13th June, 2021

​My dear friends,

We have all been praying for Her Majesty The Queen and for the Royal Family following the death of Prince Philip. We remembered Prince Philip here at Holy Communion last Thursday, 10th June, which would have been His Royal Highness’s hundredth birthday.
 
            It was lovely to see The Queen on Friday at the G7 summit at St Ives and visiting the Eden Project, where Her Majesty was presented with a special cake to mark her official birthday and caused great delight by cutting it with the Lord Lieutenant of Devon’s ceremonial sword. The Queen’s official birthday was kept yesterday with the Trooping of the Colour at Windsor Castle, which was a real tonic to us all. The Queen was spotted tapping her feet in time to some of the music – and I am sure she wasn’t the only one.
 
            Someone asked me last week about the anniversaries of the deaths of people we have loved, and also about their birthdays and wedding anniversaries. I think Prince Philip’s hundredth birthday may have been behind it. I found myself remembering some insightful words of The Queen a few years ago: Grief is the price we pay for love.
 
            We all find the anniversaries of the deaths of our loved ones difficult. Indeed, in my experience the second anniversary of a death can sometimes be harder than the first one. I have also observed – both in myself and in other people – that often the days leading up to the anniversary can be more difficult than the anniversary itself, because we are remembering what we were doing at that time a year ago or whenever it was. Sometimes, the actual anniversary can feel a bit of an anticlimax.
 
The best advice I ever received about bereavement came from a Presbyterian minister who once said to me: ‘People talk about “getting over” a bereavement. You don’t “get over” a bereavement. Instead, you learn to live a different way.’
 
            Each and every bereavement is different – just as we are all different – and one has to be patient and understanding with oneself. With the passage of time, anniversaries can become a little easier to bear. In my experience, it helps if one is able to recall the past and talk a little about the person who has died – ‘Do you remember how Daddy couldn’t stand onions’ – although one has to exercise sensitivity if the person one is talking to is having a bad day.
 
            Do please remember that if you want to talk to someone about a bereavement, you can always ring me on 01371 810267, and I shall be pleased to be of service to you. There is also the telephone helpline staffed every day by Order of St John chaplains between 10.30-11.30 a.m. and 4.00-5.30 p.m. which can be called on 03330 154414.
With my continued prayers and all good wishes,

​                                             The Rev. Dr  ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
TRINITY 2 – 13th JUNE 2021.
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Gospel: St Mark, chapter 4, verses 26-34.
In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus teaches his followers about what he calls the kingdom of God. Before looking at the Gospel – by way of setting the scene – let us look at what we mean by the kingdom of God. We find an important clue in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer, when we pray: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
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            One day, as we all know, planet earth will come to an end. When it does, Jesus Christ will judge the world, and all the men and women it has ever contained, their cultures, societies, politics, arts, and even their churches. The just will be welcomed into the kingdom of Heaven; the wicked will be consigned to Hell.

            The kingdom of Heaven is where everything is exactly as God wants it to be. So, in the kingdom of Heaven, there is no sin or suffering, no more death, no injustice or lies, and instead everything is in complete accord with God’s will. We attain the kingdom of Heaven fully after our deaths.

            But, just as our eternal life does not begin when we die, but rather starts with our Baptism and the journey of faith during our time on earth; so likewise, we get a little of the kingdom of Heaven here on earth. We do not call this the kingdom of Heaven, but instead we call it the kingdom of God – or, a much better translation might be the kingly-reign of God.

            By allowing God into our hearts during our lives on earth, we also allow Him to mould and change us. God’s values start to become our values. God begins to use us to spread His values and begin the transformation of the world.

The individual Christian does this by trying to live the way Christ lived, and trying to think the way Christ thought. Such things as love, justice, peace, honesty, seeing Christ in other people, helping the suffering and unhappy, are all part of what it means to follow Jesus Christ and are practical ways of expressing our Christian faith.

In Christianity, we each have a vertical relationship with God, and also a horizontal relationship with our brothers and sisters throughout the world. Jesus, after all, has no other hands and voices to carry out his work than ours. Little by little, in each generation, God is at work, preparing us to enjoy the fullness of life in His kingdom.

            In today’s Gospel reading, we see Jesus sitting on a boat on Lake Galilee, teaching the great crowds who have flocked to hear him. He speaks to them about the kingdom of God. As you can imagine, the concept of the kingdom of God is not an easy one to get across to simple, uneducated farmers and fishermen. Jesus uses images they will all easily understand: he speaks to them about seeds.
 
The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But once the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.
 
This is really a message of encouragement to those inclined to give up or be gloomy. Rome wasn’t built in a day, we might say. The spread of the kingdom of God sometimes seems an impossible dream. We are confronted with daily difficulties. Men and women can sometimes be very nasty to each other. There is the perennial problem of evil and sin. But Jesus cautions us not to give up, and instead to be patient. The kingdom of God is nonetheless growing. Seeds can sometimes lie dormant in the ground for a very long time, but when the conditions are right, they will germinate and grow. So we must trust God to be about His business.

            The second parable about the kingdom of God is similar. It is addressed to those who doubt themselves and fear that they will be unable to accomplish very much in God’s service.
 
Jesus also said: ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that birds of the air can make nests in its shade.
 
We are all aware of our frailties and failings. Sometimes, though, we can be so aware of our weak-spots and wounds, that we fear we can’t do very much for God. The truth is we all have gifts and skills which God wants us to use in His service.

            So, in this second parable Jesus mentions a mustard seed. This was the smallest seed known to the Jews. ‘All right,’ Jesus seems to say, ‘you think you can’t do very much. Imagine you are this tiny mustard seed. It can grow up into a great plant, sometimes nine feet tall; so big that birds sometimes sit on it. God can do the same with you, if only you’ll let Him.’

The kingdom of God is a part of Christianity that we all have to think about and respond to, each in our own way. It reminds us that God’s kingdom is not ‘up there’ somewhere, to be encountered only after death. Rather, we begin to enter God’s kingdom during our time in this world.
It also reminds us that our faith is not supposed to be self-contained – popped inside a Tupperware box with the lid firmly pressed down – but instead, our Christian faith is supposed to affect all aspects of our lives and being.

            We might recall that, in response to a question, Jesus once told his followers: if you want to find God’s kingdom, look inside you.