20th September, 2020.
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My dear friends,

Last week saw the commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain in 1940, when the Royal Air Force saw off the German Luftwaffe and thereby prevented a possible Nazi invasion of Great Britain. My father used to talk about watching the British and German planes fighting each other up in the sky. Most of those RAF pilots were young men in their 20s and 30s. Winston Churchill said afterwards ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’ Thereafter, the Battle of Britain pilots acquired the nickname of ‘The Few,’ and we all owe them an immense debt of gratitude.

When we think of events such as the Battle of Britain, it is easy – though misguided – to think that there is only one form of bravery, namely the undoubted bravery shown by the RAF pilots and others like them. If we go back to the previous war of 1914 – 1918, I believe it was Lord Kitchener who pointed out that if the Army needed brave soldiers, it also needed brave civilians back home who would quietly and faithfully fulfil their wartime duty – ‘Keep The Home Fires Burning’, as the old song expressed it.

In our battle today with Coronavirus, we need bravery of many different sorts. We know just how brave and devoted are the men and women of the National Health Service, the emergency services, care homes, and yes, our own wonderful St John Ambulance. I salute and congratulate you all. But other sorts of bravery are also needed to keep the home fires burning in 2020. In a sentence, what we need is practical kindliness and thoughtfulness. I recently spoke to a remarkably cheerful old lady, still living by herself in her maisonette at the age of 100, who told me that apart from her carers, she hadn’t seen a living soul throughout the three months of lockdown. Unfortunately, she lives too far away for me to visit her, but I have taken to telephoning her every few weeks. I am sure there are many other similar ways in which we can all help others, especially those working in the NHS etc, or who are finding the restrictions of life during the pandemic difficult. We might perhaps help with shopping, errands to the dry cleaners or the post office, and perhaps most importantly, offer a little smile (difficult behind a face mask!), a listening ear, and a kindly word. All these things matter a great deal and help keep us all going.

We might ponder the fact that we serve God, and discover Him in other people, in lots of small ways.

With continued prayers and kindest regards,

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
TRINITY 15 – 20th SEPTEMBER 2020.
 
Gospel: St Matthew, chapter 20, verses 1-16
Anyone who has read the novels of Thomas Hardy will be familiar with the sort of scene depicted by Jesus in today’s Gospel. Farmers in ancient Israel and down to Hardy’s day used to employ only the bare minimum of full-time agricultural labourers. For much of their work, they would go to a market town and hire workmen for the day.

            For the workmen, it was very important to be hired: there were probably children at home, mouths to feed, rent to pay. Unscrupulous farmers would hire just a few labourers at the beginning of the day, and then return a few hours later to hire other men – who were by now desperate for work – for much reduced wages.

            In this parable – which is meant to make us reflect upon God and His ways – Jesus turns this unpleasant work practice on its head. The farmer comes along and hires men for the agreed daily wage of one denarius. At various times he returns and hires other men to work on his farm. He even hires men at around 5 o’clock, when the evening is drawing on: they would only be able to work for an hour or two. At the end of the day, the farmer pays the men. He begins with the men he hired at 5pm, and gradually works back, until he reaches the men he hired at dawn. All are paid the same day’s wage of a denarius.

            Now, clearly the latecomers are pleased: they haven’t been fleeced by a nasty farmer, and they will be able to return home and put food on the table. But the men who have worked all day are very annoyed: ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat’.

            There then follows one of the kindest but strongest put-downs in the whole New Testament. The farmer, who symbolises God the Father in this parable, says:
 
Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I chose to give this last the same as I gave to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious, because I am generous?
 
Thus, Jesus commented, ‘the last will be first, and the first will be last’.

What is this parable all about? Well, for a start it is about envy. Envy is one of the deadly sins, which Christ particularly dislikes. We may think of the brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son who is annoyed at the fuss made by his father about his errant but returning brother. Envy disfigures people, not physically, but emotionally and spiritually. The workmen in the parable are envious of those who have been paid a denarius for only an hour’s work. We are warned to avoid envy, jealousy, and covetousness.

            Secondly, and more importantly, this is a tale of generosity. Imagine the scene when the man who has worked only an hour returns home. Perhaps his wife and children have seen him loafing about the market place. They are anxious: there are bills to be paid; the cupboard doesn’t have much in it. Poverty is very wearing. Then, the door opens, and in comes the man, smiling. All is well. He has his denarius. They can eat, pay the rent, and go to bed happy. As they drift off to sleep, perhaps they think of the strange farmer, who has been so generous, and helped them out of a hole.

            God is a God of generosity. He gives us life, in all its complexity and wonder. He forgives our sins and gives us eternal life in Christ Jesus. He gives us each a vocation during our time on earth and fills us with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He gives us far more than we deserve or need. And the bit about ‘the last will be first, and the first last’? Well, God is in charge, and He does things His way. When we get to heaven, we may be a bit surprised by some of the other people we find there.

            Christ also uses this parable to show us how we should lead our lives – what sort of interior dispositions we should cultivate. For a start, we must avoid envy. A few years ago I was invited to a big dinner in a castle on the continent (not a regular occurrence in the life of an English country priest, I hasten to add). The woman seated next to me gazed around the dining room and quietly said to me “I envy them all this.” I thought that was rather a sad and indeed a silly remark. I tried to point out to her that the aristocratic family might have a huge castle, but there was a downside: the insurance bill, repairs, cleaning, up-keep, staff wages to pay, etc. It was rather a millstone around their necks. Psychologically, none of them wanted to be the generation who lost the ancestral home. It was a great burden.

The grass often looks greener on the other side, but seldom is. What I couldn’t tell the woman was that a member of the family from the castle, spotting my clerical collar, had just poured out his heart to me about how his wife had been struck with a complex and incurable psychological illness, which was affecting all their family: sorrow is the same in a castle as in a flat, and the grass didn’t feel much greener to him. And by looking enviously at what other people have got, we can easily over-look what we have received from God.

            This parable also exhorts us to be generous, just as God is generous to us. When we think of the Christians who have impressed us with their faith, the men and women whose examples have led us to Christ, I suggest that the common denominator was that they were all generous characters. I don’t simply mean they were generous in the money they gave to the Church, though that is an important part of it, and the level of our financial giving is often an indication of the level of our seriousness about Christianity. But more than that, the Christians who impress us are generous  about sharing their time, their conversation, their homes, their food, their cars, their forgiveness and forbearance with the rest of us. They put themselves out for other people and go the extra mile. Now, these outward things are not themselves Christianity, which is an inward commitment of the soul to Christ, but they are an indication of a life directed by Christ and lived aright. We know generosity when we see it in other people, and we long to be a little more like this ourselves. The point is, of course, that we don’t have to be rich to be generous.
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            And I leave you with one final thought from today’s Gospel. It is very hard to be generous, if, deep down, we are secretly envious.