It is believed that David II instigated the building of a church on the present site from around 1362, much of which survives, supposedly to thank St Monan for bringing the king and his queen, Margaret of Logie, safely to land during a storm.

To this day, the church remains the busy heart of the village. About 100 people gather for worship each Sunday morning; and baptisms, weddings and funerals are all significant parish occasions. From Easter to October, the church is open for visitors

There are many fine medieval features in the church – sedilia (seats), aumbries for storing communion vessels, piscinas for washing them, consecration crosses and the vaulted stone roof of the choir.

It is a constant financial challenge to preserve the fabric of this fine building and maintain our worship and witness within the community. Friends of the Auld Kirk of St Monans, by their-donation, are able to support the preservation of the building, and the work of the Church of Scotland in the village. Friends receive regular news from the parish, and are invited to a special service of worship each year in the summertime.

* * *

Application form for individual and

family Friends’ membership

(Please use capital letters.)

Title______ Name___________________

Address______________________________

Telephone_________________________

e-mail_____________________________

Please tick

Individual Friend £10/$15 per year      _

Family Friends £15/$25 per year         _

Please send application form with cheques made payable to St Monans Church of Scotland to:
Mrs Ruth Mathers,47 Station Rd, St Monans, ANSTRUTHER,  Fife KY10 2BP,  Scotland UK

Gift Aid Declaration
I want the congregation to treat alldonations I have made to St Monans Church of Scotland since 6 April 2000, and all donations I make from the date of this declaration until I notify you otherwise, as Gift Aid donations.
Signature of Donor       _

Date of signing                 _

Notes:

1. You can cancel this declaration at any time by notifying the congregation.
2. You must pay an amount of income tax and/or capital gains tax at least equal to the tax that the congregation reclaims on your donations in the tax year.
3. If in the future your circumstances change and you no longer pay tax on your income and capital gains equal to the tax that the congregation reclaims, you can cancel your declaration.
4. If you pay tax at the higher rate you can claim further tax relief in your Self Assessment tax return.
5.  Please notify the congregation if you change your name or address.

 St Monans Church of Scotland
Registered Charity,  Number: SC005556

* * *

Sunday 11 December  A Service for Reflection, 3 pm,
St Monans Church, particularly for those who may have experienced loss of any kind in the past year.

Thursday 15 December 7:30pm Concert by the Renaissance Singers from St Andrews in St Monans Church. Refreshments during interval.

Friday 16 December Christmas Service in Abercrombie Court, St Monans. Coffee. 10.30am

Sunday 18 December All-age Nativity Services with Sunday Schools: St Monans 10 am; Largoward 12 noon followed by refreshments.

Wednesday 21 December 9:30am Largoward and New Gilston Schools Christmas Service, in Largoward Church led by Rev John Murdoch

Thursday 22 December Candlelit Carol Service, 7pm,
St Monans Church followed by mulled wine & mince pies.

Saturday 24 December Christmas Eve Watchnight Services,
St Monans (Revd Colin Alston)  and Largoward Church (Rev Ian Petrie) 11.30 pm.  Coffee at Largoward from 11 pm.

Sunday 25 December  United Service, with Largoward and
St Monans, in St Monans Church 10 am

Sunday 1 January 2012  United service for the New Year, with
St Monans and Largoward at Largoward Church, 11 am.
+++

Call to worship
Hymn 63 All people that on earth do dwell (Old 100th)
Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer
Children’s Talk
Hymn 194 This is the day ( The Lord’s Day)
Old Testament Reading  Ezekiel 34:11-16 and20-24
Hymn 129 The Lord is King!  (Church Triumphant)
New Testament Reading: Matthew 25:31-46
Hymn 125 Lord of all being, throned afar  (Ombersley)
Sermon
Prayers of thanksgiving and intercession
Church News
Offering
Hymn 470 Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
The Benediction

***

Sunday 28 August 2011

How can we recognise God’s call to service in our Church when our lives are already very busy?

Foreword: This is the last sermon I’ll blog as minister of St Monans linked with Largoward Church of Scotland.  From 1 September 2011 I’ll be Chaplain to the University of St Andrews, and you’ll find new sermons on their website.  If you’ve been reading these ones, thanks for being part of the community.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s commonly said that our lives are very busy, and getting busier.  Many people are working longer hours, and in Britain we work longer than any other European country.  We live increasingly far from work, so spend longer commuting.  Women work outside the home, so the family has less time for everything else, and grandparents are busy with childcare.  Computers mean we do things ourselves we used to let someone else do – from booking a holiday, to printing party invitations.

This is squeezing our free time, the time we have for service in the church.  Mind you, it all depends who you are.  The 2000 Time Use Survey discovered that the average adult in the UK had 5 hrs 26 mins free time per day (bear in mind that includes non-working people, and weekends as well as weekdays).  But of this 5 and a half hours, the average time spent volunteering was a mere 4 minutes.  Teaching at Sunday School, at a Lunch Club, attending a Board meeting, singing in a choir, collecting for Christian Aid – all that is volunteering.  4 minutes.  Which means that since most people in St Monans/Largoward Church are giving a good deal more than 4 minutes per day, a lot of people are giving less.  Indeed, in the survey, only 12% of people had volunteered at all in the past 4 weeks.  The Big Society is more like a Tiny Society working very hard for everybody else. 

