ST COLUMBA’S, PONT STREET
SUN 04 FEB 2018
“And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues, and casting out demons.” Mark 1:39

On any given Sunday, we gather in the name of Jesus Christ,
in an attempt to draw close to God –
to praise, to seek forgiveness, to ask for strength, to say thank you.
On any given Sunday,
depending on stage of life and circumstance,
we gather with vastly different moods and motivations;
joyful baptismal families, the occasional accidental tourist,
the casualty from other church families
the member who has been here sixty years.
Some not sure why they’re here,
others keenly aware of life’s frailties, their own or their loved ones.

How can that diversity of spirit - readiness and unreadiness,
fear and confidence, faith and doubt, be addressed?
The tried and tested way is to look to the lectern,
to let the eagle take flight, to let the scriptures speak.

The gospel fragment read today is exactly that – a fragment – part of a wider passage.
Specifically, Mark’s gospel that starts at a gallop.
No genealogies, no birth backstories, just:
“The beginning of the good news/the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” Mark 1:1

Euangelion, the word we translate as gospel,
literally means “a bit of good news.”
In the ancient world it was official designation,
of an important public announcement,
a significant event, of public interest.
e.g. The emperor’s son had got engaged, a princess had given birth,
the army had won a victory, a city on the border had been captured.
(A euangelion was a kind of press release from Buckingham Palace or Downing Street)
Something had happened to be glad about; but stronger –
something had happened which was likely
to alter the climate, transform the landscape,
change the politics and the possibilities.

For a Greek-speaking subject of the Roman empire,
living somewhere round the eastern Mediterranean,
this would be the association/understanding you would bring to:
“The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”
This would be your scene-setter to a collection of writings
from a small, perhaps eccentric religious sect, calling themselves The Way.
From the outset, their document warns,
this is a book about regime change;
a new reign has been inaugurated:

“After John had been handed over for imprisonment,
Jesus went into Galilee announcing the official proclamation about God.
The time has arrived, he said, the rule of God has come close,
so change your minds. Trust this proclamation.” Mark 1:14)
What follows is a series of snapshots of the Jesus
who both inaugurates the good news, and personifies it.

And so to Capernaum – the place, where the adult Jesus chose to live.
A fishing centre on the shores of Lake Genneserat,
the lake of the harp (so called for its shape) – the Sea of Galilee as we know it.

Leaving the synagogue, with worship over – dramatic speaking, dramatic healing –
Jesus and friends move to the hospitality of the brothers, Peter and Andrew.
Away from the company, quarantined, Peter’s mother-in-law, is laid low.
Jesus attends her.
A bedside, no watching crowd; undivided attention, gentleness of touch, trust – ingredients of healing.

Jesus raises her up – a woman ritually unclean,
a refugee among her own kin,
restored, on the sabbath day.
For the sake of humanity, more than one law is transgressed.

In turn, her response:
“…the fever left her, and she began to serve them.”
This too on the sabbath: she makes her choice, judging the consequences,
declaring by her actions that the act of serving,
trumps the sacredness of the sabbath.
She becomes Jesus’ first servant.
In time, her service will stand in contrast to the disciples,
who vie for places of honour, rather than reaching for basin and towel,
their master’s signature gesture.

After sunset, the ending of the sabbath, the crowds gather.
Many who are sick, in body or mind,
come to the rabbi who spoke with authority,
in whose presence healing happens.
This too will be characteristic of Jesus’ days.

Then after the tumult, their exhilaration and exhaustion –
a few snatched hours of sleep.
But long before the cockerel summons the dawn,
then when it is very dark,
the search for solitude – a deserted place, prayer.
Jesus prays in the time of dark.
We should not underestimate either the conflict or the cost of prayer, for Jesus.
But prayer is part of him.
He must draw from its well,
to replenish perspective and wisdom, courage and love.

“Jesus knows that prayer will never do our work for us;
what it will do is strengthen us for our tasks which must be done.” William Barclay
Or as the Danish proverb puts it bluntly:
“Pray to God, but continue to row to shore.”

Respite is brief; the disciples are demanding.
They clamor for an immediate messiah - immediately.
Once again Jesus will not be confined –
neither by the religious authorities and their sabbath laws,
nor by the expectations of his anxious disciples.
“Let us go on to the neighboring towns,
so that I may proclaim the message there also;
for that is what I came out to do.”

As would-be disciples what does this day in the life of Jesus, illustrate/illuminate?
Whether new parents at the start of Elle’s baptised life,
or those whose baptisms were long decades ago.
Well, we might be reminded that faith is affirmed and nurtured,
as much in the home,
as it is in the formal sacred space, synagogue or church.
Or consider Jesus’ integrity of word and action –
preaching and healing, service and solitude.
It certainly speaks of the wellspring of prayer,
from which best action emerges.

All true – perhaps uncontentious.
But what about the elephant in the sanctuary.
Why is there healing for some, but apparently not for others?
Why are some dealt such difficult cards, while others appear to be life’s lottery winners?
There is not a week goes by in parish life
that someone in the church family is up against it –
an anxiety or illness, a diagnosis or a death.
We don’t get an answer to the Why? Question.
And what answer would really satisfy/explain away the painfulness of some situations?
The fourth-century monastic, Saint Anthony the Great (251–356).
offered the ruthlessly realistic consolation.
“Expect trials until your last breath.”

Perhaps our only, our best answer
is to track back to our opening acknowledgement –
that in drawing close to the scriptures, the Word of God, the good news,
we might find our source of strength and consolation.

