Sermon by the Bishop

Aidan is your patron saint. He is a very attractive figure – one of the pretty limited number of saintly bishops. And one way of preaching on your patronal festival would be to take a look at what we know of his life in the seventh century and see what we can learn from his example for our own journey towards sainthood. And I could base that around a very striking phrase from the epistle: woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel. For a life which proclaims the gospel, a life which is good news in the world, is a saintly life, a source of blessing and not of woe. And Aidan’s life was, in many ways, a blessed proclamation of the gospel. And so on…. You can see how that sermon could develop.

But I’m not going to do that, because in the end I’m not convinced that the saints are best approached simply as edifying examples of Christian living. Actually, I prefer to approach them simply as fellow Christians, members of the community of faith. So, this morning, with that in mind, I want to explore with you the whole idea of patron saints and see where that takes us for our own understanding and practice of the Christian life.

In having a patronal festival at all you align yourselves with a long tradition in the church which derives ultimately from the early Christian practice of meeting to offer the eucharist at the graves of martyrs and then of building churches over these graves (St Peter’s in Rome, of course, is the most famous example of all).

In this the church was to some extent following established Jewish practice. Belief in the special efficacy of the prayers of the martyrs for the Christian community may also have Jewish precedents – the great Jewish hero, Judas Maccabeus is said to have had a vision of the prophet Jeremiah, who died centuries before his time, “with outstretched hands invoking blessings on the whole body of the Jews”. The first use of martyrs as patron saints of a city was by St Ambrose at Milan in the late fourth century – as the centuries rolled on the choice of saints as patrons for countries, cities, lay and religious associations, churches, colleges, universities, trades, arts extended beyond the category of martyrs to all sorts of Christians judged to be of outstanding merit, charity and holiness, intimately conformed to Christ. All believed themselves in need of special advocates with God. Sometimes the reasons for a choice of patron are perfectly clear and sensible – for example St Genevieve for Paris because she encouraged the citizens to resist Attila and the Huns, or St Luke of painters because ancient tradition asserted that he was an artist as well as an evangelist. But quite often they are fanciful or delightful – Our Lady of Loretto is the patron of airmen because of that Holy House which flew across the Adriatic, while St Ives of Brittany, revered for his honesty, is patron of lawyers – I leave you to relish the spiritual hopefulness of that choice!

Patron saints – special advocates with God. Aidan, your special advocate with God, your patron. Can we make any sense of this? Let’s think for a moment of what a patron is in ordinary speech. A patron is a person who is on your side; he is somebody who through his influence and contacts with significant people, makes it possible for you to develop and succeed in whatever is the sphere of your life and work. What matters is your patron’s presence and active influence with the right people, in the right places and at the right times. But immediately we come up against a problem - in our culture, unlike the cultures in which the idea of patron saints grew up, we are instinctively suspicious of patrons and patronage - we think they mean a system of unfair advantage, bias in appointments, hidden and maybe sinister influences at work. We are inclined to think that too much patronage confers too much corrupting power upon people who are patrons - it is often alleged, for example, that the British Prime Minister is an overmighty patron, with far too much patronage at his disposal. Remember “Tony’s cronies”? In an earlier age the so-called Whig Bible had the delicious misprint “Blessed are the placemakers, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven”. Political patronage was much worse in the 18^th century. So, in this age, we prefer to see people making their way on their merits alone, without help and influence from patrons. Patronage is a threat to the free competition of individuals in an open market, a threat to getting on on your own merit.

Just so, which is precisely why, despite its obvious difficulties in a modern setting, the church does well to hold on to the idea of patronage exercised by the saints, this church of St Aidan among them. It is, after all, a radically counter-cultural idea! A dangerous idea, even. Because who seriously thinks that the Christian life is about making your way on your merits alone, without help and influence from anybody else; who thinks that the Christian life is about something so appalling as competing for God’s attention in an open market? Patronage, despite the obvious possibilities for abuse, despite the potential for a descent into cronyism, is about community, about networks of support, about people needing help and encouragement. So it is with the idea of patron saints - Aidan is not just the great hermit bishop of Lindisfarne, lover of the poor and adviser of King Oswald, also to be a saint. He is also and just as importantly a present patron who upholds us by his prayer in the right place and at the right time. He is a living member of our community, part of our network of support, a help and encouragement to us.

A living member of our community. We can only make sense of patron saints, of your patron Aidan, as special advocates with God if we locate them firmly within our Christian community, firmly within the whole body of Christ, approaching God in and through Christ, their Lord, and our Lord. We should not think of St. Aidan or of any saint as if they were simply famous dead Christians of the past. Rather we should value them as living members with us of the church whose wonderful fellowship spans heaven and earth, time and eternity. With them, we share in faith, in worship, in praise, in thanksgiving and in prayer. And we are greatly strengthened and encouraged by this fellowship. The church is so very much more than the little, earthly part of it which we inhabit - and the Scottish Episcopal Church, I can assure you, is a very tiny part of it indeed - the energy and the strength of the church come from our roots in heaven. That’s where our best worship, our best thanksgiving, our best offering, our best living, are to be found - not here, but in heaven. What we do together today in the celebration of the holy mysteries gives us access to the energies and strength of heaven. And at the centre of this is the fellowship of prayer. The saints are not merely our patrons - that remains in many ways, despite my attempt to rehabilitate it, a limiting image - they are our friends and like all good friends they pray for us and their prayers, offered out of lives lived deep in union with Christ, are deep and true, and well-worth the asking and the having.

It is common enough nowadays and often illuminating to think of the church as just another human institution and to apply to it all the modern understanding of the dynamics and sociology of institutions: we did some of that at the recent stipendiary clergy conference. The church as an institution where people play out all sorts of games can seriously damage your health and it would be foolish of me or anyone else to underestimate these dimensions of church life. I have bitter personal experience of them and so do most of us, laity and clergy alike. Nevertheless, we need to put that kind of approach in the perspective I’ve been talking about. The church is an earthly institution, but it has heavenly energies as its heart-beat. We are earthly, fleshly people – some of us with all too rapidly increasing flesh - but we are called to be people with heavenly energies as our heart-beat. It is often jibed that Christians are so heavenly-minded as to be of no earthly use. But it is only that, a jibe. The exact opposite is really the case - only if we are heavenly-minded, aware of our roots and living in the strength they supply, can we be of any earthly use. That is what we’re about, that is our calling. May the prayers and fellowship of Aidan and of all God’s saints, known and unknown, keep us true to that calling, now and always.