Pilgrimage to Iona
Matthew 10:24-39

June 22, 2008


Iona, sacred isle - centre of Christianity in the British Isles. Iona, burial place of Scottish kings. Iona historic place of pilgrimage for thousands. Iona, home of the Iona Community. Iona has many faces.

For a long time I had dreamed of travelling to Iona as a place of pilgrimage. My soul kept yearning in this direction. Four summers ago I learned of an opportunity to, not just drop in, but to spend significant time there. I learned that a person could volunteer with the Iona Community. Jan and I applied and were accepted. In the summer of 2004 we embarked on an adventure which profoundly affected our lives. One volunteer has said, “Coming here one day changed my whole life. “

First of all, let me introduce you to the isle of Iona. Iona is a tiny island (one by three miles); situated off the west coast of the island of Mull – which is west of Scotland. In 563 C.E., Colm Cille, an Irish priest and prince, set sail from Ireland with his twelve monks, and landed on the coast of Iona. There he set up his monastic colony. It was from there that he travelled to Britain establishing other monastic centres such as Lindisfarne. We know him as Saint Columba. In the 9th century Vikings twice invaded the island killing most of the monks. In the 13th century Benedictine monks arrived and built the famous Abbey – the focus of pilgrimage for thousands of Christians. Later a nunnery was built to house the sisters who lived and worked there. After the Reformation the island was abandoned and the monastery eventually fell into ruin. Nevertheless, for several centuries, visitors continued to travel to Iona to worship amid the ruins and to view the gravesites of the ancient Scottish kings.

In 1910 the Duke of Argyll promoted and enabled the restoration of the Benedictine abbey sanctuary. Residents could resume worship there along with the many pilgrims who continued to arrive.

The next chapter in this story was the result of a dream of a Scot named George MacLeod. George MacLeod was a Presbyterian minister, born into a famous ecclesiastical dynasty. While working as a young minister in Edinburgh during the 1920’s, George became disturbed by his increasing awareness of `two nations’, the rich and the poor. George had served in the `Great War’ and had been awarded the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre for bravery during the war. By the 1930’s he grew increasingly disillusioned by post-WWI rhetoric about a `land fit for heroes’. Against the judgement of his many admirers, he decided to take up a post as a minister in Govan, a poor and depressed area of Glasgow. George was troubled by the realities of high unemployment and the resulting poverty to which the Church seemed oblivious. His parishioners felt that the `kirk was nae for the likes of us’.

In 1938, feeling that a radical move was necessary to meet the needs of the times, MacLeod embarked on the imaginative venture of rebuilding part of the ancient abbey on the isle of Iona. George convinced unemployed skilled craftsmen to go to Iona and rebuild the ancient abbey. As support workers he invited trainee ministers of the Church of Scotland to join them to work as labourers. The men would live, worship and work together in community; no distinctions would be made among them.

George named his vision:

`It is our hope that the Abbey will be completed as a Laboratory School of Christian living where large numbers will come to pray and confer. It is our instinct that the essentials for which we seek, with many others, to stand will soon become the subjects round which the whole church will be forced to confer. It is our prayer that increasingly, in such conferring we will have gatherings in Iona drawn from many denominations and will together glimpse the day when, as in St. Columba’s time, Christ’s Church hall be one in every land.+

The original plan was to have ministers spend two summers on Iona working and learning and then to be sent out in pairs to serve in poor and challenged parishes. What George did not envision was that once men had experienced community there they did not want to leave. In the ensuing years hundreds of lay people and clergy have come to Iona to study and to work and to experience living in Christian community.+

MacLeod was not only the `dreamer’ but the enabler of the community experiment. It was his job to raise the funds to accomplish everything it did. He was always under fire:

This time it is over the huts in the Abbey ruins. The newspapers are full of complaints. The huts are spoiling the sight of the ruins, and it is a disgrace having a motor lorry on the sacred island. A man signing himself ~Spectator’ writes to the Buletin in a fury, suggesting that the islanders draw up a petition against `Dr. George Macleod’s strange new stunt’, and attacking the `self-appointed successor to St. Columba. In the same issue, a number of young people resident on Iona have a letter defending the rebuilding, saying they are `glad to see this sign of life and adventure in our Church, and welcome it as a relief from a great deal of drabness elsewhere.’

One outraged visitor to Iona wrote to the Bulletin to complain about the men’s washing flapping on the line near the Abbey – and on a Sunday at that! It brought a response from another reader, who sent George MacLeod a cheque for L5000, saying that cleanliness was next to Godliness.

`We hung out our washing every Sunday after that,’ said the Iona leader, who had an answer for those who complained about the signs of human life among the ruins.

