6th September, 2020.
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My dear friends,

Last Friday, the peace of Great Bardfield was disturbed by the noise – I should say, the excited chatter – of all the children returning to school – and what a happy noise it was. In ordinary times, we have become so used to the sound of children arriving and leaving school, and playing in the playground at break time or lunchtime, that we have come to take it for granted. With the lockdown, such background noise ceased, and only when it started up again last Friday did we realize just how much our lives had been diminished by its absence. I sometimes say that it is a sad church that never occasionally has one of its Sunday services disturbed by a crying baby (Dear mothers: please don’t worry if your baby makes a bit of noise during the service in church. Get up and walk around with your baby at the back of the church, but please don’t feel you have to leave and go home. It makes the Vicar feel very down in the dumps); and similarly, it is rather a sad town or village that never notices the sound of children playing noisily and happily in their school playground.

One of the highlights of my year as County Chaplain of the Order of St John is our annual Christmas carol service, held in a different church in the county each year, when I read out the citations for awards to be presented to Badgers and Cadets by the Lord-Lieutenant of Essex. It is frequently humbling to discover just what our young people have accomplished in the previous twelve months, what obstacles they have sometimes overcome, what rays of sunshine they have managed to bring into other people’s lives.

The Coronavirus pandemic and lockdown have doubtless had an impact on youth work in St John, but I should like all our Badgers and Cadets to know just how proud we are of them. People sometimes say that Badgers and Cadets are the St John of the future: to which I would reply, No, they are the St John of today.

I daresay that many of our Badgers and Cadets will be returning to school just now, or perhaps starting at a new school. I send you all my very best wishes for the new school year. Some of our Cadets will be preparing to go off to colleges and universities, and again I send you my congratulations on having secured a place at college or university and my sincere good wishes for the next three years. Remember, the most difficult weeks of your academic career are the first two (when everything is new) and the last two (when it is all coming to an end). I remember you all in my prayers. Why not see if there is a St John unit somewhere near your college or university: I am sure they would give you a warm welcome.

With continued prayers and kindest regards,

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
TRINITY 13 – 6th SEPTEMBER 2020.
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Gospel: St Matthew, chapter 18, verses 15-20
 Today’s Gospel reading reminds me of an old lady in my first parish, St John the Evangelist, Gosport when I was a newly-ordained curate. She is now long dead, and she was well into her 80s when I knew her over thirty years ago. She had lived in that parish for most of her life, and with her husband had been a stalwart of the parish church. One day, I went to see her and found her looking very sad and upset. At length, the story came out: her sister had died – this was the first intimation I had, after knowing her for three years, that she had a sister. Her sister’s house was in the next street and their gardens more or less backed on to one another. About nine or ten years earlier, they had fallen out over something trivial like a cake. Both, I suspect, were pretty stubborn, and they hadn’t spoken to each other since. “And now she’s dead,” said the old lady, her eyes full of tears, “and I’ll never have a chance to talk to her again and make up.”

            I can’t tell you how sad I felt as I walked away from the house after that visit. I tried to say something comforting about God sorting everything out, but I confess I wondered privately how someone could receive Holy Communion in church week by week, whilst shunning a sister. Could no one have knocked their two silly heads together, I asked myself (metaphorically speaking, of course). Could not one of their husbands, a friend, someone from the parish church, have got them to bury the hatchet and be reconciled?

​            Life and human relationships are never straightforward. We live in a fallen and sinful society, and we are each capable of much sin and stupidity. Additionally, from time to time all of us make mistakes and have accidents, which impact upon other people’s lives as well as upon our own. Jesus recognised all this, and in today’s Gospel reading he sought to give his followers guidelines for coping with such situations as they arise.
 
If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every word may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses even to listen to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.
 
The first thing to note is that Jesus teaches us that the people who sin against us and hurt us are our brothers. We are all children of the same heavenly Father, and we should try to remember this point, even if at that particular moment we are seething with anger. The whole tone of Jesus’ teaching is gentle and realistic. We are talk to one another privately. It may be that in the heat of the moment, an offence or problem seems bigger than it actually is, so we should try to moderate our words and avoid saying anything that in hindsight we may come to regret.

It is also a key point of Christian moral theology that Christians are not supposed to draw attention to other people’s sins, for we are all sinners in need of God’s mercy, and a lot of gossip about them will not help other people if they are trying to repent.
Clearly, though, if someone has committed a crime, we should report it to the Police – that’s different – and, as you know, I strongly condemn those religious authorities and other leaders who in the past have covered up abuse of various kinds and have placed the reputation of their organisation above lending a helping hand to the victims of abuse. One can’t imagine Jesus Christ behaving like that.

Sometimes, when we have been hurt, a talk in confidence to someone about our experiences can help us enormously. This might take the form of sacramental confession, or a talk with a good friend, or perhaps at conversation with someone trustworthy and unbiased like a doctor or bank manager. There is much truth in the old adage that a problem shared is a problem halved.
But sometimes, we have to be a little bit careful about our motives when talking about other people. Getting something painful off our chest is a good thing. Talking about someone’s sins and failures in order to run them down or boost our own ego or reputation is not such a good idea. I daresay we have all been guilty of this at times – it is part of the human condition – but I recall that Jesus said something about first taking the log out of our own eye, before we try to take the speck out of our brother’s eye.

            You will also notice that Jesus talks in today’s Gospel about evidence being corroborated by the evidence of two or three witnesses. People often say “Oh, there’s no smoke without fire,” but I’m sure we can all thing of cases where that is the case. We are to bend over backwards to be reconciled. As a last resort the problem is to be brought before the Church.

            I am reminded that elsewhere in St Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said to the disciples: So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.  This is one of the reasons we have the Sign of the Peace in the Eucharist: to remind ourselves that we are supposed to be in love and charity with our neighbours before we receive the Body and Blood of Christ. In the Eucharist, the sacrificial death of Christ upon the cross at Calvary is made real to us at upon altar. Jesus Christ, we recall, died that agonising death in order to atone for our sins and reconcile us to God the Father. We, in turn, are to be reconcilers and peacemakers in our lives. This will not always be easy, but as the old lady found, it is much harder if we take no action, and death intervenes, and it is suddenly too late to do anything.

            Jesus taught us that the degree of mercy and forgiveness we show in our lives is the degree of mercy and forgiveness that will be shown to us personally on the Day of Judgement. He also taught us:“By their fruits ye shall know them.”