ST CUTHBERT’S CHURCH EDINBURGH
24TH SEPTEMBER 2006
a sermon by murdoch mackenzie
Isaiah 51:1-8 John 15:12-17
Isaiah 51:1 ‘Hearken to me, you who pursue deliverance; look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were digged.’
John 15:14 ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you.’
Here we are, the Friends of St Cuthbert’s but are we here because we’re Friends of St Cuthbert’s or Friends of St Cuthbert? And are we here because we’re Friends of St Cuthbert or because, like him, we’re Friends of Jesus?
John 15:14 ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you.’
Here we are, the Friends of St Cuthbert’s but are we here because we’re Friends of St Cuthbert’s or Friends of St Cuthbert? And are we here because we’re Friends of St Cuthbert or because, like him, we’re Friends of Jesus?
Hopefully we’re here for all of these reasons but what do they mean on 24th September 2006? They mean what they have always meant, that, as our Friend, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever. (Hebrews 13:8) Whether the year be 635 when Cuthbert was born, or 687 when he died, or 998 when he was laid to rest in Durham, or 1127 when King David I granted us a Charter to the land below the Castle, or 1314 when St Giles de Argentine was laid to rest here after Bannockburn,or 1638 when the National Covenant was signed, or 1650 when in true Cromwellian fashion his troops stabled their horses here, or 1706 at the death of ‘Dainty Davy’ that great friend of the Covenanters and Minister of this church, or 1747 at the death of another of our great Ministers - Neil McVicar, or 1789 when the present steeple or spire was completed, or 1894 with the dedication of a new building – the seventh church to occupy this site, and in which we are worshipping God this morning. Throughout all of this men and women and little children have kept the faith, have knelt down on this very spot and discovered with St Cuthbert that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday today and for ever, that he is their soul friend, their ‘anam-chara’, the one who says: ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you.’
What a history we have here, some of which has echoed and re-echoed to the sounds not only of steeple bells but also of siege and bombardment. Who would have wished to have been a Friend of St Cuthbert’s in 1573 when it was occupied by English troops and set on fire, or in 1650 when it “was altogider spoyled, nayther pulpit left, nor seat left therin and full of filth and also the roof ruinous by shotts of canone and muskets” the work of Cromwell’s troops, or at the time of the ‘war damage’ in 1689 when the Castle was held by the Duke of Gordon for King James VII, or even in 1772 when the whole building had to be abandoned as it was in danger of imminent collapse, not to mention 1888 when the building was so unsafe that it had to be dismantled except for the spire? Hands up those of you who would have liked to have been a Friend of St Cuthbert’s in those days? I don’t see many volunteers!
And yet these our forebears in the faith listened to the words of the Prophet Isaiah in chapter 51, just as we have listened to them this morning: ’Hearken to me, you who pursue deliverance; look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were digged.’ And in the next chapter, chapter 52 he goes on to say: ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion: ‘Your God reigns.’ (Isaiah 52:7) When the prophet Isaiah wrote these words it wasn’t an easy time for Jerusalem. Isaiah’s long ministry lasted almost 60 years, even longer than Tom Cuthell’s ! It covered the reigns of 4 kings. He lived through the awful days of the civil war between Israel and Judah in 734-732 BC. And then again in 701 BC Sennacherib, ruler of Assyria, surrounded Jerusalem. In his own words Sennacherib describes how he besieged ‘Hezekiah, the Jew …. I shut him up like a caged bird within his royal capital Jerusalem. I put watch-posts closely around the city and turned back to his fate anyone who came out of the city gate.’ Probably we all know Lord Byron’s poem – ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ which begins: ‘The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold. His cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.’
