Sunday's Sermon

By The Revd Dr Margaret Joachim
St James
25 July 2010

Readings:
Jeremiah 45.1-5
2 Corinthians 4.7-15
Matthew 20.20-28

Staff and Scallop Shell

Today, in a magnificent cathedral is a city in northwest Spain, thousands of people have gathered to celebrate the feast of St James. The crowds will be even larger than usual because this is a Holy Year – when the saint’s day falls on a Sunday. Choirs will sing, priests will celebrate and the immense censer – the botafumeiro – will hang down from the roof of the cathedral and eight men will pull ropes to swing it and cense the congregation. St James is the patron saint of Spain, but many in the vast congregation will have travelled from around the world. Some will have walked or cycled hundreds of miles – from London, from Paris, from the Rhine Valley, from Seville, from Saint Jean Pied du Port in northeast Spain. This cathedral, and the shrine of St James, are the climax of the oldest pilgrimage route in Europe: the Camino de Santiago (St James) de Compostela. Men and women have been making their way there since the ninth century, and they are doing so today in ever-increasing numbers.

It’s difficult to link all this with what we know about James from the New Testament. James was one of the sons of Zebedee – the other was John – and they were fishermen, who were mending their nets beside the Sea of Galilee when Jesus appeared and persuaded them to become fishers of men. James was one of the three ‘inner circle’ disciples, with Peter and John. He saw Jairus’ daughter restored to life and he was present at the Transfiguration. Jesus called him and his brother ‘Boanerges’ – sons of thunder - because of their fiery spirit and ardent discipleship. Today’s gospel story can be interpreted in various ways – as a claim to a status which James and John did not deserve, as a commitment to follow Jesus to the absolute end, or as a biblical ‘Jewish mother’ story. But James was one of the three commanded to watch and pray in Gethsemane, and as the most enthusiastic and aggressive of the Jerusalem apostles he was the first to be martyred – beheaded by Herod Agrippa in 44AD, thus also ‘drinking the cup’ – sharing the fate – of Jesus before him.

James has no biblical connection with Spain. One tradition suggests that he travelled and preached there before returning to Jerusalem and martyrdom, but there is much more evidence to suggest that none of the apostles actually left Jerusalem until after James’ death. So where did the pilgrimage come from, and why is his body supposed to be buried under the cathedral in Compostela? This is where we move into the realm of legend. With James, as with many of the apostles and other saints, a whole miraculous tradition gradually developed. James’ story goes something like this.

As soon as James had been beheaded, a group of his followers took his body in a marble coffin to Jaffa, where a stone boat was waiting for them. Seven days later, having sailed the length of the Mediterranean and through the Straits of Gibraltar, they reached the northwest coast of Spain. (The seven-day period is one of those numbers which has particular mystic significance – clearly there was divine assistance during the voyage.) They buried James in a tomb on a hillside, and later interred two of his followers with him. At which point everyone forgot all about him for some 750 years. Then a hermit called Pelagius who happened to be living nearby had a vision of a large star surrounded by a series of smaller stars over a deserted spot in the landscape. Off he went and discovered the tomb. Its principal occupant was immediately identified as St James, and on visiting the tomb shortly afterwards Alfonso II, king of Asturias, declared James to be the patron saint of Spain. Alfonso built a church and a small monastery over the tomb, and people started coming to the shrine. The little town which grew up around it was called Campus de la Stella – field of the star – which soon became Compostela.

Spain has a long history of invasion by and overthrow of the Moors – Muslims from Turkey and the near East, and Christianity and Islam were in frequent conflict there. The great emperor Charlemagne, struggling to drive the Moors out of Spain in 780AD, had several visions of St James which inspired him to victory, so James is also known in Spain as the ‘Moor-slayer’ (though there is no evidence that James himself ever killed anyone.) And so the mythology grew. More and more pilgrims flocked to Compostela – especially because it was often far too dangerous to try to reach the Holy Land. In paintings and statues James is often shown with his two special symbols – a staff and a scallop shell – which have become the international symbols of pilgrimage.

But how did James get his shell? There are several stories. One says that the shell symbolises the shape of the stone boat in which James’ followers reached Spain. Another story says that when the little entourage in the stone boat were disembarking with James’ coffin, they encountered a man riding along the beach. (Some versions say this was a bridegroom on the way to his wedding.) The terrified horse plunged into the sea; when it emerged it, and its rider, were covered from head to foot in scallop shells – and the beaches of Galicia, in northwest Spain, are covered in scallop shells to this day.

Which brings me to an important part of this morning’s service. In a few minutes we are going to christen Harvey Hayes, bringing him into our Christian family and marking the start of a relationship which will last for the whole of his life. He may never deliberately go on pilgrimage, though I rather hope he might when he eventually understands the significance of being baptised on St James’ day. His parents and godparents are about to promise to help him set out on a journey of discovery, learning to know and love Jesus and to trust God. The service is full of symbols – water, oil, fire, light – but one of them is often overlooked. We use a silver scallop shell to pour the water – the sign of pilgrimage, of the quest for truth and of walking humbly with God. May God bless everyone who searches for him, and particularly Harvey, setting out on his journey today.

©Margaret Joachim
25 July 2010

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