Sunday 26th January 2025
Nehemiah 8.1-10, I Corinthians 12.12-31a Luke 4.14-21
Last November, in his sermon for All Saints Day, Peter mentioned one of the lesser-known Celtic Saints, St Kevin of Glendalough. That reminded me that the very first sermon I preached in this church was about St Kevin. The date, as I discovered when I looked it up, was 29th July 2008, and the sermon was part of Father Phillipp’s Evensong series called ‘my favourite saint’. When I re-read it, I was surprised to find that I had, all unwittingly, touched on themes which were to become central to my life and the life of St Anne’s in the years to follow.
So it seemed fitting today to revisit St Kevin. He was a real person; the abbot of a monastery at Glendalough in County Wicklow at the beginning of the seventh century. You can still visit the monastery today. But what captivates me about him is a legend rather than a historical fact – the story of how a blackbird made her nest in his open hand while he was praying. The great Irish poet Seamus Heaney told this story in a wonderful poem which I’m going to read to you now.
And then there was St Kevin and the blackbird.
The saint is kneeling, arms stretched out, inside
His cell, but the cell is narrow, so
One turned-up palm is out the window, stiff
As a crossbeam, when a blackbird lands
And lays in it and settles down to nest.
Kevin feels the warm eggs, the small breast, the tucked
Neat head and claws and, finding himself linked
Into the network of eternal life,
Is moved to pity: now he must hold his hand
Like a branch out in the sun and rain for weeks
Until the young are hatched and fledged and flown.
*
And since the whole thing's imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he:
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time
From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth
Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love's deep river,
'To labour and not to seek reward,' he prays,
A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bid
And on the riverbank forgotten the river's name.
The legend of St Kevin and the blackbird tells us something true and important – that those times when events overwhelm us and turn our lives upside down, when we lose any illusions of control and agency and acknowledge our vulnerability, are times when God can bring new life to birth. And at those times – the St Kevin moments, as we might call them – two things take on special significance: the power of community and the power of prayer.
I want to talk a bit about the Covid pandemic, an event which is so recent and yet already seems so long ago. It is understandable that we should want to put that bewildering and frightening time behind us, but if we wipe out the memory entirely then we risk forgetting the ways in which God helped us through it here at St Anne’s and laid the foundation for the flourishing that has happened since under Ben’s leadership. If you joined our congregation after that time, I hope that what I am going to say will find echoes in your own experience.
Paradoxically, it was that time of separation when we could no longer worship together that made me acutely aware of what it means to belong to a Christian community, to be members of a living body, as Paul puts it in today’s reading from I Corinthians. When John and I came into the church each week to record the Sunday service, it never felt like an empty space. In my mind I could see you all sitting there and I knew I wasn’t speaking into a void. And, of course, we couldn’t have kept the life of St Anne’s going without each other’s gifts and skills. Just as Kevin would have needed people to bring him food and water and to take over his tasks as abbot while he stayed praying in his cell, so we depended on one another. Peter bravely learned the technical skills to post our services on You Tube, and developed them to a fine art. I shall never forget, Peter, the Christmas Eve when you went out to the people queuing outside Richards the Butcher and gave them a QR code so they could watch our service of Nine Lessons and Carols while waiting for their turkey. On another Christmas Eve Josie and her family and Margy decorated the church most beautifully and made craft activities for families so that, although public worship was still banned, we could welcome people into church all day and give them something of the joy of Christmas. And behind all this was the quiet network of friendship and pastoral care with people phoning one another regularly and giving practical support. I know, Phillipp, that you were a big part of that, and I am very thankful.
Our prayer life also too on a new dimension during Covid. People recorded intercessions in their gardens or in Baxter’s Field, bringing the outside world into our worship. Sometimes the sound of birdsong almost drowned out the spoken words, and there was a wonderful occasion when Mary-Rose’s dog wandered into the shot and completely upstaged her prayers with his antics in the background.
But I really discovered for myself the power of community and the power of prayer when I had my own St Kevin moment with my cancer diagnosis last spring. I am grateful beyond words for your kindness, support and above all for your prayers. The sense of being upheld by prayer is real and solid and it makes all the difference in the world. If you ever feel that offering to pray for someone in trouble is somehow inadequate – and I have sometimes felt that – then you could not be more wrong. It is the best and most generous thing that you can do.
When the director Richard Eyre retired from his leadership role at the National Theatre, he wrote this: ‘I found out that to work at something you feel is worth doing, in the company of people for whom you feel admiration and affection, for the benefit of people who endorse what you do, is about as good as life gets. I had the time of my life.’ That sums up my feelings about my ministry here at St Anne’s. Thanks to you all, I have had the time of my life. May God bless you and may the glory be his.
Amen.
Reverend Canon Judith Egar