So, I finish with the experience of Jurgen Moltmann,
leading Protestant theologian of the second half of the C20th.
In 1945 he was a prisoner of war in Scotland.
He and his fellow prisoners had just been shown photographs
of the horrors of the camps of Belsen and Buchenwald,
forced to confront the nightmare realisation,
that they had been fighting for a regime
responsible for unimagined atrocity.
At the time, Moltmann had little Christian background and no theological education.
An army chaplain distributed copies of the Bible to the POW’s:
In Moltmann’s own words:

“I read Mark’s Gospel as a whole and came to the story of the passion;
when I heard Jesus’ death cry:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
I felt growing within me the conviction:
this is someone who understands you completely,
who is with you in your cry to God
and has felt the same forsakenness you are living in now …
I summoned up the courage to live again.”
(From Meeting God in Mark, Rowan Williams, pp4)

Echo of those prophet words, Isaiah’s promise:
Be assured, your way is not hidden from God.
God grows neither weary nor tired,
God’s empathy and understanding are unbounded.
Yes, even the vigorous shall stumble, the young grow weary,
but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.
The beginning and continuing, Good News.

ST. COLUMBA'S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 14th JANUARY 2024 11.00 A.M.
(2nd SUNDAY after EPIPHANY)

“Go, lie down, and if he calls, say:
Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.” I Samuel 3

“Moments matter, attendance counts.”
An e-mail received this week, came from the head teacher of daughter Olivia’s school.
Sent out to all parents, in response to recent news stories.
Stories that commented/lamented a recent poll which revealed
that 28% of parents no longer think it is essential
for a child to attend school every day, following the pandemic.
The head teacher, along with all head teachers, had received an email
from the Department of Education asking for support
in the national drive for attendance – its theme/motto,
“Moments matter, attendance counts.”
(Dictionary definition: To attend – to be present at.)

Nighttime: a boy on his sleeping mat at Shiloh,
illuminated/shadowed by the flicker of the lamp;
Daytime: a man, beneath a tree, dappled by its branches.
Both awake – just about; both awaiting – maybe; both expectant – not massively.
And us, in pew/on-line – wandering thoughts or wondering thoughts,
present or distracted – perhaps a little of both?

Scripture’s wireless broadcasts from two sources - boy-Samuel and adult-Nathanael –
tuning in, what signal strength do we receive?

From the youthful Samuel:
The longed-for, special child, Hannah’s first-born –
miracle baby, because up to the point of his birth,
everyone thought she was barren (no suggestion of a father’s role/health);
until the day she went to the temple in Shiloh and prayed for a child.
She would do anything to conceived, including give the baby back to God.
The old temple priest Eli heard her prayer, blessed it,
and true to her word she brought the baby Samuel back to Eli as soon as he was weaned.
So, Samuel grew up in the temple serving Eli –
by now elderly and losing his sight –
helping the old man with his priestly duties.

(Revd Barbara Brown Taylor) imagines some of the realities;
no clean lines and calm spaces:
“A place where stubborn animals were brought up to the altar to be killed.
A place of blood, where burning incense did battle with the smell but could not beat it.
Maybe Samuel tended the cauldron where the sacrificial meat was boiled,
or helped Eli locate the portion he was allowed to eat as the temple priest.
At night lying down by the ark of God,
the legendary throne of the invisible king Yahweh
that Israel carried into battle at the head of her armies.
Reputed to contain all the sacred relics of the nation's past:
a container of manna, Aaron's budded rod, the tablets of the covenant.
“Sleeping next to it had to be like sleeping in a graveyard, or under a volcano.”
(Barbara Brown Taylor, Mixed Blessings, Voices in the Night.)

Yet, all this proximity to the rhythms and rituals of worship,
End with the verdict: “Samuel did not yet know the Lord,
and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.”
(“There is more to knowing God, it seems, than being in church.” Barbara Brown Taylor.)

So, the nighttime drama plays out.
God calls. Samuel hears. Goes to Eli: “You called for me?”
“No.”
A second time: “You called for me?”
“No.”
A third time – then for Eli, the penny drops.
Frail and badly compromised the old priest may be,
but he has the accumulated wisdom to pass on the advice:
“Go, lie down, and if he calls, say:
Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”
Words that will change Samuel’s life – the lives of Eli and his sons also.
Eventually, it is the uncompromisingness of what Samuel reports,
that convinces Eli the calling is authentic.
On account of Eli’s sons’ misdoings,
and Eli’s own abdication of responsibility towards them,
(failure to call out their corruption),
the boy the priest relied on to be his eyes,
shows him the vision of his own destruction.
Speak Lord, for your servant is listening.”
“Moments matter, attendance counts.”

“In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets
at many times and in various ways,
but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son.” Hebrews 1:1.

“This son” heads to Galilee, finds Philip, invites him to “follow me.”
Philip accepts the call, then hastens off to find his friend, Nathanael -
seated under a fig tree. The detail is deliberate.
The prophet Micah’s beautiful vision:
“…they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid;”

The scholars see the tree as a sign of the presence of God.
and the term “under the fig tree” as an ancient Jewish idiom,
that means. studying the messianic prophecies.
Nathanael knows those prophecies; Bethlehem will be the Messiah’s birthplace.
Nazareth, on the other hand - a village of 200-400,
dependent upon the city of Sepphoris, the capital of Galilee.
lends no special status to its inhabitants.
Nathanael is skeptical; “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”
Preconceived ideas constrain imagination.
But true to Jesus’ original, Philip simply tells his doubtful friend: “Come and see."

When encounter follows, Jesus looks passed Nathanael’s prickly exterior.
Instead, names the quality he wants to bless.
“Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
A salutation that a devout son of Israel would admire.

Taken aback, suspicious: “How do you know me?”
“I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.”
Echo of Psalm 139: O Lord, You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
It becomes the moment of epiphany: like Peter’s confession at Caesarea Philippi,
Nathanael declares: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
The title that would eventually be nailed to Jesus’ cross.

Jesus responds: “O Nathanael, I’ll show you things greater than this.
You are impressed because I recognise the dreams you dream, the tree you chose for shade.
But I will give you glimpses of heaven upon earth and earth’s gateway to heaven.”

