大象传媒

REV RICHARD FRAZER

Welcome to Greyfriars Kirk in the heart of Edinburgh.

This is a time of extraordinary energy and creativity in the city. For the past month people from all over the world have descended on Edinburgh, almost doubling its population to create the biggest arts festival in the world.

Music, dance, drama, comedy go on in every theatre and hall, in tents and pop-up venues, and on the streets, whatever the weather, with thousands of artists trying to observe life and make sense of it, or make fun of it.

The International Festival began this year with a remarkable light show and musical event set against the stunning backdrop of Edinburgh Castle. The event was called 鈥淒eep Time鈥�. It was staged in honour of James Hutton, a son of Edinburgh whose body is buried here among the stones of Greyfriars Kirkyard.听听 He was one of the founders of the science of Geology who introduced to the world during the 18th century the idea that the earth and the universe are almost incomprehensibly ancient.听 His were insights that presented a radical alternative to the settled view that the world was only a few thousand years old. His work was remarkable and brave, and he held to his integrity at risk of great personal cost.

We now know that the forces that make and re-make worlds are of immense antiquity and on a scale that is unimaginable. That truth, far from undermining faith, invites us to even deeper reverence, wonder and awe, and we invite you to worship with us at this Festival Service.

Hymn CH4 246 Great God of every shining constellation听 (Tune:听 Highwood )

RICHARD

After a few exhausting and inspiring weeks of performances of all kinds 鈥� some very high-brow and some very low-brow indeed 鈥� as ever I find myself mulling over what it all means.听 And it seems to me that many of these artists -

Try to explore meaning or change perspectives:

Tell the truth as they see it:

Challenge complacent thinking and see life in a different way.

All of life is here.

Our prayers are led by our Associate Minister, Lezley Stewart.

LEZLEY

Let us pray:

God, who holds the universe in the hollow of your hand, we honour you as the craftsman supreme. As we look out on a starry night, or study the symmetry of a leaf we see your handiwork. The immensity of time and space fill us with awe, the delicate beauty of the smallest thing fills us with wonder.

As travellers, using their science and courage, went out to explore the dark emptiness of space, they turned back and saw the vibrant, blue-green gem of the globe, re-discovered the achingly beautiful place that is planet earth, and remembered just how precious this home is that you have given us.

For all that we come to see and understand of your glorious creation, we offer honour and praise.

For skill of hand and pen, the graces of music and dance, laughter and love, we offer honour and praise.

For the lessons from Christ Jesus of how to live fully human lives of justice and honour, peace-making and community, we offer honour and praise.

For the discovery of the indestructibility of love and the strange reality of survival; and the promise of a home beyond the limits of time and space, we offer honour and praise.

But as we come to this moment, we are filled with a deep sense of our human condition:

Knowing that justice is the key to lives of fullness we reflect on how often we create enemies.

Knowing that caring for the creation is a duty laid upon humanity, we reflect on our destructive habits that make a wasteland of your world.

Knowing that love makes us whole and creates community, we reflect on our tendency to hate.

Knowing that the truth will set us free, we reflect on the falsehood with which we often delude ourselves.

Lord, have mercy upon us:

Hymn CH4 777: 听Kyrie eleison 鈥� Cantor, Martin Ritchie with Congregational Responses

RICHARD

I am holding in my hand a stone I picked up on the beach in the village of Cromarty earlier this summer. It is a beautiful layered rock, deeply hued by who knows what forces and smoothed by the sea into an oval pebble.

You may recognise the name of Cromarty from the Shipping Forecast, but it鈥檚 also a delightful east coast village in the north of Scotland and the home of one of Scotland鈥檚 great minds, Hugh Miller 鈥� a man of simple birth but many parts 鈥� including the science of geology, who lived in the first half of the 19th century.

It was the ancient red sandstone rocks of the coastline around Cromarty that inspired Miller to examine not just the substance of the ancient rocks he hewed as a quarry man, but also to speculate about their antiquity.

For most people in his day 鈥� the Biblical account of creation 鈥� the story of Adam and Eve, the Great Flood suggested that the earth was perhaps only a few thousand years old and that everything had been created in 7 days.

