Dear friends,
It’s been quite a season for major anniversaries. In April, Stuart, Maggie and I attended the special service in Westminster Hall for the 50th anniversary of the URC (still available to watch from the URC website Our 50th anniversary service – United Reformed Church). June saw the 75th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury Docks, and in July, we mark the 75th anniversary of the National Health Service.
All these are rightly occasions of great celebration, giving thanks for lives of service and dedication, honouring people who have done so much for our church and for our country. But they are also times for reflection.
The URC service was a joyful occasion, with some wonderful music and inspiring words on the theme of Jubilee. Amid the thanksgiving, though, was a Prayer of Lament, acknowledging that the initial hopes of the URC, of being the catalyst for further church unity, had not been fulfilled. It allowed us to mourn the churches that have closed and the people who have died. And from this honest confession, the prayer invited God to renew us, to give us new vision and new hope.
The Windrush celebrations honoured the Caribbean people who had answered the call from Britain and made their lives here. The stories from those people showed some of the difficulties they faced, from the miserable weather to some outright hostility. It would be wonderful to think that such hostility was a thing of the past, but recent years have shown this is far from true. People who had arrived as children, who lived their lives here and saw themselves as British, suddenly found that the Home Office was demanding paperwork that they didn’t have. As a result, many were refused all rights and even deported to countries they had never seen. A true celebration of the Windrush generation would surely mean full compensation for the Windrush scandal.
The NHS is a treasure all on its own. Many of our congregation have worked for it; most of us have benefited from its care. I have visited a few hospitals recently and have been deeply impressed by the kindness and wisdom of the medical teams. Despite the huge pressures they face, especially after Covid, they treated each patient with grace and dignity and still had time to help lost visitors like me. This dedication deserves every moment of celebration. It’s clear, though, that the NHS is stretched to its limits, and that this will only get worse as we all live longer, with more chronic conditions. A proper honouring of the current workforce would include a long-term plan, fully costed and funded, to secure the future.
Celebration with reflection gives us a springboard for moving forward in hope. At the end of the URC service was an Act of Recommitment, which closed with these responses:
God of the past, together – we give you thanks.
God of the hidden future, together – we place our trust in you
God of our own time, together – we will follow where you lead.
Every blessing,
Sue