Echo of outcast Jacob, fleeing the wrath of Esau, the brother he has tricked.
In despair, in the desert, lying down, exhausted, alone –
his head upon a stone; that holds the mystery of an altar.
O God of Bethel - the great dream of healing - a ladder, stretching from heaven to earth;
a ceaseless traffic of angels, ascending and descending;
Jacob’s dawn verdict: “Surely the Lord was in this place and I did not know it!
This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” Genesis 28:16.17
Now a new promise from Jesus: “You will see heaven opened,
and the angels of God, ascending and descending, upon the Son of Man.”

Samuel and Nathanael – one heading the advice to listen,
the other accepting an invitation to come and see.
In differing ways, beating out the Scripture’s morse code –
“Moments matter, attendance counts.”

Two fragments to finish: an American poet, and a Glaswegian delivery driver.
In her poem Praying, Mary Oliver suggests that when we quiet ourselves and pay attention, we create a vital space her advice:

“… just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but a doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

Or in the words of front door encounter, receiving a delivery –
The driver’s accent definitely, north of the border:
A brief interchange.
Glasgow roots – thirty five years in London.
He eventually asking – “Any plans for Sunday?”
Explanation – words to be found for our morning worship.
A pause. A thought.
“Stir them up!”
A raised/clenched fist and a departing smile.

“Speak Lord, for your servants are listening.”
For “moments matter and attendance counts.”

HOLY COMMUNION, ST. COLUMBA'S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 28th JANUARY 2024, 11.00 A.M.
(FOURTH SUNDAY after EPIPHANY)

“On the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astounded at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Mark 1:21-24

Occasionally, conversation with members of a certain generation,
turns to talk of school and memories of school disciple.
Not unusual to hear reminiscences of caning,
tales of the tawse, the leather strap across the hand;
dictionary defined as - “an implement for educational discipline, principally in Scotland” -

From south of the border, a story is told of a C19th Eton headmaster.
A leading educational figure of his day, infamous for his legendary beatings.
Numerous and vigorous strokes of the cane
to correct breaches of school rules, great and small.
Returning to his study one early evening,
he found eight pupils lined up at his door.
The hour being what it was, he knew they must be there for some misdemeanour,
and were awaiting the usual punishment.
One by one he called them in.
One by one he thrashed them.
As the last disconsolate figure winced towards the door, the Headmaster enquired:
“Thomkinson, remind me why I called you to my study.”
“We are your confirmation class Sir.”
Absurd/apocryphal tale – most probably.
But a window perhaps onto the question of authority –
its nature, exercise and recognition,
about which the Gospel reading also has something to say.

In recent Sundays Mark chapter 1 has tumbled forth in breathless burst.
John the Baptist appears in the wilderness:
Prepare the way of the Lord.
Jesus comes from Nazareth;
joins the great line of humanity, wades into the waters.
John baptises his kinsman.
The heavens open, a dove descends.
This is my Son, the beloved, in whom I am well pleased. (Voice from heaven.)
Straightway, the Spirit drives Jesus into the wilderness.
He is tempted; angels attend him.
John is arrested.
Jesus heads for Galilee, slipway from private to public life.
Announces: Now is the time. The kingdom of God has drawn near.
Then at lakeside calls to the fisher-brothers:
“Follow me and I’ll make you fishers of folk.
There are other nets for mending.”
Next up Jesus enters the synagogue at Capernaum.
You can visit its likely site today, close to the Sea of Galilee.
He teaches. Mark does not elaborate what was said.
He speaks differently to what they are used to. With authority.
The people are astounded.

Into the assembly stumbles a ravaged and disconcerting presence.
The man with the unclean spirit.
Scholars might debate the nature of the man’s affliction,
but the power over him/the cruelty of his situation, is easily imagined.
No voice of his own, no control over his body,
Anonymous, crazed and shunned.

“I know who you are, the Holy One of God.”
Then the unclean spirit’s haunting question –
a mix of fear, animosity and despair:
“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?
Have you come to destroy us?”
Jesus rebukes/commands: “Be silent and come out of him!”

A battle is played out; the convulsions are messy and scary –
I can only imagine there were people there who felt ill at ease,
embarrassed by such goings-on – in the synagogue, on the sabbath.
But one power is overcome by another.
A first sign of much that will follow.
Jesus is against that which diminishes and destroys people's lives.
The community gathered for worship
becomes the stage for a first declaration and deliverance.
Once more, amazement – such command, such authority,
Who is this Jesus?
Speculation mounts; fame spreads.

Today in church – a military presence –
marking the 80th anniversary of the London Scottish Regiment’s, Pte George Mitchell’s
winning of the Victoria Cross, the British Army’s highest award for gallantry.
In the Services community “authority” or rank is easily understood and widely recognised.
A glance at shoulder, collar tag, upper arm, a medal ribbon –
instant judgements about where that person stands in the food chain.
Sgt Maj’s coming – everybody stubs out their cigarette.
General’s on his way – everybody’s straightening ties and fidgeting with buttons.
His Majesty’s in bound – anything that doesn’t walk, gets painted.
Recognitions of certain authorities.

As chaplain to one of Scotland’s historic regiments, the Kings Own Scottish Borderers,
I once witnessed an insightful episode.
A World War II veteran of the regiment was invited to speak
to the currently serving soldiers at the weekly Kirk Muster.
When I was posted to the KOSB, I was warned that
I must never refer to them as the Kosbies.
It would be a dead giveaway that you weren’t part of the Regiment –
a sure social suicide. Always refer to the KOSB.
When their frail veteran walked onto the parade ground, his opening words.
“Good morning Kosbies.”
There was an audible intake of breath throughout the ranks.
He went onto to speak of his experiences in Holland and Germany in 1944-45.
Later in the day after much discussion, one of the Sergeants concluded:
“If he fought at Arnhem, I guess he can call the battalion whatever he wants.”
Speaking with authority.

