St Patrick’s Church, Greystones, diocese of Glendalough 20.07.2014
Readings: Joshua 4.1-9; 19-24; psalm 100; St John 5.5-17
Joshua 4.6,7: … in days to come, when your children ask what these stones mean, you will tell them how the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord …
a sermon preached by the archbishop of Dublin
INTRODUCTION
Today, and as close as possible to the very day itself when the dedication was made, St Patrick’s Church, Greystones celebrates one hundred and fifty years of life and of contribution to this community and to this diocese. I wish first to express my appreciation and thanksgiving at being afforded the privilege and honour by today’s rector to be here, to worship with you and to share some reflections with this festive gathering.
It is first and foremost an ecclesia/a gathering. It is a gathering of people; it is a gathering of beauty; it is a gathering of creation; it is a gathering of colour, scent and sound as we reap: the harvest of the past inthe present for the future. This triple perspective is always the perspective of God’s Kingdom as it comes to meet us in our everyday life – with hope, with joy, and with recognition that God loves us whoever and however we are. God shows this love by coming forward to greet us as often we hang back through the opposite of these virtues: sorrow, sadness and lack of self-worth. It is also a festival and this gives shape and joy to our gathering.
We are God’s children, made in God’s image and likeness - and ready to serve and to give and to share what is always God’s and what today is ours to offer back to God, to one another and to those who are not here. We have the gift of God’s presence and the gift of God’s glory and our calling is to share it. In the mind and the heart of God, those who are not here are always as important as are we who are here. The meeting of both parties gives us something of the total sweep of God’s invitation; and God’s calling to us is ever to go to find those who are not with us, to invite them too.
The parish and the rector have decided to mark with style and with colour this day of celebration and to share it within this community of Greystones; it is something that everyone here will remember for many years to come; it is, as the psalmist tells us with confidence and joy, about the same God whom we are worshipping now: a day for us to:
Praise him for his mighty acts;
Praise him according to his excellent greatness. (psalm 150.2)
History has brought us to where we are; history will take us into the future; history holds us in this moment and this time of reflection and of acceptance of the grace of God. This is a rare privilege as we draw breath and in so doing draw in the delicious sights and smells of God’s creation and of human creativity.
CARRYING … TRADITION
We carry the tradition of witness and of faith. In the world of today, people look for evidence of a tradition before they will commit to it in their heart of hearts. Those of us who are in the inside of such a tradition may think of them as outsiders but we need always to think harder and to think better - if we are to be true to the love of God lived in our midst. People who inhabit a complex and sophisticated world are frequently searching and questing and looking and listening – to enable them to belong to a pattern of care, of commitment and of contribution which enables them to grow as people individually and as a community. People who form parishes are already in and of the community and are in a position to reach out and to welcome, as you in this community of Greystones have done consistently and continue to do right until today. This Festival bears testimony to your willingness and your witness and your welcome.
As we hear the words of the Lord to Joshua, we recognize that God gives us instruction for our own good and for our own understanding. Symbols carry meaning, especially when we forget and when we need to remember; symbols remind the forgetful – that is us – of who we are and why we are who we are. The tradition is to this day a very vital part of the life of the Jewish faith. The big events of the history of the people are acted through every Sabbath and on every Feast Day. There is a rhythm of life. Christian people can do the same; in Scripture and in sacraments and in the Calendar of the Church the story and the rhythm are there, if we apply our imagination and if we enter into the actions that lie inside the words.
A Flower Festival very often does exactly the same thing. People see parts of their faith, which they may indeed have forgotten, in imaginative ways that they have never thought possible before - and it happens because someone has worked with and prayed through and created a picture of the tradition in colour and in craft, in leaf and flower for the delight and enjoyment of everyone who comes to see and to be part of it. The evidence which the people of Israel offered to themselves and to us is the evidence of the presence of God in their midst. They had done the impossible; they had escaped from Egypt and from slavery; they had crossed the Red Sea. When we meet them in today’s First Lesson, the people of Israel are in the process of being reminded by Moses - they are being told that they should remember - that thanksgiving is the right response to such generosity.
