St. Cuthbert’s Lytham: 175 th
Anniversary Eucharist, Friday 27 September 2009.
“On the Edge”
1.
By The Seaside.
It is sheer delight to be with you today, by the seaside, on such a memorable day for your parish. It is indeed an honour to be included in your anniversary programme. I read in your publication with increasing awe of the many achievements and imaginative ideas you have harnessed in this spectacular year.
It is also good to be by the seaside for it has been a regular feature of our lives until quite recently to come and stroll along the beach on a Friday.
But it is not about my leisure that I wish to speak, or your own considerable achievements, nor even of the life of Cuthbert but of the awesomeness of God which life by the sea-side will inevitably confront us with and for which this church has a particular responsibility.
I have had 10 wonderful years as a parish priest by the seaside in Scarborough. For me, it was a foreign place. Even though I have come from a sea-faring family, I had never lived by the sea until 1991 and it took me some time to come to terms with that dark mystery which occupied half the view. Indeed, for much of the time, that view was seen in negative terms. It did not help us pay the parish share; it was useless for recruiting choristers and it filled the place with a restless and rootless population for at least 3 months of the year. It took some time for the seaside to reveal its advantages in terms of risk, refreshment and resurrection.
From an attitude of fear and resentment of the sea my attitude changed completely to one of respect – an attitude best represented by Anthony Gormley’s installation a few miles down the coast, ‘Another Place’.
2.
On the Edge.
Earlier civilisations have always looked upon the sea with suspicion. For them it was
‘another place’. In the Cathedral this last week we have hosted a play based on
Homer’s Odyssey. You will know that it tells the story of a father who sails away and is delayed in his return, raising all the issues about absence and change. Our ancestors the Jews and the early Christians who lived in The Holy Land were fearful of the sea.
It was ‘without form and void’ and in the Creation stories God firmly fastened the sea in its place, safely distanced from the vegetation and plant life that yielded food so abundantly. The sea was the dwelling place of dangerous sea monsters and it was only the bravest of sailors in Psalm 107 who could survive the storms that characterised the sea. It was during the life of St. Paul that the sea began to gain affirmation among our faith ancestors. It carried Paul on his missionary journeys at some risk but it also began to instil character and commitment in the second generation of disciples.
In the Anglo-Saxon period from which Bede and Cuthbert emerged, the sea provided the borderland between home and exile; security and struggle; safety and restlessness;

nostalgia and spiritual encounter. It was and is a boundary that causes change among those who cross it or engage with it.
In our own country the sea witnessed the arrival of Christianity to our shores, the dating of Easter at the synod of Whitby and was directly responsible for the location of Bede in the monastery at Jarrow. These events on the seashore have provided our nation and culture with significant step-changes in our understanding of faith.
3.
Lytham Today.
So today we celebrate 175 years of worship in this remarkable building: not a windmill but a lighthouse – and congratulations to Michael Jack and Edward who have cycled from the Cathedral - the womb to the waters edge - with a sign of peace.
I guess all of us are gathered here today because of Cuthbert’s body having been brought here to escape the Vikings. The monks of Lindisfarne took great care of that body for it left behind it a trail of glory. We are caught up in that victory trail as we aspire to follow him and all the saints as we seek the best way to live in this borderland.
So what of Lytham and its Christian community today? May I leave you with 3 thoughts for this seaside borderland?
Firstly, risk. I have walked by the sea on a dark night - as you will have walked beside the sea - wondering just what was going on in those mysterious depths. As someone has already said, to say our prayers is to light a candle against the mystery of the sea as we explore the goodness of God. Our prayers can be wild or they can be peaceful but simply to be there is enough to imbibe something of the mystery and the nature of
God. We may get seduced by its calmness or battered by its violence but both are faces of the living God. To light that candle of prayer against the dark mystery is to risk being changed by God from glory to glory. My predecessor in Scarborough told me as he handed over the keys to The Vicarage that it had not been down to the sea for months. Sadly it happens, even to clergy, but it is part of the witness of you - the people of God - to encourage, seduce or cajole your clergy to maintain that watching brief over that brooding mystery. So to tangle with God is a risk but it is a risk we are borne to.
Secondly, Refreshment. Cuthbert was both monk and evangelist. He had a passion for silence, remoteness, ascesis. You will know about the otters drying his feet after a night in the North Sea. However, his calling was also to be among the people, especially after he reluctantly agreed to be a bishop. Your church and parish is well placed to replicate this rhythm of advance and retreat – just as the waves on the seashore advance and retreat. Your many activities so expertly collected in your anniversary book will be so infused with prayer and the love of God that those touched by your life will know that you have been with the Lord Jesus. This, if I may say so, is one of the greatest strengths of our own diocesan bishop. We can be sure that every morning he will have been with Jesus, with us on his heart. Our society today needs its pray-ers to be overt as well as covert in order to receive the viaticum, food for the journey, for refreshment for life in all its fullness.
Thirdly, Resurrection. As I know from my time in Scarborough, many folk come to the seaside in retirement. Having spent themselves in fulltime work elsewhere in the world, they retire to the coast – but not for too much relaxation. Thank God for the

army of retireds, their well-honed skills and considerable energy. Those qualities have been the foundation upon which this parish and similar parishes can mount their activities of advance and retreat. But the process of holy dying is an art to be learned: a regular handing over, a continuous and often urgent exchange with the mystery of the loving God. We begin that process at our birth but it is in retirement (and especially in such a location as this) that post-graduate studies in holy dying can be best effected. It is through this conscious engagement with God that we are graced with resurrection. Not only does the borderland location encourage us in the work of resurrection but also its clergy and others. Just as the sea side throws up those expert in rescue, so it attracts clergy and refines others who have particular gifts of handing over, letting us let go and trusting ourselves to the mystery of God.
So risk, refreshment and resurrection: you are indeed fortunate in all these gifts. I pray that you will use them well. Amen.
Christopher Armstrong,
Dean of Blackburn