From that same era, a powerful moment witnessed during a weekend
with the Corrymeela Community of Northern Ireland –
a body dedicated to peace-making across sectarian divides.
At a church cente in West Belfast, virtually on that city’s dividing line
our group were addressed by two women.
The first introduced herself:
“I’m a catholic, protestants killed my husband.”
The second: “I’m a protestant, catholics killed my husband.”
When they spoke, you could hear a pin drop.
Speaking with authority.

Each of us can probably bring to mind individuals who when they spoke
conveyed a sense of authority – not necessarily from the badges of rank
or markings of high office –
but in whose words, or actions,
there was an authenticity/integrity that you sensed/recognised.
A teacher, a colleague, a family or church member.
Maybe you don’t exactly remember what they said,
but as the messenger they were also the essence of the message.

Last night at a splendid Burns Supper we were reminded of the reverse of that.
The ploughman poet famously lambasting the hypocrisy
of parts of the church in Holy Wullie’s Prayer.
The kirk elder who fails miserably to live up to the standards
he so keenly imposes on others.
Jesus had some choice words for religious authorities of his day:
Pomp and circumstance that signified nothing;
hypocrisy of the pious charade;
the willingness to impose heavy burdens on others,
the reluctance to alleviate them.

Those words would emerge and be recorded, later and elsewhere.
“Jesus speech”, that would offer profound guidance, encouragement, warning –
foundation stones of our faith.
But of this Mark (at his point) says nothing:
Rather he conveys that Jesus’ authority lies in the combination of what is said and done –
the practice of the preaching. The walking of the talk.

In time all the Gospels will flesh this out.
Words - about forgiveness – but also, the forgiving of Peter who denied him;
About justice – but also, overturning of money-lender tables
in a Temple that exploited the vulnerable.
About servanthood – but also, the washing of his friends’ feet.
About suffering – but also, tears for his dead friend Lazarus,
and for his beloved Jerusalem.
About sacrifice – but also, the rendezvous kept at a place called Calvary.

Jesus, the living Word.
Supremely, honoured, remembered, re-enacted, in what we do next.
The breaking and sharing of bread. Communion. Holy.
Elders serving. All of us grateful for its giftedness.
A desire that all are fed –
not just bread and wine –
but peace and hope.
Rations for the onward journey.
Praise for its provider.
Reflection of its Author.
The authority of love.

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.

HOLY COMMUNION, ST. COLUMBA'S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 19th NOVEMBER 2023

Let us pray 

Lord, help us to enfold our words in silence and to enter the silence which enfolds Your living  Word that we may learn the wisdom born out of the silence of the womb even Jesus Christ, that  Word made flesh - Amen 

St. Matthew 6;28b 

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow … 

Last Sunday, I conducted the Remembrance Day service at Cellardyke. This included marking  the Memorial Stone. The kirk was full. Amongst the congregation, there were representatives  of the armed and emergency services. 

There were a lot of young people too – parents and young children, the Sea Queen and her  attendants, the scouts and cubs on parade, the two captains from the Wade Academy who read  the lessons. 

Afterwards, I spoke to a member of the congregation and said how impressed I was that the  children were so well-behaved observing the silence and respecting the act of worship. ‘They  were well warned!’ came her cynical reply.  

This was probably true but I do not believe for a moment that this is what commanded their stillness and attentiveness for it doesn’t happen always when young people are in attendance  on other occasions. 

No matter where it happens, the Act of Remembrance is literally awesome. It commands our  attention not because it is about war or peace but because it is about service and sacrifice, the  sacrifice of life itself. 

‘Greater love hath no man than this …’ says Jesus. And what is our natural response to this? It is  awe. We are awestruck by the courage, the heroism, the self-sacrifice. This is what gathers us all  up into a profound and collective silence! 

In all the political controversies of the previous week, our nation was united for two minutes on  Remembrance Sunday. And this two minutes was not full of political opinion, inter-racial  division, religious bigotry but silence! 

Right at the heart of this two minutes is something which defies all our attempts to put into  words. It’s love, a quality of love inspired by Christ crucified on the cross! It is a love born out of  silence and silence is its awesome home.  

I think some would say that for a Church of Scotland congregation to initiate a ‘Festival of  Silence’ is counter-cultural. Afterall, the distinguishing feature of our Kirk is the centrality of the  Word and the importance of preaching. 

Despite all our words, there is a lot of silence enfolding the Kirk. In the first of its defining  Declaratory Articles, we read that the Church of Scotland ‘receives the Word of God which is  contained in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as its supreme rule of faith and life’. 

The Kirk is saying that there is not necessarily a one to one correspondence between the words  contained in the Bible and the Word of God. In this it refuses to define precisely the relationship  between the two, preferring to enfold its understanding of the Word of God at that point in a  profound silence.

In the fifth of its defining articles it writes about our Confession of Faith and how it relates to its  office-bearers famously declaring that they have ‘liberty of opinion in points which do not enter  into the substance of the Faith’. But it is careful not to define with any more clarity what it  means by ‘the substance of the Faith’. 

Once again, silence prevails. Instead of more words no further attempt is made to pin down the  substance of the Faith. What exactly must an office-bearer believe? It is not defined precisely.  What exactly is the Word of God? It is not defined with any precision.  

Instead, silence prevails and inspires respect for the other in the primacy of love. Just as the  nation’s two minutes silence unites people of differing political and religious opinion, so these  silences in the Kirk prioritise not the words which may seriously divide but the love which is born  out of the eternal silence of God. 

It may be unfair of me to say that silence must be a more elusive commodity in the great city of  London than it is in the ancient university town of St. Andrews where we live or even on the  shores of Loch Fyne where I was brought up. So the provision of carefully curated opportunities  to experience silence is to be commended. 

Throughout the Gospels, Jesus enfolded himself in silence. His words were born out of the  silence of God and he discerned this Word of God by regularly withdrawing from the crowd.  ‘Now during these days Jesus went out to the mountain to pray and he spent the night in prayer  to God.’ says St. Luke. (6;12) 

Out of an experience of prayer, the disciples ask him to teach them how to pray. And here in St.  Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus teaches them about coping with worry and securing their well-being by  encouraging them to return to nature and the silence enfolding the lilies of the field. ‘Consider  the lilies of the field, how they grow …’ he says. 

