joylessly withholding.

The Brazilian bishop, Heler Camara:
“I pray incessantly for the conversion of the prodigal son’s elder brother.
Ever in my ears the dread warning:
One has awoken from his life of sin.
When will the other awake from his virtue?”

The elder brother is the warning to all of us
when we presume to constrict our vision of who God is interested in;
when we presume – it is us who decides who gets to come home.

We began with the poem, The Parent’s Farewell:
hen I stand and wait for your wave,
that smile that says
“Here I go; stay there.
Be my harbour.”

Echo of the perhaps better-known, C Day-Lewis poem, Walking Away,
The remembering of a scene played out on a school sports field,
between father and son.

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –A sunny day with leaves just turning,The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you playYour first game of football, then, like a satelliteWrenched from its orbit, go drifting away
Behind a scatter of boys. 

… … …

I have had worse partings, but none that soGnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughlySaying what God alone could perfectly show –How selfhood begins with a walking away,And love is proved in the letting go.