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Sermon - St Aidan's Patronal Festival - 27th August 2006
St Aidan’s West Epping 8:30am
Just over a year ago my wife and I spent sometime on the isle of Iona off the west coast of Scotland. This is the place from which the Irish Bishop of Scattery Island, Aidan moved late in the year 635 in the Christian era. Aidan moved at the request of King Oswald and the monks at the Iona monastery to become the Bishop of Lindisfarne. Today Iona is still a place of pilgrimage and refuge, of education for young people, a place of mentoring and discipling. The ministry to which the monks were called in the early days of Christianity continues meeting the needs of young people in particular in this day and age. The work on Iona is part of our Christian heritage – building on the work of the saints down through the ages. This longer historical perspective is perhaps not sufficiently appreciated by those who seemingly emphasise mainly the puritan influence in church history.
I am intrigued by the account of Bede who provides this graphic sketch of Aidan,
“The King, humbly and willingly giving ear to the Bishop’s admonitions, most industriously applied himself to build and extend the Church of Christ in his kingdom, and when the Bishop who did not perfectly understand the English tongue, preached the Gospel, it was most delightful to see the King himself interpreting the Word of God to his commanders and ministers; for he had learned the language of the Scots during his long banishment. From that time many from the region of the Scots came daily into Britain, and with great devotion preached the Word of Faith to those provinces of the English over which King Oswald reigned, and those among them who had received priest’s orders administered to the believers the grace of baptism. Churches were built in several places; the people joyfully flocked together to hear the Word; possessions and lands were given to the King’s bounty to build monasteries, the younger English were by their Scottish masters, instructed and there were greater care and attention bestowed upon the rules and observances of regular discipline.” It is clear that Aidan understood the value of education and he established a school in which he trained up Northumbrian boys, some of whom, in after days carried on the good work which he had begun, amongst them the famous St Chad.
Aidan had a pastoral heart for we read of him journeying over hill and dale, generally on foot, he exhorted all he met. Bede continues, “whether rich or poor, if unbelievers, to embrace the mystery of the faith, or if already Christians, he would strengthen them in the faith and stir them up with words and actions, to alms and good works…He was accustomed not only to teach the people committed to his charge in church but also to feeling for the weakness of a new born faith, to wander the provinces, to go into the houses of the faithful and to sow the seeds of God’s word in their hearts, according to the capacity of each.”
As I looked at the readings for today I realised that they were stories of the past the present and the future. The past story represented by Solomon in the temple assembly, the present story represented by Christ in the Jerusalem temple and the future by the epistle to the Romans. The psalm encompasses all three. I have particular interest in stories or narratives because of the research I am currently doing in trying to understand the grief experience of families of missing persons. In interviewing the family members I am listening to their stories and analysing the transcripts from a qualitative narrative perspective. Because of who I am as both a priest and psychologist I am interested in the psychological and spiritual influences of these people as they swing between hope and despair. It is in this context then that I have found Narrative theology of particular interest. Narrative theology specifically describes how we form religious experience into stories of faith.
Religious experience does not occur in isolation from the world in which we live. Every sacred story includes not only a past but a future story that empowers life in the present. From a narrative perspective, the sacred story is about the God-who-is-love. How do we know the identity of this God? We must remember that in the same way we answer the who-are-you question about a human person by finding out her or his narrative, so the question, Who is God? must also be answered by knowing the narrative. Where is this story found? We know God through those who have a relationship with God. In scripture, the tradition, and within the community of faith we have the stories of creation and redemption, exodus and deliverance, crucifixion and resurrection. For the Christian, of course “the story of Jesus is the story par excellence, the primary story representing the story of the Creator.
