York Minster

Founders and Benefactors

Date: 19th October 2007
Preacher: The Revd Canon Dr Jonathan Draper

Now it may not have quite the same romantic ring to it as when some medieval herald announced that Ulf Son of Thorald made a great gift of an ivory horn to the Minster, but the big news, since we last met, is that the Heritage Lottery Fund have decided to join with you in supporting the conservation of the East End of York Minster to the tune of £10m. This is something, of course, for which we are truly and profoundly grateful, and it’s right that we should give thanks for that in the same way that we are giving thanks this evening for all the benefactions this great cathedral church has received over the centuries.

But receiving funding from bodies like the HLF today entails what I’m sure is an age old responsibility: showing your donors and partners around the site and the building so that they can see just exactly what it is they are supporting. Well, just the other week we got to show a group of truly important people a part of the York Minster Revealed proposals for a piazza outside the south transept and for moving the ticketing out of the Minster altogether and across the road. This group of important people was made up of city planners, highway engineers and drainage experts. When we had stood outside in the cold long enough examining the streetscape, we decided to return to our meeting room by going through the Minster. We stopped just inside the south door to try to imagine the view people will have when the kiosks are gone. And it is a wonderful view; an enormous space with the fantastic Five Sisters window drawing your eyes upward until they reach the top of the magnificent arches that frame the space under the central tower. And there, just above the arch facing you, are two coats of arms: both blue and gold, both on the same level, and both with three crowns. Have a look at them as we make our way into the North Transept following this service for a glass of wine.

I have, of course, seen these coats of arms many times before, but that was the first time that I had noticed them and I thought I ought to learn something about them. This was a tremendous mistake. There are people associated with York Minster who know everything and who can tell you about anything at significant length. I wandered from my office over to the Minster and not only came away with some information, but also with a small and very detailed book on the heraldry of York Minster by Yvonne Weir, which I was allowed to keep, no doubt as improving reading. And when word got around that a canon was actually interested in something, people flocked to tell me lots of things, some of which were even interesting.

So, I have learned things. The two coats of arms I mentioned are what are called ‘attributed arms’, that is, for the few of you here who don’t know this, they were invented for notable people who lived and died before the real development of heraldry in the 12th century. So you can find arms for King David, for King Arthur and even for various archangels. The two on the north side of the central tower are less mythical than that and are attributed, on the west side, to King Edwin, founder of York Minster, and the one on the east side, to King Oswald who built the first stone church on this site. And in the context of this service, when we remember with thanksgiving those who are and have been our founders and benefactors, they don’t come more fundamental than these two.

But being a modern person, I was not content with simply reading scholarly books about heraldry and with hearing what various learned people had to say to me, I also consulted the internet and again, I learned a lot, some of which was helpful and quite a lot of which was simply wacky. But the thing which stuck with me was that these two great men, Edwin and Oswald, both associated with bringing the Christian faith to this part of the world, both so important to the early life of York Minster, and both revered as among the great northern saints, also came from families who spent most of their time at war and at war with each other trying to establish their dynasties. Far from my picture of saintly kings striving in their turn to bring peace and faith and righteousness to the northern kingdoms, they were ordinary kings striving to consolidate their rule and expand their territory through the tried and tested means of sacrificing the little people in the brutality of Saxon warfare. Neither was more saintly, in fact, than you or me.The obvious thing to say at this point is that there is a lesson here for us. On the one hand, we need to recognise that the good we do owes more to God’s grace than to our saintliness; that is very important. And, on the other hand, we need to recognise that what we do in our day – for the sake of this Minster church, or for the sake of the world – has eternal value, whether we think we are saints or not. All of that is true and worth saying.

But the less obvious thing to say concerns mission, something that, in their own way, both Edwin and Oswald were committed to. One of the interesting and ironic things about a building like this one today, is that it was built to tell a story – the story of our salvation and the story of God’s engagement with our world from beginning to end. Take, for example, the main roof bosses above our heads, running down the centre of the nave ceiling; they tell the story of the life of Christ from birth at the west end, through death, to glory, drawing you ever eastward to the end of all things in the glass of the Great East Window. For some of us the story told in the stone and glass and symbolic scheme of this great church is still readable, but for the great majority it is simply, if gloriously, unintelligible. The building no longer speaks for itself. Edwin and Oswald and most of our forebears would be shocked and scandalised by this, but still it is true. Where once this building spoke to the converted, as it were, today it needs to speak to everyone. And this is the great work for our generation and to which you all are contributing. We need to make these stones come alive again, we need to make this glass not only sparkle with artistic excellence and beauty, but be once again windows onto eternity. This is a part of what St Paul is getting at in our reading from Ephesians. As the household of God, built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles – and even of the odd king – with Christ himself as the cornerstone, we are bound together in him; and in him we become – this Minster Church through us becomes – a holy place, a dwelling-place for God. And as people come here from all over the world to marvel at its beauty, so we hope they will leave having sensed that they have indeed come to a holy place, to a place where heaven and earth come close. This is the legacy we seek to leave, and the high calling we have.

None of us may end up with our coat of arms stuck to the walls of this church, and if we did I think the Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England might have things to say about it. But our legacy might just be more enduring than that. For we may become that holy temple in the Lord of which

St Paul wrote, built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Amen.