D.S.S. Week of Prayer: Barry 1981

D.S.S OCCASIONAL PIECES.

WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY 18 January 1981 (age 85) AT BARRY
[Here follows the Introduction and the three sermons without the hymns, readings and prayers]

INTRODUCTION:

My long life has been richly blessed by the counsel, teaching, help and encouragement given by many friends and acquaintances in all denominations of the Church and others who, not in the fellowship of the Church, have been recognized as seekers after God if haply they may find HIm. I have therefore regarded myself most strongly obliged to keep that vow I made at my Induction “to cherish a spirit of brotherhood towards all the followers of the Lord.” So, I am glad to have been given the responsibility of directing your thoughts, desires and aspirations throughout this Act of Worship.

After some years in a country Parish where the Auld Kirk was the only Kirk, the main influences upon my development were, in Aberdeen the Salvation Army and Oxford Group, in Inveresk, again the Salvation Army but also friendships with members of Congregational, Episcopal and Roman Churches and close cooperation with the Seamen’s and Faith Mission; and in Iona, the Deed of Gift which made over the then ruined buildings in the Island to Trustees for the Church of Scotland provide that the Cathedral be available for all Christian denominations and served to strengthen those ties of brotherhood. The service of Holy Communion at the time of the 14th Centenary of Columba’s coming (2 June 1963) was according to the form of the Church of South India, the only occasion on which I’ve heard the Nicene Creed properly recited. The Salvation Army followed me to Iona in the person of someone who reminded me that “Blessing is something we can never have too much of.”

Now in my retirement, I’m not so strong as I once was and require more cooperation from the Congregation. I beg the Congregation to cooperate with me in allowing me to weave the thoughts and aspirations of the Sermon into the fabric of Prayer and Reading and Praise. The Theme of the Sermon and Service might well be the word “OUR”: OUR Father, OUR daily bread, OUR debts, all brought into focus as we try to understand the meaning for US of some of the words of Ephesians 2 “He is OUR peace.... through Him WE both have access by ONE Spirit unto the Father ..... in whom YE also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.”

SERMON (1)
The older I grow the more forcibly it is borne in upon me that, in the Sermon, the preacher should be rather the signpost pointing the way to Heart’s Desire than an argufier, and the sermon something in which the more the Congregation engage in what I can only liken to a spiritual tennis-match with the preacher, i.e. “responsively”, the fuller will be their cooperation in an ACT OF WORSHIP even more intense than in prayer or reading or praise.

A very well-known Scotsman of the preceding generation, who himself took a leading part in the World Council of Churches, one Sunday when taking leave of the Congregation after preaching in a small country Kirk, on being thanked by a simple elderly woman for his sermon, replied (for he himself in spite of his great learning was also a simple soul) that much of the Sermon might have been somewhat “over her head”. Her reply shewed him what she thought a real sermon should be ;- “God forbid, Minister that I should understand everything you said -- BUT MAN! YE MADE GOD GREAT.” For what better purpose can we gang tae the kirk than to MAGNIFY THE LORD? ---- for this as we will hear in the reading of the Lesson, something characteristic of preaching since Apostolic times (Acts 17: 22-31).

SERMON (2)
While still a Probationer I had the privilege of spending nearly a year in the HOLY LAND and gained there some idea of the genuine brotherhood which can exist between members of different Churches, not merely in my native land , but, more generally throughout the world; for, while attending the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem I enjoyed not only the hospitality of the Clergy and School of the Anglican Cathedral there, but also the lively friendship of professors and scholars at the corresponding American School : and America produces even more denominations than we. BUT WE WENT FURTHER THAN THAT! Through the inspired devotion of the then Bishop-in-Jerusalem, I attended in St. George’s Cathedral, a service which an irreverent friend of mine called “THE CHUR-NAG-OSQUE”.

We called it CHUR NAG OSQUE making up a portmanteau word out of Church and Synagogue and Mosque, because the then Bishop McInnes, in order to give thanks on the fifth anniversary, on the ninth of December 1922, of the deliverance of Jerusalem by General Allenby from seven centuries of Turkish oppression, invited the leaders of Both Muhammadan and Jewish communities in Jerusalem to participate with their Christian brethren in this solemn thanksgiving in the Cathedral. AND WE ALL CAME!

A month or two late, up in the hills of Galilee, finding that Principal Semple, of the Scots College, Safed, needed a teacher, I got permission to help him for a week or two; and there I found boys from all three religions meeting in classes in friendship and beginning each day with an act of worship. Would that the vision and the ideal both in Galilee and Judea had been abiding! Had such things been allowed to continue The Holy Land might today still would be a WHOLE land instead of a “Middle-East-Problem”.

If Christian Fellowship was the prelude to my ministry, so also was the end. One Ester Day in the tiny wee Parish Kirk of Iona, all five continents were represented. And for the practical service given one summer month by representatives of the World Council of Churches in much needed repairs to Church and Manse fabrics by men and women from Churches in Holland, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Iceland, the U.S., England and Scotland, and the happy fellowship we enjoyed together, how can I help in this Sermon giving glory to God. (Reading Luke 1 67-79)

SERMON (3)
A famous predecessor of mine in my Aberdeen charge was once summoned before Presbytery to give an account of what might have been considered an act of disobedience. It happened at the time when King George 1V, having put away his wife forbade Public Prayer for Queen Caroline. Dr Kidd, duly appearing before Presbytery asked the Moderator the reason for his summons. This put the Moderator in a fix, for whatever may happen elsewhere, the Church of Scotland takes its orders from no earthly sovereign. Being told, then, by the Moderator that he was summoned because he had prayed publicly for the Queen, Dr Kidd replied, “Why shouldn’t I?” Prudently the Moderator said, “Because she’s a sinful woman.” “All the more reason for praying for her,” said Dr Kidd and then pointing at each member in turn and finishing with the Moderator he went on, “and I’ll pray for you Sir and you Sir and you Sir and for any other sinner out of Hell Sir.”

We salute Christ as Savior, but if we fail to appeal to His Saving Power, how shall we escape if we “neglect so great Salvation” (Hebrews 23). There is a petition in the Lord’s Prayer which long puzzled me:- “Lead us not into temptation.” In the language which Jesus spoke to His disciples this petition is very closely related to the prayer He asked them to pray in Gethsemane, “Pray that ye enter not into temptation” i.e. Pray that you may not go under in temptation. The Church, the whole church must always be on the watch and seeking the help of a higher power to make sure that temptation will be overcome, in the constant warfare against sin.

An earlier age was more alert than ours in its ability to recognize the SEVEN DEADLY SINS i.e. seven sins each able to to kill our immortal life stone dead and these were AAEGLPS.... ANGER AVARICE ENVY GLUTTONY LUST PRIDE SLOTH. Surely one great reason for the Church’s existence is this, that individually and corporately, it stand guard, wrestling, fighting, praying not only for itself and ourselves but also for all people that we and they through Christ may find deliverance.

“THrough many a day of darkness
Through many a scene of strife
The faithful few fought bravely
To guard the nations life
THeir gospel of redemption
Sin pardoned man restored
Was all in this enfolded
ONE CHURCH ONE FAITH ONE LORD.”