In thinking of the story or narrative that this congregation, endowed with a saint whose story echoes down the centuries, might live out that story I was reminded of some words which James Fenhagen wrote:
“The local congregation is of crucial importance to modern life because what we really face in contemporary society is a theological problem of mammoth proportions. The gods of technology have proved less than divine. What we will need to survive is not a new plan or a new ideology, but the inner resources necessary for facing a profound crisis of faith. The Christian gospel offers such inner resources – resources that emerge out of the conviction that the hope of the world lies not in man’s technological genius but the creative energy of God. It is not that we do not work for ways of resolving the stupendous problems that face humankind. It is rather that we do so with humility that keeps us open to the need and possibilities of divine grace. Apart from this we are in bondage to a view of human existence that raises the desire for power and control to demonic proportions. Our hope lies not in our ability to save ourselves but in the power of God to bring life out of death.”
Fenhagen says that “If the Christian church is to participate in the dialogue over the world’s future, we need to begin clarifying how our gifts are expressed in ministry in both functional and theological terms.”
He suggests that there are four functions that seem to be of critical importance.
- We are story tellers. As the old hymn reminds us ‘We’ve story to tell to the nations’ and we are sent into the world with a story to tell. Henri Nouwen said, “Many of us have lost our sensitivity for our own history and experience our life as a capricious series of events over which we have not control. When our attention is drawn away from ourselves and absorbed by what happens around us, we become strangers to ourselves, people without a story to tell or to follow up.” As Christians, the story we live out is the story that has its focus in the person of Jesus Christ. It is a story that began before the world was created and will end only when God choose to draw all things to himself. It is a story of Moses and liberation, of Job and his struggle to make sense out of misfortune, of Paul and his hymn to the power of faith in the search for self-worth. Ministry begins when we own this story, when we hear it, feel it, participate in it and tell it.
- We are value-bearers. We are sent into the world to bear witness to a particular view of that is of primary value. The values we hold emerge out of the Gospel and touch on every segment of human existence. They hold up such things as the sacredness of human life, the worth and dignity of people, the importance of honesty, the need to understand the created order as a sacred trust, the ultimacy of love, and the terrible destructiveness of human sin. Christian ministry involves the continuous clarification, in the light of the Gospel, of the values we hold, and a commitment to bear witness to these values at every point where decisions are made. – no matter how small or insignificant that point may be. To exercise this ministry we need continuous reflection and support as we wrestle with the often agonising decisions that are placed upon us. When such an atmosphere does not exist, it is up to us to help create it.
- We are community builders. We are concerned with deepening human community because we are the people of Pentecost, and Pentecost is about the Spirit taking separated human beings and overcoming their estrangement. “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.” This is our heritage and to act on this heritage is our ministry. It is a ministry of listening, of healing and of caring. In this we hear the echo of St Aidan? We live in a world at war, psychologically if not actually. We are called to be peacemakers at every level in which we function. God is the reconciler of persons, but we are called to be ambassadors of reconciliation – a ministry that involves not only a deep capacity to care, but a high degree of wisdom and skill as well.
- Lastly we are spiritual journeyers. We are a people on a self-conscious spiritual pilgrimage. It is a journey in faith entered into with a community of people who meet weekly for ‘the breaking of bread and prayers’. The word spiritual means many things to many people – some of which are helpful some not. It is a word that refers to that interior quality of human existence that separates authenticity from shallowness. We need a spirituality that emerges out of genuine thirst rather then out of a sense of ought. We need a ‘hard nosed’ spirituality free of religious piety and sentimentality. For spiritual growth is a way for describing our quest for wholeness. It involves all of life and therefore, in relating us to the movement of God in human life, it must also relate us more deeply to ourselves and to the world in which we live. At the heart of ministry is self-conscious participation in the spiritual journey of the people of God. We cannot give to others what we have not found for ourselves.
It would seem to me that in keeping with the message and ministry of your patron saint Aidan, his challenge comes down the centuries to you now in the parish of West Epping to continue in the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ as his ambassadors. May God bless you all in this Christian witness. Amen
Rev Dr Geoffrey Glassock