He doesn’t lead us to some ancient text from the Torah nor the prophets but to the natural  world. It opens us up to the possibility of discovering God. ‘The heavens declare the glory of God  and the firmament sheweth his handywork.’ sings the Psalmist. 

In his letter to the Romans, St. Paul articulates a natural theology. ‘Ever since the creation of the  world God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and  seen through the things he has made.’  

As children growing up in Ardrishaig, we were mesmerised by Mr Carr who lived in a nearby  tenement flat with his French wife. Often we would see him feeding the birds at the edge of a  bush-lined path leading up to his flat. 

He didn’t scatter breadcrumbs or bird seed on the ground. He took some food out of an old  tobacco tin, placed it in his hand and waited until the birds flew down, sat on his fingers and  broke their fast. 

He was a man of deep silence. I never heard him say a word. But the memory of his patient  engagement with the natural world was awesome and intrinsically inspiring to a child.  

In his sermon, Jesus invites us to consider the lilies of the field. According to my Chambers  Dictionary, ‘to consider’ means ‘to look at attentively or carefully’. In particular, Jesus wants to  draw our attention to two things – their silent beauty and contentment. 

They have done nothing to earn their beauty. They simply grow in the grace of God.

Their eloquent silence articulates the secret of contentment. They are not busy striving to be  something else. Their contentment is the more surprising because their existence is transient.  Here today, gone tomorrow. 

In her startling essay on education, Simone Weil, twentieth century teacher of mathematics and  philosophy, begins, ‘The key to a Christian conception of studies is the realisation that prayer  consists of attention.’ The one is a preparation for the other. Both have their home in silence. 

She makes an extraordinary connection between school studies like Latin or geometry and  prayer. What leads the student from the one to the other is the development of attentiveness  which she sees as crucial to academic study. Education is not about passing exams but  increasing attentiveness.  

She goes on to argue that remaining attentive to the academic task in hand will reward a  student on the spiritual plane whether they are successful in the solution of their geometrical  problem or not. The insights gained from the attentive struggle will redound in mysterious ways.  It is born out of silence. 

And here Jesus does not simply direct our attention to the lilies of the field but to the mystery  inherent in their growth. He doesn’t say, ‘Consider the lilies of the field!’ simpliciter. But,  ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow!’ 

In the Parable of the Seed Growing Secretly, the farmer plants the seed and then he leaves it to  grow. How does this happen? Jesus says of the farmer, ‘He knows not how.’ It is a mystery which  belongs only to God. 

For his part, the farmer is called to exercise a ministry of patience or long-suffering. The waiting  is full of silence. The mystery of growth takes time to unfold. It takes courage and strength to  wait in this silent uncertainty. 

In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul challenges the divisions within the church so much  so that when they come to eat the Lord’s Supper ‘each of you goes ahead with your own supper  and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk’. (11;21) 

The mystery of the Lord’s Supper is being disturbed by divisive words. It happened at the  Reformation. Some said that the bread and the wine were ‘naked and bare signs’. Symbols!  Others said that they were transformed into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus.  Transubstantiation! 

Our Kirk said neither of these things choosing to enfold the Sacrament in a mysterious silence.  In our Scots Confession, approved by the Scots Parliament of 1560, it says that our union with  the body and blood of Christ: 

‘… is wrought by means of the Holy Ghost, who by true faith carries us above all things that are  visible, carnal and earthly and makes us feed upon the body and blood of Christ Jesus ..’ 

Our communion is beyond a defining set of words and is enfolded in a silence where faith can  grow and in the understanding that in some mysterious way the bread and the wine become  what Jesus says they are, his body and his blood. 

Here St. Paul quotes Jesus as saying, ‘For as often as you eat the bread and drink the cup, you  proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.’ ‘To proclaim’ is to announce or preach. It is something  done with words.

But the command is simply to eat the bread and drink the cup. They are silent activities. In this  silent feast, there is a proclamation not enfolded in defining and divisive words but in a  mysterious silence created by the Holy Spirit. 

The Kirk’s proclamation is born out of our obedience to the command, ‘Do this in remembrance  of me.’ And it’s enfolded in a silence which challenges those who would seek to define our  ministry too tightly in human words. 

Do you remember what happens after the Last Supper? Jesus goes out into the Garden of  Gethsemane to pray. ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here and stay awake with me.’  he says to his friends. But they don’t. They align themselves with God. They do not respond to  his agonising prayer.  

Jesus is enfolded in silence – the silence of sleep and the silence of an absent God. Where has  God gone? Why doesn’t God answer the prayer of one who so eloquently ministered in his  name - healing the sick, raising the dead, embracing outcast and sinner? 

Experiencing the silence of God has a profound effect upon Jesus. It actually changes his  prayer. He no longer asks, ‘Let this cup pass from me.’ But, ‘Your will be done.’ The powerful  silence of God encourages him to hand himself over to the very One who has abandoned him  in the silence of his prayerful struggle. 

Here Jesus places his trust not in the presence of God but in the absence of God, not in the  affirmation of his enduring love but in the loneliness of one who has clearly been abandoned.  Like the Sacrament and our Kirk’s constitution, silence is the creative gift of the Holy Spirit which  wrought for us our whole salvation. 

So ‘Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.’ and learn the lessons revealed within its  silent growth and form. For hidden in this English word ‘consider’ there is a Latin word. You can  see it in its latter part. ‘Sider’ is Latin for ‘star’ or 'heavenly body'. 

‘To consider’ is to look attentively at something as one would look at the stars. ‘The heavens are  telling the glory of God …’ This leads us to consider any education or activity as a preparation  for the spiritual life through the nurture of attentiveness, being present to the task, the person,  the galaxies of stars! 

