A Sermon by Bishop Barbara Darling, 9th June, 2013

St. Paul’s Anglican Church, Canterbury

Sermon by Bishop Barbara Darling

Sunday 9th June, 2013

Reading: Galatians 1: 11-24 Encountering Christ – Paul & Columba

O God, help us to listen to your Word with attention and understanding, to receive it with faith, and to obey it with courage; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
It’s good to be back with you on an official visit – though I also enjoy coming here on the rare occasions when I am not going to one of the 66 other parishes in this Region. It was lovely to be dressed in red and join you recently on Pentecost Sunday, still rather jet lagged from my trip overseas and still officially on Long Service Leave. And now it is the turn of your vicar Susanne and for Jenifer, Liz and Ros to be experiencing the delights and the challenges of overseas travel – of being in one country one day and in another entirely different culture and group of circumstances on the next day.
By the time I finished my five weeks travelling in Great Britain, Spring was well and truly sprung – vibrant light green leaves growing and darkening; daffodils blooming both in formal gardens and randomly in fields; beautifully coloured tulips; and on our last few days, wild bluebells abundantly in the woods – all beautiful sights with the lengthening days. Back here to the last remnants of the glorious autumn colours on the trees and all over our footpaths and gardens; and very much shortened days, cold and dark. For our travellers I imagine it will be coping with much warmer days in Malawi in Africa. They like me will be encountering change and the need to adapt to time zones, cultures, food, laundry facilities and various other challenges, and to come back in some ways changed and enriched by their experiences.
Paul, in our Epistle for today from Galatians chapter 1, delights in talking about how his life was transformed by his encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Instead of being a hater of Christians, wanting to put them in prison, he became a Christian himself and his life was transformed, spending the rest of his life encouraging others to become followers of Christ and to have their lives changed too.
He realised this was not of his own doing, but only through the grace of God who encountered him and transformed his life. He realised that this experience was to lead him to share the Gospel with Gentiles and not like the other disciples with mainly Jewish people. He did not go and seek out Peter and John and the other apostles, but tells us here that he went off alone, presumably to be with God and to grow as a Christian. He did spend a fortnight in Jerusalem after three years with Cephas, or Peter, and James, the brother of our Lord, but was still mostly by himself. He then goes on to tell us that he waited another 14 years before going back to Jerusalem. Here he was willing to challenge Peter, or Cephas, for not acting consistently with the Gospel by stopping eating with Gentiles and becoming enslaved to the law again. Paul, through all his letters and teaching, strongly encourages believers to live by grace and not by the law, and to remember we are justified by faith and not by work. Paul was totally committed to living by faith and showing others his faith and belief in Jesus as THE way to the Father.
He would have delighted in telling stories like the Gospel reading we have for today from Luke chapter 7, where the widow of Nain was so distressed at the death of her precious son – having lost her husband, she had now lost not only her son, but the hope for her livelihood in the future, in the days when social security was unheard of.
Jesus, on this occasion as in many other times in the Gospels, is filled with compassion for the situation she is in and the grief she must be experiencing – and so acts with authority in a way that amazed her and those supporting her. He dared first of all to touch the funeral bier, which would have made him unclean, and then to command the young man to rise – and he did! Imagine the joy and the surprise for his mother, for their friends, and for the young man himself! I imagine his life was changed from that moment on as he sought to find out who this man was who had done such a wonderful deed and given him a new lease of life.
Today, as well as being the third Sunday after Pentecost, is 9 June, which in our church calendar is the day when we remember St. Columba. I am delighted to remember him today and share a little about him with you, as I have just come back from my second stay on the amazing island of Iona, a tiny island off the west coast of Scotland, near the large island of Mull. To get to the island is a pilgrimage in itself. I travelled first to Ireland with Felicity, one of my friends from Sydney – who has worshipped here once. After two exciting weeks there, we travelled by boat from Belfast in Northern Ireland to Cairnryan, by coach to Ayr, then by train to Glasgow. After staying there overnight, we hired a car and travelled north along the shores of Loch Lomond, then west and south to the coastal town of Oban. From there we left our car at the B&B where we had stayed, and travelled by boat to Mull, then in a coach along amazing one way roads (with occasional turn outs for cars to get past) and then on another little ferry across the small stretch of water to Iona. We stayed at the Bishop’s House with 20 or so other people from Scotland and England, and joined in the worship there and then in the ancient Iona Abbey where the Iona Community leads worship daily. People come from all over the world to be part of this community and their worship and to have a special time of being very close to God, using often the songs of the Wild Goose Group led by John Bell – many of these are in our Together in Song Hymn book. They are often set to simple traditional Scottish folk tunes and like the worship are praising God as creator and are very down to earth.
Iona is so special because it was here in the sixth century that Columba sailed from Ireland with twelve men, in a little coracle or fishing boat, to bring Christianity to the people of Scotland who had not as yet heard about Jesus. Columba was born about 521 in County Donegal in Ireland. He was sent to several different schools, all run by monks, and finished his studies when an outbreak of plague closed his school down. He then spent 15 years touring Northern Ireland where he preached the Gospel – like Paul – and founded various monasteries, including at Kells and Derry. However, he became embroiled in a dispute regarding copyright with a manuscript. This led unfortunately to a war which killed some 3000 people. In order to make up for this, he vowed to leave Ireland and try to convert as many people – that is, about 3,000 – to become Christians. It is said that he chose to live on Iona because he could not see his homeland from its shores. It was an amazing experience when at Iona the first time I visited in 1994, we walked across the island to St. Columba’s bay and imagined Columba and his helpers arriving at that rather desolate beach in the year 563, and remaining based there for the rest of his life – another 34 years.
Here on Iona, Columba built a monastery and developed an ordered life of prayer, work and study. This became a model for other Celtic monasteries. The monks lived totally for God, prayed frequently and offered hospitality, centring their conversations on God and the scriptures, owning no luxuries, eating only when hungry and sleeping only when tired. Many were involved in manual labour and in farming and fishing, but those more senior led the worship and studies and copied the scriptures. Bede, a historian writing in the 8th century, said that the Iona community was characterised by “their purity of life, love of God and loyalty to the monastic rule”.
The community grew and so did its influence. Kings and princes sought Columba for advice and counsel, and the sons of royalty and nobility were sent to Iona for education in the scriptures and the arts. Columba and his monks travelled widely, spreading the Christian message and establishing churches and monasteries.
By the time Columba died he had helped lead Scotland into a time of peace. However, this was not to last as Iona and many similar communities were ravaged by the Viking invaders. Columba died in 597 AD, the year that St. Augustine arrived further south in Canterbury, England. And so Celtic Christianity came to Scotland and later on to England, when one of his followers, Aidan, took Christianity across to Lindisfarne or the Holy Island – another place I visited back in 1994, with a great sense of God’s presence and generations of men and women living lives totally for God.
Iona was attacked by the Vikings but the Benedictine monks set up another stone abbey there in the 13th century to replace the earlier wood and stone buildings built by Columba and his companions in 563. The abbey today has been repaired and renovated and is still a focal point for prayer and a sense of God’s presence both now and over the centuries.
One of his close friends wrote Columba’s biography and he described Columba as someone who never let a single hour pass without prayer. He said: “To all he appeared loving, serene and holy, rejoicing in the joy of the Holy Spirit.” His name in Gaelic means Dove – a symbol of the Holy Spirit. Another symbol used by Columba and others was that of the wild goose, a Celtic image of the Holy Spirit.
When there I purchased some little cards to bring home and one describes the symbolism of the Wild Goose. It says (quoting from the back of the card):
The Wild Goose is a Celtic symbol of the Holy Spirit and serves as the logo of the Iona community. Geese in flock have seventy per cent greater range than a single goose on its own; geese in formation fly seventy five per cent faster than single geese. Iona, down through the centuries, speaks to us above all about the experience of the Holy Spirit in community. The islanders who have always had to be dependent on each other, the Celtic monks, the Benedictines, and the present day Iona community have all learned about the need and strength of sharing. Christianity is a community of faith.
Today we give thanks for Paul, who encouraged, taught and where necessary rebuked those whom he had led to Christ. We thank God also for Columba, who was determined to make up for the terrible death of people in a dispute regarding copyright and wanted to share the Gospel and the teaching of the Scriptures with many. He and his monks were able to do this over the next centuries and made a profound impact on Scotland and northern England.
What does this mean for us today – as Susanne and friends travel to Malawi, as others head north for the winter months, as some go to the Holy Land, as others go to Wilson’s Prom or The Great Ocean Road – or Mt. Hotham – places where we can see the grandeur and glory of God’s creation.
We all have decisions to make like Paul and Columba… Will we be obedient to God’s call? Are we being called to a religious community, to be a missionary overseas, or to ordained ministry, or to helping others learn how to sew, or some other ministry here in this church? How can we show Christian love and compassion to others in our work or daily interactions with people?
We with Paul and Columba need to work out our priorities – what we are searching for in our lives, where we are going on our journeys, as some get older and frailer, some cope with sickness or with caring with others who are sick or elderly, or as we cope with various life decisions – what career, what interests to pursue, what person to share my life with, how involved to be in church. We can all be challenged like Paul and Columba to put God first, to spend time with God in prayer, in solitude, in growing in Christian knowledge and wisdom, in loving and caring for others, and in being God’s people in God’s world.
Columba has challenged me, by his devotion to God, his willingness to step out into the unknown and to lead and help others in their Christian growth. He has encouraged me by his openness to God’s leading, his simple lifestyle, and his positive influence on so many others. I pray that you, too, may be encouraged and challenged to look at your priorities and your expectation of God and of yourself, as we seek in the words of Jesus to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. May St. Paul and St. Columba, in their faithfulness and love, inspire and encourage us this week as we reflect, relate and interact with God and with those around us – whether here, in Arica, or wherever we may be.
I would like to close with a short prayer by Columba in a tiny book I bought while on Iona. The book is called Through the Year with St. Columba:
Let us pray:
Christ is the world’s Redeemer,
The lover of the pure,
The fount of heavenly wisdom,
Our trust and hope secure;
The armour of his soldiers,
The Lord of earth and sky;
Our health while we are living,
Our life when we die. Amen