COMMEMORATING … GOD’S GOODNESS
The Temple in Jerusalem is no more. Any visitor or pilgrim will see The Temple Mount in the Old City, of course, and today will be painfully aware of the conflicts of history that have brought havoc and sorrow to the City of Peace. And we are acutely aware of this at the present time in relation to the people of Gaza and of Israel and in particular young people, both Jewish and Arab, who have been murdered throughout this summer period. It is well understood that in the time of Jesus the decoration of the entrance of The Temple consisted in vine branches, vine tendrils and vine leaves. This luxuriant overgrowth seems to be what lies behind the words of Jesus in St John 15.5:
I am the vine; you are the branches.
The person who hears these words on the lips of Jesus is supposed to be directed to The Temple and to make the connection with the person of Jesus who is offering us both a new way of being The Temple and a new way of belonging to God. And so, as the vine carries the picture of growth and fruitfulness, we are encouraged in that wonderful and simple word in John’s Gospel: to abide. Commemorating God’s goodness is a positive and creative and generous abiding. The symbol of the vine leads us to luxuriant and heavy growth of grapes and of greenery and of the abundance of God’s creation. The way in which this picture, this symbol works is to convince us that it is through abiding in Jesus Christ the New Vine that we bear fruit, that we experience growth and that we give joy and pleasure to others. The return on this is equally glorious:
If you dwell in me, and my words dwell in you, ask whatever you want, and you shall have it. (St John 15.7)
We are drawn into God’s generosity and God’s giving; as God has given of God’s self, so we are enabled to give of ourselves in the love through which one lays down one’s own life for one’s friends. At the heart of glory, there is suffering; at the heart of resurrection, there is passion; at the heart of friendship, there is sacrifice. All of these complexities come to the fore in a good Flower Festival. They are before us in the beauty of their complexity. Nothing is pushed away; nothing is forgotten; nothing is dishonoured in the honesty of colour and of exuberance. The deep colours themselves make it impossible for the deeper meanings to win through and make their statement in the joy and the beauty.
COMMITTING … TO THE FUTURE
In listening to both of the Readings, we are being prepared for a different future. The Children of Israel have crossed the River Jordan from the Land of Egypt and from their Wilderness Wanderings. They are entering the land that they truly believe God is giving them as their new and permanent home. Jesus and the disciples are offered a new way of being and belonging by that simple word: abide. What that one word: abide now means for them and for Christianity is that God remains, God stays and we stay with God and for God; and others join us and abide too. This is community. The disciples are told that they will bear fruit by holding fast to Jesus. They are also told that the way in which this works is to show to others the same love as God the Father shows to the Son, Jesus Christ. This is festival and this is church at its best.
And so there opens up a whole blossoming of care and of responsibility, of opportunity and of willingness to go the extra mile for others. This too is our inherited tradition and our commitment to the future. It is the sustained inspiration that has brought us to this happy and colourful day. It is the work and witness of others before us that we mark and celebrate. And the other gift is that the people who are disciples of Jesus are not servants but friends and therefore have an expectation to know what the master is about. The fruit is the fruit of friendship and the future is built on loving one another. This is the new commandment that God on earth gives to us and by which the Risen and Ascended God expects us to live.
THE NEXT 150 YEARS
Things change for us all. A church community which owes its origin to the generosity of the la Touche family, Huguenots who came to Ireland in the brutal times of seventeenth century France under Louis xiv, now finds itself, one hundred and fifty years on, quite instinctively and naturally offering a Smartphone App which features daily scripture, thought for the day, prayer and story for children. This surely is the way to go! It does not contradict the tradition; it simply gives it new shape and new voice. And without the goodness that is new we really are nowhere.
Surely the greatest joy to Archbishop Chenevix Trench, who dedicated this church building, might be that on the successor of the special train that was laid on to bring those who wished to attend the consecration of this church building on July 17th 1864, members of this parish commuting in and out of the city to work or to school might be using the St Patrick’s Daily Prayer, in the words again of psalm 150.1, to:
… praise God in his holiness;
praise him in the firmament of his power.
I hope that the distinguished archbishop might respond in heavenly bliss:
Let everything that has breath
Praise the Lord. Alleluia. (psalm 150.6)
And let us hope too that their fellow-passengers might be asking them what they were doing; and they might confidently say: Well, actually, I am praying.
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