Sermon: “Heritage”
The wildly irresponsible trading which was going on in some of our biggest banks until recently (who knows, it may still be going on) was highlighted this week by the sentencing to seven & a half years in prison of the trader who lost billions. The crazy culture in which he worked was summed up on radio by another ex-trader: the culture was one in which each trader got excitement from taking short term risks and this soon led to addictive gambling. In this world of the fast buck (he said) “we regarded long term investment as a short term bet gone wrong.”
Against this background of short term speculation and instant twittering rumours, we are gathered here to celebrate the opposite, a long term investment which came right. The people who planted a church here amid farmland centuries ago, thought long term and it has paid off. Those who took over that heritage cherished it, developed it and evolved it and we owe them thanks –as well as to those gathered here who have done their bit in the 21stC to see that the investment continues to have enhanced value.
It will be my attempt in the next few minutes to link three things –our heritage as portrayed in these windows; St Andrew of Scotland our patron saint whose day falls later this week; and the church festival of Christ the
King which falls today and ends the church calendar which began at
Advent last year.
Heritage is NOT about wanting things to stay the same or feeling nostalgia for the past (as we all do from time to time). We all know that fellow Aye Been, just as unattractive as Sonny Bean the cannibal except that Aye Bean is a vegetarian who feeds on a diet of sentiment. We Scots have a way of sentimentalising our past even if it was often violent and ghastly. We sing poignant songs of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the failed & vainglorious Great Pretender and some see his ill-fated and equally unsuitable Stuart predecessor Mary Queen of Scots as a tragic heroine.
On sporting occasions we sing rousing songs of our wee bit hill & glen or being Scots what hae fought battles against an English invader 700 years ago. Yes, SEVEN hundred years and we’re still going on about it!
Or there are the Clearances and Covenanters, unhappy periods of civil strife which have been sentimentalised and propagandised in recent years.
These are our history, not our heritage. Heritage is a finer thing, better exemplified in two wonderful museums in Edinburgh, both recently restored - the National Museum in Chambers St and the National Portrait
Gallery. There you will see portraits of the writers, thinkers, scientists and creative minds from the Golden Age of the enlightenment to the present day which led Winston Churchill to say “ Of all the small nations of this earth only the ancient Greeks surpass the Scots in their contribution to mankind.”

There are so many figures of distinction in these 2 museums that Patrick
Bell and his reaping machine is not featured (making it all the more important that here in Carmyllie he is properly honoured). But if we had to define what made them heroes of our heritage (apart from the fact that they are People and not battles), it would be that they brought something
NEW into being –whether it was in philosophy, medicine, science or the creative arts. Here then is a paradox about heritage. It is not just about cherishing what has been, it is about people who brought change in the past. Heritage is like the peace of a flowing river rather than the peace of a graveyard.
Sometimes in order to catch the meaning of a concept we employ a term from a foreign language. The French language has the word Patrimoine for Heritage: it isn’t patriotism or history or culture, it is that quality which makes the French so French. But- and here’s the point- they remain distinctive without staying the same. They still adore their little local bakery shops and fresh bread daily but can embrace new technological innovations such as high-speed trains (TGV) much more eagerly than we do with our endless planning objections.
If I can offer another example of heritage involving bread, it concerns the communion service which was set up by Christ with the words “This do in memory of me”. The holy communion or (according to your tradition) eucharist or mass or breaking of bread has evolved into so many forms and styles from the throbbing drums of the Missa Luba, the solemn wail of the gaelic psalms, the bells & smells of high mass to the more operatic masses of Verdi & Rossini. None less valid than another, I dare to say, in echoing the words of Christ that those who call upon his name shall not be spurned by him.
So where is our heritage leading us? Here I would like to pick up the story from the book of Ruth that we heard earlier and which was read at the original service of dedication of these windows in 1905. The story of
Ruth is one of the most inspiring in the OT as well as being a love story.
It was placed there to remind the Hebrews that they might be the chosen people with a destiny but this does not entitle them to a feeling of racial superiority. Many of you are aware in your own life time of the terrible consequences of racial laws in the Deep South of USA, in Nazi Germany and South Africa. In OT times such laws were brought in at the time of
Ezra & Nehemiah (after return from exile in Babylon) to forbid intermarriage with foreigners. The book of Ruth stands as a rebuke to that racism. The reason it is in the Bell window is because it was when Ruth was gleaning in the fields (gathering the leftovers after the harvest) that she met her new husband, Boaz the farmer. Leaving aside the gleaning, the ancient system of giving part of the crop to the poorest in society and

