Sermons - December 2023

ST. COLUMBA'S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 3rd DECEMBER 2023 11.00 A.M.
(1st SUNDAY OF ADVENT)

“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter;
we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64

“Therefore, keep awake - for you do not know when the master of the house will come …”
Mark 13: 35

On this day of celebration - baptism – Leo and Nathaniel –
Profession of Faith - Iain and Sebastian –
Christmas Crackers Lunch and attendant festivities,
what are we to make of our menacing-sounding scriptures (read by Rona Black)?
We might have hoped today for something encouraging –
angels in our midst, entertained unawares, a Good Samaritan, care of the young.
Something familiar – a bit of love - God, neighbour, self.
You’d hope.
Instead, because today is Advent Sunday,
the lectionary chef serves dishes, passionate with lament,
and spicy with warning.

“We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” Isaiah 64
“Therefore, keep awake - for you do not know when the master of the house will come.”
Hark the glad sound of mournful church bells?
Ask not for whom they toll…

Many of you may know/remember the debonair actor, David Niven –
a host of films and a celebrity lifestyle,
based on the persona of the suavest of suave, English gentleman.
Before the silver screen he commissioned as an officer into the Highland Light Infantry.
One military Christmas Niven was on duty, on Boxing Day at the Citadel, Dover.
He and one other junior officer, Captain Trubshawe,
had been left in charge over the seasonal stand down.
The few men in camp had celebrated Christmas day in some style,
and all things were now moving peacefully, if gingerly, the next day.

Suddenly, the Mess Steward appeared, looking panicky,
announcing the arrival of visitors.
Behind him, was a real, live, Major General.
Lean and formidable, the very senior officer walked in briskly, looking purposeful.

With the Commanding Officer and the Adjutant away on leave,
it fell to the remaining two junior officers to show the General round the barracks.
Having only just arrived from Malta, their knowledge was, at best, sketchy.
The General was underwhelmed.
Things improved a little, as the barracks’ bush telegraph
summoned work parties to be conspicuously busy.
It was not great, but disaster appeared to have been avoided, until…

On the point of departure, the General barked: “What’s in there?”
indicating a large building with red double doors,
and Fire House written above them.
“The fire engine, sir,” replied Trubshawe, confidently.
“Get it out,” ordered the General.
“Yes, sir.”
Trubshawe resembled a man hit with a halibut.
“Mr Niven, get the engine out please.”
“Very good, sir…. Sergeant Innes – get the engine out.”
“Sir! – Corporal McGuire, the engin’ – get it oot.”
The buck accelerated away down the rank ladder.
The cry of: “The engine – get it out” echoed round the Citadel.
The General tapped his swagger stick ominously.
“What sort of engine is it?” he asked with ominous calm.
“Oh” answered Trubshawe, “it’s a beauty.”
“Get it out” snarled the General.

Finally, a soldier bearing a huge key doubled across the Square.
Niven could not believe his ears when he heard his friend say:
“Many’s the night, General, when this trusty engine has been called out
to help the honest burghers of Dover.”
“Get it out!”
At last, with the flourish of a guide at Hampton Court
opening the door of Henry VIII’s bed-chamber,
Trubshawe threw open the double doors.

Inside, distant against the far wall - two women’s bicycles, a dead Christmas tree,
and a bucket of hard and cracked whitewash from a bygone cricket season.
The General turned and stalked to his car without a word.
Niven concluded the reminiscence:
“In the next few months, a tremendous upheaval took place in the battalion…”

“Therefore, keep awake - Indeed. But awake/ready, for what?
Advent, the season of waiting and anticipation has been described as,
an “abrupt disruption in our ‘ordinary time’.”
Today on the Sunday of the Church’s New Year,
the Biblical writers dust off the scrolls, to deliver their disruption:
(Isaiah): O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
so that the mountains would quake at your presence—
as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
so that the nations might tremble at your presence!

In other words, what has happened to God?
God used to perform the mighty deeds of deliverance –
leading captive Hebrews out of Egypt into the Promised Land?
Evidencing unambiguous and visible power.
What now? Some faded heavyweight champion,
a shambling shadow of former glories?
Why do you now hide yourself from us?