So what about deliverance now? In the midst of all of this, in the midst of the terrible siege of Jerusalem, in the midst of what one can only describe as an uncertain future, Isaiah says: ‘Shake yourself from the dust, O captive Jerusalem. Loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.’ (Isaiah 52:2) ‘Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.’ (Isaiah 52:1)
And then in the blackness of night, just before dawn, with the Assyrians surrounding the whole place, Isaiah looks out across the ramparts of the city, to the hills and mountains of Judaea, and says with prophetic courage: ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion: ‘Your God reigns.’ (Isaiah 52:7) …… ‘and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.’ ((Isaiah 52:10) And in the next chapter, chapter 53, he goes on to speak of that salvation and to speak of a man despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, who would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, who would be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities and on whom the Lord would lay the iniquity of us all.
This was the same man to whom St Cuthbert gave his life, Cuthbert who also lived in dark times. War and slaughter were never far away. At the age of sixteen he heard news that Oswin the ruler of Deira had been murdered by followers of Oswy king of Bernicia. Throughout his life and even beyond his death conflict was ever near, such as the divisions between the Celtic and Roman churches, the attacks of the Vikings in 793, the uprising of 995, not to mention 1066, and yet more turmoil with the Norman invasion, and William the Conqueror systematically laying waste the northern territories, so that Cuthbert’s body was still on the move 400 years after his death, until in the spring of 1070 he returned to the shrine at Durham where in 1093 the foundation stone of the great cathedral was laid. Who among us would be brave enough to become a friend of St Cuthbert? What about deliverance now?
Also at the age of sixteen, one dark night as he was watching his sheep near Melrose, he had the uncanny experience of seeing the whole sky toward Lindisfarne alive with light and said to himself: ’Tonight surely some holy person has entered into the bright realms of light. Yet here we struggle on in the dark.’ That very night St Aidan had died. Soon, like Aidan himself, Cuthbert learned to live by the Rule of Columba, a life of prayer and fasting, taught by the saintly Boisil at Melrose to love the ‘Eagle’s Gospel’, the Gospel of St John, part of which we have heard this morning. And so began the story of a life and a journey which we in St Cuthbert’s know so well, a life of miracles, a life of healing, ,a life lived close to nature, to the birds of the air and his own cuddy ducks, a solitary life walking the cliffs, immersed in the ocean, at home with the otters, and yet a life deeply involved with the poor and the needy, a life of pastoral care, of wrestling with evil, a life in which he saw himself as a Miles Christi, a soldier of Christ in hostile territory. A life in which he was well aware with St Peter that his adversary the devil was prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.’ (1 Peter 5:8)
Whether he was in the midst of houses on fire, of the plague or other sickness, or even of people at the point of death, he would say, and here I quote: ‘God’s power is always mightier than men’s efforts. When we pray strange powers are set at work, and when we do not pray we hinder those powers. There are times when we must fight fire with fire. In these dark days we are called to be the fire in the north.’
How wonderful to be a Friend of such a man, our ‘anam-chara’ , our soul-friend here in St Cuthbert’s. We, who still pursue deliverance, here below the Castle Rock, let us look to the rock from which we were hewn, and to the quarry from which we were digged. Let us look to St Cuthbert and with him to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and for ever, and who says to us this morning: ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you.’ ‘This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. …… You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. This, I command you, to love one another.’ (John 15:12-17)
So, here we are, amidst all the uncertainties as to what the future may hold, with Fiona in the mystery suddenly removed from our immediate presence, and with Tom on his way to a two-bedroom flat in Granton, which symbolically is not even built yet! Many years ago, when I was home on leave from India, I was interviewed by the BBC about Mrs Indira Gandhi’s sudden imposition of the ‘Emergency’ with the suspension of the democratic process, and at the end of the interview, in an unguarded moment, the interviewer suddenly asked me: ‘And what do you think of the future of the Church of Scotland, Mr MacKenzie?’ My answer then was what it still is today, and indeed will be tomorrow. In my perhaps arrogant way, which nevertheless I believe to be true, I simply said: ‘The future of the Church of Scotland is in God’s hands.’ That seemed to be something of a conversation-stopper and there were no more questions. Our God reigns!
