St. Andrew’s feast day, November 30, lands on a Sunday this year, aligning with the start of Advent. Although it is a Holy Day—i.e., liturgically, higher in rank than memorials of most other saints—it rarely attracts the attention it deserves in the midst of a season that quickly becomes full. This year’s timing, however, could not be more fortunate, since today also marks the 70th anniversary of the first meeting of a core group within our parish, the St. Andrew’s Group. Its original name was the Saint Andrew’s Group of the Anglican Church Women (ACW was then, and still is, a formal organization within the Anglican Church).

Just imagine: when these ladies first met, our parish was still very new. Worship in this nave had begun only a few years earlier, and much of the parish’s character was still taking shape. Into this young space stepped a circle of women who chose St. Andrew as their patron simply because their first meeting took place on his day. Over the decades, however, the group developed an identity that, I would say, came to match that of their accidentally chosen namesake.

The first aspect that is fitting is that Andrew is not a character who dominates the Gospels. He does not preach lengthy sermons, write epistles, or stand at the centre of dramatic narratives. Our ladies are not always front and centre on Sunday mornings either. Yet Andrew was the first to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, and the first thing he did with that recognition was to bring another person to Christ—his own brother, Simon (“the one who hears”), later called Peter (“the rock”). This introduction alters the course of Church history, as Peter does become the kind of figure that dominates: the leader of the apostles who, after Jesus’ death, established the first Jewish-Christian community in Jerusalem and thereby became the founding father of the Church.

But the person who first sparked an interest in Jesus among a few curious Galileans was actually John the Baptist. His enigmatic words, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” revealed his own intuition that Jesus might be the one to live and die as the Messiah, the unrecognized King of the Jews. These first seekers decided to see if Jesus would choose to teach them directly, though Matthew and John’s accounts differ regarding who was with Andrew the Protokletos (i.e. “First Called”). In John, it was an unnamed individual (likely John the Evangelist), and Andrew called Simon; in Matthew, the brothers met Jesus together. They “inquired where Jesus was staying,” which was then a polite way of asking a rabbi for permission to study with him.

I believe that Jesus’ choice to accept the men resulted from a period of prayer on the mountainside, when he might have already considered the qualities he wanted to see in his future core disciples. And so he began his “admission process” with a single question: “What do you seek?” (Not “Whom do you seek?”) In other words, what did they really want to do with their lives? To follow Jesus, Andrew and the others would have left behind a successful business, the family boats and equipment, and, significantly, an area of expertise in which they likely took pride. Perhaps this is why Jesus tells the brothers, “Now you will be fishers of men”—to indicate that the skills and qualities they had honed in the marketplace and at sea could still be used in their new life. I am sure that St Andrew’s ladies in our midst also know a thing or two about making such tough choices and similar sacrifices.

Andrew continued to draw others to Jesus in the years that followed. He noticed the boy with the loaves and fishes that Jesus used to feed thousands of people, he received the Greeks who wanted to meet Jesus, and he consistently helped those at the margins find their way into the circle. His ministry could well be described as the art of holy introductions, where one person’s faithful attention becomes the means by which another discovers God’s nearness. And so it is with the ladies, who seem to have inherited something of this character and, for seventy years, have offered a ministry of presence, attentiveness, and kinship to one another and to this parish.

Their longest-serving member had been in the group for more than 30 years. She served as its president until 2017, when a second-generation member whose mother belonged to the group from the 1970s until the end of her life, took over the role. They meet every single week for “a natter, chatter, and exchange of information,” a tradition they never abandoned, even during COVID, becoming among the quickest adopters of Zoom for that purpose. They mark one another’s milestones with genuine joy, share jokes that push the boundaries of polite company, and swim together each summer. They keep track of who is absent at every meeting. They maintain a teacup collection so extensive that the church storage must have an exit to Narnia to hold it all, along with their yarn supply. They knit and crochet at truly astonishing speed, raise funds through sales of their crafts and baked goods… and then give those funds away! They supply the clergy with prayer shawls to give out as a reminder that we care, and they make fidget-muffs for those living with anxiety and dementia. They close every meeting with a blessing: “Lord, thank you for bringing us to this place today to spend time with friends; send us out from here now in the power of the Holy Spirit.” (This usually follows the clergy-blush-inducing joke directly!) All of these outward signs add up to a culture of companionship in which no one is overlooked. Their care is as natural as breathing, practical and unembarrassed, charmingly intrusive, and relentless. In all this, they embody Andrew’s instinct to gather, invite, and include.

The readings assigned for this feast deepen that theme. Normally, we tend to read from Isaiah throughout Advent, and so even on St Andrew’s Day, he seems determined not to be absent and appears through a direct quotation from St. Paul: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” The phrase invites us to consider what “good news” is for us. Might it be the grace that is communicated when ordinary people bear one another’s burdens through presence, kindness, companionship, and the small signs of inclusion? In this sense, the St. Andrew’s Group has been the bearer of beautiful news for seven decades: news of care, humour, persistence, and belonging.

As for “What do you seek?” God poses this question to each of us as well. Most of us have wondered about this in the midst of the daily grind that puts food on our tables but at times, falls short of nourishing our well-being. Secular psychotherapeutic literature encourages us to get in touch with our centre, practise mindfulness, or slow down; yet it misses a key question that can only be answered through the lens of spirituality: what, or who, do you find at your core? The weekly themes of Advent offer a few simple possibilities – hope, faith, peace, love – as reflections of God’s presence.

Today is, traditionally, the Sunday of Hope. Scripturally, hope is far more substantial than a popular psychology of optimism, gratitude, or cheerfulness. It is a theological posture: a willingness to trust that God is at work even when outcomes are uncertain and paths are not yet clear. Emily Dickinson captures this with the unforgettable clarity in her poem: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.” Her imagery suggests that hope is always within us—that indwelling presence at the core of our being which we would indeed benefit from accessing— strengthening us, asking nothing in return, and always singing. Andrew embodied this kind of hope when he left his nets at the invitation of Jesus, stepping into an unknown future. The women of the St. Andrew’s Group live into it when they continue to care for one another in seasons of joy, loss, illness, and change. What about you? Are you going to be “an Andrew” to someone you know, encouraging them to share in your hope? Where do you see hope embodied in our community? In whom? In what practices?

Today it does feel right to give thanks both for Andrew’s gift of introductions, which has shaped the Church from its earliest days, and to honour the women who have offered the same gift to our parish, right from it own inception. They remind us that the Good News takes root not only through great events but through the small, beautiful habits of kindness that reveal God’s presence with us. As we begin Advent, may we carry forward the hope that “perches in the soul.” May we, like Andrew, be willing to bring others into the nearness of Christ. And may this parish continue to be shaped by the kind of community the St. Andrew’s Group has modelled: one marked by companionship, attentiveness, humour, and a steady insistence on caring—offering a living example of hope in practice as something we nurture together.

Questions to Consider

1. What do you think Andrew felt when Jesus called his name? Excited? Nervous? Brave? Regretful?
2. What does hope mean to you right now? Is it a longing, a strength, a discipline, a quiet trust?
3. When have you sensed “the word very near to you”? Was it through Scripture, nature, or someone who came alongside you?
4. Who first brought you to faith? Who acted as your “Andrew”—the person who introduced you to Jesus, community, or a new spiritual horizon?
5. Is there someone you are being nudged to invite, encourage, or accompany during Advent? What small step could you take?