‘The revelry of the loungers shall pass away’ Patrick Hamilton and the Challenge of Privilege
Preacher: Revd Dr Liam Fraser
Readings: Amos 6:1-7; 1 Timothy 6:6-9
It’s one of the little sources of pride I carry through life, that my church may have started the Scottish Reformation.
The church in question is that which I’m currently the minister of, St Michael’s Linlithgow. Because among the tradesmen, merchants and courtiers that gathered around Linlithgow Palace in the early 16th century, were a number of minor nobles, among whom were the family of one Patrick Hamilton, a name long connected with St Andrews.
Patrick’s father was the illegitimate son of the Duke of Hamilton, and the family lived a comfortable and privileged life on their estate at Kingscavil just outside Linlithgow, and in a house on its high street. As a young man, Patrick would have come to the recently completed St Michael’s Church, with its dozens of altars, its college of priests and choristers, and have learned the Catholic faith of his ancestors.
And like many a nobleman’s son, Patrick then went on to the big money-making enterprise of the day: the Christian Church, blessed as it was by land, title and wealth. Not a problem we suffer from now. He studied abroad, learned theology and bible, and became, rather surprisingly perhaps, a gifted composer, writing a mass setting that was performed in the Cathedral of St Andrews.
Things were going well for Patrick. He was riding high, and given his intelligence, skill character, and noble connections, he could have looked forward to preferment and promotion within the Scottish Church, rising to become a wealthy bishop or even Archbishop.
But then, something changed. Patrick started to be challenged, challenged by his own wealth and privilege, and the wealth and privilege of the Church in which he served. As his faith and understanding grew, Patrick began to question what other people thought of as the good life, to question what he had seen at St Michael’s in Linlithgow as a young man and the sights and sounds around us here in St Andrews. He began to see what the prophet Amos saw, that those who sit at ease, who drink wine from bowls, who improvise on musical instruments and anoint themselves with perfumed oil, were about to be sent by God into exile, that, to use Amos’ delightful phrase, the revelry of the loungers would soon pass away.
And so, Patrick acted, using his intelligence and connections and every resource he had to serve God and serve others. And he died for it, right out there.
Before I served at St Michael’s, the forgotten cradle of the Scottish Reformation, I served somewhere very similar to where we are now, the University of Edinburgh. As someone who rather likes a spot of lounging, I had become a perpetual student, sleeping late into the day, and doing degree after degree. And after I had finished my PhD, and exhausted all the degrees I could do, I decided to get a job there as Campus Minister. But while I found quite a bit of lounging, and drinking of wine from bowls at the University, I also found something else: that despite their wealth, and privilege, and affluence, a lot of students and staff were very, very unhappy, with rates of anxiety, depression and other mental illness rising year upon year.
In our second reading from 1 Timothy, the writer identifies why wealth and privilege might not be as sweet as they first appear, and how they can harm those who, like Patrick Hamilton, wish to follow God above all else. According to our text, wealth gives rise to four inter-related problems:
First, the power wealth brings can tempt us to satisfy our bad desires. Second, it can make us do bad things. Third, and perhaps most seriously, it can stop us from taking God and faith seriously, and fourth, because of all these things, it can lead to suffering.
As different as they might first appear, there are strong parallels between this analysis of the problem of wealth and privilege, and contemporary struggles we see throughout the Western World. Despite being the fifth or sixth largest economy in the world, a recent study found that the poorest in Britain were 60% worse off than the poor of Ireland, with wealth inequality increasing year on year, and Gordon Brown correctly noted the other day, that it is now the Food Bank, and not state social security, that has become the safety net for hundreds of thousands of people. In addition to the plight of the poor, movements such as Black Lives Matter, the campaign for reparations for slavery, and the MeToo movement have all arisen as a response to the dangers that uncontrolled wealth, power, and privilege bring, for in this fallen world we call home, if you give people the power to do bad things, then very often, they will.
Now, at this point in a sermon on wealth and contemporary politics, you might expect the preacher to do one of two things: to launch into a Jeremiad denouncing the godless socialism of these militant protesters, or alternatively, to proclaim the manifesto of liberation theology, pulling down the mighty from their thrones and ushering in an age of full communism for all. But thankfully God is wiser than the firebrand radical or the reactionary bigot, and steers a middle course. For in verses 18 and 19 of our text from 1 Timothy, God says this to us:
That the rich are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous and ready to share, that they may take hold of the life that is truly life
Long before Proudhon claimed that all property is theft, St John Chrysostom once said that nothing we have actually belongs to us, but is given to us in trust for the benefit of others. And it seems to me that this Christian attitude, that no one, neither privileged nor oppressed, neither capitalist nor worker, owns anything, even their own lives, but that all belongs to God for the benefit of all, is far more radical than anything currently on offer in our society.
For true revolutions and reformations, in nations, and in individuals, begin when we, like Patrick Hamilton, acknowledge the authority of God over everything we have, mind, body, soul, possessions, and surrender it all, putting our whole selves at the service of God and neighbour.
That, I think, is the challenge of privilege, put to us by God in our texts today. Privilege is not something to be hated or unthinkingly discarded, but something that should challenge us: challenge us to use what we have for the good of others, and spur us on to be the best people we can be, using what we have in the best way we can.
For most of us, that sacrifice will mean spending less on luxuries and more on charity. It will mean not filling up our hours with amusements and diversions alone, but giving our time in service to the church or to voluntary groups. It will mean agitating and campaigning for a better world. And for some of us, in times of high injustice, it might mean, as it did for Patrick Hamilton, persecution, or even death.
But whatever the challenge of privilege means for us personally, God the Father has made his position clear: that we either use our wealth and privilege for good, or it will be taken from us. That if we do not give it away, it will become a stumbling block for our feet, and a millstone round our neck.
For as Amos warns us, the revelry of the loungers and the privileged will pass away. For in that kingdom that God is forcing into our own, there will no longer be privileged or oppressed, victim or victor, wealthy or poor, but the family of the household of God, where justice will cover the earth like the waters of the sea, and the crown of life be worn by prince and pauper alike.
And now to you, Father, who humble the proud but raise up the lowly, be given all honour, power, glory, and dominion, world without end. Amen