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This page :
Cuthbert Calling
The Traveller
Children
Hospitality
Passion
Conclusion
Cuthbert Calling
by Rev Peter Neilson
"Good Morning. My name is Cuthbert. It's a long time since I was last
here. I can't believe the changes. I seem to remember a loch out where these
gardens are. And the little church we built...
Well, it was nothing as grand as this.
God is good. 1300 years on and still people worshipping our Lord Jesus Christ. You plant a seed, and it turns out to be a perennial. But that's the Gospel for you.
I've had a look around. I like your Lindisfarne Room. Lindisfarne was special to me...but why did you make me look so stern?
And the Lammermuir Hall. My boyhood was spent in the Lammermuir Hills, but we will come back to that. I like the little chapel over here - the Anam Chara - the soul friend - everybody needs somebody as a friend on the journey. In my day, we all had somebody to share the faith journey with us. Never try to go it alone. Friends are important.
There is one thing that bothers me. All this "Saint' stuff. It make me sound special and different. Saints are just ordinary believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. That's me. No saint. Just plain Cuthbert. In fact, my friends call me "Cuddy".
Maybe instead of being St Cuthbert's church, you should call yourselves
"Cuddy's Kirk". It would be closer to my original idea of being close
to the people.
The Traveller
Anyway, if you have been good enough to name your church after me, I wonder if there is any of my DNA in your blood?
Do you enjoy walking? Not that I travelled as far as some of my friends. Some of them went all over Europe and rumour has it that some tried to set out to the West in little coracles ... but we never heard what happened to them.
But I did enjoy walking. Over these Lammermuir Hills, round by the Pentlands and down to the River Forth. When I first preached the Gospel here, it was as though they were hearing it for the first time.
I did not come here because of the kind of vision that Paul had: the man from Macedonia saying: Come over and help us.
No, I just went for a longer walk than usual and ended up in Edina. Mission is a bit like that: being ready to walk off the beaten track, and be surprised by God.
I hear all sorts of reports of people who visit hospitals and eventide homes to encourage the sick and elderly. I hear of your survey of the community. I hear strange reports about connecting with people called "clubbers" - that had a totally different meaning in my day!
What I do like is your readiness to go out of your way to meet the poorest and the people with power. Win the leaders and the most needy and you will change the world. Stay safely in the middle and you will change little. Keep walking off the beaten track. (Though Antarctica is going a bit far to prove the point!)
Children
I do like your bronze medallion up here. I am told that is meant to be me as a boy shepherd in the hills.
You will have heard of the day when the little lad stopped me in my tracks and told me that I would become a bishop. I was a shy boy and never wanted the limelight, but there was something about the way he said it. I knew that God was speaking.
David must have felt like that when Samuel turned up on the farm and declared "baby brother" as a future king. God does not look at the outward appearances. He looks at the heart. David knew it. I knew it.
Only God could make it happen, but that little boy's prophecy came true when I became Bishop of Lindisfarne - 40 years later!
Children are special. I understand that in the last few months you have had more children around the church. That is very important - not only for the future, but the shape of things now.
God speaks through children and young people. We need to listen to them. We were never 14 the way they are 14. I can't believe the lifestyles of children today - TV, Music, Computers, - and the way that children seem to have a secondary place in churches.
I always took a young boy with me on my travels. "Cuddy's Kids" you might call them today. They were with me when I visited villages, spoke with beggars or ate with kings. They were there when I prayed alone or healed the sick. They shared the same table and they shared the same Communion. God spoke to me through these boys.
The more you separate the children from the adults, the more we miss out on the gift of their childhood. Make space for them in your worship and in your times together. If you evict them from your worship, you will find them evicted from church in ten years time.
When do we ever meet our church children? Age is no barrier. The oldest member can listen and speak to a child. We can all pray. Cuddy's Kids.... imagine a meal for families, a day away together, the children at the heart of things...
Hospitality
That reminds me of another special time in my life - my spell as Guestmaster at the monastery in Ripon.
My job was to welcome any strangers and make them feel at home. I had to prepare their meals and their room for the night. It was a great job. You met such interesting people.
Did you notice how readily Lydia, the Laura Ashley of Philippi, welcomed Paul and Dr Luke into her home. That is how the first European church began - a woman with the gift of hospitality, inviting people in her home. Another of those little seeds that God waters and nourishes. Such an ordinary act of kindness - the bridgehead for the Gospel to a new continent.
Hospitality... Ripon ... I remember one cold winter's night finding a young man in the guest house. He was frozen. I got some hot water for him to wash and some hot food inside him. It was his feet that got to me. Chafed and bruised from walking on the rough roads. As he was eating, I simply lifted his feet and placed them inside my cloak to warm them.
When he had finished I went to the kitchen for seconds, but when I came back he was gone. I looked outside. The snow was thick on the ground, but there were no footprints. To this day, I do not know who he was, but there is a Scripture that has been precious since that night: Practise hospitality, for in so doing some have entertained angels unawares.... It makes you think!
Let me ask you: Where is your kitchen table? Not literally. Where is the space in this church where people come to enjoy meeting each other? Where are the meeting and eating places? It seems that you meet for worship or work - business meetings and the like - but not very often just for the pleasure of being with friends.
Hospitality needs a kitchen table for friends and strangers.
Maybe there are some guestmasters and guest mistresses who could make this a place of hospitality - just like Lydia's first step winning a new continent and culture for Christ.
Passion
Talking of Lydia, I could not help noticing that she was a woman of prayer. Paul found her at a place of prayer down by the river.
Now I know what some of you are thinking... At least she was besidethe river. She did not stand in the river up to her neck like some people we know!
These stories do get around. I admit it. I did stand praying in the North Sea up to my neck in water as a sign of my devotion to Christ. And when I look back, I realise how eccentric it looks - and it was. The Lord has had a word with me about that. Without that I might have been a bit older than 52 before I went to meet him!
But I wonder if you realise how passionate we were for God. You see athletes training to win a gold medal and ambitious business people driving themselves to be the best they can be.
I simply wanted to show that God was more important to me than my own comfort or health or success. It was a way of disciplining my body and mind to come in line with the passion of my spirit.
I suspect you find that hard to understand. Passion is not a very Edinburgh word! Caution perhaps, but not passion!
I do not wish on you the days of recovering from my chilled body, but I do wish God would put within you some of the fire that burned in my heart.
Life has become much softer since my day. You have become so comfortable. Christianity has been relegated to the hobbies section of life - only as much as is comfortable or convenient. A strangely anaemic version of a faith whose Founder talked about "taking up our cross" to follow him.
Your leaders talk a lot about vision - as though we could see the future. I am not at all sure about that kind of crystal ball-gazing. What drove me - and what Cuddy's Kirk needs today - is a different vision - a vision of God, a vision of Christ - that puts passion in your soul. To give everything for Christ.
I spent my last years on the Farne islands in prayer. I realised that the unique task of Christian leadership is to lead others closer to God. To do that we must live close to God ourselves.
You do not need to stand up to your neck in cold water, but do pray with passion. Pray for a vision of God that will set your heart on fire for Christ - and others will come to warm themselves at the fire.
Conclusion
I am honoured that you should have named your church after me. But be careful...For the name of your church matters little. My name matters even less.There is only one name that matters... And that is Christ!
If you bear the marks of Christ in your Church, then my walk to Edina will have been worth it and my Farne Island prayers will be answered."
Sermon by Peter Neilson - 21 March, 1999 |
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St Cuthbert's Parish Church. 5 Lothian Road. Edinburgh. UK. EH1 2EP |
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