York Minster

Blessed City - Bartholomew

Date: 24th August 2008
Preacher: The Reverend Canon Jeremy Fletcher

Blessed  City - Bartholomew

What hymn would you choose for the dedication of a new church? The answer to that question depends on the context. Last year I had the privilege of sitting in a room used by Christians of the first century, sited right next to a temple of Mithras in the part of Rome which burned during Nero’s time and for which fire he blamed and persecuted those same believers. For them the establishment of a place set aside for prayer and worship was an act of radical opposition to the prevailing culture: the hymns would have to speak of confidence in the future, but an uncertain present.

That would also be the case for the earliest believers on this site. I don’t know where Eborius, the early 4th century Bishop of York, ministered, but it would have been in uncertain times. In the early seventh century Paulinus and James the Deacon were ever looking behind their backs for their own safety: the wooden building here had to be temporary, and the next stone buildings were always being destroyed and raised up. Visiting Reims a fortnight ago I found great similarities as, at the end of the fifth century Remi baptised Clovis, King of the Franks. Again their hymns would be of longing for the safety of heaven in difficult times on earth.

In times of persecution a church building was to be a tent which could easily be rolled up and moved on, but always pointing to a vision of heaven. When Christianity was both legal and indeed encouraged, churches became both more visible and more glorious.  In times of stability the building itself could be aligned with that vision of heaven and the place where we see God face to face. It is for this situation, I think, that a latin writer of the sixth or seventh century wrote Urbs beata Jerusalem, sung today as our anthem.

You may know the hymn: it appears in two forms in the hymn books, because when a new church was dedicated a hymn was sung both morning and evening: the other half of Blessed City is Christ is made the sure foundation. It works in places like this: we sit in what is meant to lift us to heaven, to prefigure the new Jerusalem which is a vision of ‘peace and love’, with gates of pearl, polished stones, sculpted statues all reflecting the design of  by the heavenly architect. With big tunes, glorious music and many processions the whole effect was to establish that Christians have the hope of glory, and that the church on earth has the legitimacy and the power of the hope manifested on earth.

Edward Bairstow wrote his music to these words for a church festival in Heaton, Bradford. Some decades later I was a chorister in one of those parish choirs. It was the first anthem he wrote having come to York, and it is rather nice myself to have come from Heaton to here. The combination of Bairstow’s music with this setting reinforces the glory of the vision, and he has the advantage of tying it in with musical tradition too: the musical themes are from the ancient plainsong for these words. There is glory and solidity here.

But if you were building a new church on a new housing estate in a northern European town now, what would you sing? Would it be this triumphal? Or, with the church in retreat, established but not confident, and with manifest internal problems, what would you sing? Wouldn’t you have more in common with James the Deacon and those Neronian Christians? Or with Bartholomew, whom we honour today, reputed to have been flayed and crucified upside down in Azerbaijan? And that’s where the words begin to bite. For whether the church lives in times where to be the Pope was to have influence over most of the known world, or whether the Pope was seen to be a threat to the Emperor and persecuted and assassinated, Christians have always had the hope of heaven. The Heavenly Jersualem beckons whether we are attacked or applauded.

The vision of the church as being built from living stones is true whether we meet in secret or in a building such as this. Wherever the church meets, in splendour or in hiding, we are dedicated to our future hope, and the presence on earth of the signs of the kingdom. We would do well not to assume that the church’s success is always manifested in places like this: Reims Cathedral is still being rebuilt and polished after almost total destruction in a world war, but perhaps the living stones are at their polished best in the form of the community I also encountered in Rome last year who feed 1500 people a night on the streets.

So whether glorious or humble, the Christian’s prayer is the same: come to this Temple made up of living stones, and bless us always, that one day we will all share the vision of the blessed city. Amen.