Words for Worship

Ministry Today

Our first lesson is

1 Cor. 13.1-13

 

Of this lesson we have just heard Marcus Dods in his classic commentary said:

This passage needs careful uses in preaching as some of the bloom and delicacy of the surface passes from the flower in the very handling which is meant to exhibit its fineness of texture.

 

I wonder if Paul really was trying to convey such a delicate, fragile and precious love as Dods’s impression?

 

While we are thinking of that, the choir will sing the anthem.

 

ANTHEM

 

 

 

The reason I am so sceptical of Dods’s comment is that when Christ talked of love. He talked of something that was pretty gritty rather than just pretty. He talked of love as a weapon rather than a flower. He talked of love as a challengingly prickly thistle rather than a shrinking violet. And to prove my point here is………………. To read to us.

 

(Luke 6.27-36)

 

 

HYMN………………….

 

In the Royal Navy when a group of sailors were required to do anything the relevant team was commanded over the tannoy to close up. For example, twice a day in harbour the colour party was ordered to close up to hoist or lower the ensign. Well today we are going to hear of the need for a petard hoisting party to close up for one of our Celtic saints. Yet he would also have a huge impact on the revival of Christianity in the north Britain of 1400 years ago. He would prove too an exemplary teacher, missionary, pastor and community founder to us today. And he was called - Aidan.

 

Because when Corman returned to Iona from trying to Christianise Northumbria, he was in a fit of peak. It had not gone too well. In fact, at the board of inquiry, he declared his prospective parishioners as stubborn men of a barbarous disposition; words that would hardly have endeared him to his Kirk session.  

 

Well, it was obvious that Aidan couldn’t keep his trap shut. For he stood up in this council and proclaimed:

I am of opinion, brother that you were more severe to your unlearned hearers than you ought to have been and did not at first give them the milk of more easy doctrine, till being by degrees nourished with the word

of God, they should be capable of greater perfection.

 

Needless to say, his petard was well and truly hoisted. For, of course, the assembly basically said – well if you think you can do better  my cannie lad – off you go to Geordie land and good luck too you!

 

Yet why was the remote Iona being asked evangelise the south?

 

Well when around 400 AD, the Roman forces departed Britain due to trouble at home, they left behind the south with a Christian civilisation. But, with now no army to defend them, they soon fell victim to the invasions of the Germanic tribes such as the angles, jutes and Saxons. As a result, the Britons gradually were pushed out to the west and north. One such dispossessed king was Oswald of Northumberland who fled to Dalraida. However, he hadn’t completely given up his realm. So with the new force of Christianity behind him he sallied forth and hoofed the invaders out - now being called English. What else could he do then than give his people the same amazing power which comes in Jesus Christ? So off went a job advert to Iona for an evangelist and Aidan was the second applicant.  History records he fitted the bill like a glove!

 

Because, in addition to having all the qualities of Columba, not least his confidence, he was also clear sighted. For even as he listened to Corman, he realised that the key to passing on the gospel was communication, communication, communication. And it was successful communication that formed the keystone to his missionary strategy in Northumbria.

Communication, first and foremost, by who he was as a person.  Indeed, Aidan always set a profound example that impressed others with his gospel living. For Bede records that he was “renowned for his abstemiousness and self-control, his freedom from greed or worldly ambition, his poverty, his charity, and his concern to exercise his ministry of evangelism … with gentleness.

 

And all of these qualities came across in possibly the most famous story of him. In it, Oswin, Oswald’s successor, gives him a horse which he then gives away to a beggar who asks for his charity, No not surprisingly the Northumbrian king was a mite miffed that his gift had so quickly been disposed of. To which Aidan admonished him with - O King, what are you saying?

Surely this son of a mare is not dearer to you than that son of God?”

 

Here then is a reminder that perhaps when the church today winds itself up in debatable issues, it ties itself too tightly to respond extravagantly to the real need; that huge demand for help by the sons and daughters of God across this very unequal planet.

 

 

However there was another reason than pure charity for the giving away of Oswald’s horse. For, secondly, Aidan’s communication strategy required him to being available to all. And to achieve that Aidan walked everywhere. Indeed, he was reputed to have constantly moved on foot between his flock’s villages conversing politely with the people so as to interest them in Christianity. In other words, by talking to everyone at where they were, he communicated Christ’s way to salvation.  He preached the truth that was so appealing in the carpenters shop, the fishing boat, and dare I say the clubs and pubs of Palestine.   He spoke out the very same gospel that was so relevant in the rough life of ancient Northumbrian castles, hovels and monks cells. It was also the same gospel that many souls thirst to hear today. For Jesus, Aidan and we are called to preach but one message. And it is - no matter who you are or what you have done or what you have – acceptance of God forgiveness is your merciful salvation.

 

 

Yet there was a third aspect to Aidan’s communication. Because while Aidan was saying to the powerful and powerless – you can have salvation in Christ – he was also asking for something return. He was teaching peasant and king alike that in return for free salvation, you have to practice the love shown by Jesus Christ. Now that love is never a theoretical principle or wishy-washy or dictatorial nor even a love that has to be reciprocated. Instead, it is the hard, gritty love of which Christ spoke of. For this is the very love whose quality is less about what we give than what we hold back. For this is the love of which it has been said - it is loving another more than they deserve. For this is the love that transformed life in Northumbria so long ago and can transform your life too at this very moment.

 

However, while the good news of salvation went down well in Northumbria the need to demonstrate difficult love must have seemed an impossible ask in that survival of the fittest world.  Yet Aidan’s mission did indeed bear fruit in the life of one of his flock at least. For it was the tradition of their era for beggars to collect at the doors of the rich looking for alms. This indeed happened outside Oswald’s residence on Easter whilst the nobles feasted inside. Aidan was ready to bless the company when Oswald picked up a huge silver salver and took it to the gate so that the poor too may be fed and rejoice at the Lord’s resurrection.  No wonder, that king is now remembered as the Celtic saint Oswald.

 

But there were other fruits of Aidan’s work. He established a school for local boys who spoke the new fangled English. Therefore, he ensured that the gospel would go on being communicated in their new cultural world. He also built the monastery of Lindisfarne – a fortress that would ensure the gospel’s survival through Viking pillaging, Norman Conquest and wars of the roses; a citadel in which the promise of salvation and the demand for love would leaven the centuries of violence ahead and also be a model tower of strength for our common life in this holy place.   

 

 

Quite rightly, then today a statue stands on that wind-swept island of the saint looking heavenward; for it was he that raised the eyes of countless generations

to what is possible in Christ and what then they can make possible here on earth.  So let Aidan’s figure be a reminder that we too must take out the word of God so that even the most profane can glimpse the sacred.  A reminder that we must ever preach that holiness is not just the acceptance of salvation but the love that is its grateful tribute. For it is that freely returned love that forges fellowship in every barren place; it is that love that breaks down the barriers of intransigence, stubbornness and rudeness and it is that love which teaches the self sufficient their need for to help their impoverished neighbour deserving or not. Because it is in that undeserved and unreserved love alone that Columba, Aidan and Oswald and countless others found their sainthood. May we then this day go and do likewise.

 

Amen

 

Offering

 

HYMN…………

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aidan Talking!