Scottish Sunday 2000

*Preached at Grace North Church December 3, 2000.*

In preparing for this sermon, I thought that it might be interesting to focus on St. Andrew, Scotland's patron saint, which, not coincidentally, provides us with a fitting introduction to Advent as well.

In the name...

Okay, for the next few minutes, I'd like you to shout everything you know about St. Andrew at, but please, be concise...

Hm... Looks like I won't be surrendering the pulpit to anyone this morning! The truth is, before I started researching this sermon, I didn't know much about him either. In fact, no one really knows very much about Andrew. Usually his name is among the first four mentioned in any list of disciples in scripture, and though he was not part of Jesus' "inner circle" he was awarded a certain pride of place in Christian tradition due to his being Simon Peter's brother. A little ecclesiastical nepotism, if you will.

Ironically, Andrew was probably the more spiritually minded of the two brothers, as Andrew was a disciple of John the Baptist before Jesus came along. When Jesus came to John to be baptized, it was to Andrew that the Baptist said, "Behold, the Lamb of God."

Later, when Andrew was fishing with his brother Peter, Jesus approached them and said "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men." They dropped their nets there and then and followed.

After Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, tradition tells us that St. Andrew went to Scythia and Epirus in Greece, and both places claim him as their patron.

But it was in the city of Patras in Greece, that he met his end. For there he ran afoul of the king, and was crucified on an X-shaped cross.

Andrew's story does not end there, however. Even though in the fourth century no one knew where he was buried, his body was apparently found by the 8th century, when his relics were transported to Scotland because of a legend which said that Andrew had visited the little town of Fife in that country and had built a church there. Unlikely as this was, it was reason enough to disturb his bones and relocate them to the distant land of the Scots, which is why he remains Scotland's patron saint to this day.

But even at this point, Andrew's travels were not finished. His remains were later removed to Constantinople, to counter the fact that that city's rival, Rome, was possessed of the relics of both Peter and Paul.

While it might be true that you can't keep a good man down, apparently you can't keep him together, either. For in 1204 the crusaders sacked Constantinople and took poor Andrew's head, which was later given as a gift to the Pope in Rome. And there it sat in a place of honor in St. Peter's until Pope Paul VI generously returned it to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople in the 1970s.

St. Andrew is called to mind every time one looks at the Union Jack, as the X on that flag stands for Scotland and the X-shaped cross upon which Andrew met his end.

And that is all we know about Andrew, as far as the facts are concerned. But for a more fanciful treatment, we may turn to the apocryphal Acts of Andrew, which survive in various fragmentary sources, and from which we learn how tradition has cast Andrew's charism, or the spirit of his ministry, which was indeed singular.

In the Acts of Andrew, the apostle refers to himself as a "mid-wife," and indeed, when we examine his ministry as depicted in the canonical gospels, it is an apt description indeed.

For it was Andrew's way to speak the truth, and thereby to bring others to Jesus. He was the middle man. Remember that it was Andrew who brought Peter to Jesus, and likewise it was he who found the boy with the loaves and fishes and brought him to Jesus.

According to his Acts, Andrew continued his ministry of spiritual mid-wifery even unto his death. The story goes that he came to the city of Patras and befriended the wife of that city's king, named Maximilla. She became a believer, and an ardent disciple of Andrew. Under his tutelage, Maximilla came to see that it was wrong for her to be unevenly yoked with an unbelieving husband, and determined from then on to live chastely until such time as her husband the King should embrace the Gospel.

Now the King's name was Aegeates, and as you might imagine, when he came home from the battlefield and found his wife newly devoted to this strange cult, and what's more, no longer willing to share her bed with him, he wasn't very happy about it. It did not endear him to Andrew at all. But he did not immediately strike down the apostle.

Meanwhile, Andrew was busy doing apostlish stuff, like healing the sick and casting out demons. One day Maximilla's brother Stratocles came home from Italy where he was studying philosophy. Stratocles was aggrieved because one of his favorite slaves had been possessed by a horrible demon and the spray cans of "demon-be-gone" he's picked up in Greece had been completely ineffective. Maximilla reassured him that his slave would not suffer long, for there was a holy man in town who would soon put him right.

