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CHAPLAIN, REV DONALD MACEWAN:ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý

Welcome to St Salvator’s Chapel, where you join students, staff and townspeople.Ìý We’re in the town that bears the name of St Andrew, patron saint of Scotland, on this St Andrew’s Day.Ìý Its streets have been home to students of the University for over 600 years, established when thousands were drawn to St Andrews on pilgrimage – not, in those days, to see the café where William and Kate met up, but to see bones said to be of St Andrew himself.Ìý They were housed in the great medieval Cathedral, today a massive and impressive ruin two minutes’ walk from our 15th Century Chapel.Ìý

Today is also the first Sunday of Advent, when Christians look forward to the coming of God to the world, to set creation right. ÌýDuring Advent, Sunday Worship will take its theme from the prophet Isaiah, ‘Comfort my people, says your God'.Ìý The season leads to Christmas, and the celebration of God’s presence on earth in his Son Jesus Christ.ÌýÌý

MUSIC:Ìý Hymn -Ìý O COME, O COME, EMMANUELÌýÌý (v. 3 & refrain: choir only)

DONALD:

St Andrew, a fisherman, one day answered Christ’s call by the shores of Galilee. ÌýAs University Chaplain, I support students in their faith as it develops during their time here.Ìý This morning we’ll be led by members of student faith societies, and by students discerning a vocation to ministry, who meet regularly to explore how to answer the call of Christ in their ±ô¾±±¹±ð²õ.Ìý

Kirsty Borthwick, a theology student, and member of the Discernment Group, will lead us now in worship.ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý

KIRSTY BORTHWICK:Ìý

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.Ìý

That great hymn we have just sung echoes the longing in scripture for God’s coming to the world.Ìý While Advent is a season for deep questions about our human purpose and relationship with God, we remember that along with justice, God brings us his forgiveness.Ìý

James and Euan now lead us in prayer.Ìý

JAMES:Ìý

Almighty and everlasting God,

We praise you for your steadfast love.

You are the God who is a constant source ofÌýcomfort and strength,

in whom we can take refuge.

We thank you that we can approach you in peace and openness,

that you hear us when we cry to you,

that you come to share this earth with us in your Son Jesus Christ.

We pray that through our worship this morning we mayÌýturn towardsÌýyour truth,

and gazeÌýupon your beauty.Ìý

EUAN:Ìý

We confess to you, almighty and most merciful Father,

that we have sinned against you and against our neighbours;

we have failed to trust in your promises;

we have failed to hope for the glorious coming of your Son;

we have failed to follow you as we ought,

loving you, our only God, and our neighbours as ourselves.ÌýÌý

But you, O Lord, send your Son to us when we are far off to seek us out.

He comes, when we weigh ourselves down with failings, to be lifted up for our salvation;

and he comes when we wander from the way toÌýcall us back into the right paths.Ìý

Therefore we pray to you, Lord Jesus Christ,

Forgive us, and give us the gift of true discipleship,

of taking up your cross in the shape of our own lives,

and of awaiting with hope

your coming in glory to judge the living and the dead,

so that God may be all in all, world without end.ÌýÌýÌý

ALL:Ìý Amen.Ìý

KIRSTY:Ìý

The Old Testament reading, from Isaiah chapter 64, speaks of desire for God to come to his world in power, and of our trust in God as creator.Ìý The readers are ÌýLucy Chaffey, President of the Christian Union, and first, Josh Wong-Tendahal of the Catholic Society.Ìý

JOSH:Ìý

O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
ÌýÌýÌýÌýso that the mountains would quake at your presence—
2Ìý as when fire kindles brushwood
ÌýÌýÌýÌýand the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
ÌýÌýÌýÌýso that the nations might tremble at your presence!
3ÌýWhen you did awesome deeds that we did not expect,
ÌýÌýÌýÌýyou came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
LUCY:

We all fade like a leaf,
ÌýÌýÌýÌýand our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
7ÌýThere is no one who calls on your name,
ÌýÌýÌýÌýor attempts to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
ÌýÌýÌýÌýand have delivered us into the hand of our iniquity.
8ÌýYet, O Lord, you are our Father;
ÌýÌýÌýÌýwe are the clay, and you are our potter;
ÌýÌýÌýÌýwe are all the work of your hand.
9ÌýDo not be exceedingly angry, O Lord,
ÌýÌýÌýÌýand do not remember iniquity for ever.ÌýÌýÌýÌý

KIRSTY:

The St Salvator’s Chapel Choir, all students here, now sing of God who comes to his world, in a setting by Palestrina: I look from afar: and lo, I see the power of God coming.Ìý

MUSIC : Anthem -Ìý I LOOK FROM AFAR Ìý(Palestrina)

Text:

I look from afar:

And lo, I see the power of God coming,

and a cloud covering the whole earth.

Go ye out to meet him and say:

Tell us, art thou he that should come to reign over thy people

Israel?

High and low, rich and poor, one with another,

Go ye out to meet him and say:

Hear, O thou shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a

sheep:

Tell us, art thou he that should come?

Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come

To reign over thy people Israel.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

I look from afar, and lo, I see the power of God coming, and a

cloud covering the whole earth.

Go ye out to meet him and say:

Tell us, art thou he that should come to reign over thy people

Israel?Ìý

KIRSTY:Ìý

St Andrews was the centre of the church in Scotland in medieval times.Ìý And when the Reformation came, and most of Scotland turned to the new form of the church pioneered by John Calvin in Geneva, and John Knox in Scotland, worship in St Andrews changed.Ìý Praise was now limited to the psalms, sung by the people in a simple metrical form, in English, and unaccompanied.Ìý That tradition was powerful in its simplicity, and is now reflected as we sing part of Psalm 46, a song of trust in God who makes his home with us.Ìý

MUSIC:Ìý Hymn -Ìý GOD IS OUR REFUGE AND OUR STRENGTHÌý(Psalm 46:1-5, CH4 36, Stroudwater)

KIRSTY:

The New Testament lesson, for St Andrew’s Day, is from the first chapter of the Gospel according to Mark, and is read by Dorian Stone, of the Student Christian Movement:Ìý

DORIAN:Ìý

16ÌýAs Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. 17ÌýAnd Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ 18ÌýAnd immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19ÌýAs he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20ÌýImmediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

May God bless to us the reading of his holy Word.Ìý Amen.Ìý

MUSIC:Ìý Anthem –Ìý A SPOTLESS ROSEÌý (Howells)ÌýSt Salvator’s Chapel Choir

A spotless rose is blowing,

Sprung from a tender root,

Of ancient seers foreshowing,

Of Jesse promised fruit;

Its fairest bud unfolds to light

Amid the cold, cold winder,

And in the dark midnight.

Ìý

The rose which I am singing,

Whereof Isaiah said,

Is from its sweet root springing

In Mary purest maid;

For through our God’s great love and might,

The Blessed Babe she bare us

In a cold, cold winter’s night.

DONALD:Ìý

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.Ìý

Perhaps the most alluring of contemporary assumptions is this – we can make ourselves.Ìý There are countless forms of self-creation to choose from.Ìý Shaping the perfect body in the gym, or under the surgeon’s knife.Ìý Choosing a style from high street fashion to charity shop chic.Ìý Shaping our image in carefully posted updates and items pinned on social media.Ìý It is hard not to believe that we have the power of creation over who we are.Ìý

But this day offers a very different perspective.Ìý From the point of view both of Advent and of St Andrew’s Day, we are not our own maker.Ìý

Our reading from Isaiah chapter 64, set for Advent Sunday, speaks of God responsible for the stuff of earth, and for human beings:

O Lord, you are our Father;

we are the clay, and you are our potter;

we are all the work of your hand.

It may have been last week or many years ago when you last held clay in your hands: initially a rough brown lump, cold, resistant to the touch.Ìý But as your hands warmed the clay, it softened, it became supple, workable, yielding to your touch until it could be shaped, and the thought of your mind became realised in the clay.Ìý Perhaps, like me, your bowl was a sorry, lopsided thing, but still, something came out of a shapeless lump.Ìý

The prophet Isaiah sees humanity – you and me – as akin to that lump of clay.Ìý Solid stuff with potential, but needing the work of God’s hands, to warm us, soften us, mould us and shape us into who we are.Ìý Of course we can try to remove ourselves from our maker’s touch, and become hard.Ìý Some of us can be fired by the experiences of life into odd unhappy shapes.Ìý But there is always the chance of being taken up again into God’s kind working.Ìý

But what does this mean in reality – to be moulded by God?Ìý Well, the other theme for today gives an answer.Ìý It means to be called by God to become a disciple.Ìý Andrew may be the patron saint of Scotland, but he’d sooner recognise the tilapia of the Sea of Galilee than the herring which Scottish fishermen used to follow.Ìý But one day he heard a call to a new life from Jesus.Ìý Follow me.Ìý And Andrew realised he was not his own.Ìý He could not create his own life any longer: he belonged to another, to a different purpose, a deeper calling.Ìý And he left his nets, and followed.Ìý

For Andrew, this meant a hectic three years on the road, the stomach-punch of the death of Jesus, then the lurching hope of the resurrection, giving him a courage and purpose which led, we believe, to his death on an X-shaped cross, the shape of the white cross on the Scottish flag.Ìý Andrew was a human being whose life was taken up into God’s hands, worked, shaped, and given purpose, whose courage in following Christ still touches us today.Ìý

As Chaplain to the University of St Andrews, I work mainly with young people.Ìý Most come here still as teenagers, lumps of clay in a way, full of potential, open to be shaped, moulded and given purpose by their experience here.Ìý It is a profound responsibility for their teachers.Ìý Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life, said Miss Jean Brodie, the far from benevolent creation of Edinburgh-born Muriel Spark.Ìý Teaching, guiding must not force people into shapes for our benefit.ÌýÌý

