This morning was a little on the nerve racking side. At the 9am BCP Communion service I was preaching the sermon on St. Andrew and also helping serve communion (but not serving) and at the 10:30am BCP Matins I was leading the service and preaching the sermon… all a bit scary.
I think I came through it okay, I’ve had nothing but great feedback – but I always fear the bad feedback (and actually the most useful) comes later in the week and never at the door to the church as people are on their way out or over a cup of coffee and biscuit at the back.
So here’s the sermon along with a recording. I’m sorry the audio is a little off with errant noises – I was trying out a new app on the iPad that I was also using to read my sermon from… I need another method for recording I suspect.
Oh, and whilst I remember – here’s my parting column for The Bookseller on leaving publishing and bookselling and heading to train as a Priest.
The sermon I preached today is blatantly inspired and outright stolen in some cases from this fantastic short sermon given at Jesus College in Cambridge.
Right click to download the audio of my St. Andrew’s Day Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Please sit.
What an exciting day! Well I say exciting; it’s actually quite scary. As you all know I’m well into my first term at theological college and I’ve started to learn enough to be dangerous – which is why I was a little bit worried when our Scottish vicar suggested a good second sermon slot for me would be St. Andrew’s saints day. What could possibly go wrong?
I scurried away to the college library (my favourite place in the world) and pulled out all the books that mentioned St. Andrew, I was determined to give you a fully academic and exhaustive history of St. Andrew , his miracles, his life and his teachings .
I discovered some fascinating facts about him… I hadn’t quite realised how busy he is. As well as Scotland, he is patron saint of Greece, Romania, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (where he was the founder and first bishop) as well as Saint Andrew in Barbados.
Now I get into the dangerous territory bit… I’m sorry Jennifer… It’s fair to say that his connection to Scotland is a little… well a little on the weak side. St. Andrew never visited Scotland, although sometime around the eighth or ninth century some of his alleged relics were brought to the town on the East coast of Scotland which bears his name and which became an archepiscopal see, as well as home to a University and golf course (a rather better connection for Jennifer perhaps as St. Andrew is also the patron saint of golfers?).
His patronage of Scotland was part of a deal by the then Pictish King – ‘give us this victory over the evil English St. Andrew and we will make you patron saint of Scotland’. Scotland prevailed in the battle (despite weaker numbers) – the sign of St. Andrew’s patronage over the Scottish in battle was his cross appearing in the sky before everything kicked off. Hence the Scottish flag: the saltire – the method of St. Andrew’s martyrdom – on a sky blue background forever granting Scotland victory over the English.
From there the facts get a little weaker still… Tradition on the continent suggests that if an unmarried girl puts basil under her pillow and prays to St. Andrew then the man who takes it in her dreams will be the man she will marry. Or putting the saltire on a post next to your fireplace will stop witches flying down it… the list goes on and I’ll let you do your own research if you want to find out more…
Clearly I was disappearing down a rabbit hole of stories about St. Andrew that came in later centuries and stepping away from the man who is mentioned so often in the Bible… so I went back to my Bible and went back to the man himself.
Who was the real St Andrew, behind all these later traditions? St Andrew is one of the twelve apostles and brother of St Peter. Like his brother he was a fisherman, from Bethsaida, and in St John’s gospel he was previously a follower of John the Baptist who discovered Jesus before his brother Peter, who he then brought to faith.
This relationship with his brother Peter is perhaps part of the reason for him being so popular with the Russians and the Greeks who see themselves as rivals to the see of Rome, which of course traditionally claims Peter. But the account of how he brought his brother to Christ has also led to his saints day being particularly associated with the work of mission or evangelism, bringing people to faith in Jesus.
Andrew, just like the other apostles was taught by Christ to be a fisher of men. What does that really mean? It can sound a little creepy… going ‘out there’ and fishing for people – hooking them in and dragging them into church, where they’ll immediately see the light and become Christians and good Sunday church goers. But that’s not what Jesus taught his apostles to do. He taught them to bring people to Him through love and selfless acts. He taught the apostles, as he taught everyone that to come to God through Him was the greatest act of love there can ever be.
We associate the word evangelism with showmen pastors from the US who evangelise on TV and encourage you to open your wallet. We associate it with many things that most of us would not recognise as Christian. What does being an evangelist in England, in Wales… In Scotland mean today?
We should not consider evangelism and mission to be the creation of flashy lures that hide the hook underneath and hope that someone will bite. Flashy lures are only useful if they mirror the life beyond the hook. But the reality is that the Christian life is often a life of sacrifice and service. It is not flashy, it is not glamorous – it is the life of service to our fellow man – and through that service – to God.
It is the life of the Street Pastor who gives up their Friday and Saturday nights to help people by giving them water or flip flops with no sermon or judgment attached. It is the life of giving generously of your wealth to help those who are not as fortunate in money as you may be, it is the life of holding someone’s hand when they are dying and telling them that everything is okay, that there is something even more wonderful next – when all you want to do is hold onto them here.
That is not flashy. That is evangelism. Evangelism is not selfish, it is selfless. Sometimes evangelism is as simple an introduction, sometimes evangelism is being St. Andrew and introducing your brother to Christ.
So I want to use today to reflect on what that words means to each of us. What does it mean when we leave church today? What does being an evangelist for Christ mean for us here in Bledlow?
If our faith is real then we shouldn’t need to be ‘out there’ flogging it and trying to sell it like some dodgy second hand car salesman. If our faith is real then it will shine in everything that we do so that other people will want to know more about it and why it is so important to us – and when that happens we should be ready to answer. Why is my faith important to me? Why do I love Christ? Why do I go to church on a Sunday morning to praise His name? Why do I hold the hand of someone I love and tell them that everything is going to be okay?
So like St. Andrew – may the enthusiasm for what we have found shine through our lives and give us the boldness to share that love with those around us… and only then will we really understand what a fisher of men is.
Amen.