A few generations before Miller lived, it was James Hutton, the man celebrated with the Festival鈥檚 opening flourish, who coined the phrase 鈥楧eep Time鈥�, as he looked at the rocks around the great city of Edinburgh, and became convinced of the great antiquity of the earth. He was moved to declare that looking at these rocks, 鈥渨e see no vestige of a beginning 鈥� no prospect of an end鈥�. For the world of his day this was heady, mind numbing and revolutionary thinking. At a time when in living memory, people were still being executed for heretical thinking, Hutton was coming to understand that geological time called into question the Bible鈥檚 account of the earth鈥檚 origins 鈥� not days but aeons were involved in the forming and re-forming of the ancient rocks.听

As you look at this pebble, you see that just to form its smoothness by the gentle action of the tides must have taken years; and the massive forces that fused the layers into this stone before it ended up as a rock on a beach take us way back in time 鈥� into 鈥淒eep Time鈥�.听 These forces can play out tragically in human life, as we have witnessed in Italy in the last week. We are constantly reminded of our own powerlessness against the forces at work in the unfolding story of the earth and the vast Universe in which we are set.

Hymn CH4 125: 听Lord of all being, throned afar 听听(Tune: Ombersley)

RICHARD

Robert Burns was the original Ploughman Poet 鈥� a great son of the Enlightenment and a contemporary of Hutton. At Siccar Point, some miles east along the coast from Edinburgh there is a geological unconformity that Hutton described, where, over unimaginable periods of time, two sandstone levels are exposed, almost at right angles to one another. The seabed of a great ocean that ran dry was superseded by another that also ran dry, and in the meantime great forces deep beneath the surface of the earth upheaved these sediments that now stand side by side, one horizontal and the other almost vertical. Some people have suggested that Burns must have been aware of Hutton鈥檚 revolutionary insight when he wrote his famous poem 鈥淎 Red, Red Rose鈥�. The modern poet, Edwin Morgan, certainly thought so and wrote this sonnet,

Ishbel McFarlane:听听 鈥淭heory of the Earth鈥�

James Hutton that true son of fire who said

to Burns, 鈥淎ye, man, the rocks melt wi the sun鈥�

(copyright material)

RICHARD

It can鈥檛 have been easy for Hutton to share this emerging understanding 鈥� so if Burns did embrace his ideas and take inspiration for his poetry that would have helped, as Hutton challenged a picture of the world that people thought they knew.

There might have been plenty people out there to suppress his thinking rather than embrace it, just as had happened to the ideas of Copernicus, or Galileo and Giordano Bruno before.

And yet, something else was at work amongst the great minds of Enlightenment Edinburgh 鈥� reverence for the truth 鈥� even if it challenged prevailing thought.

Jesus said that the truth would set us free and St Paul had written about the truth in many of his letters. He spoke of how faith and truth could never be in conflict with each other and how important it is for people to dwell on what is true, and lovely and of good report as the way to live an upright life. So, the truth, even in the face of the growing insights emerging from science and reason could never set people at odds with faith.

LIAM FRASER:听 Philippians 4:4-9听听 New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA)

A reading from the Letter of Paul to the Philippians, Chapter 4, beginning at Verse 4.

4听Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5听Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6听Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7听And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

8听Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 9听Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.

Anthem: 听Mine eyes for Beauty Pine - Howells听 (Pub. OUP)

RICHARD

The first minister of this parish when it was established at the end of the 16th Century was also the first Principal of Edinburgh University when it was founded in 1582. His name was Robert Rollock and ever since his time, the two institutions have retained a close relationship and numerous ministers here have sought to hold together these two strands that some people feel can only ever be at odds 鈥� faith and reason.

What Christians believe is that truth is not so much a doctrine or an ideology to be imposed, but a way of life to be embodied and lived, full of grace and truth, generosity and love, justice and peace making.

LIAM:听听 John 1:6-14听 King James Version

A reading from the Gospel according to John, Chapter 1, beginning at the 6th verse.

RICHARD

So, back to Cromarty 鈥� we had arrived there in our wee Drascombe Coaster 鈥� a lovely little boat with dark red sails and a little cabin that my wife and I and our dog had snuggled up in for the night in the safe haven of Cromarty鈥檚 ancient harbour.

As we set a course out of the Cromarty Firth, we realised that, in the night the wind had changed direction. It was now blowing from the east, across the open sea, and the waves were getting up. Suddenly, we felt very vulnerable in our little craft, bobbing dramatically on the white crested waves. Watching the land behind us drift further away and our destination such a long way off, we began to feel in a little way for ourselves just how immense, wild, indifferent and unforgiving nature can be.

In the face of the immense forces at work in nature 鈥� we can feel very small and frail 鈥� just as those communities in Pescara del Tronto and Amatrice must be feeling just now as they pick over the ruins of their lovely ancient towns; and the families of those young men so tragically lost on a day out to the beach on the south coast the other day, and the mother and son lost off Aberdeen 听鈥� the sea has frequently taken a heavy toll around our coasts this summer.

