Gown Giveaway
Preacher: Revd Dr Donald MacEwan, University Chaplain
Readings: Deuteronomy 15:7-11; Luke 6:27-36
There are some unromantic souls who say we are now entering the first semester in St Andrews with the second beginning in January. But officially these semesters have different names, names which conjure up the long history of this town and University: Martinmas and Candlemas. And when we had three terms, until the 1990s, the third was called Whitsun. But why should this semester, which we are about to enter, be called Martinmas? Well, Scotland’s year was divided into four quarters – Martinmas, Candlemas, Whitsun and Lammas – with four set days each year for the paying of rents, the hiring of servants, or the beginning of school terms. These names survive in our two semesters, and in the summer funfair in St Andrews, the Lammas Fair. Martinmas Day is 11 November, and has been for centuries an important festival throughout Europe, with feasting and celebrating with goose, beef and the first wine of the season, marking in many places the end of harvest. That date, 11 November, took on a new significance at the end of the First World War, as Armistice Day. Martinmas has been almost completely eclipsed over the past century.
Martinmas is the feast of St Martin. Who was he? He was born in the fourth century in Pannonia, modern-day Hungary. He joined the cavalry in the army of the Roman Empire, and became a Christian. He served across Europe, notably in Gaul, modern-day France. After military service, he entered the church, guided by Hilary of Poitiers, and founded a monastery. In time he was made Bishop of Caesarodonum, modern-day Tours in central France, south-west of Paris. Much of what we know of him is found in a work by his contemporary Sulpicius Severus who wrote a Life of St Martin, detailing a number of miracles he wrought. But the most famous event associated with Martin was not a miracle in the way we normally understand the term.
When Martin was still a young man, aged around 20, in the Roman cavalry, and still beginning in his Christian studies, not even yet baptised, he was approaching one day the gates of a city in northern Gaul, Amiens, when he encountered a beggar, clad only in rags. It was a hard winter, and Martin had already given many of his clothes to those in need. To help the man, giving him the chance to stay warm, all Martin could do was to cut his own cloak in half and gave it to him. This is the image depicted on the cover of today’s order of service, and inside, in two carvings I saw recently when visiting Slovenia. The recent painting on the cover suggests that his cloak looked pretty similar to our own undergraduate gown, which some are wearing today in Chapel, and even more will wear for the Pier Walk later.
The story quickly became famous. And indeed, the half of the gown which Martin kept, became a holy relic, preserved at Marmoutier Abbey near Tours. It was believed to convey power and protection, and would be carried by kings into battle. Martin was venerated by Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties, and became in time the patron saint of beggars, wool-weavers and tailors. Everyone wanted a piece of St Martin’s gown.
I have to say, Martin’s generosity matters to me. The word for the cloak he divided in Latin is cappella. That word then came to be used for small temporary churches built for the relic: each church was also called a cappella. The name for the role of the priest who looked after the half-cloak was cappellanu. This led in time to all priests serving the military being called cappellani. In French this became chapelain. In other words, the words chapel, chaplain and chaplaincy all derive from Martin’s giveaway of half his capella, his gown.
Martin became a Europe-wide celebrity for his gown giveaway. In that, of course, he was living out the Christian faith which he was exploring. Scripture is full of instructions to give away our possessions to those in need. This is clear in our first reading from Deuteronomy in the Old Testament. The Law acknowledges the sad reality that there will never cease to be some in need upon the earth, and so people should give to the needy, or lend enough to meet their need. Almost as important is the attitude involved: it shouldn’t be grudging. As well as being open-handed, it should be open-hearted.
And in the New Testament reading from Luke, Jesus enjoins a similar generosity, to give and to lend. He specifically talks of giving your shirt when someone has taken your coat – perhaps in the forefront of Martin’s mind when he gave away his gown. For Jesus, the key point of our giving is about the recipient: it is easy to give to the apparently deserving people in need, but we should be generous to all, including those we’d call our enemies.
