7th March, 2021.
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My dear friends,

Last Monday I went to Bishops Stortford to receive my Covid-19 vaccine. And – before you ask – Yes, I did experience a slight reaction after the jab: a few hours of feeling tired and achy. It really wasn’t too bad and I would urge that no-one should put off having the vaccine for fear of a possible reaction, which might never occur. I felt very relieved afterwards to have had my jab and am most grateful to everyone who made it possible.
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The vaccination centre was incredibly efficient and well-run, and you will imagine my delight when I spotted three people wearing St John Ambulance uniforms. I managed to have a little chat afterwards and congratulated them on all they were doing. St John has offered very considerable help at vaccination centres across the country, and we are all very pleased and proud that SJA has been of service in this way. At the same time, we should not overlook all the other members of St John who have been busy in so many other ways throughout the pandemic. I have also heard of SJA folk who have had to self-isolate for health reasons, but who have nonetheless managed to exercise a very special care of others through their telephone calls and e-mails. Members of St John are providing the most wonderful service and support in towns and cities across the country during the pandemic. As your chaplain, I have been very humbled and moved by many of the stories I have heard.

To mark Commonwealth Day which falls today, at 5.00 p.m. BBC1 will broadcast H.M. The Queen’s annual message to the Commonwealth as part of a special service from Westminster Abbey. Other members of the Royal Family including the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Countess of Wessex, will join the celebrations and speak about why our Commonwealth links are so important.

If you have ever been to one of the annual St John’s Day services in St Paul’s Cathedral, you will doubtless recall that one of the most impressive moments is when the banners of all the national Priories are carried the length of the cathedral in procession to the altar. It is a reminder that the Order of St John is to be found throughout the many lands of the Commonwealth and in several other countries too, such as the USA. When we join St John, we become members of a great international family of men and women, boys and girls, who are inspired to the service of others by our Order’s motto Pro Fide, Pro Utilitate Hominem, ‘For the Faith, for the benefit of humanity.’
It was very good to learn that Prince Philip had a successful heart treatment at St Bartholomew’s Hospital last week. I am sure you will join me in continuing to pray for the Queen, for the return to health of Prince Philip, and for all the Royal Family.

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

The Rev. Dr ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
LENT 3 – 7th MARCH 2021.
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Gospel: St John, chapter 2, verses 13-22
Most students have jobs of various sorts during the long Summer vacations. For three Summers in the early 1980s when I was a student, I worked as an assistant verger at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, getting things ready for the services, looking after the tourists and doing odd jobs around the place. I enjoyed my three Summers at St Paul’s, but I am afraid I became a little tired of hearing part of today’s Gospel:
 
Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the Temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the Temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade”.
 
Why did I get tired of this passage? Well, at the back of St Paul’s Cathedral there used to be a small gift shop selling postcards, guidebooks, cathedral mugs and even Bibles. It was always closed on Sundays and during the weekday services, and was only open to sell things in the week when the cathedral was open to tourists. But every few days an aggrieved visitor would buttonhole me and would expound on the iniquities of this gift shop, quoting the passage from today’s Gospel about Jesus overturning the money-changers’ tables and driving the animals out of the Temple.
In reply, I would politely explain that St Paul’s Cathedral cost an awful lot to run each day, admission (in those days) was free, and that the only reason there was a gift shop was to try to raise money to keep it all going. I am afraid my explanation seldom seemed to convince the complainants, and they would usually stride off, looking indignant, leaving me feeling rather weary.
 
​           The big difference between a gift shop in St Paul’s Cathedral and the stalls in the forecourt of the Temple in Jerusalem is that no-one would believe that selling postcards and Pitkin guidebooks at the back of St Paul’s had any connection with the central doctrines and religious practices of Christianity. What was sold in the Temple in Jerusalem was linked with the core of the Hebrew religion.  The stallholders sold animals to be offered in sacrifice in the Temple, and they made a nice profit. You may recall from one of my Christmas sermons that Jewish pilgrims to Jerusalem couldn’t offer any old sheep in sacrifice in the Temple: it had to be one of the breed of sheep specially reared for this purpose by shepherds at Bethlehem, and doubtless each animal cost rather more for this reason. Even before the pilgrims could buy anything, they had to change their own national currency into special Temple coins, and the bureau de change made a profit out of the transaction.

            In our terms, imagine you came to church on Sunday and admission was free, but you had to pay for your seat, and then to rent a hymn book and prayer book, with an extra charge for the Sunday service sheet, a supplement for listening to the Bible readings and the sermon, a little more for listening to the organ, and perhaps a bit extra in the Winter if the heating was turned on. A nice little earner! We smile, but this image makes the point.

            I think there are two lessons we can learn from this Gospel. Firstly, Jesus didn’t come to condemn the services and rituals in the Temple. Like a good Jew, he took part in them and he said he had come to fulfil the Jewish Law, not abolish it. But he was horrified at the way this had been exploited by the traders and Temple authorities. The pilgrims may have taken away the erroneous impression that they had somehow to buy their way into favour with God. The whole point of Christianity is that God’s grace is free and available to all: grace without charge, offered freely to everyone who from the heart believes and trusts in Jesus Christ.

Secondly, there is a warning here. The Jews had started off all right, but somehow some of them had got a bit lost along the way. Their religion had become formal, ritualistic. They had kept the outward forms, but had lost sight of the inward reality. The question occurs to me: are we sometimes in danger of going the same way? How often do we go to church, listen to the Bible, receive Holy Communion, say Amen to the prayers, but our hearts and minds are elsewhere? A routine is helpful, but a rut is not. Just as we can take someone we love for granted, so we can take God for granted.

Well, our Christian pilgrimage through life on earth is not a smooth progression, but is rather a journey in fits and starts; and, being realistic, I daresay that observing the outward forms and temporarily losing sight of the inward reality is something that happens to all of us from time to time.

We need sometimes to have a little think about our lives as Christians. We change as the years go by. What didn’t mean much to us in the past may mean more to us now, and vice versa. God may have new things he would like us to do. The one thing that never changes is God’s love for us. Jesus wasn’t angry with those men in the Temple – he couldn’t have loved them more – but he was angry with what they did, which is different.

I was talking awhile ago to a bishop who had become an Anglican Benedictine monk. He said something that astounded me in its simplicity and in the depth of its meaning. ‘Think,’ he said, ‘how much God has invested in each of us.’

‘Invested in each of us.’ That’s quite a thought. I find myself remembering some of the words from the prayer of general thanksgiving in the Book of Common Prayer: ‘We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.’

 God only wants the best for us, His children. For our part, we must learn to trust Him, and learn also to enjoy His company.