15th November, 2020.
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My dear friends,

May I begin with a word of thanks for the kind messages I have received from members of St John about the Remembrance Sunday service I conducted at Great Bardfield War Memorial last Sunday. Below are two links to some video of the service.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12LqWzfjtxGMOORyYOdrGDtUBhBX33MHN/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CpiJf6NyV_Vbx5AWDGr8H2L11Z2HhkpH/view?usp=sharing

Remembrance Sunday 2020 had to be much simpler for all of us because of Coronavirus. I found the sight of the small group of veterans and of representatives of the civilian services marching past the Cenotaph on behalf of everyone else who couldn’t be there this year really very moving.

I had two especial thoughts to do with St John in my mind on Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day this year. The first involved a slightly earlier war. One day when I was exploring an old church in Lancashire, I spotted a brass memorial plaque on the wall bearing a familiar white Maltese Cross. I went to investigate and discovered that it was a memorial to members of the St John Ambulance Brigade who had lost their lives in the South African (Boer) War, 1899-1902. This is a reminder that members of St John have played their part not just in the two World Wars of the twentieth century, but also in other conflicts before and since. We remember all of them, too, on Remembrance Sunday.

My second thought is of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (1914-2003), more commonly known in this country Anthony Bloom, a gifted and charismatic Russian Orthodox bishop who ministered in Great Britain. By one of those strange quirks, I saw him on Remembrance Sunday 1984 when I attended a service in his cathedral at Ennismore Gardens in London, together with my old friend the Rev. Wilfrid du Pré, who had been Vicar of St Simon’s Church in Jersey during the German occupation of the Channel Islands. Metropolitan Anthony had a wonderfully kind face which one would not easily forget. He trained as a doctor in Paris and during the Second World War served as a medical officer with the French army, despite having secretly taken monastic vows in the Russian Orthodox Church. During the German occupation of France he worked as a surgeon in a French hospital, whilst also secretly helping the French Resistance. He frequently found himself operating on German soldiers in the hospital. Many years later, someone once asked Metropolitan Anthony how he had managed to bring himself to do this? He answered with a disarming smile: ‘When a German soldier invades and occupies my country, he is my enemy. When he is wounded, he becomes my brother.’

In the First and Second World Wars the Roman Catholic Order of Malta and the Protestant
Johaniterorden carried out humanitarian work in Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and in other countries, just like our own Venerable Order of St John; indeed, the Order of Malta found itself caring for the sick and injured on both sides. This is a useful reminder that the St John tradition of caring for the sick is international; and, as Metropolitan Anthony would have said, when a man or a woman is ill, whatever their background, they become our brother or sister.

​​With my prayers and all good and warm wishes,

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
2 BEFORE ADVENT – 15th NOVEMBER 2020.
 
Gospel: St Matthew, chapter 25, verses 14-30.​
The story in today’s Gospel is known as the Parable of the Talents. It is a bit of an odd tale, but it contains an important point. The background was the tradition that every time a new Roman emperor came to the throne, provincial client-kings, rulers and tribal chiefs from around the Roman empire would have to travel to Rome to ask the new emperor to confirm their titles and authority. These local big-wigs would be away from home for some time, and in their absence they had to rely on their servants to run everything. Sometimes they never came back – they died on the journey, or the emperor refused to confirm them in possession of their titles. The temptation for servants whose master had been away for a particularly long time was to assume that he wasn’t coming back and to lead the life of Riley. When the local leaders did eventually get home, they were keen to discover what had happened in their absence and whether their servants had looked after everything properly? Woe betide them if they had not.
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            Jesus took this well-known custom and based a little story upon it. The master prepared to set off on his journey and entrusted his property to his servants. To one, he entrusted five talents; to another, two talents; and to a third, one talent. Now, the talent was a coin of great value. It was roughly a thousand days wages for an ordinary man. So, in total, the master asked his servants to look after about 25 years wages for an ordinary man: a tidy sum of money. We may imagine that the man who had five talents was gifted at business. Perhaps he watched the markets, listened out for the news, noted which ships were sailing or arriving, and carefully invested the five talents in business ventures. The result was that he doubled the money: ten talents in total. The second man was possibly a gardener or a farmer. He invested the two talents in agriculture. Perhaps he worked hard himself, digging and pruning. Harvest time arrived, and the result was that he too now had double the money – four talents – to hand to his master. The third servant had only one talent, which he buried in the ground and put his feet up. When the master returned, he simply dug it up and handed it back. The two servants who had looked after the money carefully and made it grow were praised and rewarded. The lazy servant got his comeuppance.

            As I have said, in Jesus’ time a talent was a coin, but it is possible to read this parable another way. A ‘talent’ in English can also be a gift, a skill, something we can do. Now we all have gifts and skills. Sometimes we are born with them, and you’ve either got it or you haven’t. Sometimes, there are other things we can learn or pick up, if we set our minds to it and work hard. I am always impressed when I meet a man or a woman who has devoted himself or herself to learn some particular craft or skill, and is then determined to carry it out to the highest level they can.

            Now, you may say, what about the fact that the men in the parable had different numbers of talents entrusted to them: five, two and one? Well, we are all different people, and we all have different skills and talents. The man with the five talents represents the really clever or gifted people – Shakespeare, Newton, Pasteur, and so on. The man with just one talent represents those who are less skilled in life. The man with two talents represents most of us who are somewhere between the two extremes: nothing odd there, just a recognition of what people are like.

            But, in real life, things are not always what they seem. The really clever person may not be able to boil an egg, or may be rather a trial to live with. The apparently ungifted person may have enormous reservoirs of kindness and compassion.

            It was St Paul who reminded us that the Church is like a body and the Christians within it form its skeleton, heart, lungs, brain, muscles, skin, hair, and so on. We all need each other. No one part of the body is more important or impressive than another: all are linked. So it is with Christians: we all need each other. You have no idea of the ways in which I rely on you, and in which you support and sustain me. I hope that I, in my work, do a little of these things for you.

            So, we return to the Parable of the Talents. The lazy servant who buried his talent in the ground was punished. Those who used their talents well were praised. What, dear reader, are our talents? We all have things we can do now; and we all have the potential to learn and develop other gifts and skills. Sometimes we are held back by other people. Sometimes we hold ourselves back. We don’t like the limelight, or we are afraid of opening ourselves to criticism, or we have our prejudices and don’t want to give them up, or frankly we are a bit lazy and are quite happy for someone else to do all the work.

In the Lord’s Prayer we pray ‘Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’  In these words we are asking God to guide us. If we really and sincerely try to do God’s will, over and over again, we shan’t go too far wrong. But we have got to allow God to use us as He wants. That means using talents we already have, and allowing – indeed, trusting – God to develop new ones. It is never too late.

So then, what are our particular talents? And what is the still, small voice of God saying to you or me, quietly, repeatedly, day in and day out?