While Isaiah laments God’s hiddenness,
the Gospel writer (Mark) paints the drama,
of what un-hiddeness might look/feel like:
“In those days … the sun will be darkened; the moon will not give its light,
the stars will be falling from heaven,
the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Then (then) they will see the Son of Man (the Human One)
coming in clouds with great power and glory.” Mark 13:
In other words: Stand by!
Amid signs of catastrophe, prepare for the Big Reveal –
sounding like the ultimate cosmic audit.
Apocalypse means revelation, an unveiling.
The Gospel revelation predicts a divine stock-take;
an end-of-time appraisal of the staff – humankind, us.
Are the barracks ready for inspection?

Our cautionary tale - unready subalterns and the absent Fire Engine –
suggest a necessary discipline to our Advent anticipation –
patient watching, faithful waiting.
Not time wasted, or bored indifference, or spiritless inertia –
more like a goal-keeper, Mary Earps,
lining up her defence for a free-kick –
intent, on her toes, vigilant, undistracted,
scanning the game for its clues.
We too, goal-keeper-waiting,
not just for Christmas – its stories and celebrations -
but for signs of God’s coming, God’s presence and movement,
in our day and age, our now and not elsewhere.

Like sleep, waiting can’t be rushed.
Necessary things – things worth waiting for –
often require time and fertility of darkness – think seeds in winter soil.
But the promise: “Worth the wait.”
“We wait to find out who we are.
perhaps to discover we were waiting for something we didn’t know about.” (Doney & Wroe)
“Yet, we are the clay, and you are our potter;
Now consider, (Lord & Father) we are all your people.”

We wait, perhaps to understand what we’re here for and what we can do.
Or, as another prophet (Micah) encapsulated:
: “To do justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God.”

ST. COLUMBA'S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 10th DECEMBER 2023 11.00 A.M.
(2nd SUNDAY OF ADVENT)

Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist,
and he ate locusts and wild honey. Mark 1

They say: “Clothes maketh the man – or woman?
You look a million dollars? “Suits you Sir!”
Red dress or black? – Red? – You mean you don’t like the black!?

A poem by the late Anglican priest, David Scott, entitled Nun on a Platform:

She seems in place here,
as much as in the convent,
self-contained, neat.
You could hardly call it luggage.

No frantic balancing of cups
but like a swan, which also
has no hands for magazines,
she stands complete.

No intermediate, half unsureness,
no drawing kids back from the edge,
or disappointment over missing,
or expectation of arrival

of a train, lean her,
like the rest of us, out of true.
We are all some distance from our roots
on this platform, but she seems at home,

as her Sisters will be
in the over large garden
reaching for tall fruits,
their thoughts ripening for pardon.

Seeing a nun on a platform
gives the day a jolt,
like an act of kindness,
or a pain that halts.

The poet observes/perceives a powerful integrity –
outer clothing and inner being.
More than just uniform – the way the anonymous nun holds herself,
self-contained, a serenity,
an enviable completeness.
As in place on the platform as in the convent.
We are all some distance for our roots on this platform, but she seems at home.
To glimpse her, is to be reminded of more distant horizons –
something of the beyond in our midst –
gives the day a jolt.

Another day, another set of distinctive clothing
and, potentially, an almighty jolt.
John the baptizer appearing in the wilderness,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Camel hair and leather belt – a wardrobe of austerity;
echoing Israel’s mightiest prophet, Elijah.
Tradition held that before the messiah cold appear,
he would be preceded by Elijah.
Rations – locusts and wild honey – diet of the poorest.
No time for celebrity chefs and the comforts of scatter cushions;
Like that stationary nun, John personifies his message.
Out on the periphery, at wilderness edge,
away from the corridors of power, religious or political;
undiluted urgency, stripped of pretence, unprotected;
clothes making the man – he stands, a living declaration:
“Repent. Be forgiven. Prepare.”

Borrowed words, words with an echo:
originally spoken in the worst of times.
Jerusalem in ruins; Babylon the world’s super-power.
Following deportation in 587 BCE, the children of Israel in exile there.
Far from home, many believe God has abandoned them:
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept.

“Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem…
From bleakness, the forgottenness of a defeated people,
rises the voice of the anonymous prophet (“Second Isaiah.”)
Comfort, O comfort my people -
from the Latin cum fortis, “with strength.”
To the exile, the weary or despairing,
to the fearful, the dying or the bereaved - Comfort.

“Lift up your voice with strength, do not fear; “Here is your God!”
If we read on: “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31

This is the passage that John the Baptist references –
Isaiah’s hope, in the midst of despair.
“A voice cries; in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
God is about to show us a new thing.
But, just to be clear: I am not that new thing – simply, witness to it.

The One who comes after me is more powerful than me –
How much more? “I am not fit to untie his sandal.”
Unfit, even to undertake the role of the lowest servant – that’s the comparison.

John did not know it at the time, but – in one of the beautiful continuities,
that link Advent to Easter -
the One, whose sandal strap John felt unworthy to untie,
would one day kneel before his own disciples, undo their sandal straps,
and wash their feet - his almost final, startling action;
the servant towel - “clothes” that make the man,
and reveal the heart of the Divine.

A voice cries out: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

What levelling up, what redistribution of heights,
might be required for the glory of the Lord to be revealed?
What landscaping/re-landscaping of society
might be appropriate for all people to see together?
One church in Northwest England offers food for thought.

“It's not an art exhibition, it’s a disruption.”
Words of Reverend Leah Vasey Saunders, Vicar of Lancaster Priory.
In 2020, Lancaster Priory became one focal point for local Black Lives Matter protests.
Several plaques and gravestones at the Priory and nearby St John’s,
commemorate merchants and captains involved in the slave trade.
In 2020, one memorial was sprayed with the words ‘Slave Trader.’

This began a process of bringing to light the crimes against humanity,
that were perpetrated as part of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
by individuals associated with Lancaster Priory.
Lancaster was the fourth largest slavery port in the United Kingdom –
Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, top three?
Yet very little of the town’s history was known/recognised.

Facing the Past, was/is an arts and research programme,
designed to reveal and redress these omissions.
Although much is known about Lancaster’s slave traders,
the opposite is true of the enslaved Africans who were brought to the area.
In time research revealed the presence of 76 Black Africans
entered into the church registers.
Registers for St Mary’s Parish, which includes the Priory and St John’s,
feature 76 entries for people of African or mixed African heritage between 1755-1837.
These include 58 baptisms, 13 burials and five marriages.
“These lives are not remembered, their stories not told,
and their names not written in stone.” (Church website)
One of those individuals was Sophia Fileen,
baptised in Lancaster Priory on 15 February 1799,
recorded as ‘a negro aged 11 years of Lancaster’.

Lancaster Priory has had a longstanding partnership with EducAid, working in Sierra Leone. The Facing the Past team asked a group of school pupils there
to step across the centuries and continents, to imagine Sophia’s life.
Working with movement practitioners,
the girls responded to Sophia as a real person, not a victim,
as a young girl with agency, strength, beauty and joy.
The installation of the three, dancing figures in Lancaster Priory
is a result of this co-created work.

Vicar of Lancaster: “We continue to respond to the disruptive act of protest in our churchyard by seeking to disrupt the inside of the church,
making space for Black history and presence and encouraging dialogue,
to enable us to develop future resources to face the past truthfully.”

As the Bishop of Burnley commented on radio this week:
The launch of the three dancing Sophias, coincides with the launch of Advent.
Both are “disruptions” – jolts to the day.
As the Bishop continued: “We need disruptors,
not those whose actions are deliberately destructive,
or seek attention only for themselves,
but those who disrupt for a greater good.”

Voices advocating at COP 28 or COVID enquiry?
Voices asking awkward questions in Parliament, town hall, or Kirk Session?
Artists, activists, ordinary folk – prepared to disrupt because, not indifferent, they care?

