The Venerable Bede wrote about just such a shrinking violet
in his History of the English Church and People. It was late in the 7th century. He says that when the guests at a feast were
asked to entertain the gathering, a lay brother saw the harp coming his way, and
got out as fast as he could, fleeing outside to a stable to sleep. And his worst dream came back to haunt him:
someone standing beside him telling him to sing something. ‘I can’t sing’ he replied, ‘that’s why I left
the party and came out here’. ‘But you
shall sing’ persisted his visitant.
‘What about?’ asked Caedmon. ‘Sing about the creation of all
things’. And this untutored man who had
never written or sung a verse in his life broke into the purest song of
praise. Next morning, he was brought to
the abbess of the double monastery where there were both women and men. She saw at once that divine inspiration had
taken hold of him. She had him admitted as
a monk, and taught him the scriptures which he turned into verse and, says
Bede, through his gift, inspired his hearers ‘to love and do good’ and prepare
for the joys of heaven. We sang about
this in Canon Brown’s hymn.
Caedmon was the earliest English Christian poet. I am telling you about him because of that abbess
who recognised his gift: Hild, as the Saxons called her; Hilda in Bede’s Latin. She was one of the great leaders of the Saxon
church in the 7th century, born 1400 years ago next year, a princess called back to Northumbria by
St Aidan, admitted to the religious life and associated since then with three places
in the North East commemorated on the kneelers executed by our broderers at the
Hild altar in this Cathedral. The first is South Shields where the parish
church in the town centre plausibly stands on an ancient Saxon place of
worship. Next comes Hartlepool where one of the North East’s great churches,
the grand gothic pile of St Hilda, stands on the numinous windy headland near
the medieval sea wall where a plaque tells you that you are not far from the
monastery where she was abbess.
Finally comes Whitby which is properly Yorkshire but for
today an honorary part of North East England and definitely Northumbria. The marvellous abbey ruins on the cliffs
above the town stand on the original Saxon site. Here too, Hild was abbess and hosted
the Synod of 664 AD at which the Northumbrian church made the difficult choice
to follow continental Roman customs for calculating the date of Easter rather
than the Irish traditions of Lindisfarne in which she herself had been schooled. I see her trying to find reconciliation
between those two ways of being Christian, for unlike others, she did not
abandon England when the decision went against Lindisfarne.
I love the story of Hild taking in the unknown Caedmon as
the midwife of his gift so as to bring it out into the open. There is always a risk in this, discerning
and nurturing what perplexes other people, recognising the work of God in the
life of another human being. In the
gospel reading, Jesus speaks of the importance of invitation: it is the poor,
the crippled, the lame and the blind who should be welcomed to the
banquet. And this is what Hild did for
Caedmon, recognising his gift of poetry and song, a gift not only of versification but of interpretation: understanding the ways
and works of the Creator and speaking about them. It’s a lovely picture of how human
beings grow and flourish when they are, so to speak, brought inside and their gifts
and talents are celebrated.
Some of you have recently seen the film Little Voice. Jane Horrocks plays an ultra-timid daughter
who is so dominated by her overbearing mother that she can’t speak above a stage-whisper. She spends her days in her bedroom listening
to LPs of songs from the shows: Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe and Shirley
Bassey. And she sings along with them, sings
as them, for she can sing – not just hum or whistle but really sing. One evening Little Voice is overheard by a seedy,
dead-end talent scout, Michael Caine, who recognises her gift and realises this
is his last big chance for a big prize. So he puts her on the stage. It’s not a straightforward rags to riches
story. But it is a picture of finding
one’s voice, and through it, finding herself. Through Hild, Caedmon, a 7th
century Little Voice, found his gift, found his voice, found his God, and found
himself.
I see in this a metaphor of Christian ministry. I don’t mean what the clergy do, but what we
all do for one another as the people of God, our companions in the church. Isn’t
the task of ministry to try to recognise what God is doing in the world and in
those around us, and help make it conscious, articulate, so that they find
their God, their voice and their gifts? That
is much harder than baldly stating the truths of Christianity or pressing home
moral certainties. As I read the gospels, I find Jesus gong about his work in a
way that brings out the possibilities inherent in ordinary men and women,
enticing them into responding more fully to the love and grace of God: piping
so that people not only listen but dance. It’s suggestive rather than
insistent. It offers people the freedom
to say yes, or no, or maybe, or it’s hard, or I wish I could; but this is how
to draw out of them the song they alone can sing. Oscar Wilde said that what makes Jesus a poet
is that he makes poets of us all. Precisely
this gift of opening the lips of others to proclaim the words and works of God
is how I read Hild’s act in bringing another person to life.
There are few things more important than to do this for one another. We can never know how much a little word of
encouragement can mean to someone else: ‘thank you’, ‘that touched me’, ‘God
spoke to me through what you did for me’.
Words and gestures like these are so often how God gives us the gifts
and the strength to carry on serving him as followers of Jesus. It means being open to other people,
responsive to them in their tentativeness and lack of confidence, glimpsing
what God is doing and could do through them, as Hild discerned with Caedmon.
There are those who have done this for us.
We must do it for others.
This is
how the church is built up as we respond together the to ‘one hope of our
calling’. Who knows whether there is a
Caedmon somewhere waiting for us to prompt them, nudge them, encourage them to find their voice, open their mouths and sing?
Durham Cathedral, St Hild’s Day, 17 November 2013
Luke
14.7-14
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