So ‘Consider the lilies of the field …’ And not just the lilies but look attentively at everything as if  you were looking into the heavens and at this intersection between earth and heaven  discover God’s secret enfolded there in silence, revealing something beautiful and unexpected  shining out at you like a new star!

HOLY COMMUNION, ST. COLUMBA'S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 26th NOVEMBER 2023 11.00 A.M.
(CHRIST THE KING SUNDAY)

“Come, you that are blessed by my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;
for I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink … Matthew 25

Today, the Church year gives us Royal Sunday.
The feast of Christ the King was first marked in 1925,
just a few years after the end of the First World War,
to counter a tide of rising totalitarianism.
Pope Pius XI instituted it, in the hope that a world ravaged by war,
might find in Jesus’s humble kingship, an alternative
to empire, nationalism, consumerism, and secularism.

Since Royal/Christ the King Sunday, 2022,
we have had a real time coronation,
food for thought about kings and crowns.
What images/memories do you retain from that day in May – its parade and pageantry?
How do you feel about worshipping a King?
Is King Jesus a helpful image, or leave you a little uneasy?

In C16th Scotland, the reformer Andrew Melville offered a bracing reminder,
declaring to King James VI: “Sirrah, ye are God's silly vassal;
there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland:
there is King James, the head of the commonwealth;
and there is Christ Jesus, the King of the Church,
whose subject James the Sixth is,
and of whose kingdom he is not a king, not a lord, not a head, but a member.”

Perhaps less politically explosive, that sentiment was echoed by Elvis:
“There’s only one King – and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Kingship may not be the image of choice for our own age,
but the language of kingship is deeply embedded in the gospel story.
Wise men from the East enquire:
“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?”
Mary prophesies how her child will:
“… bring down rulers from their thrones,”
Jesus’ first adult, public words:
“… the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Kingship is even more woven into the tapestry of Easter.
Palm Sunday, the highly symbolic, provocative entry into Jerusalem:
“See, your king is coming to you, gentle and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Later, Jesus dragged before the Roman governor, for three reasons:
“We found this fellow subverting the nation,
opposing payment of taxes to Caesar,
and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King.”
Pilate faces an angry mob outside the praetorium,
then grills Jesus alone back inside. “Are you the king of the Jews?”
“My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus replies.
“My kingdom is from another place.”
“You are a king, then!”
“Yes, you are right in saying that I am a king.”

When Pilate weighs up the innocence of the man before him,
against the political cost of maintaining that innocence, he folds.
He declares the man innocent,
but then lets his soldiers flog and humiliate the prisoner
with purple robes and a crown of thorns.
Their fake and exaggerated obeisance, a reminder - to victim and onlookers –
of who wields the real power.
“Shall I crucify your king?”
“We have no king but Caesar!”

Just in case anyone is missing the point,
or is feeling the stirrings of rebellion against an occupying power,
fastened to the cross above Jesus’ tortured head, a parchment,
an additional mockery of a subjugated people:
“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”
In Aramaic, Latin, and Greek – let the world understand.

There is objection: “Don't write - The king of the Jews -
but this man said/claimed, to be king of the Jews.”
“I have written what I have written.”

In time, believers will come to think of Jeus, not simply
as the king of the Jews, but “the king of kings” (1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 19:16),
the “king of the ages” (Revelation 19:3),
and “ruler of the kings of the earth” (Revelation 1:5).

So, if the biblical account asks us to proclaim Jesus as king –
What type of king is he?
From today’s scriptures – old and new – he is a king both of mercy and judgement.
Calling to account as well as protecting the people.
That is neatly conveyed by the thought:
The shepherd is a king, and the king is a shepherd.

Ezekiel calls out the "shepherds" of Israel who serve themselves
and ignore the weak, the injured, the sick, the stray, and the lost.
Pushed and shoved their way among the flock.
Consequently, the sheep became prey to hostile predators.
God himself will therefore defend the weak and the lost,
and but also judge the sleek and the strong.
Echo into this week's gospel
about a king who sits on his throne judging “all the nations”, separating sheep and goats.
Matthew alone records the parable/vision of the Last Judgement,
placing it along with several other stories connected to the end of times.
Urgent stories told, as his own death approaches.
Last words summarise what is passionately important;
what you want to hand on, to survive once we have gone.
For Jesus: understand that God’s judgement rests,
not on the orthodoxies of our beliefs,
but the willingness to ease the burdens of others.

The good deeds – food, shelter, care – are not revolutionary;
Rather, a regular and recognisable part of Jewish teaching -
responsibilities attached to the nation’s religious calling.
What is radical, is the claim – if you do these things (feed, water, clothe, tend, visit)
to the least of any of these, my brothers and sisters –
you do it to me. To Christ.

Again: apparently, the judgement is not between those who believe
and those who do not believe:
The criteria is, between those who care and those who do not care.
How we treat each other is the barometer of our faith.
James Forbes, the former pastor of Riverside Church in New York City:
“Nobody gets to heaven without a letter of reference from the poor.”

Soon, we will enter into Advent, a season of waiting, longing, and listening.
Soon we will hear the first cries of a vulnerable baby
who redefines our notions of kingship, authority, and power.
“But on this Sunday, here and now,
we are asked to see Jesus in places we’d rather not look;
asked to remember that every encounter we have with “the least of these”
is an actual encounter with Jesus.
“It’s not a metaphor. It’s not wordplay. It’s not optional. (D Clendenin)
The person huddled beneath the blanket is our king. Let's see him.”
Or as the homeless shelter prayer for volunteers asks:
“Lord, help us to see you coming through the line tonight.”

