Consider the Raven

The Rev’d Devin McLachlan

Vicar, St Bene’t’s

2nd Sunday after Trinity, 14 June 2026

Matthew 9.35 – 10.8 

Last week I finally got to climb the (terrifying, two-storey) ladder up our thousand year-old tower to join some of our ringers in an inspection of the bells.

On the way up, in what Neil Petersen tells me may have once been an oratory and is now the void chamber, I had the chance to look closely at our stained glass window of Saint Benedict. That window was one of the first things pointed out to me when I came here to St. Bene’t’s to interview; Geoff Maitland showed me how the step below the window is worn away from when it was a doorway to a gallery.

What you can’t see, unless your standing almost at the altar, is the raven at Saint Benedict’s feet. As many of you will know from reading the weekly email, there's a whole story about why that raven.

Every day a raven would fly in from the woods into Benedict's new community there at Monte Cassino. And Benedict would feed the raven from his plate — much to the scandal and shock of some of the new brothers, I imagine.

And it turns out there was a local priest who was very jealous of Benedict, of Benedict's welcome and Benedict's discipline and the way that Benedict's community was thriving. And so he decided to poison Benedict's bread.

The raven, however, knew what was happening. And so that day, instead of waiting patiently to be fed, the raven flew off with the poisoned bread, hiding it in the woods so that no one would be harmed.

I take to heart Jesus's instruction in the gospel of Luke to consider the ravens.  In Matthew’s version, we’re to consider more generally the birds of the air, but it was no accident of Luke that Jesus chose the raven. That’s a detail I missed until this week, researching about ravens. There is something about how we read scripture with eyes of culture and sometimes miss the words right in front of us.

Scripture is wonderfully ambivalent about Ravens.  They are traif, not kosher, not to be eaten. Then again, so are eagles—  and we heard about in our first reading of God carrying his people on eagle's wings.

Ravens were sent by Noah to look for dry land and appeared to have failed the job, although the rabbis still disagree about the exact meaning there.

Ravens are notorious in scripture for being careless parents, but in doing so are also used in scripture (see Psalm 149, Job 38.41) as proof that we can depend entirely on God.

And ravens return the favour of feeding, in first Kings, bringing the prophet Elijah meat and drink twice a day when he was hiding exhausted in the wilderness. (1 Kings 17:2-16)

Just as the ravens depend on God for their food, so God's prophet depended on the ravens for his food. Just as Benedict fed the raven, so the raven took bread from Benedict in order to save his life.

Consider the ravens.

In Peter France’s Encyclopaedia of Biblical Animals, he tells this story about ravens and doves: ‘… [the raven] wanted to step as gracefully as the dove, so he gave up his old way of walking and tried to imitate the dove. He almost broke his bones in the attempt and then, being mocked by the other birds, tried to revert to his original way of walking, but he had forgotten [how to do it], and now hops and steps clumsily.’ It would be a good story just there on this weekend of Cambridge Pride, about being authentic to the person that God has made us.

The Raven of scripture and of hagiography are icons and companion animals when we think about accessibility and disability, about dependence and generosity, above all about insiders and outsiders.

Saint Benedict built a community that made room for those who don't walk but fly. A community that fed and was fed by that most outsider of outsiders, a clever corvid of the woods and wilds.

Which brings us to the calling of the 12 apostles. Really.

Look at the build-up that Matthew gives us, in a few economical lines:

            “he said to his disciples”

then

            “Jesus summoned his twelve disciples”

then

            “These are the names of the twelve apostles”

All the disciples. Then twelve of them. Then their naming — their names, yes, but also their being named as apostles, the messengers sent forth to preach the coming of kingdom. They didn’t spring forth fully formed. They were among the disciples, their ministry gradual as well as sudden.

We like to skip past the genealogies and lists of names in Scripture, but they are not accidental. They ground the stories, remind us that Holy Writ is a history of people’s experiences with God —  not an instruction manual or cookbook, but the stories of complicated, messy, very human people, having messy, complicated understandings of our Creator.

And the 12 disciples chosen to be sent, ἀποστέλλω apostelló, are just that. 

Messy and complicated. Jackdaws, jays, rooks, crows, and ravens. Impulsive Simon Peter. Matthew the Tax-Collector. Simon the Zealot. The sons of Zebedee, enthusiasts but let’s face it pretty immature.  All of them outsiders. Difficult people, sometimes awkward and often obtuse. Wonderful loving people, proclaiming the good news,  curing, raising and cleansing.  Clever as corvids, raucous as ravens.

We are harassed and helpless in this world, like sheep without a shepherd. So Jesus sent us ravens. Outsiders, awkward hopers and acrobatic flyers, problem-solvers and problem-makers, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

Benedict’s disciples were scandalised by the raven.  They wanted a community of mature, adult, healthy able-bodied brothers. Not wild-feathered outsiders. Benedict’s rule, however, made it clear: The very young and the very old. The cantankerous and the gentle-hearted. The strong in body and the weak, the slow thinker and the clever…

A community where the awkward raven from the woods was not merely allowed, or reluctantly welcomed, but celebrated for her God-given, life-saving ministry, enabled, fed, free and fierce.

May the same be said of us today at St Bene’t’s.

That age is no barrier to ministry. That disability does not disable faith and inclusion — as we’ll talk about after the service and in the months to come. That the diversity of our minds, our nationalities, our sexuality and identities are gifts to be proudly celebrated, life-saving ministries by which we feed and are fed, here at God’s holy table.