When the slave, who was apparently a soldier charged with guarding Stratocles, came before Andrew, the demon threw him down, and he foamed at the mouth. His fellow soldiers grabbed him and tried to get him to stand upright before Andrew, but could not. The apostle took pity on all of them and said to the soldiers, "Are you ashamed before me, because you see that your nature betrays you?"

Now, that was a cryptic thing to say, don't you think? And yet it makes more sense as the story goes on. He cast out the demon, of course, and this act sends Stratocles into a philosophical crisis.

Andrew approaches Stratocles and says, "Why the long face?" or something to that effect. "Is there a part of you," Andrew asks him, "that resonates with what I am telling you?" Then he asks him something very much in line with his charism: "Is there a part of you, Stratocles, which is foreign to you? An adversary? A destroyer? An enemy? A cheat? a sorcerer? a deceitful man? an arrogant man? a madman? a friend of darkness? Is there a part of you who does not like it that I am speaking to you like this? Answer me! Have I spoken in vain? I don't think I have, since there is another part of you which is weeping, because you know what I tell you is true."

Now, in both of these cases, it is Andrews' method of ministry to say the simple truth about the inner realities of the people he is encountering. To the soldiers he says, "Are you ashamed before me because your nature betrays you?" and to Stratocles, Andrew correctly identifies the conflicted parts of this complicated man that roil within him.

But Andrew is not a sourpuss, he does not only identify the darkness which dwells within the people he encounters, but the light as well. For to his disciple Maximilla, he says "Well done, you who are saved despite your weakness and though you did not hide yourself. Well done, O Soul, you who have cried aloud what you have suffered and are returning to yourself." And this is the method of salvation, the genesis of gnosis for Andrew: returning to yourself, the stripping away of falsehood so that the soul perceives itself as it truly is, warts, and beauty intact.

To the soldiers the apostle said, "Are you suddenly ashamed before me because you see that your nature betrays you? Because it is now plainly seen by all?" To Stratocles he says, "Are you despondent because so many powers war within you?" And to Maximilla he says, "You have spoken truly of your pains, and you are returning to your self."

This is quite a revelation, and a unique method of salvation, only previously encountered in the Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. But while it is almost unheard of in Christianity, it is the primary method of salvation in Zen Buddhism, where the goal is to discover one's "true face."

In Zen, we come to discover that who we think we are is not who we are at all. We have all constructed a persona, a false mask imposed upon us by culture, by society, by family, and by religion. The great tragedy is that we believe that the persona is who we really are. But it is not us at all. The goal of Zen meditation is to silence the false face, the persona, the ego, if you will, and to see clearly the "true face" bestowed upon us at our birth. This is our original nature, which the Zen practitioner strives to realize and identify with.

This point is driven home again in the Acts of Andrew's dramatic conclusion. It seems that Maximilla was so keen on avoiding Aegeates' bed that she sent her maidservant to his bedchamber disguised as Maximilla herself.

Aegeates isn't as dumb as they take him for, unfortunately, and when he discovers his wife's subterfuge, he decides to rid his city of this pesky cult-leader once and for all.

So he has Andrew arrested and, despite the great wrath of the common people who had come to love the apostle, Aegeates sentenced him to die upon the X-shaped cross. But he told his soldiers only to tie Andrew to the cross, not to nail him, since he wanted the apostle to suffer as long as possible.

Much to Aegeates' consternation, Andrew did not go quietly to his death as Jesus had done. No, he preached the whole time. He preached from the cross for two whole days, confronting Aegeates and his people with their true natures, exposing to them and to all the truth in their hearts, whether they wanted to hear it or not. Finally, in a fit of consternation, Aegeates came to the foot of Andrews' cross to confront him, but was speechless when Andrew addressed him in front of his entire city, saying, "O dreadful Aegeates, enemy of us all, why do you stand calm and quiet when you can not accomplish anything you try your hand at, especially punishing me! I and my brothers and sisters are marching on to that which is ours, leaving you to be what you are, even though you yourself do not know about yourself."

