A sermon preached at The Parish Church of St Cuthbert, Edinburgh
at the annual service of The Friends of St. Cuthbert, 19 September 2010
Saint Cuthbert sailed from Lindisfarne and founded a church on this site ‘in the shadow of the Rock’
(Bede) upon which Edinburgh Castle now stands. George McLeod worked with youth as a minister
here. In recent years the church has pioneered outreach to club-land, the business world and the
homeless.
Readings: Jeremiah 8:18-9:1(tears); Ephesians 6:10-20 (training); Luke16:1-13 (talents).
Introduction
Friends of St. Cuthbert’s, greetings from Lindisfarne to you who are a beautiful and lasting fruit of
Cuthbert’s ministry. What a heritage! A google search on St. Cuthbert brings up more web entries
about this church and the Friends than any other site. As I surfed the net I also discovered wave after
wave of Cuthbert inspiration in Scotland.
Born in Dunbar, called in the Lammermuir Hills, trained at Melrose. He evangelized in Galloway,
founded a monastic cell at Dull-by-the-Tay, and even, they say, a prayer cell that grew into St.
Andrew’s University. He kept all night vigil in the sea at St. Abbe’s, and of course founded this church
in the shadow of the Great Rock. Oh, and he knocked God-sense into folks south of the border.
After his death, and the Viking invasions, the community of St. Cuthbert became the travelling church,
stopped with his coffin at Kirkcudbright, which is named after him, as is the whole shire, and at
Whithorn. There are St. Cuthbert churches at Saltcoat, Clydebank, Maybole, Colinton, Dalmeny and
Dunoon in Argyll. This shepherd missionary was patron saint of Monkton, near Prestwick’s airport
where there is still a St. Cuthbert’s golf course. St. Cuthbert’s Wanderers Football Club plays in the
South of Scotland League. I found there is a St. Cuthbert’s School in Ayr, and … Yes, yes, yes, but
why bother with all this stuff from the past? For answer, listen to Robert Louis Stevenson: ‘The mark
of a Scot of all classes… is that he cherishes the memory of his forbears, and there burns alive in him a
sense of identity with the dead…’
As Christians, our supreme sense of identity is with Jesus. It is as part of that identity that Jesus gives
gifts to persons, places and churches, their spiritual DNA, which he asks them to use as a fresh gift to
the world in each generation. God has given you St. Cuthbert, not as a dead memorial, but as a wellspring of inspiration. What gifts of St. Cuthbert does God wish you to identify with and use afresh
today?
As I reflected upon our three Scripture readings, three pertinent gifts of St. Cuthbert sprang into life.
These I share with you.
1) The gift of tears.
‘I mourn because my poor people are hurting’, cries Jeremiah, ‘is there no balm in Gilead… O
that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people’. Jesus wept over Jerusalem.
Bede tells us that whenever Cuthbert presided at The Lord’s Supper, which he called the
Saving Victim, he offered his prayer to the Lord not by raising his voice but by shedding tears
which sprang from the depths of his heart. He felt the sacrifice of his Saviour, and also the
suffering of the Saviour’s children of his time. And Jesus says to us: ‘Blest are those who
mourn, who weep tears for the world.’
Bede also tells us that sometimes, when someone was confessing their sins to Cuthbert, he
would burst into tears, and so, by his own example, show the penitent what he should do.
After the Synod of Whitby in 664, when an entire generation, refusing to accept the new regulations,
departed from Lindisfarne, Cuthbert must surely have inwardly wept; as also when he became prior of
Lindisfarne’s fading heritage and complaining congregation. Maybe you are tempted to look back to
some real or imagined glory days, or to complain, and to fear lest you cannot hang on to your heritage.
Learn from Cuthbert. His tears were not for his disappointments but for the cries of needy souls.
