Words for Worship

Ministry Today

St Bride Seeing

 

(Preached during a Service in aid of a clean water project in Africa)

 

Text:

 

Matthew 25.31-40

 

At the recent presbytery conference on partnerships between congregations in Dundee and aboard, Jim Rogers told a story that sticks in the mind. For, he said, that a preacher in Tanzania was talking to school children about Lazarus the rich man. And the minister, to really illustrate this bible character’s incredible wealth, said - he was so rich he could have anything he liked. In fact, he could have as many cups of tea in a day as he wanted. The children were astounded that such riches existed.

 

 

Well, a reading of any newspaper or the watching of any current affairs programme makes clear that, despite world-wide progress on many issues,

there is still so much need around. Indeed, we cannot help at the moment reflecting upon all the pain caused through violence and illness; the hunger through greed, war and corruption; all the thirst due to lack of clean water of both the physical, mental and spiritual kinds. And it is within this welter of demands that our good intentions can drown as if in this foul river. How then do we start to work afresh for a fresh world?

 

How in all honesty can we see where God is in all this murkiness?

 

 

Well, I had intended to only talk about one more Celtic saint and that was to be next week. But when I read about St Bride, I just had to share her story with you. Especially so when we have been thinking about our hospitality toward those in this world who cannot even afford cups of tea.

 

For, as a young girl she lived through a time of great famine. So much so, her parents were forced to leave home to find food. The wee lass was left in the house with only a single stoup of water and a bannock of bread. There had been the usual warning from parents; to be careful with the food for that was all there was and not to let strangers into the house. However, later that very night, as the day faded into gloaming, two travellers came down the lane. One was a man with brown hair and a grey beard; the other was a young beautiful woman.  They asked for food and St Bride felt sorry for them but knew that she must not disobey her parents. So she shared with them what food she had and then led them round to the barn behind the house. When she returned, Bride found the bannock again whole. And as she looked out, she saw a golden light glowing from her family’s stable – Christ had been born earth again.

 

 

Now that legend is quite revealing of one of the qualities of early Christianity. Because the Celtic church, along with many other ancient Christian movements, had many such tales of Jesus being sighted in the most unlikely people and places. And whilst we can put this down to primitive superstition, there may have been another reason for this preoccupation. For, maybe a simpler faith and one less burdened by distractions, rules & possessions, was better placed to see God in the ordinary person next them. Better placed to see the Christ like reflection in the faces they saw each day. Better placed to make sense of the strange lyrics of a pop song sung by wildside a few years ago;

 

 

What if God was one of us
Just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home
Trying to make his way home
Back up to heaven all alone
Nobody calling him on the phone
 

 

 

But our story of Bride just doesn’t stop with the seeing of Jesus in another. Instead it reminds us clearly that to serve the Christ in those we meet is to make room for them. Making room by being first and foremost interested in their plight. Making room by hearing carefully what they are asking for. Making room by thinking carefully and unselfishly how we can meet their need.  Because to make room in this fashion in our lives, is not to entertain the sugary Jesus of the Child’s story book. Rather it is to encounter and come to know the Christ that is alive and in want and looking to us for help.  It is to do as David Adams asks us in his book The Cry of the deer. And that is daily to affirm by saying over:

 

You are the caller

You are the poor

You are the stranger at the door.

 

You are the wanderer

You are the unfed

You are the homeless

With no bed.

 

You are the man

Driven insane

You are the child

Crying in pain.

 

 

You are the other who comes to me

If I open to the other

You are born in me!

 

 

 

 

 

And there in that prayer's last line is other side of the Bride story. For it has been said that learning to see Christ in others is the start of a great adventure. Certainly that was true of today’s Celtic saint. For, she grew up to be a most worthy servant of our Lord. It was if that night when she saw the Christ child born in her parents’ barn it was also the night when Jesus was also born anew in her heart.  In other words, to see Christ in another and then to make room for the need he is drawing our attention to, is to invite his rebirth also within ourselves.  

 

Now, of course, this new spark of divinity will further aid our compassion. But it will also have a spin-off benefit. For this living presence of Jesus within us will be seen all too clearly in our faces too. And it will be that Christ in us that will communicate to others our own need. And will be this very God within us that will kindle in them the desire to respond to our unspoken even unconscious requests.

In my view, the best of the John Le Carre novels is tinker tailor, soldier, spy. And the reason is its two subplots are entirely symmetrical. British Intelligence thinks they have a high ranking agent in Russia. Whereas in reality they have a high ranking mole within their organisation.   

 

We before us in the story of Bride have a similar mirror plot. For in making room for another in need she saw Christ. But it also allowed others to see Christ in her.  And it was that saviour who told out in turn of her need.

 

Therefore the next time we see cool clean water. Let us recall all those in need in the arid places of the world. Let remember Christ’s call to help them because of his presence in them. Then let us see our own reflection with crystal clarity. For it is in that face coming back to us that we see how their need can be met as well as our own. Because it is in that perfect looking glass that we see the mirrored truth of the Celtic rune of hospitality used by the Iona community and translated by Kenneth McLeod; and it says:

 

I saw a stranger at yestere’en

I put food in the eating place

Drink in the drinking place

Music in the listening place

And in the sacred name of the triune

He blessed myself and my house

Cattle and my dear ones

And the lark, said in her song

Often, often, often

Goes the Christ in the strangers guise

 

 

Amen

 

Offering

 

HYMN………………

 

 

 

 

St Bride Seeing