I wonder if, at this point, I’ve lost you. It all just seems so hopelessly naïve. Doesn’t Jesus realise that the world can’t work in that way, that everything really has a monetary value, and that human society essentially operates via payment for work, for labour, for time, for scarcity, for desirability? People, we’ve been taught to believe, behave at best in a reciprocal way. In other words, people do give but only because they expect a reward in return. All giving is really lending, and all lending has an interest rate. That’s the reality of human nature, common wisdom says. Jesus is either a starry-eyed idealist or a radical communist, or both. And, you may be thinking, idealism and communism have been tried and found wanting. The world only works if lending leads to a return.
But there are voices of thinkers today who are saying something similar to Jesus. Take David Graeber, for example, an anthropologist who worked latterly at the London School of Economics before he died in 2020. For Graeber, every society is built on a free, non-commodified mutuality, in which it would be offensive to charge or pay, for example for giving a stranger directions, giving someone a cup of tea, sharing something you’ve learned, or fixing a friend’s bike. This he says is fundamental within social life. It seems to me there are echoes here of the biblical vision for Hebrew society, or Jesus’ community: a recognition of a common and generous humanity. Could I suggest, in a week of desperate news from the Middle East, from the United States and from Ukraine, that a common and generous humanity may be exactly what the world needs?
What about our University this Martinmas Semester? Could such a humanity be true for us here? Well, some of the messaging around the beginning of this academic year is around what we can get – a great education, fantastic teaching, healthy grades, an impressive degree, personal growth, life-long friends, opportunities to play ultimate frisbee or the French horn, to lengthen our already prodigiously long CVs to get the perfect internship.
But also in the cloud of words in every orientation and induction session are a few about what we can give. And in my experience as chaplain, students do share, all the time, from lecture notes to dresses for balls, from spices in flat kitchens to Freshers Flu.
But often a more important gift is time, to friends in need, stressed about a deadline, upset over news from home, unsure about the right way forward in a relationship. Or giving time to our community, volunteering with local charities, or Nightline, the listening service for students by students, or with society committees or the Union. I was hearing just last week about the time a student has given to a vulnerable child through volunteering with the local charity Families First over four years, befriending young people whose lives can be so precarious.
Maybe, in today’s world, such giving is the true miracle, like Martin’s gift.
Even the Chaplaincy depends on students’ giving of themselves and their time, without monetary reward, from the members of the choir to the tech team, from faith society committees to chapel ushers. For all that Graeber sees a culture of self-giving continuing today, I confess it has been a little harder for the Chaplaincy to recruit students to welcome worshippers to chapel services over recent years. I don’t know why, and we’d love the curve to start going the other way!
We should also recognise our University staff. People sometimes tell me that the University survives on the goodwill of its staff, people working well beyond their paid hours. I recognise that. Like many, I’m glad to be paid for what I do, but few lecturers or leaders or chaplains count up their hours. Wearing the gown involves giving plenty away.
So: like Martin, like the Hebrews, like Jesus’ followers, we should be generous, without expecting a return. Why? Maybe it’s enough that there are always people in need. But I think it’s even deeper than that. Jesus advocates a gown and coat and shirt giveaway not merely because everyone needs shelter from heat and cold, but because of who God is.
God, he says, is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, as your Father is merciful. To be a Christian is to be like Jesus, to try to be like God in his love giveaway. Is this a high standard? Absolutely. Will we fail? Of course. Are there grey areas? Definitely – it is not always clear if and how we should give to those who beg today. But the principle, this Martinmas Semester, seems clear: life is about giving, from God’s generous sharing of his love in creation to our helping an unsteady friend home from the Union one night.
Finally, the St Andrews student gown is not cheap, as I’m sure many will know. So, the Students Association is planning a new scheme called Hand Me Gown, in which students will pay a deposit to use a gown throughout their degree, then return the gown to be worn by further students. It’s a lovely image of sharing a red gown from person to person, giving it away rather than hoarding it for the rest of our lives. If St Martin, who gave his cappella away, were in this chapel today, as the Martinmas Semester begins, he might, just, approve.
END