Zooming with St John Chaplains.

Blogging again?

 In frustration I am writing about a St John Ambulance chaplains’ seminar event that happened on Tuesday. Because of medical conditions I was unable to attend the last chaplains’ conference so I was looking forward to the seminar even though it had to be a zoom gathering because of Covid restrictions. The well-known Professor Lineham was guest speaker and we were told he was going to comment on the “Wilberforce report”.  I spent time reading up on it so that I would be ready to learn and would have done some thinking about it.

I was disappointed in his presentation. It was a mass of statistical information and for myself, who has worked as a Church minister for over 40 years and had 27 years working as a chaplain in secular settings, it presented really very little that was new information that I was not aware of at a gut level. While the Professor had learned the history of St John and its governance etc. I felt he did not have a good understanding of St John as an operating organisation. St John is a complicated beast with the St John Order, community work (cadets, FED’s, shuttles, fellowship, events etc. and Area Committees) and then the operational Ambulance side.  It is, though, essentially a secular organisation that has Christian origins. Most of the people in the Dunedin St John are nice people, and I love and appreciate them dearly, but most would declare themselves to be atheists or as the Professor called them “nones”. (No religious affiliation) I began there as Workplace Support Chaplain (Inter-church Trade and Industry Mission) I think in 1999 and in 2011 transferred to being a St John Chaplain, a voluntary position. I have had a long association with them. I have married and led funerals for quite a number. I have also led funerals for some of their parents, siblings and friends along the way. I have had endless lunchtime conversations, one-on-one chats, lots of laughs and occasional rides in the Ambulances on jobs.  On some jobs I have even been useful. (I have been chaplain to the Dunedin fire service for nearly 27 years and to a brewery for 26 years while ministering in a local Associated Churches of Christ until “retirement” at the end of 2013.) I continue with my chaplaincies and help out now in our local Presbyterian Church.  With lots of community involvement, and years of chaplaincy work, I have learned a lot about representing Christ in a secular context and the secularisation of NZ culture. (We did learn from the stats that NZ is a more secular country than even Australia.) I was disappointed that the Professor did not really go on past endless stats to truly explore “what they mean for your work”. Even the brief discussion later did not explore that in any depth. Why, for instance is Christianity seen as a “religion” and not as a “spirituality” giving a sense of spiritual “connection”? What is wrong with how we present it so that it becomes for people “dogma”, and is not seen as a living “spirituality”? How do people get the negative pictures of the Church that he listed off from the Wilberforce report? How might we as chaplains contribute to that negative perception, or how might we as chaplains “be” so as to change those perceptions? I felt that largely the day was wasted. (I am going to have to do chaplaincy at the fire service today that ought to have been done yesterday and I am annoyed that I wasted the day.)  To add context, I would call myself a “progressive Christian” a part of the “emergent Church.” (I was once described as “an evangelical liberal”) I am very Jesus centred and “incarnational”, and community focused, believing the faith has to be lived out in servanthood in today’s secular world. The Church needs to earn its credibility.

The "Venerable Order of St John."

I have deep concerns for the Christian element in St John. I attended an investiture in Dunedin Anglican Cathedral, with all its pomp and ceremony. There I watched people who in discussions at lunch times on station had declared themselves to being atheists, being “invested” into the Order and making vows that were deeply Christian in nature? I saw people who were members of the Order standing making promises to keep the faith, attend worship etc. when in fact I knew that in conversation they would sometimes rubbish the faith and never darkened the doors of a church. Now I say again, these are good people who I enjoy, respect and appreciate and who deserve whatever recognition comes their way. But the whole “religious process” within St John makes liars of them and in my view, cheapens the faith. With a bit of thought, can’t we do better? Traditional Ambulance dedications annoy me too. Ambulance staff will attend out of loyalty, but the words of the prayers are religious mumbo jumbo. (Some of the theology in one version is really suspect. We pray that the benefactors -i.e. donors- would receive eternal life!!? In any version of the gospel I do not think you can buy your way into heaven?)  We are discouraged from venturing outside of the St John Chaplain’s prayer book. If I am going to stand up the front and represent Jesus, I want to use words that have meaning for and communicate with the people attending.