Three years ago, at the end of a torrid COVID year,
a Thought for the Day broadcaster asked the question (Chine McDonald)
“What lessons have 2020 taught us?
Which lives matter; the importance of connectedness to community;
an appreciation of nature; a spotlight on UK poverty;
the importance of key workers; a reassessment of work/life balance.”

To recall those insights is always timely – but perhaps particularly in this season –
honouring John a disruptor – but, awaiting once more, THE Disruptor.
The One who would subvert the status quo –
overturning tables and upsetting traditions –
personifying a bias for the lost, the lonely and the least.
The refugee, who offers us home.
The judge, who holds the world to account.
The shepherd who feeds his flock.
Gathering the lambs in his arms, carrying them in his bosom,
and gently leading the mother sheep.
From despair to hope.
Comfort my people.
This is the One who comes again.
Prepare his way.
Follow his way.

MORNING WORSHIP
ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 24th DECEMBER 2023, 11.00am, ADVENT IV

Elizabeth to Mary: “And why has this happened to me,
that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting,
the child in my womb leapt for joy.”
[And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment
of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’] Luke 1

Two lives transformed, the cousins Elizabeth and Mary.
According to Luke, their tales run almost in parallel,
their similarities and their differences there to enlighten us.

The two women share a common religious culture and an extended family tie.
But their pregnancies attract different responses.
Elderly Elizabeth discovers the gift of new life, long after hope has departed.
Her husband, the priest Zechariah, is visited while on duty, in the Temple’s, Holy of Holies.
He responds to the angel’s announcement of impending fatherhood:
“How will I know that this is so?
For I am an old man and my wife is getting on in years.”
His scepticism is met by his being struck mute,
“… because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time –
so, you will be unable to speak until the days these things occur.”
Zechariah gains a pregnancy of silence,
the enforced nine months of pondering, eventually ended by the all-round surprising:
“My son’s name is John!”
Public affirmation, that late to the party, maybe –
but he has finally tuned into the God-placed possibilities set before him.

Some months after the Temple angel, another messenger,
another surprising pregnancy.
This time a young girl, unmarried – circumstances ripe for discredit and wagging tongues.
In a land occupied by foreign soldiers a hint of coercion, or collaboration (?)
In contrast to the religious professional, the woman of little status,
questions – but then, assents.
“Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me, according to your word.”
A “Yes” that, in the poet’s phrase, brings “the world to its knees.” (David Scott)

After Mary’s yes there is a precious, but often overlooked, gospel episode.
Any woman who feels the stirrings of a new life within,
surely faces a confusing mix of delight and trepidation, astonishment and fear.
Circumstances call for trustworthy and wise companions;
either those travelling the same road, or those who have travelled it before.

Mary turns to Elizabeth; elder than she, but also caught up in the miracle of new life.
When the young woman crosses her cousin’s threshold in hill town Judea,
she is welcomed without condition or restraint.
The world needs its Elizabeths – those who move past judgement and shaming,
to offer God’s blessing.
Those who can see beyond fault lines, to see God’s hand at work.

As the gospel portrays it; Elizabeth imparts a wonderful confirmation.
For at the sound of Mary’s voice,
the child in Elizabeth’s womb, that future wild, baptising prophet,
thumps his mother’s tummy with a boxer’s punch;
a recognition, a leap of joy.
Mother-to-be, declares to mother-to-be:
“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
Addressing the teenager as the mother of my Lord,
and knowing something of her husband, Zechariah’s, response to his angel,
she concludes: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment
of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Blessed for believing: God believing in Mary, Mary believing in God.

Did Zechariah, the old priest watch from another room –
puzzled, wondering, what had he missed?
Visited by an angel he had expected things on his terms;
some certainty and control.
Now he watches these two women blossoming –
swelling with strange pregnancies, yet strangely joyful.

Luke conveys that though the women are individually addressed – each their own story -
they do not now travel or wait alone.
They are given each other, and in their three-month co-habitation
they recognise and affirm the unlikely gift that has been given to them.
Elizabeth helps Mary to become the mother of God.
Mary’s helps Elizabeth to become the mother of her son’s prophet, John the Baptist.
Called individually, it is in companionship, that the purposes of God mature.

