Sermon - Grace is not faceless

My Family, by Fateme Hossini, Afghanistan, 2019

A sermon given during Choral Holy Communion at St Giles-in-the-Fields on Sunday 5th May 2024 (Rogation Sunday, BCP) based on the text of James 1.22-end and John 16.23-end. You can listen to an audio recording of this text at this link.

 
From ‘The Daily Mirror’ of Thursday 22 October, 1914:

“Admirable work is being done at the British Women's Hospital in Paris. The whole staff is composed of members of the gentler sex and the chief surgeon is Dr Louisa Garrett-Anderson, whose mother (Elizabeth) will be remembered as one of the pioneers among women in the field of medicine. The institution is fitted with every appliance and many a British "Tommy" wounded by German bullets or shrapnel is deeply grateful for the treatment he has received in the hands of these skillful doctors.”

 

Dr Flora Murray, Dr Garrett-Anderson’s partner also held a senior position in the hospital - but she doesn’t seem to get a mention in the article – perhaps because she was from less famous parentage. Both Flora and Louisa had qualified at a time when women doctors were rarely considered for senior roles in the UK - forcing many to accept low paid and low status positions in workhouses and asylums. 

 

As militant suffragettes, the couple had been viewed with suspicion by the machinery of state. But within a few months of their hospital in France gaining public recognition in The Mirror, the British Government asked them to take over the running of a large hospital here in Endell Street - just a short walk away.  

 

Flora and Louisa brought many of the 180 all female staff with them from Paris - along with their expertise. Here - in this parish - they replicated their successful holistic approach to patient wellbeing, with wards that offered a less severe environment than a typical military hospital - with lamps in every room to encourage men to read. Flora, the Chief Doctor, continued her pioneering research into the treatment of wounds, inventing a new antiseptic paste which revolutionized the production of dressings. 

 

Endell Street became known as the Suffragettes Hospital - the first ever British hospital established by medically qualified women. They treated over 50,000 patients before it was decommissioned at the end of the war.  

 

A photograph shows Louisa and Flora holding hands outside Buckingham Palace after being presented with CBEs - their gloves concealing matching diamond rings. Today they are celebrated as gay icons. 

 

An inscription on their joint memorial states of Flora that: “God gave her the strength to lead, to pity and to heal”. 

 

The historic record suggests that both women did their best to put that strength into action. 

 

“Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only.”

 

 

‘The Nursing Mirror’ of Saturday 14th January 1899 reports on the latest campaign by the then eighty year old Louisa Twining - this time for better pay and conditions for nurses. 

 

Louisa, a descendant of the famous tea trading Twinings family, moved to this area in the 1830’s and initially worshipped here at St Giles. 

 

She became one of a group of reformers who founded the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science - helping to define what we have come to call “social work.”

 

Her lifelong passion for improving welfare conditions was sparked by a visit to the St Giles workhouse, which had gained a reputation as one of the worst in London. 

 

Things came to a head there in 1864 after the death of two inmates. One of whom, Richard Gibson, had asked a friend to write to the chief magistrate at Bow Street shortly before his death, explaining that he had been treated inhumanely. At the inquest, the administrator of the St Giles Workhouse and the Parish Council which oversaw it were censured and held responsible for the deaths by failing to provide adequate food or sanitary accommodation. 

 

As a result of the scandal, Louisa Twining founded the Workhouse Visitors Society and began research into medical provision in workhouses. 

 

“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

 

Louisa’s work led to growing calls for alternative forms of health and welfare support. Workhouses were eventually abolished. And Louisa chose to worship elsewhere. 

 

 

Sunday May 5th 2024. The mirror in the Epistle of James:

 

“If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.”

 

What did you see when you looked in the mirror before you left the house this morning? 

 

Can you remember? 

 

Was your collar up, your hair out of place? Your lipstick wonky?

 

James encourages us to look in the mirror and ask what we see. Can we see beyond surface appearances? Beyond what is translated as our “natural face?” Can we see the reflection of what manner of person we really are? Do we see our true image? 

 

James says the only way we can learn to see that reflection is when we become “doers” of the word rather than just “hearers.”

This gives us the opportunity to learn to see the face of Christ in those around us. It’s by no means certain that we will. But it is only when we reflect the loving service of Christ in our lives - that we have the chance to see that reflected back in us. 

 

James’ point is that the call to live a Christian life is not an academic pursuit. It’s not only about hearing or reading a few improving words once a week. Memorising the commandments and the creeds. It’s also about acting on those words. Not just talking the talk – but walking the walk.

 

 

Today, is known as Rogation Sunday. The name comes from a Latin word meaning ‘to ask’.

 

“Verily, verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.”

 

After the service we will observe the practice of beating the bounds - walking the boundary of the parish and, as we go, asking for God’s blessing upon it. Remembering all the “doers of the word” great and small who have lived and worked in St Giles - whose endeavours inspire us to perform the same. 

  

And as we journey around the parish we will come face to face with those living, working and visiting here today. Some will have faces that we find attractive and easy to look at. Others won’t. What will we see in them?  

 

As we process behind the cross we might also ask what - or who - are we reflecting in what we say and do? What will people see in us? 

Questions that the Epistle of James encourages us to ask regularly - not just on Rogation Sunday.

Because its author knew that grace is not faceless. 

It’s in the face of Louisa Twining. But also in the face of Richard Gibson and in his friend in the workhouse who wrote that letter to the authorities – and the magistrate who responded. It’s in the face of Louisa Garret-Anderson and Flora Murray and their colleagues in the Endell Street Hospital, in their patients and their families. 

 

Grace is not faceless. 

 

And once we’ve seen it in the mirror, we will never forget it. 

 

 

Image : My Family, by Fateme Hossini, Afghanistan, 2019