Of course we are called to serve by God in our Church:

for Timothy it was the call to proclaim the message, work hard to spread the gospel, and discharge all the duties of his calling.

And Jesus puts things even more sharply than Paul: following Jesus means complete commitment, risking security, compromising family duty, jeopardising the bonds of human affection.  Surely a commitment worth more than 4 minutes.

The problem is that even in churches, there are different levels of commitment, and the same people find themselves volunteering for multiple roles, which can lead to stress, exhaustion and burnout – and I’ve witnessed this over the past 10 years.  So how do we remain committed to Christ, and follow him wholeheartedly in the Church, while still giving of our best at work, loving our families and being a good friend?  Let me come at this question at a tangent by looking back at the last decade of church life here in St Monans and Largoward, to see how we have answered that question in practice, as busy people, up to now.  What have people offered to the church?  What have I encouraged as your minister?  Let me describe this under a few headings.

First, the drama of worship.  I love leading worship, and I think the highlights of ministry for me have been services of worship. On one hand, I have tried to let worship reflect people’s own spiritual lives – in congregational hymn choice, in hot potatoes, in different music instruments.  On the other, I have tried to challenge us to explore God’s word in contemporary life, by preaching, for example, for a year on the Apostles’ Creed, and by exploring fresh and contemporary hymns.  There is nothing more encouraging to this minister than following the Bible into a church overflowing with people who have come to worship.  Or discouraging than fitful attendance.

We’ve also let this building touch people with the nearness of God in more intimate services: for the bereaved, in Holy Week, at Christmas, a hundred rosy faces lit by candlelight, longing for peace and goodwill from God to be shared.  And I will never forget some of the rites of passage marked here: noisy baptisms, joyous weddings (in most cases), funerals sometimes happy, sometimes heartbreaking.  You may be interested in some statistics:

In St Monans, I have conducted 86 baptisms from Leah Stephen to Adam Kirk; 95 weddings from Rachel Bittern & John Milsom to Leanne McKend & Christopher Law on Saturday coming; and 189 funerals from Alex Hughes to Mary Reekie.

In Largoward, I have conducted 22 baptisms from Ben Hunter to Millie Ferguson; 9 weddings; and 28 funerals from Granny Black to Arthur Yuill.

Second, the care of souls.  I love visiting people, at home, in hospital, hearing the story of their lives, reflecting on the way forward, praying with them and for them.  In a novel by Marilynne Robinson called Gilead, an old minister says: In the old days I could walk down every single street in Gilead, past every house, in about an hour.  I’d try to remember the people who lived in each one, and whatever I knew about them, which was often quite a lot.  And I’d pray for them.  When I read that, it seemed he was speaking for me too.

Yet I am just one, and so I have encouraged elders, pastoral visitors and others to give of their time to listen, to reflect, to care and to pray for God’s people.

Third I have encouraged a deeper connection with creation, from the early morning Easter service at Abercrombie Kirk, where the birds seem to sing their joy at the risen Christ, to walks from Largoward to St Monans, to filling the kirk with holly, fir, rosemary and yew at Christmas.  Indeed the hymn I chose for today’s service, in St Monans, is the great hymn of creation by St Francis of Assisi.

Fourth, I have discovered that our church is a community of communities, in which people encounter God and uncover their faith in different ways – in the Guild, house-group, youth groups, Sunday Schools, Christianity Uncovered and Recovered, Coffee & Co; online on the website, listening at home to the tape/CD.  One size will never fit all again.

Fifth, I have learned that a church in a community such as St Monans/Largoward must be a church for the community, involved in village life, not condoning every aspect of contemporary society, but supporting all that is good in modern life.  We do this in the Sea Queen, the Gala, the Community Arts Festival, supporting the school, care homes, delivering Loaves and Fishes to every house, and opening our churches to visitors.  I think I understand the phrase Church Without Walls better now than when I came here.

And, sixth, I have encouraged the arts as ways of expressing our God-given creativity, a response to our creator, and a source of comfort and hope: from world class music in the East Neuk Festival to King Creosote playing at the church hall last November while a blizzard enveloped North-East Fife; from restoring the windows of the church with wonderful craftsmanship to exhibitions of Celtic art; from bluegrass concerts to Medieval Mystery plays.  Indeed, the plays, directed by Maya my wife, perhaps encapsulate my ministry best of all: drawing from the past in a medieval setting, but in language pungent enough to reach out to today; visual, dramatic and profound; engaging with scripture, sometimes playfully; connecting church and community; finding gifts throughout congregation and parish; and discovering my darkside as Lucifer himself: lovely for a time to not have to be good.

Six themes then, interwoven in our common task of ministry these past 10 years: all sorts of worship and care for souls, creation and diversity, community and beauty.

It’s not a perfect list: if we think we’ve found the perfect church, we should take our smugness somewhere else.  And I am conscious of roads not taken: deeper engagements with Bible-study and prayer, or involvement with the world church and commitment to the needy, or with vulnerable people in the village itself.  There’s plenty to discover in the future.

Which leads us back to the Hot Potato.  We have done and shared and experienced a pile of stuff over these years.  And it’s been fun.  But how should we continue and develop this ministry given how busy we all are?  At the risk of pre-empting next week’s sermon when I’m sure the Interim Moderator will say something similar, here are some principles:

1.  Christ is the minister: and we are caught up in his work of love for his world, his fellow-people.  No matter what happens in our service in the Church, it is service in God’s mission to the world: and his are broad shoulders: Jesus said, Come to me, all who are weary and whose load is heavy; I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me… For my yoke is easy to wear , my load is light.