In the little stilted discussion there was (stilted because of Zoom) I tried to communicate my passion about this, and I talked about funeral and dedication prayers. I told how I often introduce and word prayers as a “Prayer or affirmation” so that secular people can participate and not feel excluded. I do not see the point in using religious jargon that does not communicate clearly to the secular person. The secular folk we minister to have spiritual depth and longings they do not fully fathom. (like we Christians too) The Christian faith celebrates that we are brothers and sisters together in life, they sense that too. The Christian faith exults compassion, empathy and love, so do they. The experiences of sadness, loss and grief and wider accountability are Christian but also deep “spiritual” yearnings in ordinary people, as all these things are. I try to use ordinary language about these “spiritual” experiences so that the participants can identify with it and can be led, in spite of their “anti-religious” stance, to experience something of the “sacred in life” – God. That is better than jargon that washes off them that they just endure. (“Dave’s doing his religious thing – we’ll humour him.”) I speak from years of grappling with these issues. When I tried to raise these sorts of issues in our Zoom seminar discussion, people jumped in and in a scolding tone said, “You don’t have to apologise for your faith!” I am NOT apologising, I am just trying to communicate, to lead in a real and helpful way.  Why have people left the Churches and chase other spiritualities? – one of the reasons I believe, is because the language used did not lead them to spiritual depth.

Empathetic, meaningful communication?

I once attended a funeral with a group of St John paramedics. It was led by a friend of the deceased, was well done and “real’, but there was no religious content. In discussion after one of the paramedics raved. “What a great funeral. There was none of that religious crap!” Thinking that we are being comforting and helpful, the words we Christians say at funeral time, can offend, minimise and hurt. Words we might see as comforting can minimise the experience they are going through. As a young teenager I suffered the loss of my father suddenly.  Many well-meaning Christians came up to me at the funeral saying something like, “God loves him, he’s in heaven with Him now.” I nodded and smiled, but inside I wanted to scream, “If God loves us, Dad would be here now! He’s no bloody use to me in heaven!” A worker once told me of attending Church as he grew into his older teenage years, earnestly listening, praying and enthusiastically singing hymns, hoping it would gell with him and make sense. “But it was like a foreign language!” he said, “It didn’t happen and I wanted it to!”  In retirement half of my Sundays I sit in church listening to others lead and I am often disappointed, angered and frustrated too.

 All that to say that I was hoping that, yes we would get the (challenging) stats about religion in NZ and the information from the Wilberforce report, but then go on to explore in more depth what that means for what we do and how we do it. God knows, this is what the Christian workers need to explore in today’s world. What does in mean today to be “all things to all people”? (Paul in I Corinthians 9) What does the apostle Paul’s example in Athens (Acts 17) mean, when he began with their spirituality and talked about the God in whom they “lived and moved and had their being” and quoting their poets?  The example of Jesus himself is worth discussing. He talked of mustard seeds, yeast, farming, feasting and wages, and led people to think about the “realm of God”. As chaplains everything we do communicates about God, for better or worse… what does that mean as chaplains in St John?

I speak from hard experience and yet I believe I have made some progress. A new fire fighter attended a funeral I conducted. When I next visited his fire station he said, “Normally when I see a minister leading a funeral, I switch off and let him carry on with his waffle, but with you… I couldn’t, you talked sense.” Another officer, came and said, “I appreciate your funerals. You don’t have to leave your brain at the door like you do for most ministers.” I get feedback like that. I am journeying, still trying to grapple with such issues and was hoping to think these through with other St John Chaplains. I was hoping to find collegiality, insight and encouragement. I came away disappointed, feeling lonely and discouraged. I am a 72-year-old still growing, still energised and still strangely “called”, but last night I began to feel like maybe it is my time to retire. I’ll let you know.