the love story of how the widow found love with Boaz, what appeals to me most about this story are the beautiful words Ruth utters to her m-inlaw when Naomi offers her the chance to return to Moab after her husband dies. Ruth declines, saying “Your people are my people and your
God is my God.” She opts to integrate, to embrace a new heritage.
The racial heritage of Britain has seen many changes over the centuries:
Norsemen & Normans; Angles and Saxons, Celts and Picts and in recent years Africans and Asians. When you compare the civil wars of the late medieval world and then the 17thC with the peaceful integration of these latest immigrants it is an amazing example of peaceful co-existence. Of course not all is well. There are some immigrant groups who use their heritage as a weapon with which to attack the host nation. And further, there are those who use the new multi-cultural nature of British society as an excuse to purge it of its Christian heritage –arguing that equality means one heritage is as good as another and so none must have priority.
BUT it is not about priority-or equality- it is about the fact that the majority of those who live in the British Isles share the history and heritage of Christianity and wish to carry on doing so. You cannot legislate away heritage whether by declaring that marriage can be redefined as same-sex, or that Divali should have equal time with
Christmas in schools (even if there are no Hindu children in the class).
Ruth’s words are double edged. They call on us to accept the immigrant but they also call on the immigrant to respect the heritage of the host nation.
Now I come to the sensitive bit. Which nation? Whose heritage? British or Scottish? To answer that I turn to our patron saint, Andrew whose feast day falls this Friday. Andrew is also patron saint of Greece and Russia, two very different countries in size and culture. After his martyrdom in
Patras, Greece, his bones were revered and passed around as holy relics.
After acquiring them (very possibly from Hexham in Northumbria) these bones helped the town we know as St Andrews turn from a wee fishing port called Kilrymont, into the ecclesiastical capital of Scotland (and a centre of European pilgrimage with the second largest cathedral in
Europe). By being patron of Scotland, Andrew is no less patron of Greece or Russia. He can be patron of all three without any conflict of interest in the same way as we can be Scottish and British.
In the gospels Andrew plays a minor role. First called as a disciple, he seems less pushy than his brother Peter, being content to be an enabler. It is he who brings Peter first to meet Jesus, and in the other 2 incidents in which he features, he brings the person with the loaves and fishes for the feeding of the 5000, and he acts as go-between Philip & some Greeks

who want to meet Jesus. His role after the resurrection was to evangelise around what today is Turkey, Ukraine & Greece until martyred under a
Roman proconsul. He grew up as a Jewish fisherman sharing Greek and
Hebrew culture (his name is Greek for “manly”).
That background makes him very suitable as a patron for Scotland for his role is international and outgoing, making connections but not asserting himself by status or power. That has been the role of Scotland at her best.
Perhaps the fisherman Andrew was not as inventive as many of our
Enlightenment heroes but he reminds us of the kind of discipleship that
Jesus calls us to.
When Jesus was put on the cross the sign hung beneath read “King of the
Jews”. It was ironic no doubt – but in the gospels Jesus does speak a great deal about “the kingdom of God” and tells many parables about it.
Theologians debate whether this term refers to a kingdom that co-exists with our earthly kingdoms, one that is ideal and spiritual; OR whether it is a futuristic thing, to be ushered in when Christ returns at the EndTime.
Jesus does point out “My kingdom is not of this world” and there is no doubt the values of this kingdom are not worldly. No short term bets here.
He spurns the temptation to become the leader of a nationalist movement and stand against proud Rome’s domination. He is thinking long term – the evolution of human civilisation. Greed, selfishness, violence and power have no place in this kingdom and sadly most of the so-called liberation movements in history have succumbed to one of those sins.
As a “King”, Jesus Christ is as far from the models which history has given us as you can get: the Hebrews tried Kingship as a vehicle for their chosen path and the OT shows how rancid it became; Rome did the same with the same result; and in Europe we have learned how power & panoply can corrupt whether in the palaces of Versailles, Vienna or
Hampton Court and Holyrood. Absolute monarchs are as toxic as dictators.
In contrast, the kingship of Christ is that of a Servant King. This effectively means that those who follow Christ do not need to have a particular system of government or specific border in which to exercise their earthly life. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what belongs to God.