Speaking of Mrs Gandhi, I remember one morning, waiting for her to arrive at a Leprosy Rehabilitation Centre where we were working. She was an hour late, in spite of her Government’s slogans, pinned to the lamp-posts, which read: ‘Punctuality Only For Railways? NO Also For YOU!’ The reason for her delay was that she had had a special audience with His Holiness Sri Sankacharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam who lived in a small thatched hut, eating only three handfuls of rice-flakes soaked in buttermilk each day. Rarely did he leave the Ashram and he never spoke to anyone. After sitting in silence for more than an hour, Mrs Gandhi asked the Acharya for his blessings for the well-being of India and His Holiness was seen to smile and raise his hands in blessing.
Living as we do in a part of the world in which the acids of modernity have bitten so deeply into our collective psyche and into the very fabric of our society, people like the Acharya can seem to be infuriating, just as, in fact, in his own way, St Cuthbert was to his contemporaries, all those years ago. There in his beehive hut on the little island of Farne people came from far and near, crossing a very dangerous stretch of sea to receive his blessing. When King Egfrith and Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury sent messengers inviting Cuthbert to become a bishop, he sent no reply and remained in his island fastness. Eventually King Egfrith himself and Bishop Trumwine came to plead with Cuthbert and knelt among the eider ducks and kittiwakes and seals. Cuthbert was overawed and he left his island home with tears in his eyes to begin the work of a bishop, albeit a reluctant bishop, for a short period of two years during which he was engaged in preaching tours, in healing the sick, in casting out demons, and in caring for the poor, obediently following Jesus’ command in the ‘Eagle’s Gospel’ that, as friends of Jesus, we should love one another. In the words of David Adam: ‘Wherever he could he taught people by example rather than by mere words: he delivered the poor, fed the hungry and saw to the clothing of the naked.’ Is it any wonder that Bede wrote of St Cuthbert: ‘..most of all, he was afire with heavenly love.’
Thus as we look to the rock from which we were hewn and as we consider our own uncertain future, (and whose future is ever certain?), here below the Castle Rock, let us rejoice that like St Cuthbert we are involved in a healing ministry, a listening ministry, with a chapel of the ‘anam-chara’, with OASIS, the Raven Trust, night shelters for the homeless, Christian Aid, a ministry of hospitality which embraces the whole world, and not least our participation in West End Churches Together and in the marvellous work which our sisters and brothers are also doing in the other churches – in all of which we are commanded by the one who is the same yesterday, today and forever, our Friend Jesus, to love one another as he has loved us. Nor let us forget that by most parameters Edinburgh is ranked as having the best quality of life of any city in Britain and that in most parts of the United Kingdom a church with a congregation of 493 would be considered quite remarkable.
So, as Friends of St Cuthbert’s, we are here today to rejoice with you in all that you are, in all that you have been and in all that you will be, and our prayer is that like Isaiah, as you look for the dawn across the ramparts of this great city of Edinburgh that you will be enabled to say with faith in the absolute certainty of the loving purposes of God: ‘ How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion: “Your God reigns”!
Amen. To God’s Name be the praise and the glory.
Rev Murdoch MacKenzie
And yet these our forebears in the faith listened to the words of the Prophet Isaiah in chapter 51, just as we have listened to them this morning: ’Hearken to me, you who pursue deliverance; look to the rock from which you were hewn and to the quarry from which you were digged.’ And in the next chapter, chapter 52 he goes on to say: ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion: ‘Your God reigns.’ (Isaiah 52:7) When the prophet Isaiah wrote these words it wasn’t an easy time for Jerusalem. Isaiah’s long ministry lasted almost 60 years, even longer than Tom Cuthell’s ! It covered the reigns of 4 kings. He lived through the awful days of the civil war between Israel and Judah in 734-732 BC. And then again in 701 BC Sennacherib, ruler of Assyria, surrounded Jerusalem. In his own words Sennacherib describes how he besieged ‘Hezekiah, the Jew …. I shut him up like a caged bird within his royal capital Jerusalem. I put watch-posts closely around the city and turned back to his fate anyone who came out of the city gate.’ Probably we all know Lord Byron’s poem – ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ which begins: ‘The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold. His cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.’