Henri Nouwen (Dutch priest, principal spiritual voices of late C20th)
“The story of the Visitation teaches me the meaning of friendship and community.
How can I ever let God’s grace fully work in my life
unless I live in a community of people
who can affirm it, deepen it, and strengthen it?
We cannot live this new life alone.
God does not want to isolate us by his grace.
On the contrary he wants us to form new friendships and a new community –
holy places where his grace can grow to fullness and bear fruit.”
_{Road To Daybreak, pp101}

“Blessed are you, and blessed is the fruit of your womb” declares Elizabeth,
To which Mary responds with a prophecy of a radical new order:
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour.
… he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

Famed, for saying yes, Mary also offers a defiant, no.
No, to an inequality that leaves the few bored with excess,
while the many scrape to get by.
No, to indifference; the “that’s just the way it is.”
Her talk of bringing down, and rising up,
points not to a reversal of roles –
so that it’s just a different set of people on the chairs when the music stops –
Mary’s Magnificat – her freedom song - envisions God’s justice –
a circle where all have a place at the table.
A reimagining/re-configuration that requires a double shift –
the empowerment of the formerly oppressed,
and the relinquishing of power and privilege, previously held.

I would like to finish with sharing something of an account I received this week,
that speaks of companionship and community,
among those who in the eyes of the world, would be considered the very least.
My friend, a resident of a large American city,
spends some time with a small Christian community that ministers
to the homeless and vulnerably housed of one neighbourhood.
Some weeks ago, unprovoked, one of the homeless guests – Jason –
was shot outside the community building.
He died, cradled in the arms of the pastor.

This week my friend attended a celebration of Jason's life.
“It was bitterly cold, and the air was damp
when I passed through the gates into the community’s courtyard,
quietly exchanging greetings to a few subdued members of the community
who were finishing their breakfast.

The small basement hall was packed when I entered.
The pastor had just started the service,
leading the congregation in the singing of a community classic,
“We're talkin' 'bout a revolution - yeah! A revolution of love.”
As we sang in response, we just about managed to punctuate the “yeah!”
with a punch to the air, but it was more lacklustre than usual, lacking energy.

Then a scripture reading, remembrances, another song - and tears.
“Make me a channel of your peace.,
Where there is hatred, let me bring your love.”
The pattern continued, and with each story and memory,
a growing wellspring/ripple of love.
Stories from Jason's friends, his pastors,
the charitable medical team who looked after his health,
people who drifted away from the community –
and who had been asked to leave it for a while.
“The news of Jason's death brought me back here. I realise this is home.”
“Jason made me feel special. He knew my father was ill and lived in Chicago.
He knew his name. He would ask me about my dad.”
“Jason knew how to RECEIVE love... we all need to be better at receiving love.”

In the midst of stories, a smart phone was held aloft at the front of the congregation.
It was Jason's mother, Catriona, calling.
A remarkably strong voice thanking the community for loving her son,
The pastor for cradling him as he died.
And then talking about the man who had murdered her son:
“I understand he had mental illness... he needed help,
but there was no help for him...
we all need to address that - we need to be COLLECTIVE.”

Then the mother's voice broke down,
but she had summoned the congregation to community;
to seek solutions and not to blame, to seek reconciliation.
And then the community's response.
It started with one voice calling out to the phone:
“I love you, Mom.”
(A reassuring familiarity from a man to a woman he had never met).
Then a tidal wave of love, shouts and cries of: “We LOVE you, Mom!",
“We LOVE you, Catriona!”

Then the Eucharist/communion and the Peace,
shared with whoever was seated/standing next to you;
broad smiles and a feeling of connection.”

My friend reflected: “I think the Community is an act of rebellion.
Today, it rebelled against the fear of street violence,
it rebelled against retribution,
it rebelled against the voices that think it would be safer for the community to close its doors. And it did what it is called to do,
it lifted up the most marginalized and spoke of them by name,
and gave their lives meaning.
Most of all, today's service was an act of defiance:
that love and not death shall have the last word.
And I would like to believe that to be true.”

“Blessed be those who believe there will be a fulfilment of what is spoken by the Lord.” Amen.