George’s experiment grew into the Iona Community. Briefly the Iona community is:

The Iona Community Is:

> An ecumenical Christian community, founded in 1938 by the late George MacLeod consisting of men and women from different walks of life and different traditions of the Christian church

> Committed to seeking new ways of living the gospel of Jesus Christ, in today’s world, and to following where that leads, even into the unknown

> Engaged together, and with people of goodwill across the world, in acting, reflecting, and praying for justice, peace and the integrity of creation

> Convinced that the inclusive community we seek must be embodied in the community we practice , we share a common discipline of:

1. daily prayer

2. mutual accountability for our time and money

3. spending time together

4. action for justice and peace

Today the Iona Community offers a diverse variety of week- long programs at its three centres; the Abbey, at the MacLeod Centre – an accessible facility opened in 1988 to house families and persons with mobility issues, and Camas – the youth adventure centre on the isle of Mull. The Iona Community is a dispersed community, most of its members being in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters is in Glasgow but their programs are held on the island of Iona.

Volunteering to work as part of the Iona Community staff is about offering hospitality to the hundred guests who arrive weekly for the programs offered. Volunteers must commit to working a minimum of six weeks but may work longer. The two childcare workers contract is for three months. In return volunteers receive room and board and a small weekly stipend. In addition to the 3o volunteers during the program months the centres are maintained by about fifteen staff whose contracts are for from one to three years. Vollies (as they are affectionately called) work a 5 ½ day work week. Jan worked at the MacLeod Centre in Housekeeping while I worked in the Abbey kitchen. While no one would say that the work was easy, it was rewarding and fun and sometimes, challenging. Together with the several dozen other vollies we built community in a few short weeks.

Alastair McIntosh, a patron of the Growing Hope Appeal and an associate member of the Iona Community writes:

The idea is that when you share the `cup of kindness’ with a stranger, you may be sharing with none other than God. This is, of course, is a very Christian idea (Matthew 10), but I know that similar principles are found at the root of Islamic, Hindu and Sikh hospitality.

Hospitality is, of course, for the short term. That’s why, for the long haul, many societies that have a strong understanding of creating communities of place also have an ethic of fostership. This is certainly true of Scotland. Indeed, in Scottish culture there is a recognition that fostership, as a process of choosing and being chosen to belong to a place, counts for even more than blood lineage.

As the Gaelic proverb puts it, `the bonds of milk (i.e. nurture) are stronger than the bonds of blood’ (i.e. lineage). And as another popular saying has it, `We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns’ – meaning that all the world’s people come from one common ancestor (who, of course, has a commonplace Scottish name!).

Living in such close quarters with people of different cultures, denominations and ages is challenging. Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche Community says:

Community life is there to help us not to flee from our deep wound, but to remain with the reality of love. It is there to help us believe that our illusions and egoism will gradually be healed of we become nourishment for others. We are in community for each other, so that all of us can grow and uncover our wound before the infinite, so that Jesus can manifest himself through it.

By the mid-1940’s there were so many young men clamouring to be part of the Iona rebuilding that George seized on Camas – an abandoned fishing camp on the isle of Mull – for a parallel experiment for youth. Along with a cook and a chaplain, 20 senior school boys and young university men went out to fish and develop community. Since then weekly programs are offered for girls and boys, some of whom are from the poorest areas of Glasgow and from the youth detention centres. Here is one story from Camas:

On a dull day in June six young men and five volunteers (full of bacon rolls) set out from `The Ark’ in Edinburgh in a mini-bus for a journey to Camas.

The Ark is a breakfast cafe and resource centre for homeless and ex-homeless people. We were able to accomplish this trip thanks to the generosity of many folk who had donated money, equipment and several other kindnesses.

Apart from one who was disruptive (and who left) the lads took to Camas like ducks to water!

All the chores were done without complaint, even cleaning the loos. They missed their bacon rolls for breakfast, didn’t appreciate some of the vegetarian dishes, but didn’t know Laura’s cottage pie was veggie. They loved the grilled veggie-burgers and the special hot chocolate.

Willie’s main aim was to get rid of the skunks (minks). Jimmie discovered that a cairn can show the way, as well as a memorial to someone – so he built cairns on every walk he took. There is still one on the island opposite the kitchen and maybe several on the way to the quarry.

The kayaking was a great success. The group built a raft from old drums and looked as of they were going to set off for America! Perhaps the abseiling (rappelling down cliffs) was enjoyed most. They have treasured photos of each one descending the cliff. They didn’t want to walk much – they do more than enough of that around Edinburgh. They liked fishing and just sitting with the staff and volunteers, chatting and drinking tea. Jimmie made some wonderful rolls from the last evening meal, with some help and laughter from Laura.

For us it was a bit of a Kleenex-tissue-week, and very sobering at times. Think how you might feel if you were at supper and one of them said, `We are socially excluded, we haven’t had a meal like this before where we all sit down and eat together’.