ST. COLUMBA'S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 15th OCTOBER 2023 11.00 A.M.
(20th SUNDAY after PENTECOST)

“Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces,
and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth:
It will be said on that day,
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” Isaiah 25:8b-9

Writing yesterday on his daily blog, Swallows Nest,  Church of Scotland minister Tom Gordon,  reflected on his friend and fellow minister, the late David Ogston. Ogston was a brilliant, creative wordsmith – both poet and preacher. In Tom Gordon’s eyes, his friend was a confident, well-rounded and efficient person.  However, Gordon recalled being surprised to hear Ogston speak one day,  about a recurrent nightmare, relating to the very thing that was his particular gift: (The nightmare) of staring at a blank sheet of paper in his typewriter,  right up to the time he was due to leave for church to preach his Sunday sermon,  because, as he said, “he had nothing to say.”

Yesterday, Tom Gordon, confessed a similar feeling:
Feeling compelled to write something about the situation in Israel-Palestine,  but staring at a blank screen.

“I could say a lot! I could condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.  I could rail against long-standing illegal oppression by Israel in the West Bank and in Gaza. But I can’t. It’s not my nightmare, as I stare at a blank page.  It’s the nightmare of war that leaves me with no words.

So, I weep. I cry in despair with those who have lost their homes and their loved ones.  I am consumed with anger because of the hopelessness I feel,  and the hellishness of the effects of the destruction I see. I have no words.  So, I will pray in silence, and I invite you to do so too …”

Other voices this week have also wrestled with the responsibility  of trying to say something about, or to, the human condition.

The Church of Scotland issued a letter updating on the situation for its staff in Israel: Two Mission Partners, Rev Dr Stewart Gillan in Jerusalem,  and Rev Muriel Pearson in Tiberias.  As well as around 160 locally employed staff,  at properties in Tiberias, Jerusalem, and Jaffa-Tel Aviv.

“At this time, our prayers are for all of those affected by these horrendous events.  They are with the families of those killed, both in Israel and in Gaza.
They are with those who have been taken hostage.
They are with those dealing with the decisions to be made in the days ahead.
There can be no peace without justice,
and we all must do what we can to bring justice,
to Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Gaza.”

Rev Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martins-in-the-Fields contrasted anger and rage. Anger, he suggested can be a constructive emotion,  stirring us from distraction and self-absorption to an acute awareness of wrong done. Rage is something different – red mist descends, incandescent,  desire for vengeance unrestrained.  Only through destruction can justice be restored, and fury satisfied. Rage is exhilarating. Accompanied by its sense of unquestionable righteousness.

Wells, quoting Jesus’ words, “I came not to bring peace but a sword,” says he hears those words as a warning against a sentimental peace; the sword, an instrument that divides anger from rage.

If rage obliterates - misguidedly believing, that will resolve everything, in contrast, anger can stir to action:
“… the brokering of ceasefire,
the measured and even-handed witness of the wider community,
the holding to account of wrongs done,
the patient hearing out of resentments and fears,
the finding of a path through to mutual security, dignity,
respect and hope.”

St Columba’s member, Rev Alistair Cumming,  spoke yesterday at a meeting of the Presbytery of England & the Channel Islands.  He returned from a visit to the Church of Scotland staff in Israel,  two days before the start of recent events. One of the visits undertaken was to the Tent of Nations. (William spoke of it recently.) A Palestinian run organic farm, southwest of Bethlehem,  where people from across dividing lines of nationality and religion are encouraged to meet, work together and learn from each other. Their vision:

“In the face of great injustice, we know that we should not hate, despair or flee.
We refuse to be enemies,
and we try to transform our pain and frustration into positive actions
that will help us to create a better future.”
Having shared communion with him,
Alistar heard words from the Tent of Nations Director, he says he will not forget:
“You can fight, or be a victim, or have hope. I choose to have hope.”

Writer, Rhidian Brook, who spoke at St Columba’s some years ago,  has also just returned from a year living in Jerusalem.  With the semblance of an ancient psalm, he began his Thought for the Day (Radio 4):

“While people argue about the equivalence of Israel and Gaza,
the blood of children cries out.
While generals plan counter offensives and politicians draw red lines in the sand,
the blood of children cries out.
If we could pause long enough amid the rage what would we hear?”

In answer to that question Brook quoted an Israeli friend whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper in 2002 – the bereaved parent was clear: “They are screaming from their coffins, look what you did to us.  Stop the killing. Don’t do it again. Don’t do it in my name.”

Brook’s Israeli friend is part of a remarkable group called the Parent Circle,  a bereavement group for Israeli and Palestinian families. At the Parent Circle the Israeli met a Palestinian,  whose daughter, aged ten, was shot by an Israeli soldier.  Remarkably, they refused to be enemies,  when the world was telling them they should be.  They have become friends/family.  They have used their pain to campaign against the cycle of violence.

“You have to understand where the violence comes from.
Will my actions lead to the death of more children?
To take revenge would be like killing (my) own children.”

Isaiah’s words this morning spoke both of ruined cities and a city raised up. Written at the time of Jewish exiles returning from Babylon to Jerusalem, He offers a surprising vision, a discovery of how things might be. Provision and generosity, not just for a chosen people, but all people.
On this mountain, a feast of rich food, well-matured wines,
food filled with marrow, well-matured wines strained clear.
for all peoples.

If the news coverage of this week’s unfolding events
has left us with all with the feeling of holding blank sheets,  maybe that is the right first response,  but may we also heed the voices that say: It is not the last or lasting response:

So, if you have no words: pray in silence.
Or pray for the strength for yourself and others, to refuse to be enemies.
Find out more about the Tent of Nations.
Donate to the relief effort.
Be more aware/open to your neighbours – Muslim or Jewish.
And hope:
Hope in the prophet promise: that ultimately the thing destroyed,  will not be one people or another, but rather the shroud/darkness  that covers over all the peoples, all the nations.

