Dealing with Dragons

Yesterday (April 28th) was St George’s Day. There is a fine memorial in Checkendon Church depicting him triumphant over the dragon. The memorial is to Basil Moon, of Brazier’s Park, who was killed in Flanders in 1915, and also to his (unnamed) brother of the same regiment “who was spared.” St George is a very early saint – he was a Roman soldier, a Christian, and (you may not know this) from the Holy Land. St George never set foot in England’s green and pleasant land. If you fly today to Israel, chances are that you will land at Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion airport, which is about five miles north of the transport hub of Lod. Today this large town is mostly Jewish; before 1948 it was mostly Muslim, and before the Arab conquest in the 7th century it was mostly Christian. George was born there, when it was called Diospolis, and that is where he was persecuted and killed for his faith under the Roman emperors Diocletian and Maximian in AD303. There is a medieval church in Lod, which abuts the town mosque, itself adapted from an earlier Byzantine church. Miraculously after all the violence of the centuries, the 5th C tomb of St George survives in the crypt, and can be visited.

St George made his way into the English consciousness in the various “lists” of martyrs collected by the late Roman church. He has certainly been known in the UK since the 7-8th centuries (the Venerable Bede lists him, as do others). But how and why did St George become our national patron, over and against more local, Celtic heroes of the faith, such as Aidan, Ninian or Columba?  I think the answer lies in the Arab conquest of Palestine, which smashed largely peaceful, largely Christian, settlements, desecrated the holy sites of the New Testament, and imposed punitive levels of taxation on those who refused to forcibly convert to Islam. This provoked the Crusades, and who better to fight for than one who had already given his life for his Christian faith in the Holy Land? By the 13th century (the time that Checkendon Church was built) St George was the special patron of soldiers, and in 1222 a church synod (at Oxford, no less) made his feast day a holiday.

King Edward III founded the Order of the Garter in the 14th C under George’s patronage, and the imposing Chapel of St George in Windsor Castle remains not only the Garter’s home, but also has been the resting place for our nation’s kings and queens since that time. St George reminds me to pray, not only for those serving in the armed forces, that they may stand up for what is right and true and just, but also for all Christians in the still contested Holy Land, whether they are from a Jewish, or an Arab heritage. The dragons of greed, violence and internecine hatred need heroes to stand against them today. In the words of Cardinal Vincent Nicholls, speaking of the late Pope Francis, “where are the serious voices?”

Worship Services for Sunday 4th May

9.30am Morning Service at St John’s, Stoke Row with Canon Kevin Davies

11am Morning Prayer at St Peter and Paul, Checkendon with Mr  Brian Turner

Midweek zoom service: Wednesday Evensong at 5.00pm  410 935 129

Nature Notes, and St Mark

In Checkendon churchyard the cherry blossom has been particularly fine; sadly the rowan tree over towards the school has succumbed to root rot, and will need to be replaced. The area around it is deliberately left unmown, to increase the diversity of wildlife in “God’s acre”. The scrub that grows is cut back in the autumn. The church has been adopted by a family of blue tits, who have returned to their nesting place – a hole in the stonework in the lower right of the porch door arch. Stand back, and watch patiently, and you will see where. The church is also being visited, this week, by a rare breed with a difference – an “ecclesial horologist” who will begin the process of surveying the church clock, and assessing the requirements for an electric autowind system to be installed. At the Rectory, rhubarb is in full flow, drinking water by the bucket load, and seedlings in the raised beds (carrots, beet, radish and parsnips) are coming through. Courgettes are now in the cold frame (a rather Heath-Robinson affair) and the apple blossom is simply glorious. The seed grown aquilegias in the front bed (a beautiful variety) are fussing and fretting, and generally sulking, whilst the self sown traditional ones nearby are romping away, prompting bafflement.

Not wanting him to feel outdone, it would be remiss of me not to mention that today (29th April) is the Feast of St Mark the Evangelist. Mark, who wrote the earliest gospel, in about AD72, was a young man during the ministry of Jesus. A very early tradition has it that Mark was with St Peter in Rome, and that a good deal of his gospel contains Peter’s eye witness accounts, as well as Mark’s own recollections of Jesus. The gospel of Mark is the shortest gospel – you can read it in a little over an hour – and is characterized by an urgency and freshness. “This is the Good News” he begins, and off we go, out into the desert to see the wild man, John the Baptist, then bang, here’s Jesus, baptised, with thunder from heaven, then whoosh, straight to Capernaum, for a sermon like has never been heard, “Here’s the Kingdom of God”. Sickness and disease get the heave-ho, and demons are sent screaming into the void. All in the first chapter. That’s the best way to deal with dragons, by the way. Send them to Jesus. They have to run from him.

May the joy of the risen Christ be yours,

Canon Kevin Davies