2.  Let us build the church around the gifts of the people.  Nobody is good at everything, and so people should not feel they must do everything: instead let people offer service in the church which they enjoy; let them retire when they want to; and let us not be scared of vacancies: these allow fresh blood. 

3.  Work matters.  Family matters.  Christ’s sayings are hard sayings: Let the dead bury their own dead, and so on.  He makes a crystal clear distinction between those committed to him and those who are at best lukewarm in their discipleship.  But the fundamental call in the Christian’s life is to become a disciple of Christ where we are: within families, at a workplace.  Indeed, our care of husband, wife, partner, child, grandchild or parent may be the theatre in which loving our neighbour must be played out, before any commitment to a church organisation.  And being a Christian at work, in love, honesty and integrity, may well be more important than service in the church. 

4.  Don’t look back.  Jesus was surely right that no-one who looks back can plough straight.  It is very alarming to be a passenger in a car where the driver constantly turns round to check on their children – at 70 mph.  In the church too, we must look forward, to where God is drawing us forward.  The church of the future will not look the same as today; indeed it will be different by next week, with new vision, new priorities, new style.  It will still be led and supported by busy people, I’m sure, but perhaps somebody here today, just exploring their faith, taking tentative steps in the church, will surprise a hunger in themselves to be more committed.  And follow Christ.  And after today’s nostalgic spin around the last 10 years, no looking back.

Sunday 21 August 2011

1 Corinthians 3:9b-17; Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

What is Hell?  What is Purgatory?

What is Hell? 

The Westminster Confession of Faith is the subordinate standard of authority in the Church of Scotland.  It says of hell that:

the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power.

Some people seem to have delighted in imagining these torments: I’ll never forget reading for the first time, on a quiet evening in Aberfoyle, the sermon on hell found in James Joyce’s novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.  The priest explains to the schoolboys that the sulphurous brimstone which burns in hell is a substance which is specially designed to burn for ever and ever with unspeakable fury,

with the result that:

the blood seethes and boils in the veins, the brains are boiling in the skull, the heart in the breast glowing and bursting, the bowels a red hot mass of burning pulp, the tender eyes flaming.

Today, most treatments of hell emphasise not the torments of fire so much as the destruction from the presence of God: hell as eternal separation from God.  This may or may not involve some form of existence: for it is argued by some that if we are completely separated from God and his creative power, we cease to be.  In a novel by John Updike, a character asked his minister, Revd Eccles, if he believes in Hell:

Yes, he says, I think so.  Hell as Jesus described it.  As separation from God.

–       Well then we’re all more or less in it.

–       I don’t think so.  I don’t think so at all.  I don’t think even the blackest atheist has an idea of what real separation will be.  Outer darkness.  What we live in you might call… inner darkness.

Where do these ideas come from?  In outline, they are in the Bible. 

The word used in the New Testament is Gehenna, from the Valley of Hinnom, an area just outside Jerusalem where children were sacrificed, which became a rubbish heap.  In time the name referred to the place of punishment for sinners after death.  The main image for hell and for divine punishment generally used in the Bible is fire, but there are other images: darkness, death, destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord.

The main source of our imagery, which may surprise us, is the teaching of Jesus.  Far from meek and mild stories, many of his parables include references to a place of unquenchable fire, reserved for those who resist the coming kingdom, where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth.  The parable of the wheat and the tares (or darnel or weeds) is only one example.  Jesus clearly challenged his listeners with the possible consequences of sin and evil.

Elsewhere in the New Testament, the Book of Revelation also abounds in hellish imagery, such as a lake of fire, and envisages a separation between those named or not named in the book of life.

By contrast, the writings of Paul and John, while conscious of God’s judgment and the importance for everybody in choosing to follow Christ, be saved and receive eternal life, have little of Jesus’ imagery for hell.  If anything for Paul, judgment for the unrighteous leads to their death, their destruction, their annihilation rather than unquenchable torment.  Indeed, there are hints in his letters that ultimately all creation, everything in heaven and on earth will be saved and be part of Christ’s unity.

So what should be think about hell?

Certainly, I have sympathy with those who are troubled with it.  Could a wholly good and loving God allow some people, part of his creation, to be punished for their sin eternally?  One former Moderator of the General Assembly, Andrew McLellan, put it this way: God would be a monster if he were prepared to consign his creatures, however wicked, to a punishment from which there would never, ever, be any possibility of escape.

These scruples are exacerbated by the very hellishness of much of life.  Our inner darkness.  A Cambodian wrote a heart-rending memoir of living under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.  He writes about how the Buddhist monks taught him about punishment in the next world.  But this was this world.  The food in hell was maggots instead of rice…  We knew all about the tree of iron spikes, the red-hot platform, the pan of boiling oil… There was no next world.  There was nothing left to happen in it. (Someth May, Cambodian Witness)

If these things, when done by humans, are evil, can they be part of God’s  loving power in hell?

If that question doesn’t trouble us, it should.

Yet we should not simply be blithe.  Scripture consistently describes the importance of our moral lives.  God respects the freedom he has given us.  Sin matters.  Christ died on the cross because humanity had veered so far from goodness, from love.  And the Bible, especially when it records the teaching of Jesus, holds out the possibility, as the Catholic Church puts it: of remaining separate for ever by our own free choice from God, in whom alone human beings can possess the life and happiness for which we are created and for which we long.  (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1033, 1035)

It is a state, a place, without love.

