18th July, 2021

​My dear friends,

I have been contacted by several parishioners who are feeling anxious and concerned about the end of the Covid-19 legal restrictions tomorrow. I can quite understand their feelings. We none of us know what will happen. My guess is that some people will behave selfishly and irresponsibly, but far more people will behave in a thoughtful and considerate manner. We are all edging forward into a new way of leading our lives.

The need for St John Ambulance is not going to go away over the next few months –indeed, if anything, it is likely to increase. May I share two little historical stories with you, from the two world wars. During the First World War, the Order of St John ran a hospital at Étaples in northern France. It was the largest voluntary hospital serving the British Expeditionary Force and had a staff of 241, all from the St John Ambulance Brigade. It cared for over 35,000 patients throughout the war.

The hospital was bombed by the Germans twice in May 1918. There were considerable casualties amongst the patients and staff and the hospital eventually had to be relocated. One of the most moving accounts I have ever read from the First World War was of the bombing of the St John Hospital. The hospital wards, operating theatres, kitchens, etc, were made up of a series of wooden huts with glass windows. Enterprising people had created beautiful little gardens with flower beds in between to cheer the wounded soldiers. However, there was no air raid shelter – no one expected a hospital marked with red crosses to be bombed – and the wooden huts afforded little protection. The doctors and nurses bravely stayed at their posts during the bombing raids and quietly moved around the wards, going from bed to bed, having a word with each of the wounded soldiers, many of whom were very ill and were terrified and could hear and feel the explosions. The Museum of the Order of St John has photographs of the hospital before and after the bombing, and the devastation is distressing to behold, even at this length of time.

My second little story comes from the Second World War. I have just spent a few days in retreat at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham in Norfolk, which many of you will know (and if you don’t, it is well worth a visit). Throughout the Second World War, prayers were offered every evening without fail in the shrine church at Walsingham. There are a few old people left in the village who can recall praying in the shrine church and hearing the sound of German Luftwaffe aeroplanes passing overhead on their way to drop bombs on London in the Blitz.

I mention these little stories to make two points. The first story from the First World War shows us that we in St John are the inheritors of a noble tradition of the service of others. We may not be able to do much in the coming months as our nation tries to find a way of living with Covid-19, but perhaps we can do the equivalent of the doctors and nurses who walked around the wards of our St John hospital during the bombing raids. We can reassure people, have a cheery word, listen to their worries, and help them to keep going. To us, it may only be a word or perhaps a quick telephone call, but for the other person, it may be a conversation they will remember for the rest of their lives.

And the second story about people praying in the shrine church at Walsingham every night whilst the bombers passed overhead on their way to Blitz London? Well, it seems to me that the people praying in church stood for the love of God, and the bombers stood for evil and suffering. Now, clearly it is not an exact analogy, because the bombers stood for an enemy nation during a world war, and we are dealing with Covid-19 and a worldwide pandemic. But, just as Great Britain and her Allies overcame an evil enemy in the Second World War, so eventually human society will find a way of eventually overcoming Covid-19, though we are probably going to have to find ways of living alongside it for some years. And the people quietly praying in the shrine church? Well, they symbolise the love of God. And unlike German bombers or Covid-19, the love of God is eternal and unchanging. Nothing – no bomb, no virus – can stop God loving us or taking His love away from us. In the end, God’s love always wins.
With my continued prayers and all good wishes,

​                                             The Rev. Dr  ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
TRINITY 7 – 18th JULY 2021.
 
Gospel: St Mark, chapter 6, verses 30-34 and 53-56
I have to say that when I read today’s Gospel, I wondered what on earth the people who chose it were up to? You see, they have taken some verses from chapter six of St Mark’s Gospel and removed the central part –Jesus Christ walking upon the waters and multiplying loaves and fishes – to be read another time.
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What we are left with are parts of the story before and afterwards: Jesus takes the apostles – who are tired after their preaching mission – away to have a rest. Crowds follow them and Jesus has pity on them because they are like sheep without a shepherd. When Jesus and the disciples later cross Lake Galilee to Gennasaret, great crowds again turn up bringing their sick for Jesus to heal, begging that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak.

            Well, it’s all very nice, but there is no real story or point here. Or is there? On closer inspection, something very interesting emerges. We see here that Jesus’ three years of public ministry involved much hard work, and that in between the great miracles and times of teaching, it was sometimes a bit dull and ordinary. From this we may learn that quite a lot of the life of a faithful Christian is likewise occasionally dull and ordinary. Some American televangelists would have us believe that the Christian life is all a wonderful, Spirit-filled whirl. Well, I’m afraid that is not quite true.
But, just because Christian life is not all a great, exuberant whirl, it doesn’t follow that nothing is going on. We might think of the analogy of food. Not every meal can be a Christmas lunch. Indeed, we should soon be thoroughly sick of turkey and Christmas pudding if we had to eat them every day. I don’t suppose we can remember what we ate three Tuesdays ago, but it is our daily, balanced diet that nourishes us and helps us grow. Everyday food is more important than Christmas lunch.

            So it is with being a Christian. Sometimes it is very exciting. At other times it can be very hard. In between, it is often very ordinary, a bit dull. But just because there is nothing very obvious to see or feel, it doesn’t follow that nothing is going on. The Holy Spirit is at work all the time.
Our feelings are important – but they are not always a very wise guide. We may emerge from a church service thinking “Wow, that was wonderful, Spirit-filled worship,” when all that has really happened is that we have be entertained. Perhaps it is when we come out of church thinking “Well, that was alright, I suppose. Now what’s for lunch?” that God is actually at work within us, without us being conscious of it.

            I have never quite managed to understand those people who say to me “O, I come to church when I feel the need of it”, and then turn up a handful of times a year. A doctor will tell us that we need to eat and drink regularly. If we go for too long without food and drink, and then have a series of binge meals, we will upset the balance of salts and minerals inside us. As a parish priest, I would say the same is true about following Jesus Christ. If we only go to church when we feel like it, we will upset our spiritual balance inside us. We each need three things, regularly: private prayer, Bible reading, and Holy Communion. Not every time we pray, or read the Bible, or receive Holy Communion will be wonderful. We eat our daily meals and then forget about them. But it doesn’t mean that are not nourishing us. It is the same in the Christian life.

            Let me share a final thought with you that has been going round inside my head all week. We would all like to be wonderful, 100% committed, gold-plated, completely devoted followers of Jesus Christ. The truth, of course, for all of us, although that is what we would like to be, the reality falls short. We are all a great mixture of good and bad. And yet, slowly, erratically, we do make progress as we journey through life to God. We tend to think of our Christian pilgrimage as involving effort: doing lots of things, sternly looking out for occasions of temptation and sin, being very sober and serious about being a Christian.

            Well, the idea that’s been sloshing around inside my skull is that these images are not entirely right. Yes, there are times when we have to be disciplined and serious Christian believers. But, I also think that we have to learn to relax in God’s company. To learn to be honest about ourselves and not to try to impress God – we can’t impress the Creator. Instead, we learn to relax, to let God more and more into our lives, to enjoy His presence. Church-going, for example, isn’t supposed to be a fag or an effort, but instead a sort of lovers’ tryst.

Daft, wobbly and sinful as we all are, we come to God – who is perfect love, and who loves each of us with a depth and passion we can barely grasp – and, in our daft, wobbly and sinful way, we just love Him back, and bask in the warmth of His love.