Recently we dedicated in our church on Holy Island a sculpture by Fenwick Lawson of Durham. His carving of six monks - more than life size - carrying the body of St Cuthbert from Lindisfarne where he was first buried, has become a really splendid addition to the features of our historic Parish Church. After this simple service following Evening Prayer, a lady went up to my assistant and registered her delight at being present at this event. "And the vicar dressed up as a monk for the occasion!"
I'd better just explain what I am! Not a Celtic monk, I'm afraid! Nor indeed a Benedictine - but a Franciscan friar: that's St Francis of Assisi, the one who preached to the birds, and others of course! But aren't Franciscans Roman Catholic? Not all!
I bring you special greetings from Lindisfarne, the mother house of so much growth and the establishment of our Christian faith across England. Cedd and Chad, and Diuma, Wilfrid, Betti, and Adda were all school boys of Lindisfarne. Taught by St Aidan, their missionary achievements were quite remarkable, and these are acknowledged by your splendid celebrations here in Repton, 1350 years later. Oh that we might catch something of their single-hearted zeal for the Gospel, their love for God and their love for people, and those marks of humility and joy that show through the events of those pioneering days. Personally, I am deeply inspired by them and want to learn from them - for today that mission field is clogged with the massive complexities of our modern way of life, its post-modern attitudes, its cynicism, our general haste. Even in my own time as a Brother I recognise that we've moved out of an age of innocence to a kind of technological professionalism - and at the same time the majority have lost their spiritual roots and float on a tide of ignorance and chance.
This Celebration Service serves us well - for I imagine we are here with a fairly strong sense of Christian commitment, to be reminded of the nature of our faith and creed that we share - we want to tell the message that God so loved the world that he gave us his only Son, and is calling us into wholeness, healing, salvation. And we are compelled to tell out that Good News, by teaching, baptising, nurturing, showing Christ's compassion and God's undying love, to pray and work that 'thy Kingdom come' on this precious earth, as it is in heaven.
Those early Celtic monks from Lindisfarne were schooled in a one-way pilgrimage lifestyle. They left their monastery not expecting to return, but rather to undertake this compelling task of mission. Given the choice they would all have preferred to return home - often, that was planned. But essentially they were sent, commissioned, delegated with authority from the Holy Spirit, to spread good news, not going forth individually but in pairs, or fours, or tens, as Heralds of the Great King. (And there are considerable implications there, ecumenically.)
The effectiveness of this corporate witness of the Celtic monks finds many echoes among people with zeal and determination, working against the odds. Epic yarns of fishermen abound on Holy Island, but I was reminded of a story which is now legendary among the people of East Kent, the coastal part that looks out to the treacherous Goodwin Sands in the English Channel. Back in the 19th Century, on a night of terrible weather, a schooner was wrecked on the Goodwins. Its distress rockets were clearly visible to alert the lifeboat and they prepared for rescue. But looking out at the fury of the tempest, some of the crew began to argue whether it was right to risk more lives: "In this storm we won't get back", they cried. The coxswain rallied with his men: "We have to get out - we don't have to get back." That night the lifeboat men successfully carried out one of the most heroic rescues known along that coastline.
The reason of course for retelling the story today is because it's the launching that is totally up to us - whether mission occurs at all in the life of the Church is very much up to our being conscious, being ready to step out, to get launched. How we get back, my friends, depends on a Power far greater than our own. Jesus' own disciples came home jubilant!
So what is the message we are to carry? Well put simply, there is but one Gospel, one Saviour who is Christ, the Lord of my life and yours. This is God's work, God's mission, aided by God's Word. But there are a multitude of messages through which his mission is conveyed. The Scriptures, even this afternoon, have spelt out many aspects of what God has done, what love the Father has for his people. We are not all supposed to emulate the legendary Lord Soper, standing and holding a crowd in Hyde Park. Perhaps that age has gone, though until very recently Br Juniper, a Franciscan at Chilworth Friary was out in Guildford on the High Street every Saturday afternoon. That's very brave and quite exceptional. St Francis on the other hand took a novice with him and they walked about Assisi, meeting people, asking people questions (rather like St Aidan did in Northumbria), and on returning to base the novice said, "Why didn't you preach to the people", to which he replied, "Brother, we were preaching every step of the way". And so came his famous instruction, 'preach often and sometimes use words'. If people can't see the love of God in your eyes, in your demeanour, then the words are probably lost. The missioner, David Watson admitted that more people and brought to Christ by their neighbour's invitation to come to Church with me on Sunday than all the powerful sermons released from pulpits. Of course it is the sitting alongside, being alongside, the work also of the Holy Spirit for that is exactly what Paraclete means, counsellor, advocate.
We can learn something perhaps from the last words of Br Roger, the Founder of the Taizé Community in France. On that fateful day when he died in the Community Chapel on 16 August 2005 at the hand of a disturbed person, he had called one of his brothers and said, note these words down carefully. There was a long silence as he gathered his thoughts:
"To the extent to which our Community can create possible ways within the human family, to widen ... "He stopped there, too exhausted to finish his sentence. We might all want to complete his message, to widen, to reach out, to move on, to dialogue, to study, to approach, to initiate, to launch. Br Roger's was a gentle voice which attracted tens of thousands of young people, whose passion for the things of the Gospel was inexhaustible, who spoke of the love God has for every person without exception, who searched continuously for ways to build up peace and break down the barriers of human division.
So we are all missioners. And as people ready to be sent out in the power of God's Spirit to share the Good News in Jesus Christ, I offer finally a short check-list for the heralds of the Great King, not about preaching as such but about how you carry the Gospel in your daily living:
Do you welcome - or caution?
Do you advise - or threaten?
Do you include - or exclude?
Do you walk towards - or shout?
Do you first listen - or just talk?
Do you sow seeds - or expect to harvest?
Do you see 'them' and 'us' - or just us?
There is no person of any race or creed, declares Dr Elizabeth Kubler Ross, whose deepest need is other than to be loved. There is our mission field. Remember, dear friends, that you carry in your hand and in your heart the most tender, sensitive, precious, desirable, wonderful gift that can ever be shared, the Love of God shown to us in Jesus Christ. Yet, because that love is known in compassion and forgiveness, it is the most powerful, robust, energising, transforming force the world can ever know, willing our repentance, accepting our thanksgiving and desiring our personal response.
"The Lord give you peace. Amen"