So what about deliverance now? In the midst of all of this, in the midst of the terrible siege of Jerusalem, in the midst of what one can only describe as an uncertain future, Isaiah says: ‘Shake yourself from the dust, O captive Jerusalem. Loose the bonds from your neck, O captive daughter of Zion.’ (Isaiah 52:2) ‘Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.’ (Isaiah 52:1)
And then in the blackness of night, just before dawn, with the Assyrians surrounding the whole place, Isaiah looks out across the ramparts of the city, to the hills and mountains of Judaea, and says with prophetic courage: ‘How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion: ‘Your God reigns.’ (Isaiah 52:7) …… ‘and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.’ ((Isaiah 52:10) And in the next chapter, chapter 53, he goes on to speak of that salvation and to speak of a man despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, who would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, who would be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities and on whom the Lord would lay the iniquity of us all.
This was the same man to whom St Cuthbert gave his life, Cuthbert who also lived in dark times. War and slaughter were never far away. At the age of sixteen he heard news that Oswin the ruler of Deira had been murdered by followers of Oswy king of Bernicia. Throughout his life and even beyond his death conflict was ever near, such as the divisions between the Celtic and Roman churches, the attacks of the Vikings in 793, the uprising of 995, not to mention 1066, and yet more turmoil with the Norman invasion, and William the Conqueror systematically laying waste the northern territories, so that Cuthbert’s body was still on the move 400 years after his death, until in the spring of 1070 he returned to the shrine at Durham where in 1093 the foundation stone of the great cathedral was laid. Who among us would be brave enough to become a friend of St Cuthbert? What about deliverance now?
Also at the age of sixteen, one dark night as he was watching his sheep near Melrose, he had the uncanny experience of seeing the whole sky toward Lindisfarne alive with light and said to himself: ’Tonight surely some holy person has entered into the bright realms of light. Yet here we struggle on in the dark.’ That very night St Aidan had died. Soon, like Aidan himself, Cuthbert learned to live by the Rule of Columba, a life of prayer and fasting, taught by the saintly Boisil at Melrose to love the ‘Eagle’s Gospel’, the Gospel of St John, part of which we have heard this morning. And so began the story of a life and a journey which we in St Cuthbert’s know so well, a life of miracles, a life of healing, ,a life lived close to nature, to the birds of the air and his own cuddy ducks, a solitary life walking the cliffs, immersed in the ocean, at home with the otters, and yet a life deeply involved with the poor and the needy, a life of pastoral care, of wrestling with evil, a life in which he saw himself as a Miles Christi, a soldier of Christ in hostile territory. A life in which he was well aware with St Peter that his adversary the devil was prowling around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.’ (1 Peter 5:8)
Whether he was in the midst of houses on fire, of the plague or other sickness, or even of people at the point of death, he would say, and here I quote: ‘God’s power is always mightier than men’s efforts. When we pray strange powers are set at work, and when we do not pray we hinder those powers. There are times when we must fight fire with fire. In these dark days we are called to be the fire in the north.’
How wonderful to be a Friend of such a man, our ‘anam-chara’ , our soul-friend here in St Cuthbert’s. We, who still pursue deliverance, here below the Castle Rock, let us look to the rock from which we were hewn, and to the quarry from which we were digged. Let us look to St Cuthbert and with him to our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and for ever, and who says to us this morning: ‘You are my friends if you do what I command you.’ ‘This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. …… You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide; so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. This, I command you, to love one another.’ (John 15:12-17)
So, here we are, amidst all the uncertainties as to what the future may hold, with Fiona in the mystery suddenly removed from our immediate presence, and with Tom on his way to a two-bedroom flat in Granton, which symbolically is not even built yet! Many years ago, when I was home on leave from India, I was interviewed by the BBC about Mrs Indira Gandhi’s sudden imposition of the ‘Emergency’ with the suspension of the democratic process, and at the end of the interview, in an unguarded moment, the interviewer suddenly asked me: ‘And what do you think of the future of the Church of Scotland, Mr MacKenzie?’ My answer then was what it still is today, and indeed will be tomorrow. In my perhaps arrogant way, which nevertheless I believe to be true, I simply said: ‘The future of the Church of Scotland is in God’s hands.’ That seemed to be something of a conversation-stopper and there were no more questions. Our God reigns!
Speaking of Mrs Gandhi, I remember one morning, waiting for her to arrive at a Leprosy Rehabilitation Centre where we were working. She was an hour late, in spite of her Government’s slogans, pinned to the lamp-posts, which read: ‘Punctuality Only For Railways? NO Also For YOU!’ The reason for her delay was that she had had a special audience with His Holiness Sri Sankacharya of Kanchi Kamakoti Peetam who lived in a small thatched hut, eating only three handfuls of rice-flakes soaked in buttermilk each day. Rarely did he leave the Ashram and he never spoke to anyone. After sitting in silence for more than an hour, Mrs Gandhi asked the Acharya for his blessings for the well-being of India and His Holiness was seen to smile and raise his hands in blessing.
Living as we do in a part of the world in which the acids of modernity have bitten so deeply into our collective psyche and into the very fabric of our society, people like the Acharya can seem to be infuriating, just as, in fact, in his own way, St Cuthbert was to his contemporaries, all those years ago. There in his beehive hut on the little island of Farne people came from far and near, crossing a very dangerous stretch of sea to receive his blessing. When King Egfrith and Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury sent messengers inviting Cuthbert to become a bishop, he sent no reply and remained in his island fastness. Eventually King Egfrith himself and Bishop Trumwine came to plead with Cuthbert and knelt among the eider ducks and kittiwakes and seals. Cuthbert was overawed and he left his island home with tears in his eyes to begin the work of a bishop, albeit a reluctant bishop, for a short period of two years during which he was engaged in preaching tours, in healing the sick, in casting out demons, and in caring for the poor, obediently following Jesus’ command in the ‘Eagle’s Gospel’ that, as friends of Jesus, we should love one another. In the words of David Adam: ‘Wherever he could he taught people by example rather than by mere words: he delivered the poor, fed the hungry and saw to the clothing of the naked.’ Is it any wonder that Bede wrote of St Cuthbert: ‘..most of all, he was afire with heavenly love.’
Thus as we look to the rock from which we were hewn and as we consider our own uncertain future, (and whose future is ever certain?), here below the Castle Rock, let us rejoice that like St Cuthbert we are involved in a healing ministry, a listening ministry, with a chapel of the ‘anam-chara’, with OASIS, the Raven Trust, night shelters for the homeless, Christian Aid, a ministry of hospitality which embraces the whole world, and not least our participation in West End Churches Together and in the marvellous work which our sisters and brothers are also doing in the other churches – in all of which we are commanded by the one who is the same yesterday, today and forever, our Friend Jesus, to love one another as he has loved us. Nor let us forget that by most parameters Edinburgh is ranked as having the best quality of life of any city in Britain and that in most parts of the United Kingdom a church with a congregation of 493 would be considered quite remarkable.
So, as Friends of St Cuthbert’s, we are here today to rejoice with you in all that you are, in all that you have been and in all that you will be, and our prayer is that like Isaiah, as you look for the dawn across the ramparts of this great city of Edinburgh that you will be enabled to say with faith in the absolute certainty of the loving purposes of God: ‘ How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good tidings, who publishes peace, who brings good tidings of good, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion: “Your God reigns”!
Amen. To God’s Name be the praise and the glory.
Rev Murdoch MacKenzie
