6th June, 2020.
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My dear friends,

Normally at this time of the year we would be getting ready for our annual service of Choral Evensong at the Parish Church of St John the Baptist, Little Maplestead, which is held on the first Sunday in June. I must confess that organising the service takes me a lot of time – roughly an hour of preparation for every minute that the service lasts – and I am hugely indebted to Doreen, Valerie, Tony, Alan, Geordie and so many other people, who also devote hours and hours of their time to help arrange the service and the afternoon tea party afterwards. The secret ingredient of St John, I have observed, is the care and devotion of so many people, each cheerfully sharing their gifts and talents, and encouraging one another.

Unfortunately our service at Little Maplestead has had to be postponed this year because of Coronavirus, and I must confess to feeling a bit flat: if the service is hard work, it is also one of the highlights of my year and something to which I eagerly look forward.

If you find yourself near Halstead, Little Maplestead is about five minutes away to the north by car and is well worth a visit. In medieval times the Order of St John owned all the land nearby, which was known as a ‘Preceptory.’ The land was farmed and the revenues were sent to the headquarters of the Order in England at Clerkenwell – St John’s Gate is part of the original medieval complex – and from there was sent out to Jerusalem to pay for the hospital.

The medieval Hospitallers of St John did not like the church they found at Little Maplestead, so they knocked it down and built the church we see today. The nave is circular, inspired by the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The nave is surprisingly long and narrow: this is because the professed knights were also monks and they occupied stalls lengthwise – rather like a college chapel – for their daily services. They dedicated the church to St John the Baptist – the St John after whom our Order is named.

Little Maplestead church, like all other churches, is presently closed because of Coronavirus, but our Bishops hope that we will be able to re-open our churches soon. Once that takes place, a visit to Little Maplestead is well worth while. The church contains many symbols of the Order of St John. I sense that if the medieval Hospitallers of St John – who, of course, had to cope with the Black Death – could see us ministering to Coronavirus patients and their families, they would understand and cheer us on. In our own way, and in the circumstances of our own time, we continue a nine hundred year old tradition of care for the sick. Pro fide, pro utilitate hominem – for the faith and for the benefit of humanity.

     With continued prayers and kindest regards,

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
TRINITY SUNDAY – 7th JUNE 2020
 
St Matthew, chapter 28, verses 16-20
One of the things that you should never do is to make fun of a child’s name. I once saw a children’s entertainer crack a joke about a child’s name during a birthday party, and predictably it all ended in masses of tears. Indeed, as I gallop fast through my middle-age, I am not sure I should very much like anyone to make fun of my name.

​            Our names are very important to us, because our names are tied up with our identity. We are sometimes reluctant to give our names to people whom we suspect may prove troublesome. Conversely, to tell someone our name can be a way of telling them we think highly of them and that we want to establish friendly relationships. It is not so long ago in England that we habitually addressed everyone as Mr Smith, Miss Jones, Mrs Brown, and to tell someone – other than your immediate family – your Christian name and invite them to use it was an indication of very great favour.

            Today, we celebrate the fact that God has done precisely this: He has in effect told us His name. God has shared with us the information that He is the Holy Trinity; with the obvious implication that He holds us in very great favour and wants us to know Him intimately.

            The idea that God is the Holy Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – is something that God, as a free act, has revealed to us. We see the Holy Trinity in the Gospels: think for example of the Annunciation, when the Angel Gabriel brought a message to the Blessed Virgin Mary from God the Father, and when she answered ‘Be it unto me according to your word’, God the Son was conceived in her womb by the work (‘overshadowing’) of God the Holy Spirit. Think, too, of Christ’s Baptism, when the crowds on the river bank heard the voice of God the Father and saw God the Holy Spirit hovering in the form of a dove over God the Son, Jesus Christ.

            The early Church had to work and pray over many years in order to formulate the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. We need to remember that the Jews in ancient Israel were fiercely monotheistic – they believed in a single God – and in this way were quite unlike the nations around them, who worshipped a great range of deities.

            All the Jews knew that the Messiah would come one day. The difficulty was that they had the wrong expectations of him. They expected the Messiah to be a sort of charismatic warrior-prince, who would boot out the hated Roman overlords, sort out all their problems, and inaugurate a period of greatness for the Jewish kingdom. A carpenter from Nazareth was the last person they expected the Messiah to be. More than this, the Lord’s disciples were flummoxed when it began to dawn on them that Jesus was in fact the incarnate Son of God, someone who referred to God as ‘my Father’ and taught his followers to call God Abba, which means something like Dad or Papa. Then there was their experience of Pentecost – as we heard last Sunday – and the strange and dramatic outpouring of God the Holy Spirit upon the disciples.

            The first Christians had to work out what all this meant. They had to adapt already existing words and ideas and sometimes to invent new ones. They came to see that there is after all only one God – not three Gods – but that He is made up of three ‘Persons’. Firstly, there is the Person of God the Father, who is the Creator of everything that exists, the source of all being. Secondly, there is the Person of God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Redeemer of the world. Thirdly, there is the Person of God the Holy Spirit, who guides us, makes us holy, and conveys the love of God to us.

           For the sake of convenience I have listed the three Persons as ‘first’, ‘second’ and ‘third’, but in truth they are all equal. The three Persons are also each quite distinct, and are not to be confused; and yet whoever partakes of one partakes of all three. Together, the three Persons make up the one ‘Godhead’: the Three in One, and One in Three.

           The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, whilst not denying that man and the human condition matter, shows us as Christians that our starting point should always be God and His divine revelation to mankind. Rather more top-down, than bottom-up.  Theology, after all, means the study of Theo, God. As we ponder the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, we realise that God is very big, and man is very small; and the God who reveals Himself to us, always knows best.

            I think it is truly amazing that God has revealed Himself to us in this way. I said earlier that to tell someone your name and invite them to use it is a sign of great favour. A hundred years ago, it would have been usual for a young couple to address each other as Mr So-and-so and Miss So-and-so until they became engaged to be married. Then, they might address one another by their more intimate Christian names.

            I find it truly moving that God has done something very similar. He has shared intimate details of Himself with us. And who are we? Sinful, fallible human beings; but human beings whom God loves with a love beyond description and wants for His own.
Through the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, we catch a glimpse what God thinks of us, His children. He shows each of us that He is our Creator: He loves us so very much he has caused each of us to come into being. At the moment of our conception, God the Father implanted into our tiny bodies the immortal soul which He has always treasured for us.  God the Son came to earth, died upon the cross in sacrifice for our sins and rose again on the third day, thinking of each of us, wanting and willing us to be saved and to enjoy eternal life in the kingdom of Heaven. God the Holy Spirit is with us, day by day, surrounding us with God’s care, whatever may happen to us in a fallen and sinful world.

            It would be easy to fall into the trap of regarding today, Trinity Sunday, as being all about dry and dusty theology. In fact, Trinity Sunday, rightly understood, is a celebration – a celebration of the love of God for each and all of us, His children. Three Persons in one ‘Godhead’. One love, if you like, expressed in three ways.