Sermon
23rd August 26
Of the six operations that I have had on my right leg over the past year, the most painful was the skin graft last September. It was done under local anaesthetic, the administration of which took some time and hurt a lot. The surgeon then sliced off a piece of skin, about an inch and half by five inches (3x12cm), from my right thigh. That was then treated before being sewn onto the wound lower down my leg. Once the anaesthetic wore off, the area from which the skin had been removed was very sore for about four weeks.
It caused me to think about one of the most sadistic means of execution: by flaying alive, that is cutting off all the victim’s skin causing a lingering and agonising death, sometimes over a few days. Legends written about St Bartholomew tell of this being his martyrdom, possibly in Armenia. In art, his attribute (that is the symbol by which we recognise him) is the knife he holds in his hand, and you have an example of this on the front cover of your service booklet today. More famously, we see this in the middle of Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, which is on the back cover of our booklet. Below Christ, to his left (our right) is St Bartholomew with the knife in his right hand. From his left hand hangs his flayed skin, including his face, which incidentally is a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself.
None of this is in the gospels, it is all a later legend. Indeed, there is nothing at all in the Bible about Bartholomew, apart from his name being included in the list of the Twelve apostles. Thus, the second verse of today’s offertory hymn: “How he toiled for thee and suffered, No-one here can now recall”. The next verse refers to the possibility that Bartholomew might be the same person as the Nathanael, of which we heard in today’s gospel, but the evidence for this is thin.
There are many and varied legends about St Bartholomew. The mid-13th Century Golden Legend, that once indispensable manual for Dominican preachers, and still of use to art historians today in interpreting medieval and Renaissance art, has eight pages on Bartholomew. But Scripture is silent.
I don’t think that we should be alarmed by this. Indeed, I think it gives us cause for hope. For not all followers of Christ are famous. The majority of us are unknown outside our immediate family and friends and the congregations with whom we worship. In the same way that Bartholomew is as much of an Apostle as is (for example) Peter, so each one of us is as much known to God as is (for example) the Pope or any Bishop.
As we celebrate St Bartholomew, we pray all Christian people, living or departed, known to us or unknown, remembering that God knows and loves each single one of us, however famous or however anonymous we might otherwise be.
Amen