What is Purgatory?

While hell is a part of the doctrine of nearly all Christian churches, Purgatory has a rather narrower constituency.   Belief in Purgatory was renounced by the Protestant Reformers, and to this day it remains essentially a Roman Catholic belief.  So let us hear how it is defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.  The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect. (1030-1)

Let’s tease out why it is necessary.  In the sacramental understanding of the Catholic Church, people may well have been forgiven their sin by God, but they still have to fulfil penance.  This involves making reparations for the wrong they have done, and making amendments to themselves, that is, becoming better so that they don’t do the same thing again.  For sin may be forgiven but it still leaves a stain on the soul, a coarsening and clouding of our character.  This damaged soul cannot stand before the unveiled light of the presence of God; it needs to be purified until it is ready.  This happens by the action of God: there is nothing the soul in Purgatory can do to quicken the process.

Now there is no explicit mention of Purgatory in the Bible.  But there is a strong belief in the purifying power of God’s love and justice, often expressed as a refiner’s fire.  When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he is concerned about false teaching affecting the church: and goes on to say that the day of judgment dawns in fire, and the fire will test the worth of each person’s work.  If anyone’s building survives, he will be rewarded; if it burns down, he will have to bear the loss; yet he will escape with his life, though only by passing through the fire.

Passing through fire sounds fairly unpleasant, and so Catholic practice has long been to try and shorten the time souls spend in Purgatory.  To that end, Catholics pray for the dead, and say masses for particular dead, in the belief that that will shorten the soul’s time in Purgatory.  Indeed St Monans Church was built by David II so that, after his death, masses would be said regularly for his soul.  In fact, one of the principal causes of the Reformation was the selling of indulgences: people would give the church money in order that their loved ones’ time in Purgatory would be shortened.

There’s a strange Little Museum of Purgatory in Rome which offers a fascinating sidelight on this.  It contains relics which purport to show souls in Purgatory communicating with people in this world, to implore them to pray harder and say more masses and give more money, so that their purgatorial pains be lessened.  These relics are finger-prints, hand-prints and burn-marks which appeared on clothes and prayer-books of the living.

As I said, the Reformation resisted the belief in Purgatory and all the practices associated with it: calling it superstition, corrupt, not in scripture, and neglecting the saving work of Christ.  Here’s a rhyme by the Scotswoman Elizabeth Melville from 1606:

The brain of man most surely did invent

That purging place, he answer’d me again;

For greediness together they consent

To say that souls in torment may remain

Till gold and goods relieve them of their pain.

Did the brain of man invent Purgatory?  If so, it developed over hundreds of years out of the faith and religious life of the people.  What’s clear is that the church’s doctrine of Purgatory is much more definite than the meagre hints in scripture.  In the Divine Comedy by the Italian poet Dante, Purgatory has become a mountain with two terraces, a gate, and 7 cornices or ledges for different levels of sinful souls. 

And on the issue of Hell, both Catholics and Protestants have seemed to know an amazing level of detail of the heat and nature of the fire, the pain of the damned, and the pleasure the saved take in seeing the damned in the fires.

There is, in other words, an architectural quality to some theological speculation which seems a long way from understanding God as love, as grace, as kindness, as the giver of peace.

Scripture is more modest in envisaging the last things.  Perhaps we should be too.  But our modesty can also come with confidence:

that God is loving, that Jesus lived and died for us and our salvation, that grace is offered to us in Jesus Christ, whatever we’ve done, that the friendship we have with God in this life will not end with death, but will be transformed.

Call to worship

Hymn 19  Ye gates, lift up your heads on high

Talk mainly for children

Hymn 336  Christ is our light! the bright and morning star

New TestamentReading: 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Prayer of thanksgiving and confession

GospelReading: Matthew 26:26-29

Hymn 376  ’Twas on that night when doomed to know (vv. 1-3)

Sermon  Why are people put off communion?

Hymn 376  ’Twas on that night when doomed to know (vv. 4-6)

Church news

Prayer for others and Lord’s Prayer

Offering

Dedication of offering

Hymn 457  All hail the power of Jesus’ name

Blessing

Call to worship

Hymn 476 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord

Talk mainly for children

Hymn Shall we gather at the river

New Testament Reading: 1 Corinthians 3:9b-17

Prayer of thanksgiving and confession

Gospel Reading: Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43

Hymn 81 I to the hills will lift mine eyes (unaccompanied vv. 2-4)

Sermon, part 1: What is Hell?

Hymn 737 Will your anchor hold in the storms of life?

Sermon, part 2: What is Purgatory?

Church news

Prayer for others and Lord?s Prayer

Offering

Dedication of offering

Hymn 419 Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son

Blessing

Sunday 14 August 2011

1 Corinthians 11:17-34; Matthew 26:26-29

Why are people put off communion?

Why are people put off communion?

St Maximilian Kolbe said: If angels could be jealous of men, they would be so for one reason: Holy Communion.

I’m sure there are Christians who would agree, but many would not.  For some people are put off communion, do not come to it, do not receive it, do not feel they receive spiritual benefit from it, or simply do not enjoy it.

