Yesterday I did a funeral where there were only 13 people plus myself & the funeral directors in attendance. Sounds pretty sad doesn’t it? Does it make it sadder if I were to tell you that he was a regular & long time parishioner of St John’s?
Don was one of my favourite people at St John’s & it was a privilege to get to know him over the last 6 years of my ministry here. On the surface it may seem sad that a man who never married, had no surviving family members, only had 13 people attend his funeral service, but I have to say it was one of the most profound moments of my time at St John’s. Maybe it was a combination of the relationship I’d formed over the last 6 years, with the lament that others had not got to see & know what I had seen & known. But I think it was the realisation that community does not necessarily only exist on a large scale & that everywhere it does exist, should be where we are as a church.
Don had a deep faith in God & a gift to see life where others saw there was none. He did have a difficult departure from this world with an extended stay in hospital but that’s not how I’ll remember Don. It seems to me that Don was sustained in his later life by the care of a very few, a trust in God & a desire to do what he could to help. I had the gift of knowing Don because I was one of the few who he let in to allow care & support to be offered but in our church community he slipped by generally unnoticed, he never stayed for a cuppa after the service & he never expected acknowledgement for his generosity.
I wish that more people could have heard Don’s testimony that was louder than words, I wish that more people had realised what a faithful man we had sitting on the left side of the church at the 9am service, I wish more people could have been inspired by his acts of generosity, I wish more people realised the skills he shared with us as he freely offered his talents.
Community doesn’t come as naturally to us as it perhaps once did. We are a self-sufficient world, but in being that, we miss so much. I believe we need God’s help to be better at community, better at honouring God’s faithful people & better at caring for them when the need is too great for them to carry alone. It’s why I am such a passionate supporter for the roles of Community Care & Engagement that we are trialling at St John’s. When I came here 6 years ago we were striving to be the world’s most welcoming church – according to the NCLS survey we now know that welcoming & inclusion is one of our weaknesses.
As you sit on the pews of St John’s this Sunday – don’t think about how hard they are. Think about the fact that the are 153 years old & that Don brought them back to life & lovingly restored every single one. We are resting on the ministry, gifts & talents of the saints that have gone before us – it is our commission to ensure that we carry on their legacy & use our gifts & talents to build community wherever we can – doing whatever we can.