Reflection time could be very moving. They loved having candles (you can’t have candles in hostels). One young man, holding a sponge ball, said: `We must absorb everything that happens this week so that we can remember it back in Edinburgh.’ Another, on being asked to talk about a favourite place, said: `I haven’t got one, all I know is care homes, disciplinary centres and prison.’ – and yet that person entered into the life of Camas as much as, if not more than, any of the others. One person painted a picture of Camas with the island and cross, a kayak and an abseiler. One lad, who said he had no good memories before, now has – and sat with tears streaming down his face on the last evening.

After walking up the track on the last morning, we had a special Camas reflection, led by David, where a ball of wool was thrown across to each person with a spoken memory of the week. At the end of the reflection there was a web of wool and we were all connected, as we had been during the week. Then, because we were going our separate ways, the wool was broken and we wound bits around our wrists to remember our ties. (When I next saw the lads in Edinburgh they all had their wool around their wrists, `We will never take it off, Viv, and can we go next year?’)

Going back to Camas three weeks later I found ample evidence of the lads. If anyone stays in the larger dormitory, look up at the rafters. You will see `Old Edinburgh Boys 2002’ – they have left their mark. * Viv Davies, a member of the Iona Community

One of the most powerful times in the worship life of the Iona Community for Jan and I was the Healing Service. George MacLeod’s concern for individuals developed his interest in the ministry of healing.

Weeks on the subject of healing were held on Iona. George Macleod saw healing as part of the total gospel, individual and corporate. Individual people needed healing in their lives, as did communities. He argued passionately that it was not enough to pray with Borstal Boys: it was necessary to clear the slums and build new houses and schools. Prayer, confession, forgiveness, the laying-on-of-hands and political action were all part of the total Christian mission according to MacLeod. +

George MacLeod described Iona as a `thin place’ – a place where only a thin veil separated the spiritual from the material world. He has ahead of his time in the mystical theology that he espoused. Today, people are flocking to hear Dairmud O’Murchu speak about `quantum theology’ but hear Dr. MacLeod a generation ago.

Christ is the key to every mortal thing,’ he wrote. `The key! That is the one thing these ecstatic ‘one dimension” modern materialists have not got. The baker simply knows that wholemeal is “better”. The farmer simply knows that organic agriculture is ‘healthier”. The psychologist simply knows that man is a “unity”; the scientist, that this unity is represented in all nature. And the atomic power expert, that the ultimate constituent of matter – of the atom, or of the world – is a construction he calls Light/energy...



Ron Ferguson, MacLeod’s biographer writes: He seemed to have an uncanny sixth sense which told him what was important even when he himself did not completely understand the matter and had neither the time nor the inclination to pursue it.....Above all, like the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed in a prisoner of war camp for his part in a plot to kill Hitler, he understood that Christianity had to address the centre of life rather than the `religious’ margins.+

Ron preached at George’s Funeral in 1991 (MacLeod was then 96)

What should we recommit our lives to, in gratitude for the life of George Macleod? Can we work for a Church of Scotland which follows the Govan Gambler in taking risks, in going for broke?..

People cannot live by bread alone. They need a spiritual vision. But it will not come from an upright, moralising, tight-assed kirk, but one which is truly liberated. We are too sober by half, too prudent for our own good and the world’s good. ..Let’s have a truly ecumenical Church. George MacLeod, who through the sign of the rebuilt Iona Abbey has taught so many of us what it means to be ecumenical, is right again; the only ecumenical movement that is worth anything is one in which we are so close to one another that we can be rude to one another.

Like George MacLeod, I want to be rude to my Roman Catholic brothers and sisters about the issue of intercommunion. I want to say to you in all honesty: `Despite all your theological sophistication, I don’t think you fully realise what you are doing to us all.’ If I hear one more hand-wringing talk about the unavoidable pain of our unhappy divisions, I think I will scream. In fact, I want to scream that pain. In a day when there are so many exciting alternative religious options for people, our historic Christians divisions feel more and more like archaic and self-indulgent obstacles...

Yes, we need an ecumenical movement which faces the issues and takes risks. Iona Abbey, which is home for all denominations, is a place for such risk-taking. Wouldn’t it be marvellous if, in the year 2000, the Pope came to Iona Abbey and marked two millennia of Christianity by inaugurating a new era of Christian freedom and adventure: celebrated by offering the bread and wine to all believers! People would then know that there was a real church in town.+

My experience of living and serving on the isle of Iona was more than just a path down memory lane. It was more than just a learning experience. It was more than just a holiday away from it all. It was more than just church. It was life changing. I would encourage anyone who has an interest in serving the church in this way to chat with Jan or myself over coffee. I leave you with some famous words from George MacLeod.

Let us pray on our knees as if only God could change the world, and then get up off our knees and live as if only we can change it. George MacLeod

Preached by Erin Shoemaker
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan