Second Sunday after Pentecost: St Columba
Service Date:
6 June, 2010
Galatians 1:11-24
Columba: I must say, Paul, that's a very impressive list of places you've visited. Weren't you born in Tarsus, in Asia, I believe? And then to travel to Arabia and Syria - and Jerusalem! I envy you seeing Jerusalem!
Paul: And Rome. But it wasn't precisely a sightseeing trip.
Columba: No, no, of course not. They had you up in front of the powers that be, I understand - trying to get you to back down and worship the Emperor rather than Jesus. I had a bit of that trouble myself, in a much more local way. Brude, King of the Picts, agreed to be baptised, but not all his people followed him.
Paul: I have to admit, Columba, I don't know nearly as much about your story as you do about mine. Some little Northern outpost of the Roman Empire you were working in, wasn't it? Ireland, or somewhere like that?
Columba: I can understand you making that mistake, because originally I came from Ireland but actually it was Scotland I did my work in. Not that I planned it that way.
Paul: I can't say much of my travelling was by plan, more by divine inspiration. Was it the same with you?
Columba: I'm embarrassed to say this, but it was because I fell out with someone over a book.
Paul: Enough people have written things about me, and they can never agree on what they think. That's how it is with scholars - no need to be embarrassed.
Columba: You misunderstand me. Finnian and I, we fell out over a book of his I'd copied out, a book of the Psalms. You know how rare and precious books are - well, I thought it was mine, and he thought it was his, and before we knew it, things had got out of hand and men were lining up to kill one another in battle. I felt terrible about it! A follower of the Prince of Peace, to be the cause of hundreds of deaths!
Paul: Believe me, you're not the only one to feel bad over being the cause of destruction. Before I saw the light, remember,
I started out my journey of faith trying to put Christians into prison. I've spent the rest of my life trying to put that right, by telling as many people as possible the good news about Jesus.
Columba: That's exactly what I did, too. But after that terrible battle, I felt I had to go away from my homeland, make a fresh start altogether. So with twelve companions, I sailed away from Ireland till
I couldn't any more see the land of my birth, and eventually we landed on the island of Iona.
Paul: I've done some travel by ship myself. Horrible seasickness it gets you, even when you don't get wrecked. And then when you land, the work starts up all over again.
Columba: Doesn't it just! Trying to set up a community of Christ so far from home, trying to deal with the local kings, always at war with each other, and to turn them and their people to Christ; trying to keep the love of learning and of hospitality burning bright in my brothers' hearts. And when they grew too fond of home, the Spirit would send them off again, all over the world, to spread God's news.
Paul: So it was the same with you as with me? I never stayed put in any of the churches I founded, though I loved the people I'd met in them. Somehow Jesus was always calling me onwards. Whether it was people begging for our help or others wanting to persecute the church by hurting me, one way or another I preached the Gospel all over the world.
Columba: My case wasn't precisely the same as yours. My monks travelled everywhere in their little coracles - as far as Russia, they tell me, but mostly I stayed put in Scotland - though once I went back home to found a monastery in Durrow. Writing hymns, and teaching boys their letters, and stopping the tribes from killing each other; there was quite enough to keep me busy on Iona.
Paul: And I hear you did a few miracles now and then.
Columba: There may have been one or two. God is good. I remember a boy who was very ill. They thought he was dead. I prayed for him, with tears streaming down my face, and he opened his eyes, and I gave him back to his parents. But who does miracles isn't important. Real signs are the ones that point people to God.
Paul: My point exactly. People make a great fuss about how
I met Jesus, whether the Gospel I brought came from hearing other people or directly from God. As I told the Galatians, I didn't get my ideas from anyone else but God. But that's not the only important question to ask. Does what I say point to God? Does it bring life or death to those who hear? That's what people should be asking of anyone who preaches the Gospel.
Columba: And that asking takes a lifetime. Whether like me someone stays in one place, or like you, is always travelling on.
Columba: I must say, Paul, that's a very impressive list of places you've visited. Weren't you born in Tarsus, in Asia, I believe? And then to travel to Arabia and Syria - and Jerusalem! I envy you seeing Jerusalem!
Paul: And Rome. But it wasn't precisely a sightseeing trip.
Columba: No, no, of course not. They had you up in front of the powers that be, I understand - trying to get you to back down and worship the Emperor rather than Jesus. I had a bit of that trouble myself, in a much more local way. Brude, King of the Picts, agreed to be baptised, but not all his people followed him.
Paul: I have to admit, Columba, I don't know nearly as much about your story as you do about mine. Some little Northern outpost of the Roman Empire you were working in, wasn't it? Ireland, or somewhere like that?
Columba: I can understand you making that mistake, because originally I came from Ireland but actually it was Scotland I did my work in. Not that I planned it that way.
Paul: I can't say much of my travelling was by plan, more by divine inspiration. Was it the same with you?
Columba: I'm embarrassed to say this, but it was because I fell out with someone over a book.
Paul: Enough people have written things about me, and they can never agree on what they think. That's how it is with scholars - no need to be embarrassed.
Columba: You misunderstand me. Finnian and I, we fell out over a book of his I'd copied out, a book of the Psalms. You know how rare and precious books are - well, I thought it was mine, and he thought it was his, and before we knew it, things had got out of hand and men were lining up to kill one another in battle. I felt terrible about it! A follower of the Prince of Peace, to be the cause of hundreds of deaths!
Paul: Believe me, you're not the only one to feel bad over being the cause of destruction. Before I saw the light, remember,
I started out my journey of faith trying to put Christians into prison. I've spent the rest of my life trying to put that right, by telling as many people as possible the good news about Jesus.
Columba: That's exactly what I did, too. But after that terrible battle, I felt I had to go away from my homeland, make a fresh start altogether. So with twelve companions, I sailed away from Ireland till
I couldn't any more see the land of my birth, and eventually we landed on the island of Iona.
Paul: I've done some travel by ship myself. Horrible seasickness it gets you, even when you don't get wrecked. And then when you land, the work starts up all over again.
Columba: Doesn't it just! Trying to set up a community of Christ so far from home, trying to deal with the local kings, always at war with each other, and to turn them and their people to Christ; trying to keep the love of learning and of hospitality burning bright in my brothers' hearts. And when they grew too fond of home, the Spirit would send them off again, all over the world, to spread God's news.
Paul: So it was the same with you as with me? I never stayed put in any of the churches I founded, though I loved the people I'd met in them. Somehow Jesus was always calling me onwards. Whether it was people begging for our help or others wanting to persecute the church by hurting me, one way or another I preached the Gospel all over the world.
Columba: My case wasn't precisely the same as yours. My monks travelled everywhere in their little coracles - as far as Russia, they tell me, but mostly I stayed put in Scotland - though once I went back home to found a monastery in Durrow. Writing hymns, and teaching boys their letters, and stopping the tribes from killing each other; there was quite enough to keep me busy on Iona.
Paul: And I hear you did a few miracles now and then.
Columba: There may have been one or two. God is good. I remember a boy who was very ill. They thought he was dead. I prayed for him, with tears streaming down my face, and he opened his eyes, and I gave him back to his parents. But who does miracles isn't important. Real signs are the ones that point people to God.
Paul: My point exactly. People make a great fuss about how
I met Jesus, whether the Gospel I brought came from hearing other people or directly from God. As I told the Galatians, I didn't get my ideas from anyone else but God. But that's not the only important question to ask. Does what I say point to God? Does it bring life or death to those who hear? That's what people should be asking of anyone who preaches the Gospel.
Columba: And that asking takes a lifetime. Whether like me someone stays in one place, or like you, is always travelling on.
Hymns:
R&S 73 and 272 are two parts of the same hymn, attributed to St Columba and translated by Rev. Duncan MacGregor for a commemoration service on Iona in 1897. The tune Durrow is an Irish sea-shanty from Limerick, and Moville comes from Kerry.
R&S 549 by Sydney Carter, words and tune, was originally written in the 20th century for a class of children about to change school, but has wider themes of exodus, exile and pilgrimage.
R&S 489 is an Irish Gaelic hymn, translated by Mary Byrne and Eleanor Hull; the tune Slane is also an Irish traditional melody.
Sermon:
1 Kings 17:17-24; Psalm 30; Luke 7:11-17; Galatians 1:11-24Last week we started to think about prayer, how it's a way of becoming part of the life of God, the dance of the Holy Trinity. But of course we don't pray as some sort of spiritual exercise routine. We pray because we feel something deeply, and we want to share that feeling with God, whether it's praise for beautiful weather, sorrow for our or the world's destructiveness, or our urgent need for relief. This last week, I can't have been the only one praying for Harry Langford, unconscious in hospital since his stroke, and for Ann and Cheyda, his family. We don't do that because we think we'll rack up faith points with God; we do it because we want an intolerable situation to change for the better. And that, too, is the case in two of our readings this morning, chosen to echo each other: the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath, in Syria; and the story of Jesus and the widow of Nain, in Israel.