It means that there is no such thing as a Christian country, but there can be countries which embrace Christian values. Where does that leave us as we approach decisions about whether Scotland should be an independent country; or whether Britain should be part of the European Union (the first is about to be on offer in a referendum and the second question may yet be)?
I have no intention of airing here the political or financial arguments which can be brought to these questions, but it would be a mistake to think that these are the ONLY factors in play. Heritage has a part to play, in the sense in which I have been discussing it. ie: not simply looking to resurrect a region or a people or a culture as a nation, but how invention, exploration, creativity and connectedness can guide us on which way to go. The song Flower of Scotland looks forward to when we will “be a nation again” – when did we ever stop being one !
I have no doubt whatever the result of referenda might be, our Scots heritage should remain part of larger unions than a nation state. When we look at the way Europe has recovered from the horror of two dreadful wars in the 20 th C and built the EU –which for all its faults (and there are some ) we cannot but agree that the jaw-jaw over budgets is better than the trench warfare of a century ago . As for the United Kingdom,
Scotland’s greatest years (that golden period since 1750 and the
Enlightenment) have been within a United Kingdom.
More recently we have enjoyed membership of the British
Commonwealth and the United Nations which have been beneficial despite many of the conflicts which have arisen between nations and ethnic groups. My concern in saying this, is not political but arises from a belief that we cannot afford to opt out of the groupings which bring nations into dialogue. Bill Clinton speaking recently at the Royal
Institution of Great Britain in London asked : “Can we find a way to appreciate what is separate and unique about us and still think that what we have in common with others matters more?" He went on to suggest that the focus on identity politics in countries around the world is hampering efforts to forge more effective common bonds.
Not all of our international co-operation will seem worthwhile. We don’t have to join every club to establish our credentials as a civilised nation.
For example, the 47 nation Council of Europe in Strasbourg is NOT part of the EU (although many mistakenly think it is). Its Court takes up most of its time in dealing with Russia,Turkey & Ukraine but it has often misapplied its jurisdiction over national law in telling us we can’t expel terror supporting muslim clerics or that we must give votes to people in

prison. Law should in my view remain in the nation –just as it has in
Scotland within the UK. But many issues that are facing us today are more moral than legal or political and they do require international sanctions and international law that is effective. For example, trafficking in drugs or, worse in people; or take businesses like Starbucks that have branches everywhere in the UK and make millions yet avoid tax because they declare a loss because they move the profit offshore- clearly a case for greater international co-operation. We live in an age where multinational companies are more powerful than most nation states and we need to alter our way of operating to cope. This is not to sell our birthright but to protect it from robber barons who operate internationally.
None of us here would seriously want to go back to the days of handsickle harvesting or of quarrying Carmyllie stone without machines. Far less to the days when clan chiefs raised armies and settled disputes by killing a few people. This is our past. But it is not our heritage.
Despite the ghastly way in which the Christian church has been hijacked and perverted throughout history by despots and fanatics, the message of
Christ remains as clear as it ever was. The kingdom is not of this world but we have a calling in this world to transform it. We are the salt , the yeast, not the rolling pin. He is the bread of life, the Light in darkness, the hope that has sustained the believer through times of trial and persecution and now again will sustain us through times of indifference and spiritual drought. He is our heritage of 2000 years and our living Lord who rises anew in each generation.