At Lindisfarne Cuthbert kept on keeping on, always cheerful, always kind in his actions, day after day,
and gradually the tide turned. The community recruited a new generation. It burgeoned in artistic and
scholarly talent. The Lindisfarne Gospels, dedicated to God and Saint Cuthbert, remain a lasting
testament to that.
What touches your heart? And if too little touches it, could you ask God to grant you tears for
something that He weeps for, tears, in the words of an ancient Irish prayer, ‘in pools from my inmost
parts’?
2. The gift of training.
Cuthbert, who was agile and acrobatic as a youth, went on to become, in Bede’s words ‘our
athlete of God’. The Fathers and Mothers of the deserts, as well as the Celtic saints, were
known by this title of ‘athletes of the Spirit’. They built in to their lives disciplined training
and daily exercise of body, mind and spirit. That was part of the monastic ideal. They looked
for a prize - an eternal prize. Their chosen way of life involved pitting themselves against
opponents, though their opponents were spiritual forces within and without. It involved
daily prayer, simple life-style, discipline in eating, giving account to another. It was a race, a
race against encroaching apathy, unbelief, or arrogance; and it took all that they had.
A monk at Lindisfarne wrote that the teenage Cuthbert ‘when based at an army camp, face to
face with the enemy, and with the most meagre of food rations, yet lived in abundance
throughout that time’ like Daniel and the three young men, though they refused the royal
food that their religion did not allow, grew greatly in physical stature on the meagre food
allowance of slaves.
As a monk Cuthbert accepted mentoring by his prior, Boisil. They spent the last week of
Boisil’s life studying John’s Gospel. As a mission leader Cuthbert mentored a lad by the
Teviot, by helping him to understand God’s providence through creation.
Cuthbert would have learned, through his Irish Scots mentors, how Ireland became a land of
saints and scholars because it established training grounds in strategic places which drew
young people who wanted to be all out for God and to be trained in the Christian teachings,
disciplines and prayer. Yesterday the pope challenged young people to become saints rather
than addicts or celebrities. Tomorrow, could St Cuthbert’s in one way or another, perhaps
through summer schools or spiritual formation programmes, reach out to students or the
young unemployed or the early retired, and become a nursery for future saints and scholars?
3. The gift of talents.
The point of the Gospel reading is that we should be practical, and shrewd in our use of
whatever assets fall to us. If we learn in this life how to make good use of our time, talents
and relationships, Jesus teaches, we will be better placed for our full potential to be used in
heaven. Cuthbert had immeasurable talents. That is not relevant to us. He used them to the
maximum – that IS something we can learn from him to do.
He had physical talents – he built a stone cell on his own. He had a talent for hospitality.
Remember the story of his foot massaging and caring for the stranger at the Ripon monastery,
who turned out, so Cuthbert thought, to be angel? He had a talent for speaking: crowds came
to hear him. He had a talent for healing. He had a prophetic talent. He showed a talent as a
pastor and manager of the community at Lindisfarne. He had a talent for intercession.
Few of us are endowed with so many talents. Some of us may doubt whether we have any
talents. Remember the juggler who thought that? He offered his one talent of juggling by
secretly juggling to the Lord before an altar.
A church leader in the Lothians urged me to read a book ‘Why men don’t go to church’. Its
main point was that men don’t want to be passive sitters in a pew for an hour’s church
service – they want to be entrepeneurs of the kingdom of God. And, my friend thought, Celtic
saints like Cuthbert offer a model of church that is building, creating, overcoming in order to
bring God’s kingdom on earth.
What would Cuthbert do if he were here now, with the assets of the church, with the assets of
each member? I am sure the Lord wishes us to put our investments into what does most good
rather than into what merely gives us most money. I am sure the Saviour and the saints are
urging us on to offer every talent we have, from baby sitting to mentoring, from maintaining
good order to breaking fresh ground, with fresh creativity.