Aegeates was so moved by this speech that he began to climb up to the cross to set the apostle free all by himself, but the apostle would not allow the great boon of martyrdom to be taken from him, and he relinquished his spirit, leaving the king and all the city in awe of his holiness and his uncanny ability to strip away the rags in which they hid themselves to reveal the true self within.

The way of salvation for Andrew, as in Zen, is to discover one's "true face" before one dies. But I submit to you that if we do not endeavor to discover our true face in this life, we will not be able to avoid it in the next. For the Bible says that the fire of judgement will burn away all the dross, and leave behind only what is true.

Andrew's life provides a kind of diptych (dip-tick), a mirror image of the lives of each and every one of us. Andrew spoke the words of judgement--in other words, told the truth--to the people who crucified him, until he died. In the other panel of our diptych is us; it is we who die, and then must hear the truth.

At the judgement, we will not stand before God at some great white judgement seat, waiting to know God's decision. There is no decision; we are what we are. For when death strips away our body, it also strips away the falsehoods in which we clothe ourselves.

Instead, at the judgement we will be what we already are, save for the simple fact that we will know it. The self-delusions to which we so desperately cling today will be torn away, and we will have to stand naked before God and know the truth about how we lived, who we hurt, and how much--or little--we loved. It is not God who will judge us, but we ourselves, as our excuses and mitigating factors and denial are denied us, and we are alone in our all of our shame and glory. And liken Andrew, the Lord may indeed ask us "Are you ashamed before me, because you see that your nature betrays you?"

And it may not be that when our true selves are revealed we will be ashamed, perhaps we will be frightened by the goodness which we find within which we in our false humility have denied. In his inaugural speech, South African president Nelson Mandela said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us." Even so, we are so uncomfortable with praise, it may not be our sins that cause us to quail, but our genuine goodness.

This is not only Scottish Sunday and St. Andrew's day, it is also the first Sunday of Advent. While the world is ramping up for Christmas, in a flurry of present-buying, decorating, and party-planning, we Christians are called by our tradition to step back from the madness for a time, to become reflective, to meditate upon our lives.

Christ is coming; we celebrate his coming as an infant, certainly, but in our tradition we also celebrate his coming in the future. Many Christians anticipate the physical return of Jesus in some distant time, but in a very real and immediate way, Jesus will return to us individually much sooner, when we pass from this life and see him face to face. This is the purpose of Advent, to call us to examine ourselves in the light of that judgement, when the body and the lies will be swept away, when the truth will be spoken.

For make no mistake; the truth will be spoken. How will you fare? The season of Advent invites us to ask ourselves difficult questions, and those questions invite us to turn and live in a more consonant way with the values we truly hold.

I invite you to take five minutes in the morning, alone before God. Drink your coffee as a prayer, and make the pleasure you take in it an offering to God. And then sit quietly for a few minutes and consider how you truly feel about who you have become. Do you like the creature your choices have made of you? It is okay to feel regret for choices you wish you hadn't made; it's also okay to feel pride for the things you did well, and the kindnesses you gave. Perhaps you will find that you have some apologies to make, or some new leaves to turn over. New Year's coming up, so it's the perfect time for resolutions.

Christ is coming! And he is coming for all of us, like it or not, want it or not, know it or not. Let us each examine our hearts and make room for him. Amen.

Let us pray.

Jesus, in the Gospel of Thomas, you tell us "That which you have inside you that you bring forth will save you, yet that which you do not bring forth will condemn you." Help us to bring forth into the light of consciousness the truth of who we are, that we may know it and either rejoice or repent, or most likely, both. Grant us a productive Advent, as we await your coming, and prepare our hearts as a fitting home for your Spirit. For you are the one who calls forth that which is within us to be seen by us and by all; and you will call it forth, and it will be seen. Help us discover our true face in this life so that in the next we may stand beside you instead of cowering in shame. For it is you who calls us to fullness of life, and life abundant. Amen.