Lossiemouth Church of Scotland

… is on Wednesday 08 November 2023 from 6:00pm, starting at the War Memorial on Pitgaveny Street and ending at St. Gerardine’s High Church.

05 November 2023 is the Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost. The main reading for today is from the New Testament – 1 John 3:1-3.

The newsworthy item is this week’s celebration of the Feast Day of St. Gerardine, the Patron Saint of Lossiemouth, as Rev. Geoff McKee goes on to explain in his sermon, which follows…

How active is your imagination?

Some have argued that the decline in book reading in our day has resulted in an imagination deficit. If you’re reading a book
you’re engaging your imagination to paint the scene – to do the work that would maybe be done for you if you were watching an equivalent piece on the big screen or television. Reading is good for us – it helps us to see the world imaginatively.

St. Gerardine’s Commemoration – Wednesday 08 November 2023 at 6:00pm.

On Wednesday evening around 6pm, I will be speaking to hopefully a large group of people congregating near the station car park in Lossie, opposite the war memorial.

And they’ll be gathering to remember a man who lived over a thousand years ago – the patron saint of Lossiemouth, Gerardine.

And when we’re going back a thousand years we have to use our imagination. For not only do we know very little about the man, we can scarcely perceive the geography and culture in which he lived.

This area once had a magnificent sea loch which almost entirely surrounded the settlements of Burghead, Duffus and what is now modern Lossiemouth. By 1730 the large loch had diminished to create the smaller lochs of Roseisle, Keam, Spynie and Cotts but all the land round about was low lying and would often be flooded to revive memories of the land that Gerardine would have been familiar with. The cliff face by the war memorial would have extended way out to the river Lossie and somewhere in the expanse of that Gerardine abided in his cave. Unfortunately it was all obliterated around 1765 as the stone began to be coveted and used, eventually to build the new Stotfield and Branderburgh areas.

But through the medieval period the memory of Gerardine persisted and his cave and well would have been part of a pilgrimage trail that brought people from far afield to this area.

How’s your imagination? Can you picture it?

In September 2023, Annie and I were in Glencolmcille in south-west Donegal.

Here is a village that has been named after St. Colmcille, Columba, of Iona fame.

And yet it’s questionable whether Colmcille ever set foot in the remote glen.

But at some point in the far distant past, people began to imagine his presence where they lived and in honour of his memory several sites of religious significance were created or developed, which brought pilgrims from all over to venerate the saint.

Isn’t it amazing what imagination can do?

We need to use our imagination as we look back for inspiration from our long gone ancestors and we also need to use it as we look forward in anticipation for what is to come. How can we see the future? – only by believing God’s promises and allowing ourselves to imagine those possibilities.

The apostle John, addressing fellow believers who are under immense pressure, calls them to use their imagination.

1 John 3:1-3 (New International Version)
3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Can you believe that you are children of God?

The world has no idea about this and so treats the Christians as if they are an objectionable cult who neither fit comfortably in the Jewish or Gentile world.

They are perceived as being isolated, alone, and therefore ripe for persecution.

This time of year is notable for its growing darkness.

We are moving towards the winter. The clocks have changed, light has been stolen from the end of the day and many people have a heightened awareness of the insecurity of life – hence the acknowledgement of the presence of evil in this world and the attempt by our
culture to trivialise and lighten its impact with the fun and capering of Halloween.

But all of this has come out of a much darker, pagan festival called Samhain.

Annie and I moved on from Glencolmcille on our recent trip in Ireland to an incredible ancient, royal site in Ireland.

This is at Cruachain in modern day County Roscommon.

And there in an ordinary field full of cows is an ancient Souterrain.

Now a Souterrain is a name given by archaeologists to a type of underground structure associated mainly with the Iron Age in Europe. The entrance is at ground level and it’s only about three feet in height. Our guide explained the history of this particular Souterrain.

Whilst man-made it gave access to a big underground cave called Uamha na gcat, the ‘Cave of the Cats’. It was believed that on the feast of Samhain, the night of 31st October, the howls and squeals of cats could be heard from the cave and in the darkness the cats would emerge and run through the fields causing everything they touched to wither and die and hence the emergence of winter.

The people then believed that this was the entrance to the underworld and who would know what ghouls could emerge from its depths.

See what imagination can do?!

Our guide supplied us with little torches and invited us to follow him into the Souterrain and the cave below. I looked at Annie with the hope of a suitable excuse but to no avail; off she went after the guide with me trailing in after her. What an experience it was. It’s amazing the tricks your mind will play on you after listening to scary stories and going down into the very place the stories came from.

When we arrived in the cave we turned off our torches and stood still in the complete darkness and the hairs on the back of the neck went up. See what imagination can do!

The apostle John to the believers in Ephesus – where are your thoughts dwelling?

Are you frozen with fear; your eyes fixed on the threats all around you?

Remember, you are children of God. The challenge is that the evidence of that fact is not yet made known. But make sure that your minds are focussed on the reality of Christ being made known. That is where your thoughts should rest and that is where your imagination should be given permission to flourish. You see when we fear that the worst will happen, our own thoughts may help to bring it about.

A salesman, driving on a lonely country road one dark and rainy night had a flat tyre.

He opened the boot—no wrench.

The light from a farmhouse could be seen dimly up the road.

He set out on foot through the driving rain.

Surely the farmer would have a wrench he could borrow, he thought.

Of course, it was late at night – the farmer would be asleep in his warm, dry bed. Maybe he wouldn’t answer the door. And even if he did, he’d be angry at being awakened in the middle of the night.

The salesman, picking his way blindly in the dark, stumbled on. By now his shoes and clothing were soaked.

Even if the farmer did answer his knock, he would probably shout something like,

“What are you after waking me up at this hour!”

This thought make the salesman angry.

What right did that farmer have to refuse him the loan of a wrench?

After all, here he was stranded in the middle of nowhere, soaked to the skin.

The farmer was a selfish clod – no doubt about that!

The salesman finally reached the house, and banged loudly on the door.

A light went on inside, and a window opened above.

“Who is it?” a voice called out.

“You know very well who it is,” yelled the salesman, his face white with anger.

“It’s me! You can keep your blasted wrench. I wouldn’t borrow it now if you had the last one on earth!”

‘Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.’

1 John 3:2

May God grant us the grace to imagine this hope and so to live in it.

Amen.

Video recording of the 05 November 2023 service from St. James’ Church