The Importance of Our Stories.
2 Kings 2: 1 – 2, 6 – 14; Mark 1: 4 – 12, 21 – 27
It is our custom after Sunday worship to have lunch watching ‘Songs of Praise’. I find it relaxing and worshipful after preaching. Last Sunday’s ‘Songs of Praise’ told the story of St John’s Ambulance. I was reminded again of the importance of stories and how they can encourage, inspire, and nurture hope and faith in us.
The St John’s Ambulance story reminded me of one of the major contributions Christianity has made to Western society and that a good thing is never lost.
St John’s Ambulance is a modern dynamic charity founded in 1887, but did you know that its heritage goes right back to the 11th Century? The story runs like this. In about 1020 A.D. St Mary of the Latins’ Abbey in Jerusalem established a hospice for pilgrims. In the second half of the 11th Century a lay Benedictine monk came to the St Mary’s abbey. His name was Gerard and he became known as the Blessed Gerard. Gerard was put in charge of the small hospital. During a period when the Christians were driven out of Jerusalem Gerard was permitted to remain. The hospital survived and when the 1st Crusaders regained control of Jerusalem the hospital expanded under Gerard’s leadership. He established more hospitals along the pilgrim way. Gerard established the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John in Jerusalem, whose task was to care for the sick pilgrims. The order grew and spread throughout Europe and Britain. During Henry VIII ‘s reign the monastic orders were dissolved. On 7th May 1540 the day on which the Order of St John was dissolved in England the last prior of the Order, Sir William Weston, died. It was said that he died of a broken heart on hearing the news. However Sir William had failing health at the time.
It was in 1887 when British society was going through the upheaval of industrialisation that the order was revived in a different form. Concerned about the health of people and the lack of any health scheme for basic health care a group of Christians remembered the order of St John. They resolved to ‘resurrect’ the order of St John using its ancient medieval insignia. They established a voluntary program training people in basic first aid and offering it freely to all people. They took on a uniform and the insignia of the ancient Order of the Knights of St John. Their ministry prospered and now it is part and parcel of our society. Today we benefit from the basic first aid training of St John Ambulance.
I was immediately caught up in this story. The story spanned many centuries. It showed how the Church has always played its part in wider society. It showed how the Church has shown the world how to care. I uncovered how a careless world will destroy some good, but the good will not go away.
The story encouraged me. I was buoyed by its success and I delighted in this ministry that continues today. I was also encouraged by the fact that this ministry filled a needy gap. It showed the Church at its best. It uncovered the truth that our current day concepts of nursing and hospitals have their roots deep within the Christian Faith. Certainly Roman society had little time for nursing. It is confessed by Roman doctors that when the plagues came they escaped to the country. The plagues thrived in the cities where sanitation was less than elementary. Densely packed housing had streets with a central gutter in which all was thrown. We have evidence from the writing of the famous Roman doctor, Claudius Galen, that during the plague doctors left the city and the sick were put out in the street to die. What happened during the plagues was that when a person got sick they were placed outside in the street and left to die. It was a matter of survival as it limited the infection and /or contagion.
There is plenty of evidence that Christians, motivated by the sacrificial love of Christ for the world, would care for the sick. Christians cared for each other and for their neighbours even at the cost of their own lives. Jesus inspired them. They believed if Jesus had suffered for them they should suffer for others. It is a fact that basic nursing such as keeping someone at an even temperature and hydrated will help a sick person survive. The Christians became known for their ministry of care for others.
We forget that nearly all of our compassionate structures in society like nursing and care for the aged and dying have their roots in Christianity. Christians emerged in the Roman Empire as people who loved others. Another pagan’s testimony to the love of Christians for others, even those outside their own group, comes from Emperor Julian who hated Christianity. Julian wrote a letter, which we have to this day, to the high priest of Galatia in 362 A.D. stating that ‘pagans needed to equal the virtues of Christians, for recent Christian growth was caused by their ‘moral character, even if pretended’ and by their ‘benevolence toward strangers and care for the graces of the dead’. He also wrote that ‘the impious Galileans (Christians) support not only their poor but ours as well. Everyone can see that our people lack aid from us’. Julian tried to drum up support for pagan charities and pagan compassion for the less fortunate. Julian’s motivation was embarrassment and competition, whereas Christians were motivated by the Christ, crucified and raised.
The St John Ambulance’s tradition stands firmly in this early Christian ministry of nursing. There is little evidence of such nursing-care taking place in the Greco Roman world. After the fall of Rome and the growth of Christianity, the monasteries of the Church became places offering the basic social services to all.
We should tell this story to others. It might make them think about what they take for granted. It might make them realise that it isn’t the basic goodness in humans that taught us to care. Our hospitals are not a result of humans naturally thinking of nursing others than their own. In the past, the family did nursing. It was the Church that began to organise it motivated by Jesus’ command to love and his life.
The story enlightened me. What I found instructive and helpful in the story was that at the closure of the Order of the Knights of St John although all came to an end, the seeds of charitable nursing were not lost. Those seeds germinated amongst the people and in the hearts of men and women inspired by the Christ. Finally those seeds geminated afresh and blossomed into the movement of St John’s Ambulance.
We live in times when we are saddened by the diminishing size of our congregations and the closure of our church buildings. It is sad, but it is necessary to close these buildings. We no longer have the resources to keep them open. There seems little we can do against the current tide of rejection of the Gospel of Christ. We face a very different society today. However it is not simply that society is against us, it is a question too of the Church losing its cutting edge. We have turned our Faith into something personal. We don’t easily move to sacrificial giving and we appear confused about what we believe. Sadly in times like these, and the Church has been through similar times, we fall into conservatism and traditionalism. We naturally want to return to the good old days, but that is not possible. We want the organ played and the old hymns sung – for whom? Tomorrow’s church?
What I found helpful was being reminded of the truth that the Church belongs to God. God will revive us. Most likely in a way that is very different from what we can even imagine. Equally the revival may not be in our time. But I found great encouragement in being reminded that the Knights of St John had been revived after 300 years, albeit into a different form.
The story of St John’s Ambulance provides for us in the first place, a story that demonstrates to our society what the Church has given to our western society and indeed to the wider world. The Church has been a strong source of inspiration and action towards making our society a compassionate and caring society. It could be said that we have taught the world to care and now many think they can do it without the inspiration of the Triune God.
Secondly, the story of St John’s Ambulance provides encouragement for us. It tells us that our faithfulness will be rewarded. It tells us that this is God’s world and God will act for the betterment of it. We can live with hope that is grounded in the past actions of God that remind us of God’s transformative mission for today.
The story provides us with inspiration, encouragement and hopeful vitality.
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Peter C Whitaker, Leighmoor UC: 10/08/2019
/ Www.leighmoorunitingchurch.org
