Readings:
Sermon:
Today, 31st August, is marked by the Northumbrian community as the feast day of St Aidan. He is believed to have died on 31st August 651. Tomorrow night, as every Monday night, the Northumbrian compline will be dedicated to St Aidan. While the Lectionary of the Church of England doesn’t mark the day specifically, nonetheless the readings set for this Sunday are so appropriate to Aidan’s ministry.
In our gospel reading Jesus gives a necessary reminder of the values of God’s kingdom, to those who saw themselves as more important than others. This is a Sabbath meal to which Jesus is invited to dine at the house of a Pharisee. Hardly a relaxed situation for Jesus. They would have been watching his every move. But he takes it in his stride and tells them a story. A story about being willing to sit at lowest seat of the table and when invited to dine, and when you are hosting, then inviting the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, the disposed. This shouldn’t have been a surprise to these teachers of the law. In telling this story Jesus was reaffirming a part of the Wisdom literature of his own tradition. The book of proverbs – Do not put yourself forward in the kings presence or stand in the place of the great. Far better to be told, come up here, than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.
Some of the pharisees may well not have wanted to be reminded of it, for their important position in society mattered to many of them.
But Aidan of Lindisfarne embodied this teaching.
Aidan was an Irish monk, part of the monastic community that St. Columba had founded on the island of Iona in Scotland. Then King Oswald of Northumbria requested missionary monks from Iona to minister and bring the gospel to his people in the north of England. Aidan arrived in Northumbria in the year 635, accompanied by 12 monks - significant perhaps - and King Oswald established Aidan as Bishop, giving him the island of Lindisfarne – Holy Island – as his bishopric. The location and environment suited Aidan. Then and now, the island of Lindisfarne is cut off from the mainland, other than at periods of low tide, when a land bridge, now replaced by a causeway, is uncovered, enabling pilgrims to cross. It provided the solitude Aidan needed for prayer and a base for his missionary work.
From there he went out, into the lanes and byways of Northumbria, to meet the ordinary people and tell them of the love of God found in Christ Jesus, encouraging his monks to do the same.
Bede’s writings tell us that the King Oswald was uncomfortable with his Bishop walking everywhere like one of the common people and so presented Aidan with a fine horse for his journeys. When Aidan left the King’s palace he came across a poor man, begging. So, Aidan gave him the magnificent horse, while he himself continued on foot. Bede writes. The king was most distressed when he heard, and requested his Bishop to come and dine with him, asking, ‘My Lord Bishop, why did you give away the royal horse which was necessary for your own use? Have we not many less valuable belongings which would have been good enough for beggars, without giving away a horse that I had specifically selected for your personal use?’ Bishop Aidan at once answered, ‘What are you saying, Your Majesty? Is this child of a mare more valuable to you than this child of God?’"
After that response, the King humbled himself before his Bishop and said, ‘I will not refer to this matter again, nor will I enquire how much of our bounty you give away to God’s children.”
So, Aidan continued to give food to the hungry, eating with people he met on his journeys, and rarely going to dine at the Kings’ palace. It was his practice to fast on Wednesdays and Fridays and to spend those days in prayer and study.
During the season of Lent Aidan would retire to the small island of Farne, for deeper prayer and penance.
A prayer that is attributed to him echoes his reflections on the tidal island where he was bishop and the ministry to which he felt called.
Leave me alone with God as much as may be.
As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore,
make me an island, set apart, alone with You, God, holy to You.
Then, with the turning of the tide, prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world beyond, the world that rushes in on me,
until the waters return and enfold me back to you.
This balance between time alone with God and time with his people enabled him to be strengthened and nourished so that he could then go out to share the love he knew in Christ. He found himself amongst ordinary people, many who were poor, many homeless, some enslaved by the world’s systems. To them all he offered a ministry of hospitality that reflected Christ’s teaching. Aidan himself had little to invite people to, no fine house of his own, rather like Jesus before him. His lifestyle was frugal - instead he took out what he had received to share with others - both material things, food, a horse and what he had received from God. He invited them to Christ’s table which is for all.
This is our call too – and yes, we might well be ministering to angels unaware, as the writer of Hebrews reminds us. But in all our days and ways we are also ministering to the body of Christ and being the body of Christ in the world. Perhaps it becomes possible when we learn to let go of our need to be important, to be seen as important in the eyes of the world, to let go of our need even for security and possessions to define us, and instead to hold onto both the gentleness of spirit and the strength of character which enables us to find joy in serving as Christ served, and so share the fruits of the immense love that God has lavished upon us.
So, I close by reflecting on this calling in the collect prayer for St Aidan’s day:
Collect for St Aidan
O loving God, who called your servant Aidan from the peace of a cloister to re-establish the Christian mission in northern England, and endowed him with gentleness, simplicity and strength: Grant, we ask you, that we, following his example, may use what you have given us for the relief of human need, and may persevere in commending the saving Gospel of our Redeemer Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.