Then seek the time, in line with God’s will,
“…when the tears will be wiped from all faces,
the disgrace of God’s people, taken away from the earth.
And on that day, it will be said:
This is our God, for whom we have waited.
Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

MORNING WORSHIP, ST. COLUMBA'S, PONT STREET
SUNDAY 10 th SEPTEMBER 2023 11.00 A.M.
(15 th SUNDAY after PENTECOST)

Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, (and I will observe it to the end.)
Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
and observe it with my whole heart. Psalm 119:33

The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet’; and any other commandment, 
are summed up in this word, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ Romans 13:9

This morning, worship at our linked charge of St Andrew’s, Newcastle is suspended, 
due to the upheaval that the mega-sporting event, the Great North Run, 
brings to the city; crowds, road closures etc.
This year’s run is marked by the farewell/the final run, 
of four-time Olympic Champion, Sir Mo Farah – 
he of the famous Mo Bot celebration.

For many, Sir Mo will forever be associated with the 2012 London Olympics.
Farah's 10,000m gold capped an unforgettable Super Saturday for the host nation, 
following fellow gold medal winners Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford 
in delivering three spectacular moments, within one an extraordinary hour. 
Seven days later, he repeated that success in the 5,000 metres.

Having arrived in London the month before I recall - among some – 
the air of pessimism, about the Games, before they started.
“It’ll be awful. London will be so crowded – time to get out.” 
(Occasionally one hears the same refrain from residents of another capital city 
at the time of the Edinburgh Festival.)
What transpired in 2012, came as a surprise.
Somehow, from the outset there was a feeling – a sense of communal celebration -  
helped of course by some domestic gold medals – 
but thanks, in part, to the 70,000 volunteer Games Makers, 
who assisted at transport hubs and sporting venues.
Strange things happened. People spoke to each other on the tube.
It was like a wedding party, where you have free licence 
to go up and ask a complete stranger: “How do you know the bride/groom?
[For a time, there was a sense of being part of a “Tent/Tube of Nations.”]

A very gentle lean towards: “Love does no wrong to a neighbour; 
therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law”?

To love our neighbour, in principle, is great.
I imagine that in most of our heads, we are FOR it.
The reality is somewhat trickier.
Someone said to me this week: “Why is so difficult to love the people closest to us?”
As one wag put it: “I love humanity, it’s just people I have a problem with.”

There is a misguided assumption that because we are Christians, 
We will be conflict-free. We will be nice – 
nice people, nice to each other.
In contrast, Jesus, took it for granted 
that we would argue, disagree, offend, sulk, wound, 
and sometimes, walk away. 
Afterall, he had first-hand experience of ambitious, arguing disciples, 
self-serving and scarpering; 
he comprehended how the human heart works – 
both for great good and terrible harm.

Today’s gospel (Matthew) – written for the early Jewish-Christian community – 
wrestling with what it is/what it takes, to foster and sustain community: 
On the one hand - holding to inherited wisdoms and traditions; 
on the other - welcoming those, for whom such traditions meant little or nothing. 
To this fractious constituency, Matthew summons Jesus words: 
recognising, resolving, reconciling conflict.
“Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven,
 and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Not whether there will be fallings-out; 
but how to react/behave when the toys get launched from the pram.
As one of the many, pithy quotes from the bestseller, 
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, the Horse, Charlie Mackesy) – 
with its exploration of friendship, empathy and kindness:
“One of our greatest freedoms, is how we react to things.” 

“Love your neighbour as yourself. 
Love does no wrong to a neighbour; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

There are numerous, quiet signs of care in any congregation – 
A friendly welcome at the door, an enquiry after someone not seen for a while,
a card, a telephone call, food prepared and shared,
the holding of a conversation or the holding of a hand – 
sometimes, the honest: “I am so sorry, I don’t know what to say.”
Paul, in the previous chapter to that read today advised the Christians in Rome:
“Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.”
Or, in words sent to me this week: (described as a traditional African saying):
“Eat and drink together, talk and laugh together, enjoy life together;
but never call it friendship until we have wept together.”

There are of course other communities beyond our own,
that can inspire or illustrate this love of neighbour.
I have spent the last two evenings at a British-Indian household,
welcomed to the ritual preparations for a wedding day – 
an event spread over two weekends that will combine 
traditions from Indian village life, Presbyterian prayers and ceilidh dancing.
What was apparent these last two nights, 
was the care and generosity conveyed by the hosts 
and the delight demonstrated in the inclusion of us all, 
into the rituals of a different history, culture and language.
It included a mass dance in the street, led by a drummer, 
designed quite literally to “Wake Up” the neighbours – 
the traditional the call and invitation to the village, to come to the wedding.

Perhaps it is easy to be neighbourly at time of celebration, 
but how about when times are tough?
I have spoken before of the Support Groups that regularly meet here – 
Alcoholics Anonymous and others.
As one member so beautifully encapsulated: 
“We are a bunch of strangers, with your (each member’s) best intentions at heart.”

So, meeting by meeting, the gathered company of friend and stranger, 
long-term attendee and first-time visitor, 
find strength and support together, enough for the day.
Meetings are characterised both by gratefulness – 
individuals share the conversations or encounters that have gone well.
Others, who are really struggling, offer that.
Meeting by meeting, a way/truth is worked out; 
a way/truth that was alluded to in a very different setting this week:
At a start-of-term school assembly, new pupils – 
rabbits in headlights, overwhelmed by mountains of new information – 
were asked by their Headteacher: 
“How do you eat an elephant?
Then reminded: “One bite at a time.”

[An echo of Chinese saying also sent this week:
“To get through the hardest journey, we need take only one step at a time;
but we must keep on stepping.”]

Centuries after the ancient commandment to love our neighbour,
early Church father, Tertullian wrote:
“Our care for the derelict and our active love, have become our distinctive sign… “
And Maximos the Confessor, challenges our love of humanity/struggle with people:
“Blessed is the one who can love all people equally, 
always thinking good of everyone.” 

A tough summons. Alone, beyond us. Together? Maybe.
As James reminded the first Christians of Jerusalem:
“If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, 
Love your neighbour as yourself,'
you are doing right."