The Bishop of Beverley - Sermon for the Northern Provincial Festival

A Sermon for Feast of S Hilda,

Preached at S Hilda's, Cross Green on 17th November 2007

Saint Hilda of Witby

It is Mary who has chosen the better part.

Luke 10.42.

I am never quite sure whether dogs gradually become more like their owners, or owners more like their dogs. For Christians, at any rate, the great thing is that we are meant gradually to become more like our patron saints. One hundred and twenty-five years ago, when this Church was set aside for worship, its worshippers were placed under the patronage of S Hilda. There was no suggestion, of course, that S Hilda was in any way like us. The challenge was for us to learn from and become more like her . You and I were to have our own special companion and model as we set out to live the Christian life and so become, in our turn, more Christ-like, more filled with the life of Jesus.

Hilda of Whitby was, first and foremost, a nun. Saving the current passion that many seem to have for dressing up in costumes for The Sound of Music singalongs, few of us at first sight seem to have much in common with a nun. But, perhaps, that is because our age seems largely to have lost any understanding of what it is that monks and nuns are really all about. That is rather strange when we recall that those who first built and sustained this church building were, at the same time, equally enthusiastic about restoring communities of monks and nuns to the life of the Church of England. Many religious sisters were to work in this very part of Leeds. Mother Agnes Stewart may not have been a nun in the strictest understanding of the word but her life and ministry were to be lived out against that background for the building up of this church and parish. That remarkable lady, together with the religious sisters who served in the district, were rightly admired for their work in education, nursing, and other social care. Yet, valuable, as all that was, these things were not the heart of their lives. That would be to make them like Martha in today’s Gospel story, over-anxious to be busy about so many things in order to make Jesus welcome in her home. By contrast, we are told that Martha’s sister, Mary, chooses what Jesus calls the better part. Mary realises that welcoming Jesus to her home, first of all, means being hospitable to His every word, bearing witness to the fact that Jesus is the one thing that ultimately matters. Then, and only then, will everything else fall into its rightful place. Monks and nuns primarily follow their special vocation so that you and I might be reminded of the priority of Jesus and of His proclamation of the Kingdom of God. Monks and nuns are dramatic symbols to the Church of the absolute priority that each of us should respond to the challenge of Jesus Christ.

S Hilda of Whitby was, first and foremost, a nun. If you and I are to be more like her, it will be in our developing a singleminded attentiveness to Jesus’ teaching just as Mary demonstrates for us in today’s Gospel. Today, as ever, the Church in general and the Church of England in particular can be driven by an often divisive agenda. You and I need make no apologies for that fact. The church of Hilda’s time was, in its turn, highly split between Celtic and Roman Christianity. There were all kinds of disputes, from the date of Easter to the appropriate style for clerical haircuts. There were issues as to what it really meant for bishops to be in communion with one another as well as with the Church of Rome. Much of that has a somewhat familiar ring in our ears today! These matters, nevertheless, needed resolving. However, when such matters need arguing over in order to bring them to resolution, there is the ever-present danger is that many of us only then begin to follow Jesus for the thrill of the fight, the pleasure of being self-righteously busy for Jesus in some cause or other. This church, with S Hilda as its patron, is called to give a particular witness to first principles. Let the altar be faithfully attended, let the confessionals be well used, let Bible study and prayer groups abound. If the congregation of this church is gradually to be rebuilt in numbers, not least from the new homes that are soon to appear nearby, it will be because people realise that the folk at S Hilda’s are alive to something of first importance, something that radically challenges and changes you and me. That is S Hilda of Whitby’s perspective. It should be true, also, of we who follow in her patronage.

As all of us who knew Hilda’s story can testify, putting Jesus first, listening to Him, in no way made her inactive or passive. Hilda, by contrast, could oversee a great religious house. She could command the obedience of monks as well as nuns, bishops as well as lay brothers. S Hilda could see the need for reconciliation between Celtic and Roman Christianity if ever the mission of the Gospel was to be carried forward in the land with the greatest effectiveness possible. She did not only see what needed to be done, she then set out and did what was necessary. Attentiveness to God made her more effective as a Christian and not less so.

Nor should you and I be surprised. Hilda is given to us as a patron because she in turn captured so much of the Master both she and we have sought to serve. Jesus was fully attentive to that relationship that existed between Him and His Father, held in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. That attentiveness led Jesus to be faithful in His calling even when, as in Gethsemane and in hanging on the cross, at one level, faithfulness seemed to make little if any sense. Always Jesus stays faithful in His Father’s purpose of showering love upon the world, a faithful and constant love that will even shatter the powers of sin and death. That is the truth on which S Hilda of Whitby fed and which transformed her life. One hundred and twenty-five years on into the life of S Hilda’s Cross Green, that holy woman prays that you and I, too, might have nothing less than that deep and wonderful experience of always putting Jesus first.

There is never any better place to which you and I can do that thing other than at God’s altar. Jesus both unites us with Him in complete surrender to God His Father and nourishes us with His own body, that all of us might be further transformed into the people that He would have us be.