What makes the work of chaplaincy so exciting for me is seeing lives shaped in beautiful ways.Ìý Yes, occasionally there are students who seem concerned only with building their careerÌýor their capital.Ìý But I encounter many more who are open to the leading of God in their lives, often acknowledged, sometimes not.Ìý I find myself writing references for them to go into teaching, the health services, the voluntary sector, or Christian ministry.Ìý For many, like Andrew, answer the call to discipleship, in Scotland and across the world upon graduation.Ìý

Clay has one further dimension to uncover this Advent Sunday.Ìý As countless children know, every window they open on their Advent Calendar starting tomorrow is a day closer to Christmas.Ìý Advent anticipates the coming of Christ.Ìý As was made clear in that lovely anthem we just heard by Herbert Howells, A spotless rose is blowing, the ancient hope of a Messiah, of God with us, was fulfilled in Mary’s child.Ìý It is not merely that God acts on the clay of the world, shaping us to be better people, more courageous followers, more committed to the needs of the world.Ìý It is that God himself became this clay in Jesus, becoming flesh.Ìý Christ became a second Adam, it says in the Bible.Ìý Adam, from the Hebrew for earth.Ìý A carol by Thomas Pestel puts it like this:ÌýÌýÌý

Behold the great Creator makes

Himself a house of clay,

A robe of human flesh he takes

Which he will wear for aye.ÌýÌýÌý

Every day as I walk to this Chapel for Morning Prayers I pass a tanning studio.Ìý There are so many ways to create ourselves anew, such as shedding that pale skin which sees so much less sunlight in St Andrews than the man himself knew in Galilee.Ìý But the bottom line is – we may suddenly take on a fake tan, but we cannot truly create ourselves.Ìý God is our Creator, shaping our lives from the potential found deep in our clay, just as he shaped the life of Andrew by the Galilean lake.Ìý And this he does, not as a distant power, working on us at arms’ length.Ìý No, he shares our humanity; he is clay himself.Ìý Which he will be, for ever, for us.Ìý

The final verse of Thomas Pestel’s carol about the creator becoming clay begins:

Join then, all hearts that are not stone,

to sing with choirs above.

Much of St Andrews is built of old stone, but the hearts of the students who live here are full of passion, longing and hope.Ìý Let us all then sing of Andrew, whose life was not his own, who trusted in that ‘Follow me.’Ìý

MUSIC:Ìý Hymn – SING OF ANDREW, JOHN’S DISCIPLE Ìý(CH4 339 Nettleton)Ìý

KIRSTY:Ìý

Chris, Ruth and Taylor now lead us in prayers for the world.Ìý

CHRIS:

Everlasting God, so often we come face to face with the many troubles that face our generation—violence, injustice, insecurity, and sickness,

in Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Ferguson,Ìýand many troubled places.

It is easy to feel as if the world is fragmenting before our eyes.

Lord, remind us that in your coming there is hope for reconciliation.

On this St Andrew's Day,we pray for Scotland.Ìý

that you would continue to bring wisdom to those who govern this nation

so that they might lead us in upholding the weak and downtrodden.

In the wake of the voteÌýon independence,

be present, O God, in the midst of disagreement,

and guide us in the ways of peace-making and healing.ÌýÌý

Your kingdom come,

All: Your will be done.Ìý

RUTH:

We pray for all those in education, in schools, universities and colleges.

that we may be shaped as we learn, not only by our teachers and friends, but also by you.

As our characters are shaped,

help us to use what we learn for the good of others.

We pray that as your disciples we pass on our knowledge,

so that all may know you as our Maker and Redeemer.

Your kingdom come,

All: Your will be done.

TAYLOR:

We turn our thoughts to those in our midst who suffer,

who feel outcast,

and who long for your Love and Life.

We hold in our hearts the pain of those

for whom the darkness of the world seems overwhelming,

and we commend to you all those who will find themselves alone

in this season of anticipation and joy.

We pray that our hearts might be enlarged,

so that, as instruments of His love and peace,

we may embrace the outcast, exalt the lowly,

and love our neighbour, finding God all in all.

Your kingdom come,

All: Your will be done.Ìý

TAYLOR:Ìý

We join all our prayers in words Jesus taught his disciples, saying

All:

Our Father,

who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory,

for ever and ever,

Amen.

DONALD:

Our final hymn unitesÌýthe Advent hope for God to come, with our faith in Christ whose life, death and resurrection bring hope to our troubled earth:

Lo, he comes with clouds descending.Ìý

MUSIC:Ìý Hymn - ÌýLO, HE COMES WITH CLOUDS DESCENDING

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Ìý(CH4 477 Helmsley, verse 2 choir alone)

DONALD:Ìý

Look forward in hope to the coming of your Saviour,

prepare the way for Christ your Lord;

welcome him with love and faith,

as did St Andrew,

when Christ comes in glory.

And the blessing of God almighty,

the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,

be among you and remain with you always.Ìý

Amen.

Ìý

ORGAN VOLUNTARYÌý Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland BWV 661 – J.S. Bach

Tom Wilkinson, University Organist and Director of Chapel Choirs

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