All Souls 2 November 2014, 5pm All Souls Day A sermon by Rt Revd Nicholas Holtam Readings: Isaiah 65.17-end; Hebrews 11.32-12.2; John 6.35-40 On a foggy November day, almost exactly 100 years ago, Dick Sheppard became the Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields. On a previous visit to check out the possibility of his coming here, he had sat in the church and found it unwelcoming, smelling of varnish, with no cross or candlesticks on the altar, ‘low’ to the point of being flat. The most encouraging sound was the noise of the world outside. Isn’t that a great clue to his approach the life of this place? Dick opened up St Martin’s and shaped its ministry and that of much of the Church of England for the 20th century. To Dick, people mattered and the love of Christ. At my induction in September 1995 Canon Eric James said that he thought I might have trouble with my predecessors. As Vicar you get to know them intimately. That Austen Williams and Geoffrey Brown were both still alive was a great help to me, but I struggled with Dick Sheppard, partly because of the portrait by Gerald Kelly that was then at the back of the church by the door we used after Morning Prayer. His face seemed so open and transfigured, with a hint of suffering I couldn’t live up to. Then, after three months, my eyes went down to his desk, a clutter of papers that made him the most human of Parsons and encouraging of predecessors. In time, his daughters became friends. Peggie and Gordon Richardson were hugely influential in relation to fundraising for the Renewal of St Martin’s. Rosemary Pearse, whom we remember today, became a wonderful supporter of the pilgrimage to Canterbury and of The Connection and St Martin’s work with homeless people. Patricia Frank grew up at St Martin’s where her father, Pat McCormick had succeeded Dick Sheppard as Vicar. When Dick did not answer the phone on 31st October 1937 her parents, Pat and Miriam, sent her to Amen Court to see if everything was alright. She found Dick was dead, having been writing what he had said would be the most difficult letter of his life, to Alison his estranged wife. Patricia and one of her sisters, Kiki Cruft, came to visit us a year or so after we moved into the Vicarage. They went round like schoolgirls telling stories in each of the rooms where they had once lived. Having returned to St Martin’s in old age, Patricia used to complain that I didn’t speak loud enough. This went on for months. Thank God for whoever told her to go and get her hearing checked because it proved to be her problem rather than mine. She was the most wonderful friend and supporter who prayed for me and for this place daily and became one of the matriarchs of the regular congregation. We were both surprised she lived so long. It must be about 10 years ago that I first gave her the last rites and she said she was ready to die. Clergy children have played a great part in St Martin’s. On my first Sunday, John Catto was 18 and going to Aberystwyth to read Geography. Now a Colonel in the Royal Artillery we met in July at a reception at Larkhill on the Salisbury Plain. He talked about his mother and the family’s long connection with this church which is their church. That Rosie was baptised on the Sunday before Ascension Day when Gay died after the evening broadcast meant that relationship will continue another generation. Roger Shaljean used to talk about ‘the thin gold thread’ that runs through St Martin’s. It is something about the ethos and values of the place that you could trace back in its deep history long before Dick Sheppard became Vicar. There have been people who embody it in every generation. Tonight we remember an extraordinary number of them. The thin gold thread is made of Mallie Lightbourn’s hospitality and open friendships. If you accepted Mallie’s dinner invitation you never knew who you would meet. You might sit with someone Mallie had met in church the previous Sunday, or you might be with her friend the Archbishop of the West Indies. One of you said Mallie was part of the glue of the regular congregation. Her friendships and influence extends all over the place, including St Martin’s Cathedral in Leicester where the Bishop met his wife Wendi when they were volunteers in the Social Care Unit, and the Dean is David Monteith, who had been Assistant Priest and Associate Vicar here. Jane Whitley said she was attracted to St Martin’s by Austen Williams’ prayers. They “seemed so real”. So did Jane’s. She prayed by lists. I have never known anybody so consistent and inclusive. She was marvellous at involving young people as readers, servers and intercessors. She sent birthday cards. When our children reached 18 she suggested they probably didn’t want to continue receiving a birthday card from her but she was wrong. She had made extraordinarily strong relationships with them as she did with all sorts. The Friends of the Social Care Unit and now The Connection would never have got going without her. Dorothy Walker was one of Jane’s friends who helped with The Scrub Club and was the first editor of the beautifully produced and determinedly old fashioned magazine of The Friends of the Social Care Unit. By the mid- 1990’s it was clear that Dorothy belonged to an ‘old St Martin’s’ rooted in the simplicity of Austen Williams’ ministry and which did not like the changes that had inevitably taken place. In a very gracious but firm way she had the courage to voice a different point of view. Every community needs people like this. Dorothy’s point was usually well made and always worth engaging with. Particularly in her last years, she had the courage to talk about life as it is rather than life as it ought to be. That was a very St Martin’s gift. Elizabeth Mensah was a part of the international ministry of St Martin’s. She was genuinely distinguished in Ghana and in the London Ghanaian community and was another of the great matriarchs. She knew how to love her own family and the wider community. She had a strong and independent mind and loved this place and its people. And Ruth Healy, who grew up as part of this community and whose marriage to Rory was such a happy day for them, David and Alison and for all of us at St Martin’s. She lived with intelligence, kindness and generosity and could be incredibly funny. She used to refer to this place as ‘Colditz’ because it was her parent’s experience that once you were in you couldn’t get out. Ralph Smith was not just Head Verger, a member of staff, but a member of and ambassador for St Martin’s. Had Dick Sheppard met him when he first came to visit there would have been a very different story. For hundreds of thousands of people Ralph represented St Martin’s and he made this place work day to day. The family became part of the place and for a while Marcus came to work here as well. “And what more should I say? For time would fail me to tell of...” Hubert Law, who always arrived late and said very loudly that he couldn’t hear a thing but astonished us by getting to the horse races, had a holiday on the QE II and was taken by his mother to the enthronement of Mervyn Charles-Edwards as Bishop of Worcester. Mike Wooldridge’s mother who lived and died in Poole, in the Diocese of Salisbury. Nigel Truefitt who worked for Coutts next door and was part of the mid-week congregation. Peter Hall, Vicar of St Martin in the Bullring in Birmingham and Bishop of Woolwich. And because this is St Martin’s it doesn’t seem pretentious to include Doris Lessing, who I once met across the road at the National Portrait Gallery and Nelson Mandela who did so much for the new nation of South Africa and helped renew the hope of the world. Each person here will be holding in particular one or more of those we will name before God. Austen Williams taught about intercessory prayer that in holding one we hold all, those who were part of this place and those who were our family, friends and loved ones. These people are the thin gold thread which is St Martin’s. Dick Sheppard died on 31st October 1937. At 7pm on the 2nd November, his body was brought into church and lay here for 2 nights. People queued for up to an hour and a half to file past his coffin. They lined the pavements 4 deep when he was taken to St Paul’s for the funeral and burial in Canterbury where he had so briefly been Dean. The Christian faith began at an empty tomb. The way in which Christians cared for the dead was one of the marks of the early church that people found so surprising and convincing a witness to the resurrection. Each person is valued and the faith passed on to their successors who continue spin the thin gold thread we have been given in such a way as the love of Christ is known in bread and wine, in word and deed.