The Quiet Apostle

Anyone who has been around St. Paul’s for a few years knows that I’m a movie nut.  For those who didn’t know it this is your latest upgrade on St. Paul’s/Doug Simmons.net.

Having gotten that out of the way I’ll bet your expecting me to mention a movie.  Good, you’ve downloaded the upgrade and are now prepared for what follows.  This morning’s movie offering is a John Ford production that he also directed.  The movie is the Quiet Man.  It’s the story of a disillusioned boxer, born in Ireland, returning home to let the auld sod of Ireland restore his sense of self after having killed a man in the ring.  It stars John Wayne, Maureen O’Hara and a great cast of worthy’s from Ford’s stock company of actors.  It’s called the Quiet Man because Wayne’s character has come to seek peace and instead finds turmoil, but see the movie, it’s worth it just to hear Barry Fitzgerald talk.

I use this introduction because this Sunday, although we are celebrating the First Sunday of Advent in the daily propers, is customarily set aside for the Feast of St. Andrew, the Patron St. of Scotland.  Hence, our pipers, and my distinctive dress.  Although it’s not a dress, it’s a kilt, please be so good as to use it’s proper designation, (the Rector notwithstanding).  The reason we have Saints days at all is to hold up for us the exemplars of the faith and to give us benchmarks for our own pilgrimage of faith.

Please listen to this short passage from John’s Gospel, it has a bearing on what follows.

  This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?”   He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”   And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”  Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”  He said,  “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness,  ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said.

  Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.  They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”  John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.”  This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing.

  The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!  This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.”  And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him.  I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’  And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.”

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”  The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus.

When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.  One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

St. Andrew, according to the Gospel of John, was the first person to become a disciple.  Although he was the first he is not mentioned often, if at all, in all of the gospels.  I therefore call him, in deference to Mr. Ford, the Quiet Apostle.  After he met Jesus, he went straight to his brother, Peter and told him, “We have found the Messiah!”  Not one to let grass grow under his feet, Peter went with his older brother to meet Jesus, and there his story begins.  But back to Andrew.  In all the gospels, in their 3,768 verses, Andrew is only mentioned one more time, in John’s story of the Feeding of the 5,000.  Surely, he was a close member of the company of the 12.  He had to have been, he was the first to join that company, if we are to believe John.  And even if that is not the case he was definitely one of the 12, named in other gospels as such.

We are also told by the many traditions surrounding his name that he ventured far and wide before he died on an X shaped, or Saltire Cross.  He is attributed with spreading the tenets of Christianity through Asia Minor and Greece.  He is the patron Saint of Scotland, first adopted by the Pictish King Angus and later officially declared by the Declaration of Arboath, after the defeat of the English by Robert the Bruce at Bannockburn in 1314.  He is also claimed by Russia and by fisherman, the latter being no surprise, the former tolerated by the good folk of Scotland.

It seems to me that Andrew is, although little known, worthy of our consideration as a model of behavior regarding the practice of the faith.  He led the vanguard of entrance into fellowship with Jesus, and at no time do we hear of him disputing Jesus.  Peter, on the other hand was sometimes rather quick to disagree and then later regret his boldness.

Andrew simply went about, watching, listening and storing away what he saw and heard during his time with Jesus.  After the Easter Event, tradition tells us that Andrew took the Gospel message of God’s gracious love to Asia Minor and to Greece.  There is not what historians call substantial support for the claims of tradition, yet traditions are based on something other than imagination, therefore I consider that Andrew did what tradition says he did, in some shape or form.

Andrew’s example is that of one who hears and does the word.  He digests what he hears, makes it his own and then passes along to others what it has meant to him.  He is not a letter writer like Paul, nor is he a blusterer like his younger brother, Peter.  He’s the Quiet Apostle.  Yet he got the job done.  He acted out his faith in many, many ways.  If we are to place some credence in traditions about him he was a teacher, healer and preacher, renewing the lives of  many of the people to whom he went.  No fuss, no muss, just quietly and effectively living out the message of God’s all encompassing and renewing love.  He must have been clearly affected by his time with Jesus to have people accept his message as an authentic one.  In short, he was a living proof of what he preached, probably telling people how Christ changed his life for the better and offering the proposal that God desired the same for them.

You know, Andrew sounds like a lot of people I’ve known through the years of my ministry.  Let me tell you about my contact with a few such folk in recent times.

As all of you may or may not know, we recently lost our granddaughter, Madison, to severe birth defects.  It was during that difficult time that a lot of quiet apostles made themselves known to us.  Some did it with kind word, others by sharing their own losses of former times, a thing not easily done, but done nonetheless, as an act of compassion and to aid in the healing process of dealing with our loss.  Nina and I were astonished at how many of St. Paul’s members had suffered the loss of a new born.  Even more astonishing was their willingness to re-enter that field of painful memory on our behalf.  No fanfare, no fuss, no muss, just quiet love doing its work, Andrew all over again.  Then there was the social worker at the Infant and Children’s Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi, and although we never met her she did much to aid in connecting Mike and Patricia with resources that would help pay for the enormous cost of the care Madison received.  There were also the doctors and nurses, who, although they were trained not to, developed such an attachment to Madison that they wept openly when she died.  Such compassion cannot be feigned and its reality helped our son and his wife at that awful moment when they held Madison in their arms and had to say good-bye.  Next were the quiet contributions so many made to the Ronald McDonald House that put them up for 53 days, free of charge, because anonymous donations made it possible.  Alicia, one of the staff of that place, made it a point to know the name of every child of parents who had a child at risk.  She was a non-invasive, cheery force that stood quietly in the background, another quiet apostle.

I wonder how many in this place right now have been that quiet apostle for others.  We’ll probably never know because they don’t make a fuss about what they do, or to whom they offer the quiet, healing love of God.  The quiet apostle’s of our parish, our communion and of Christianity in general, have been one of the strong forces that has helped us remain united in the face of trial and tribulation.  I suspect that our present denominational crisis will be another example of quiet apostleship by many people who take the Baptismal promise we all make to, “strive for justice and peace among all people and to respect the dignity of every human being.”

The Andrews of our parish, diocese and national church will, in the long pull, be the ones who help us remain united because they have experienced pain and hurt in many ways and have no desire to see it meted out to anyone.  They will be the ones who help us turn division into unity, without having to be captured by uniformity.  They will help us all to use the events of recent days on behalf of, and for, the Love of God.

“Almighty God, who gave such grace to your apostle Andrew that he readily obeyed the call of your Son Jesus Christ, and brought his brother with him: give us, who are called by your holy Word, grace to follow him without delay, and to bring those near to us into his most gracious presence; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.”     AMEN. 

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