Marshall Memorial Eucharist: Monday 9th August, 1999
Trinity College Chapel, The University of Melbourne
Rev'd Dr John Davis, Vicar, St Peter's Eastern Hill
How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news! Rom 10:15
When I first came to Trinity in January 1976, it was some 5 years since the death of Fr Barry Marshall, and longer since he had left the College. So far as theology at Trinity was concerned, Dr Max Thomas had been and gone. John Gaden was just beginning. The fairly modest portrait now in Leeper was in the Dining Hall and there was still a very substantial amount of talk about a truly remarkable priest. This priest had clearly shaped and influenced the lives and vocations of a generation of ordinands. His influence had been all the more remarkable because he had himself changed and developed, particularly after his sabbatical in France. On his return, the fresh winds of the enormous re-thinking of theology and liturgy that characterised that time in the 1960s moved and maybe even tossed around the leaves here at Trinity as well. The Trinity clergy and the wider Trinity family who were here at that time honour Barry Marshall. He is held in respect and affection.
Now, 29 years after his death, we gather here tonight for this memorial Eucharist. There are some here who knew him well, many who knew him not at all. All would wish to give thanks for someone who represents quite the best that this fine College can offer: a model of encouragement and inspiration for us in the daunting tasks that lie ahead of us.
"How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news!" How beautiful are the feet of those who are the messengers, the ones who bring with them news we know is good. This is a familiar text. It is a striking assertion. Feet are not generally speaking held to be beautiful by most. The attending to the dusty feet of any visitor was the first task of courtesy, performed by the lowliest servant. Any priests who have over the years washed their share of feet on Maundy Thursday can probably tell what a strange and battered and utterly individual lot feet are. Yet, in the context of tonight's epistle, these are the means by which this good news can get to us. It is simply a rather effusive way of saying how absolutely welcome this good news is and how grateful we are to receive it. This word for beautiful is not the one used to describe the infant Moses in Hebrews, or the word used to describe the loving action of the woman with the expensive ointment, wiping the Lord's feet with her hair in Matthew or Mark. Rather this is one which carries the connotations of being seasonable and appropriate. The gate of the Temple called Beautiful and these feet share this word. Even the most ordinary and absolutely un-noteworthy aspect of one who truly is a messenger of the good news, becomes itself a thing of beauty. The good news is the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, expressed again for a new generation.
A few weeks ago on July 14th, the 166th anniversary of John Keble's Assize sermon was celebrated at Eastern Hill. This sermon at the University Church in Oxford in 1833 is generally held to mark the beginning of the Catholic Revival in our Church. This College with this Theological School stands in that tradition. As Archbishop Rayner observed in a major address entitled "The future of Catholic Anglicanism", delivered on that occasion, the particular subject matter of the starting off point for that sermon does not stir too many hearts today. But the call to action, to holiness, to commitment, to faith, rings through the generations and continues to inspire.
After thirty years or more since the specific ideas and approaches that were dear to the heart of Barry Marshall were expressed and articulated, it would not be surprising if we and the Church of which we are a part have moved on. But there is no doubt at all that the inspiration, the creative energy; the new vision that was talked about and is talked about so long after his death, is a model of encouragement for those of us who come after.
What better memorial for Barry Marshall could there be than a Theological School which is vibrantly abreast of the challenging and demanding theological, ecclesial, pastoral and liturgical issues of our day? Trinity is again and still receiving, developing, shaping and sending out those who are called to the ministries of the Church. Trinity is again and still a place of intellectual challenge and critical scholarship. Trinity is again and still a place to enjoy, to grow. At Trinity all this and more is placed in the context of that worship and service, which is our celebration of the love of God in our hearts.
Institutions, dioceses, Schools, individuals experience good times and not so good times. Times of change and transition can produce anxiety or raise false hopes. There isn't a parish in Christendom that has not experienced a golden age, which is other than that in which we now live. Great figures from the past can be uncomfortably paraded or used inappropriately. We are the ones to deal with our own tasks and issues. But it is of great comfort and encouragement to know that in other generations in this place there were those who did indeed grapple mightily and creatively with the tasks and issues that were theirs, in ways that continue to inspire.
Our gospel this evening speaks of a time when the disciples found themselves absolutely up against it. They had battled for much of a long and frustrating night against an adverse wind and strong waves. It is story of miraculous presence and action, of faith and of doubt, of fear, of peace and assurance. But at the end of this whole experience, the disciples most definitely knew that they had come closer to God. Their relationship with the Lord was profoundly strengthened. And they got on with what they had been called to do. Trinity was blessed in the windy and rough days of the 1960s to have one such as Barry Russell Marshall whose task it was to bring a whole generation of students and staff here at Trinity closer to God.
May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed Rest in peace and rise in glory.
Amen.
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