It was a hot topic at this year’s Lent Groups, came up again at the house-group, and was the focus of an excellent report to the General Assembly a couple of years ago, which asked, What benefits are there when people experience the Sacrament as off-putting and meaningless because there is neither intimacy nor mystery at its heart?

It’s a good question, and we’ll come back to intimacy and mystery later.

Of course there are countless different approaches, forms and styles of communion, but until recently Church of Scotland practice was fairly uniform.

Two to four times a year, Elders visited their districts, and gave out cards or invitations to members.  On the appointed Sunday, the church would be laid out with white tablecloths, while the elders were dressed in black, morning-dress in my father’s case.  The service was longer and more than usually solemn, with long, wordy prayers and narratives.  The congregation sat in silence, speaking only the Lord’s Prayer.  The high point for many was the rousing singing of Ye gates.  Children were not allowed.  For some it was a service of great meaning and spirituality; for others, it was a relief to be finished with an empty, boring ritual.

There is, as usual with tradition, much to be commended.  Presbyterian practice recognises the importance of the Lord’s Supper, and does not treat it lightly.  In this it is an obedient response to Paul’s approach in 1 Corinthians 11.  Communion then and there seems to have involved a full meal.  Paul was conscious that the celebrations of communion in Corinth had become rowdy occasions for some of overeating and getting drunk, while others who came later were neglected.  Although the Kirk’s communion services include wine, it is hard to imagine an occasion more different from a dinner-party.

As for the length, even wordiness of our services, this may seem tedious but it respects the significance of communion as an event which encapsulates the whole of our faith in God the Creator, Redeemer and Spirit with us.  It can take time to express this thanksgiving, this trust, this hope.

Nevertheless, the roots of why communion can be off-putting are in our tradition too.

When children are excluded, it can carry on into adulthood as a sense of exclusion, of not being ready, not mature, not serious enough for this special ritual.  Furthermore, the absence of children from communion, or indeed from a church generally, takes away from the sense of community.  As one bishop said: There is no holy communion without holy community (John A. T. Robinson).

And so I was very glad a few years ago when the St Monans Kirk Session decided to open communion to children, according to the policy passed by the General Assembly.  Although some may think that children detract from this particular service, I can’t help but feel that our community is incomplete without them.

As for the seriousness, solemnity and formality of the service, especially the distribution of the elements, that can be off-putting.  People are anxious about breaking the atmosphere, both elders and members.  I think we have to recognise that’s still a factor here.

Furthermore, people have told me they find communion boring, in its long prayers, wordiness and silence.

True, it has a different rhythm from ordinary Sundays.  But I would also say that the words of the communion service convey great riches if we listen and meditate on them.  And we also participate more than we used to, all saying the Creed and the responses together, and sharing the peace.  And the silence while the elements are being distributed is such a rare thing in contemporary life: without background music, mobile phone conversations, the TV on low.  Rather than boring, perhaps such silence could be seen as reviving.

Some are put off by seeing the elders all together around the table, often dressed soberly, and they question why the minister should receive first, and then the elders before the people.  Is that not the factionalism which Paul criticised?

Well, I hope not.  Ministers and elders are ordained: they have a different role, a different form of service from other church members, and that includes the sacraments.  Yet we are all the guests of Jesus Christ at this table.  He is the host: that’s why our invitation cards say: The Lord Jesus Christ invites you…  I receive first, that I can then serve; the elders then receive that they can then serve; and each person in the church receives before serving.  This is the basic point: it is because we have received grace from God that we serve in Christ’s name.

There are other issues which matter to some.

There are people who feel unable to receive from a cup which other people’s lips have touched.  And so most churches offer the use of private glasses.

And there are some who cannot drink alcohol.  And so we offer grape juice as well.  I did hear of problems with this in one church: the server had run out of grape-juice for the glasses, but she did something else blackcurrent which poured hot and liquid into the cups.  She was mortified, an hour later to see the congregation, reverently and prayerfully, trying to prise solid lumps of jelly out of their communion cups.

So far we’ve been considering the form, the style of our communion service, to see why people are put off.  But it may be worthwhile looking at what communion is really about, to see how and why it could draw people in.  I think communion is about past, present and future.

It is a remembrance of things past.  “Do this in memory of me,” says Jesus, according to Paul.  And so in nearly every communion service we have the Narrative of the Institution, usually these verses from 1 Corinthians 11, which remember the last supper.  But we remember more deeply than that: we remember God’s love in creating the world, his reaching out to the world in his people Israel, his entering our world in his Son, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.  We remember the cost of forgiveness, that God gave up his only Son for us and our salvation.

This has been the dominant mood in the Lord’s Supper in Scotland.  Indeed there are many people, especially in the Highlands, who feel their own lives too unworthy to be allowed to share in communion, given the sacrifice made by Christ.  The Report to the General Assembly suggests that this overplays themes of suffering and failure, and I would agree.  For there is more to communion than remembrance of sacrifice.  There is the living power of Christ within us within the Sacrament.

This is the present of communion, if you like, that in the event of communion we encounter the living Jesus, raised from death, a real presence in the event, forgiving us.  In other words, communion is not only a solemn remembrance but a glad celebration of the grace and forgiveness of God, which is available for all people.  These words were in the Lent Group booklet this year: In New Testament times, the Gnostics devised a complex religion requiring special knowledge.  In contrast, all that was needed for membership of the Jesus movement was an ability to eat, drink and be washed.  This simplicity declared a glorious truth – the gospel is for everyone.