Friends of Saint Cuthbert, return to the Rock from which you are hewn. Rejoice in your
heritage. Be shrewd with your assets. There need be no division between those who care for
the past heritage and those who build a future heritage. Jesus says take out things old and
new from your treasury. Give them away with love, so that when your work on earth is
finished God, and Cuthbert and the company of heaven may welcome you into the eternal
home.
Ray Simpson www.aidanandhilda.org
Friends of St. Cuthbert’s, Lothian Road, Edinburgh 18.09.2010
NOTES OF A SEMINAR ON ‘WHAT ASPECTS OF THE LIFE OF CUTHBERT INFORM
AND CHALLENGE THE CHURCH TODAY?’ LED BY RAY SIMPSON
A WAY OF SAINT CUTHBERT
1. VISION.
‘Where there is no vision the people get out of hand’ Proverbs 29:18.
Cuthbert had visions of a mission leader (Aidan) and a little known person being taken to heaven. He had visions for people and
vision for his people. Has God stopped giving visions or has our awareness diminished?
Exercise: How can we become seeing people? In silence picture the aspect of God’s kingdom that you most long to see established.
2. TRAINING
Effective people in business, sport – and life – take training seriously. Bede calls Cuthbert ‘our Athlete of Christ’. He studied, fasted,
and practiced overcoming evil with God.
Exercise: How may you best learn of God daily through a) Scripture b) creation c) people d) experience?
How may you simplify your life-style so that this un-clutters your spirit?
3. PRAYER
Cuthbert kept the monastic daily rhythms of morning, noon and night prayer, as did the early Christians.
He made all-night vigils on behalf of a place, as at St. Abbe’s Head. He ‘stormed the gates of heaven’ on Farne Isle.
Exercise: How may you best keep a) a daily rhythm of prayer, b) make a dedicated vigil c) engage in spiritual combat?
4. SOUL-FRIENDSHIP
The Irish Mission which nurtured Cuthbert thought that Jesus wants spiritual foster mothers in each nation, and that everyone
should have a soul friend. Kenswith was Cuthbert’s spiritual foster mother. He and Herbert were soul friends. He mentored a young
lad beside the Teviot. Many people bared their souls to Cuthbert.
Exercise: What qualities do you think a soul friend (a spiritual life coach) needs to have? What would you like to share with a soul
friend?
How might ST. Cuthbert’s use or foster spiritual direction?
5. SERVICE
Cuthbert learned to be hospitable. He massaged guests’ feet at Ripon and entertained an angel without realizing. As prior of the
disgruntled brothers who remained at Lindisfarne after most had departed, he was always cheerful, kind, and was happy to be
aroused in the night if he was needed.
Exercise: In what ways do/could we practice hospitality and serving others as if we are serving Christ in them?
6. HEALING.
Cuthbert was healed of the plague after an all-night prayer meeting for him at Melrose. He healed many kinds of bodily and mental
disease and healed wounded groups.
Exercise: In what ways might we become healing persons and healing churches? Pray for Jesus to heal the wounds in you, in
another hurting person, or in wounded group memory.
7. UNITY
Cuthbert loyally maintained the faith within both the Irish and (after the 664 Synod of Whitby) the Roman frameworks. He brought
conflict resolution to Lindisfarne. His dying words were that his brothers live in peace even with those with whom they disagreed.
Exercise: How may we weave together a God-given strand of Christianity which is different from our own strand?
8. PROPHETIC INITIATIVE
Cuthbert sadly agreed to be a bishop only because Boisil had once prophesied he would be. He prophesied to a demonstrating
crowd of a phantom fire, to a king’s sister of a forthcoming battle, to his soul friend that their next meeting would be their last. He
engaged in spiritual warfare on Farne Isle which overlooked the seat of Government: he was engaged with his society, and
visualized by faith how God’s kingdom could develop on it.
Exercise:
What initiatives in people, institutions or places will most help to bring God’s kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven? What
partnerships with political, professional and business leaders are called for? What may be your part?
Ray Simpson www.aidanandhilda.org twitter.com:whitehouseviews.