Faced with the immense span of time involved in shaping the Universe, we can only stand in awe and admit that human life and our civilisations come and go at the mere blinking of an eye in the realm of Deep Time.

Humility and wonder are our only valid responses; but, of course, we also have our science. The human ingenuity that enables us to set out across the open sea in a well-crafted boat. The insight that enables us to see into Deep Time and ponder our origins 鈥� for we are that part of the creation that is conscious of itself 鈥� and that鈥檚 an extraordinary idea to conjure with.

We need the best of our science, pioneers like Hutton and Miller, in order to create a viable future for civilization, if it is to survive at all. We will need science and insight to conserve what鈥檚 left of the species and the habitats that we have plundered and abused for so long that everything from bees to tigers struggle to cling on.

But there is also a contribution for faith too. When Christians talk about truth, they see it represented, not in words, or dogmas or slogans 鈥� but in a person 鈥� in a way of being. We believe that Jesus is full of grace and truth in the way that he lived 鈥� filled with love 鈥� a desire not to condemn but to forgive 鈥� not to exercise power but to let it go, and letting go of life itself in order to gain it.

Our faith is based on a person:

And it鈥檚 a faith that delights in truth, and in that which is lovely and honest and of good report, and is present to us in the power of the Spirit.

That kind of faith can temper science and re-enchant our relationship with the natural world. For when faith and science join hands, the world begins to hope.

Every day, as we set out on our little voyages around this beautiful earth, we are immersed in awesome grandeur that can be terrifying, but we are also surrounded by miracle and wonder.

For this beautiful world discloses the handiwork of a loving creative force, who goes on making and remaking the world as the rocks melt into the sun.

The American beat poet Gary Sneider once wrote this and I believe it to be true wisdom for our age:

Ishbel 听鈥�We need a religious view that embraces nature and does not fear science 鈥� (Copyright material)

RICHARD听

So, the next time you walk along a beach and pick up a simple pebble, marvel at the journey that it has taken, the forces that have shaped it and the 鈥渄eep time鈥� that has brought it to your feet, and rejoice in the truth of this glorious creation 鈥渢ill all the seas gang dry鈥�.

Anthem:听 O Send thy light forth 鈥� Balakireff

听听听听听听 (Pub. Bayley & Ferguson, Glasgow)

LEZLEY

The anthem 鈥極 Send thy light forth鈥� by the composer Mily Balakireff was sung by Greyfriars Choir.

And now let us pray:

We thank you for Christ who comes in the name of the Lord. We long for his gentle rule to be established in this ravaged world, our hearts are weary for rest, we long for the peace that passes understanding and for truth that sets us free.

MARTIN

So hear us as we pray for the needs of the world and the needs of people here in this place today. We ask that the gentle rays of heaven might rest upon this weary world:

spreading warmth where relationships have gone cold;

shedding light where darkness has set in;

granting consolation where there is tragedy;

bestowing wisdom to conquer foolishness;

inviting gentle nurture to challenge the greedy living that blights the creation;

encouraging acts of justice and kindness to confound the heedless;

inspiring honest enquiry and beneficial insight to ease the hardship and burdens of those whose lives are blighted by poverty or illness

sowing the seeds of Christ鈥檚 kingdom in the soil of this good earth.

LEZLEY

Especially this morning, we pray your blessing on people whom we know to be in great need.听 We bring to you the people caught up in the tragic earthquake in Umbria and Le Marche, and all who suffer the destruction of the earth鈥檚 violent forces, and all who suffer and grieve in the aftermath;

We remember loved ones and friends who are sick, anxious or sorrowing.

We remember places exhausted by war and injustice, and we pray for those displaced by violence, asking that there might be generous hearts ready to welcome the weary.

We pray for peace and justice, and remember the poor of the world and pray for all whose future is uncertain.听

And we pray too for ourselves and seek your help, strength and guidance that we may be able to do some good work for you and our community in the coming days. 听In Jesus鈥檚 name. 听Amen.

The Lord鈥檚 Prayer

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those who sin against us.

Save us from the time of trial

and deliver us from evil.

For the kingdom, the power,

and the glory are yours

now and for ever.

Amen.

Gaelic Blessing (Rutter)

Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining stars to you.
Deep peace of the gentle night to you.
Moon and stars pour their healing light on you.
Deep peace of Christ,
of Christ the light of the world to you.
Deep peace of Christ to you.

听

RICHARD:听

Go now in peace, and the blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be with you, now and forever more.

ALL:听 Amen.

Hymn CH4 436 听Christ triumphant听 (Tune: Guiting Power)

听

ORGAN VOLUNTARY: Carillon by Louis Vierne Op.31 Pub. Durand & co., Paris.