But communion also looks forward.  In Matthew, Jesus promises to drink from the fruit of the vine again, with his disciples, in the kingdom of his Father.  And we also, in receiving communion, look forward.  We receive to give; we receive to be changed; we receive that we change the world.  This is the heart of Paul’s stern words to the Corinthians.  For them communion can take place while social divisions are entrenched.  Who were the ones who ate and drank before others came?  The wealthier ones, who did not work such long hours, who did not need to change out of dirty work clothes.  And they ate as a group before the others arrived.  But Paul is convinced that if communion means anything it is that all are one in Christ: 1 Cor 10:17: Because there is one loaf, we, though many, are one body; for it is one loaf of which we all partake.  Communion is not about entrenching our divisions, but in its simple, humble way, about seeing Christ in all.

Does this lead to any conclusions about our celebration of communion?

We probably don’t celebrate it enough, but if we are to have more frequent communions they should be inviting, attractive, and not off-putting.  Many people have loved smaller celebrations, in church or at home, and perhaps holding regular smaller communions is a way forward.  I’ll learn about that at the University where there is a communion every Sunday after the main act of worship.

More generally, we need to maintain two things at the heart of worship, and the sacraments in particular: two things the report to the General assembly emphasised: mystery and intimacy.

Mystery, because this is about the love and grace of God in saving the world, and no words can capture God’s free and generous love for us – though perhaps the drama of broken bread and poured wine come close.

And intimacy, because in communion we encounter God, especially when we foster the sense of God’s closeness to us.

Two communions come to mind as high points in my ministry here:

sharing the service in Gaelic in one household,

and sharing one Maundy Thursday in an upper room on Forth Street:

these occasions approached close to both mystery and intimacy in encountering God.  And perhaps the angels were jealous after all.

Mr Wilson’s ministry was brief but eventful.  The Session minutes record that during his years, the church fitted lamps for the first time, the precentor resigned, a harmonium was introduced, and the beadle resigned following complaints about the cleaning or lack thereof.  While I have been blessed with largely good-tempered office-bearers and better health than Mr Wilson, I have often felt an affinity with him nonetheless when trying to encourage change.  I also remember that whenever I thought up some new initiative for St Monans, especially in my earlier years here, it was invariably met with the response, “Oh aye, Gordon Craig tried that.”  One is never more conscious of standing on the shoulders of others than in ministry.

So what’s it been like, as your minister?  Well, a lot of fun, on the whole.  I was attracted to apply for the vacant charge partly because St Monans Church’s mission statement, still printed on every order of service, encourages all who are involved to “have fun in fellowship.”   As someone wary of returning to the dour Church of Scotland from the South of Ireland, I thought a fun church might be, well, fun.  And so it has proved.  From madcap Christmas Affairs to cross-country sponsored walks, laughter-filled school assemblies to dodgy vocals at Largoward’s Got Talent, the hottest of hot potatoes to the bevy of Sea Queens, it’s been a lot of fun.  If fun isn’t usually called a theological virtue, perhaps it should be: God is the creator of a world free to play, and Christ told us to accept the Kingdom like a little child.

These have also been years which have deepened my faith.  Week by week I have explored the scriptures in preparing to preach, to teach children and others, to lead Lent Groups, new members groups, exploration groups in cafes and pubs.  I have been invited to help people facing the most difficult of circumstances: the death of a child, the breakdown of a relationship, the loss of faith.  Many people facing such things have taught me what it means to trust in God.  I have experienced, really for the first time as an adult, the community of the church, and sensed the strength people draw from their unity in the body of Christ: baptised into it, receiving communion, listening to the service at home, visited by an elder, pastoral visitor, minister.  Indeed, Loaves and Fishes itself is part of that building of community which has deepened my understanding of how God’s people live together.

I also am conscious of how much has changed during these years.  For example, I went through the membership list for St Monans Church a few days ago and counted up those people who were regular worshippers when I arrived, but who have subsequently died, or become infirm, or moved away, or ceased to attend for some other reason.  The number was 36, perhaps 40% of the attendance in 2001.  Yet the congregation feels as busy as ever.  In other words, new people are continually coming and soon belong within the fellowship, in some cases finding or rediscovering their faith.  In both churches there are few office-bearers from 2001 who have survived in office to 2011.  This is a natural and good process, which shows two things.  First, that both churches are able to be refreshed through people taking on new responsibilities.   Second, that while the Christian faith may be under threat from secular thinking, from patterns of work and leisure, from the churches’ own foibles, Jesus’ life, teaching, death and resurrection still draw people to follow him.  And always will.

What else has changed?  We are, I believe, increasingly open to children and their faith: Sunday Schools, crèche and youth work have flourished.  We are increasingly open to the arts as ways in which God the creator can be encountered: in concerts, drama, exhibitions and festivals.  We are communities which, even in tough economic times, can come together to give more generously for the church and the needs of the world.  And we are churches which increasingly see our mission not as opposing the parish but in serving our community: in pastoral visits, lunch clubs, coffee mornings and evenings, summer galas, and supporting the schools. 

Certain events will stay with me forever, I think.  It was Maya’s idea to decorate the church in St Monans with the natural greenery of a Scottish winter.  And those candlelit services, the church cold but faces red, voices united in carols rising to the medieval roof, were times when God felt very near.  (Nor will I forget trying to put out the fire above the pulpit one year.)  Other bright memories are Easter services in Largoward, the community gathered, simnel cake a delicious sign of our fellowship, eating together in celebration of the risen Lord.  And mystery plays, uniting the Auld Kirk with old words, yet so pungently expressing the Bible’s stories in our landscape, our thoughtscape (a made-up word, but perhaps you get my drift).

There have been times of stress.  But isn’t it wonderful how the mind is able largely to forget these – if we let it?  People often imagine a minister’s stress comes from the tragic situations he or she is asked to help people with: death and loss.  In fact, while these are not easy, they are not stressful; precisely because they are huge events, they are the things ministry is about.  In fact what causes stress is the trivial and the petty, which can assume too great an importance, and which can then poison some relationships within the church and community.  The church, which should be a community of reconciliation, can sound very different.  Getting caught up in that from time to time has been difficult, and I beg your forgiveness if I have let my frustration with prickly characters affect my judgment.  And who’s to say I’m not amongst the easily piqued?  For all the mistakes I have made and will continue to make as minister, I apologise and ask your forgiveness.

Over the years, countless people have asked, “Do you like living here?”  My answer is usually the same, “Yes, they’re such interesting communities.”  It has been my privilege to be welcomed into these communities, to be part of your world, to accompany you in the rhythm of your life, to listen to your stories, to pray with you and for you, and, so far as I was able by the grace of God, to bring my own Christian perspective to bear in your situation.  Sometimes, if I’m walking in St Monans or Largoward, as I pass each house I think of the people within them, some now gone, the occasions I’ve visited, the stories they have shared, the fears, the joys, the losses, the hopes of each household.  I can’t yet know how much I will miss being part of your interesting lives.

Sunday 28 August will be my last Sunday services here, at 10 am at St Monans and 12 noon at Largoward.  All are welcome to these all-age services.  On 1 September I will become the Chaplain at the University of St Andrews.  I’m sure I will bump into many parishioners from St Monans and Largoward in St Andrews, though I cannot promise to remember every name!  This means that an Interim Moderator will be in charge of St Monans and Largoward Churches.  He is Revd James Campbell, minister in Ceres, Kemback and Springfield and can be contacted at (01334) 829360 or revjimashkirk@aol.com.  At the time of writing, it looks like there will be a Locum Minister from late October onwards.  Sunday services, baptisms, weddings and funerals will be conducted in the churches during the vacancy by ministers and others qualified for these roles.  As for me, I will not be able to take services in St Monans or Largoward once I have begun in St Andrews.

Beyond the vacancy, there will be a new minister responsible for St Monans and Largoward though Presbytery has still to recommend the exact form of the post.  Indeed a sub-committee of Presbytery’s Vacancy Procedure Committee, led by Revd Caroline Taylor of Leuchars: St Athernase is assessing the parishes’ ministerial needs.  I think it would be helpful to her team to see our churches flourishing in many ways, particularly in people taking on new responsibilities.  To that end, I hope strongly that current vacancies will be filled soon, particularly the role of Session Clerk at Largoward, Christian Aid co-ordinator(s) and Youth work leaders.  Do speak to me, informally, if you would like to know more about these roles.

I’d like to finish by thanking you for welcoming me into your community and life over the past decade, in person and online, for teaching me so much about trusting God, and for being so much fun.

Your friend and minister,

Donald MacEwan

Sunday 7 August 2011

1 Corinthians 1:10-13; John 17:20-26

What are the differences between the Roman Catholic and Protestant faith?  Do the differences matter?

What are the differences between the Roman Catholic and Protestant faith?  Do the differences matter?

A wee boy in Glasgow takes a box full of new-born kittens to his local minister.

Would you like to buy my kittens?  They’re genuine Protestant kittens, real Rangers supporters.

But the minister sends him away, saying, You don’t get Protestant kittens.

A week later, the boy goes to see the priest.  Would you like to buy my kittens, Father?  They’re genuine Catholic kittens, real Celtic supporters.

But the Priest had heard of these kittens.  Look, you tried to sell them last week as Protestant kittens.

Aye, I know Father, but that was last week.  Their eyes have opened since then.

So the differences didn’t matter to that boy, but they do to many.  There are Protestants and Catholics who would hesitate to call the other Christian.  And history has shown that the dispute hasn’t always ended with words.  Wars in Europe, violence in Northern Ireland, sectarianism in football, all a version of the Catholic/Protestant divide.

Yet before we examine the differences which do exist, we should put them in the context of what we agree on, what is held in common.  Fundamentally, we agree about God.  The heart of what Christians believe was laid out in the early centuries of the church, in creeds.  We say the Apostles’ Creed at baptisms here, and the Nicene Creed when we have communion.  So do Catholics.  These are statements of faith in God the Father and Creator, God the Son who died for us and our salvation, and God the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.  Written a thousand years before the Reformation when the Protestant churches began, these creeds are still believed by Catholics and Protestants.  There’s a vast amount of common ground there, covering the essentials of Christianity.

Furthermore, we have baptism in common.  This may not seem very important, but it means that Catholics and Protestants do recognise each other as Christians, that we trust each other in having a faith in God as Father, Son and Spirit.  We do not ask Catholics who join the Church of Scotland to be re-baptised, nor does the Roman Catholic Church require it of baptised Protestants who are admitted.

But there are differences, which I can only describe in outline today. 

