An Angel in the Pulpit (Lancelot Andrewes)

 

An Angel in the Pulpit (Lancelot Andrewes)

Homily Delivered 26 September 2019

12:00 noon Said Healing Mass

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

The Very Rev. Dr. Anthony Hutchinson

Isa 11:1-5; Ps 63:1-8; 1 Tim 2:1-7a; Luke 11:1-4

God, give us hearts to love and feel,

Take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.  Amen

Today is the Feast day of one of my true heroes, Bishop Lancelot Andrewes.  Bishop Lancelot Andrewes was a biblical scholar and preacher during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.  He served as general editor of the 1610 King James translation of the Bible, and was principal author of the translation of Genesis-2 Kings.  Kurt Vonnegut in one of his novels suggested that Andrewes was “the greatest writer in the [history of the] English language,” citing the first few verses of the 23rd Psalm in Andrewes’ translation:

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

he leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul:

he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

A deeply knowledgeable and skilled scholar of Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and Greek, as well as a profoundly devout man of humble prayer, Andrewes was one of the foremost Caroline Divines, the writers of theology and spirituality of the period of James I and Charles I.    His sermons were known for their scholarship and high degree of polished rhetoric; his scriptural arguments against Roman Catholic critics of the Elizabethan settlement on the one hand and against puritan fundamentalism on the other in large part created the "Middle Way" (Via Media) that is identified as the hallmark of Anglicanism.  

He was a man of his age, and member of the sophisticated English elite, suffering from many of their flaws.  Born at the peak of Queen Mary’s persecution of protestants, he became a churchman quickly after Elizabeth restored Protestantism.  She liked him as a preacher, but did not ease his rise in the ranks of clerics because he opposed her expelling bishops from court and reducing their incomes (he actually turned down two bishoprics offered him by Elizabeth because “they paid too little.”)    During one great outbreak of the Plague in London, while a friend in the priesthood stayed in his cure, caught the illness, and died, Andrewes, somewhat slight and sickly, fled to the countryside for months.  He had little time for Puritans and non-conforming sectarians—they wanted to undermine the authority of the Queen and the Church, and besides, were way too focused, he thought, on their personal salvation, and on their own private interpretation of scripture.  At times he could show an obtuse lack of empathy for his opponents:  when a Baptist-leaning preacher who had been put in solitary confinement in the Tower  for causing disturbances complained of severe depression due to isolation, all Andrewes could muster was a quiet, wistful “sounds like a dream to me—silence, solitude, and no one to interrupt my devotions.”   

But in general, Andrewes’ commitment to the catholic tradition and faith of the Church, to sacramental life in Christ and private prayer, and his service as King's Almoner (managing funds for the poor) and as a pastor and Bishop were all exemplary.   One of his students in a eulogy after his death said that Andrewes was “an angel in the pulpit.” 

This great craftsman of English and preacher, in one of his private notebooks entitled Devotions, he wrote as a reminder to himself: 

“Let the preacher labour to be heard intelligently, willingly, obediently.  And let him not doubt that he will accomplish this rather by the piety of his prayers than by the eloquence of his speech.  By praying for himself, and those whom he is to address, let him be their beadsman” that is, one who says the rosary for another, “before he becomes their teacher; and approaching God with devotions, let him first raise to him a thirsting heart before he speaks of him with his tongue; that he may speak what he hath been taught and pour out what hath been poured in.” 

His Preces Privatae ("Private Prayers") include the following words, in a prayer for grace: 

Open Thou mine eyes that I may see,
incline my heart that I may desire,
order my steps that I may follow,
the way of Thy commandments.

O Lord God, be Thou to me a God,
and beside Thee none else,
none else, nought else with Thee.

Vouchsafe to me, to worship Thee and
serve Thee in truth of spirit,
in reverence of body,
in blessing of lips,
in private and in public. 

Andrewes wrote the following prayer about old age not long before his death in 1626 at age 71: 

Evening Prayer

The day is gone, 

and I give Thee thanks, O Lord. 

Evening is at hand, 

make it bright unto us. 

As day has its evening so also has life;

the even of life is age, age has overtaken me,

make it bright unto us.

Cast me not away in the time of age; 

forsake me not when my strength faileth me. 

Even to my old age be Thou He,

and even to hoar [white] hairs carry me ; 

do Thou make, do Thou bear, do Thou carry and deliver me.

Abide with me, Lord, for it is toward evening, 

and the day is far spent of this fretful life. 

Let Thy strength be made perfect in my weakness.

Day is fled and gone, life too is going, this lifeless life. 

Night cometh, and cometh death, the deathless death. 

Near as is the end of day, so too the end of life. 

We then, also remembering it,

beseech of Thee for the close of our life,

that Thou wouldest direct it in peace, 

Christian, acceptable, sinless, shameless, 

and, if it please Thee, painless, Lord, O Lord, 

gathering us together under the feet of Thine Elect, 

when Thou wilt, and as Thou wilt, only without shame and sins. 

Remember we the days of darkness, for they shall be many,

lest we be cast into outer darkness. 

Remember we to outstrip the night doing some good thing.

Near is judgment;

a good and acceptable answer

at the dreadful and fearful judgment-seat of Jesus Christ

vouchsafe to us, O Lord. 

By night I lift up my hands in the sanctuary, and praise the Lord. 

The Lord hath granted His loving-kindness in the day time; 

and in the night season did I sing of Him, 

and made my prayer unto the God of my life. 

As long as I live will I magnify Thee on this manner, 

and lift up my hands in Thy Name.

Let my prayer be set forth in Thy sight as the incense, 

and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice. 

Blessed art Thou, O Lord, our God, the God of our fathers, 

who hast created the changes of days and nights, 

who givest songs in the night, 

who hast delivered us from the evil of this day

who hast not cut off like a weaver my life,   

nor from day even to night made an end of me.

In the name of Christ, Amen.