In both cases, a dearly loved son is dead. In the Hebrew Bible, life has not long left him, while in the Gospel, his funeral procession is in full swing. But in both cases, the bereaved mother is distraught. In the Hebrew Bible, the widow of Zarephath has just, with her son and Elijah, come through a long period of famine, so it must have seemed doubly cruel that God who had brought them through one danger would have taken her son away through another. In the Gospel, there seems to be no connection between Jesus and the widow of Nain, yet for him to be aware that the dead man was his mother's only son, her situation must have been common knowledge.
In both cases, Elijah and Jesus are troubled by this tragedy. Elijah protests to God: ‘O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I am staying, by killing her son?' And when he prays, "O LORD my God, let this child's life come into him again, we hear that ‘the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah; the life of the child came into him again.' Again Jesus, looking on the weeping woman in Nain, has compassion on her. For she is not only losing her son. With the death of her only male relative, she has lost her position in village life, her source of income and possibly too the roof over her head. She is in a truly terrible situation, and though she has not appealed to Jesus, he feels for her pain. So what is his reaction? ‘Do not weep!' That could go down in history as one of the most tactless remarks of all time. If a mother can't weep at the funeral of her only child, when can she weep? But if Jesus hasn't just spectacularly failed Pastoral Counselling 101 - and this, remember, is the man who wept when his friend Lazarus died, so he's not just modelling a British stiff upper lip - what does he mean?
Earlier in the Gospel, you may remember John the Baptist, imprisoned by Herod, having a sudden qualm. Was Jesus really God's chosen leader, or had John got it horribly wrong? So he sends friends to ask Jesus: are you the one, or should we be waiting for someone else? Do you remember Jesus' reply?
‘Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.' And Jesus wasn't giving John's friends a random list of miracles: he was pointing out all the ways in which what he was doing echoed what people expected of the Messiah, God's chosen one. So now when Jesus tells a mourning mother, ‘Do not weep!' he's pointing her to something God is doing; something new, heralding God's kingdom. And the next moment, he's given her son who was dead back into his mother's arms.
In the Hebrew Bible, Elijah's heartfelt prayer pulls no punches. ‘What are you playing at, Lord?' he asks. ‘This widow has been looking after me to her own cost; is this how you repay her?' And this is evidently what he is really feeling. Sometimes we may try to sanitise our prayer, to dress it up in fine words or a mild tone because we don't want God to be angry with us if it comes out wrong. But God's friends, like Elijah, know that God knows what we're really thinking and feeling, and is not put off by our honesty.
Sometimes we may not know what is best to ask - I remember when my mother was unconscious after her stroke, we didn't know whether to pray for recovery or release. But even when we have no words, God can understand the prayers of our hearts, for God's spirit can make sense of our deepest groans.
In this story, we don't hear Jesus praying out loud. Sometimes in the Gospels he does, but often to remind everyone that it's God who is the source of his actions. For like Elijah, what Jesus does draws attention not to himself, but to God. In Zarephath the widow exclaims to Elijah, "Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth." And in Nain ‘they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has risen among us!" and "God has looked favourably on his people!"' Sometimes Christians may be tempted to pray out loud and ostentatiously so others will marvel at how good and holy they are - this is a temptation ministers face. I suspect people in this church are more likely to pretend they're not praying at all, just to stop anyone else thinking they're behaving like Holy Willie, the hypocritical Elder of the Kirk in Burns' poem, who speaks fair and does foul. But we need not be ashamed of saying our prayers openly, for they point to the God in whom we trust.
Yet is it worth our praying? For we know that not all prayers, however honest and heartfelt, are answered yes. To see that, we have only to look to Jesus in Gethsemane, asking for a way out of crucifixion; or, indeed, to so much suffering in the world before and since his death. How can we make sense of such experience alongside the Bible stories we have read today, bearing witness to new life out of death? Maybe our psalm can help. It speaks openly of suffering and death, mourning and a cry for help. Yet like many of the psalms of lament, it also describes a turnaround from woundedness to healing, from sorrow to joy. If we have the courage to share our situation with God through prayer, that can be our experience too.
Columba was a soldier before he was a saint, and the second hymn of his we sing this morning uses the language of battle to describe Christ's death. Today we remember the 66th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied troops began the invasion of Europe which would lead to the defeat of Nazism, though then the outcome was not at all certain. 2000 years earlier, God's victory over death was inaugurated by Jesus' resurrection. And our Christian journey through life - whether we stay put or move on - is shaped by that battle, and by that victory.