Many difference begin from the Bible.  For one thing, the Roman Catholic Church accepts books in their canon of texts which Protestants leave out, called the Apocrypha, books mainly from the time between the Old and New Testaments. 

But much more importantly, Protestant Churches maintain the Bible to be the supreme authority in faith and life, with a unique place in knowing who God is, what is true, how we should live and how the Church should be organised.

By contrast, the Roman Catholic Church locates authority not in the Bible as such, but in the Bible as interpreted in the Church, in which there is a teaching authority vested in the bishops and the Popes.  So the Pope can, on occasion, speak infallibly, declaring a dogma.

Protestants think that that gives too much authority to a human institution, since all human beings are prone to sin and error.  Instead, only the Word of God should be trusted.  It follows that Protestants protest at Catholic doctrines and practices which they say are not in the Bible.  Here are some examples.

Catholics believe there are 7 sacraments: baptism, confirmation, communion, penance, marriage, ordination and extreme unction (also known as the last rites).  They further believe that these sacraments are the means of grace.  For Protestants, there are only 2 sacraments – baptism and communion – because only these two were instituted by Jesus.  And they are not so much the means of grace, as visible signs of the grace of God found in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, once and for all.

Another difference is in ministry.  The Catholic priesthood is celibate, but Protestants say that’s not laid down in the Bible, so ministers can marry.  That’s why when ministers visit the priest in his attractive house, they can say, We may have the better haves, but you have the better quarters.

Moreover, Catholics believe all true priesthood is in a succession from St Peter; Protestants believe God’s call comes to people to be ministers within and outwith this so-called apostolic succession.

Then there are questions of people’s religious life.  Catholics pray to angels and saints in ways which Protestants don’t, believing that God alone should receive our prayers.  This extends to the veneration of Mary: as the Mother of God, Catholics pray to Mary, believing she can intercede for us with God, there are countless images and statues of Mary, there are Catholic dogmas which Protestants rarely accept, namely that she was born without sin (known as the Immaculate Conception), that she remained a virgin throughout her life, and that she was assumed direct into heaven at the end of her earthly life.  Protestants claim that while Mary is a hugely important figure in the history of God’s outreach of love to humanity, Catholic beliefs and veneration go beyond the Bible, and dilute the centrality of her Son Jesus Christ as the way to God.

As for questions around the last things, death, judgment, heaven and hell, and, for Catholics, Purgatory, these are the subject of next week’s hot potato.

So: most differences depend on how much we try to stick to the Bible in formulating our faith.  Yet there is another area of difference where, rather strangely, it seems that the Protestants are prepared to go beyond the Bible while Catholics will not.

For example, many Protestant churches now accept women’s ministry despite ambiguous scriptural support, while the Roman Catholic Church will not even allow discussion of the possibility of women priests.  Christ was male, and that is that.

And on questions of sexual and reproductive morality – contraception, IVF, embryo research, divorce and re-marriage, and homosexuality – many Protestants are willing to develop arguments on grounds of morality or justice which have at best tenuous justification in the Bible.  Catholics, on the other hand, draw on different moral traditions and arguably stay closer to the literal meaning of the Bible.  Consequently, many conservative Protestants make common cause with Roman Catholics on issues such as abortion and euthanasia.

Do the differences matter?

Some certainly seem to matter less than they did.  In 1999, the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches came to a substantial agreement on the issue which had been the crux of their division for nearly 500 years: justification – how does God save us?

And it seems to me that on moral questions around relationships, the start and end of life, world poverty and injustice, Christians from all sorts of denominations are speaking each other’s language and using each other’s arguments.

One American church used this idea in a large roadside sign: Jesus loves all denominations, but his favorite is the $100 bill.

But from another perspective, the differences do matter.

Jesus prayed for unity among his future followers: May they be one… may they be perfectly one.  Paul encouraged the Christians in Corinth to be united: agree among yourselves and avoid divisions.  No-one could argue that the present state of the Christian church, divided between Eastern, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant and Pentecostal Churches, not to mention countless smaller sects, is a picture of unity.  And this disunity, which is often a much more obvious and divisive thing than in modern North-East Fife, is a real weakness in our response to the good news of Jesus Christ.  As Pope John Paul II said, Our divisions prevent our neighbours from hearing the gospel as they should.

Yet I would hesitate to say we should simply ignore the distinctive emphases between Protestant and Catholic.  Sometimes, Protestant stress on the Bible brings a necessary corrective to the more speculative reaches of Catholic practice.  But I also think that the Catholic emphasis on the importance of human reason in understanding God and humanity brings a useful and healthy corrective to the gloomier assumptions of Calvinists that our mind is totally depraved by sin.

In understanding each other better, we may come to appreciate better our own tradition, style and approach.  Realistically, I do not expect our denominational differences to disappear: that jack is out of his box and he’s not going back in.  But we can, to borrow the current watchword of the ecumenical movement, achieve greater unity in diversity.  How do we do that?  Let me suggest:

By praying together.

By recognising what we share: as I mentioned in beginning, the creeds, the essentials of the faith, our common baptism.

By doing together what can be done together.

Only God can truly give unity to his people, but we can help in our own small way.  In a world where division, aggression, violence and injustice seem more entrenched than ever, shouldn’t Christians be showing Christ as a Christ of peace and not disunity?  Perhaps another late Pope had the right idea.  John XXIII said: Whenever I see a wall between Christians, I try to pull out a brick.