Each Week Fr. Scott's sermons may be read here on line.
Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter – April 27, 2008
After achieving considerable financial success in the Massachusetts Bay Colony through his ship building businesses, despite considerable Puritan resistance to his Anglicanism, Captain Thomas Coram returned to England in 1719, eager to settle into a comfortable retirement at the age of 54. Instead, as he walked the wintry streets of London, he became increasingly appalled at the abject poverty he witnessed, especially by the sight of large numbers of abandoned children, left to die in the streets or in the parish workhouses, where they fared no better.
During the 1720s and 30s poor children in Britain were dying at an alarming rate, even as more people swarmed into what was then Europe’s largest city. Everything, it seemed, conspired against the weakest and the state, as one historian puts it, “did not concern itself with welfare.”
Epidemic after epidemic swept like a tsunami through the lower classes: typhus, dysentery, measles, influenza, typhus; wave after wave. Medicine at the time was no match for these diseases, which victimized the vulnerable most severely. Seeking temporary relief from their sense of hopelessness, people turned to alcohol, then cheaply available. The so-called “Gin Craze” swept the poorer population. In one year, over 11 million gallons of spirits were consumed in London; that’s roughly seven gallons per adult. Once again, the children paid the price of their parents’ despair, and were left to fend for themselves.
Illegitimate births were as pervasive as disease and drink – and, like disease and drink, were seen as signs of moral laxity. Poor pregnant girls without husbands or resources had few options; even if they had jobs, they were likely in domestic service which they would lose if they bore an out of wedlock child. Their only choice, if they wanted to survive, was to abandon their baby where it was born or in a place they hoped it would attract attention – on a rich person’s doorstep, like the fictional Tom Jones, hoping that it would be cared for.
Most babies, though, ended up on the street or in the parish poorhouses where they usually died of neglect. At the time Captain Coram was winding his way through the teeming lane sof London, over 74% of the children born in that city died before they were five years old. In workhouses the death rate climbed to over 90%. It would take him years of tireless effort, but in 1739 the captain opened the doors of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Children, soon to be known simply as the Foundling Hospital.
Now known as the Thomas Coram Foundation, it continues to honor his vision; focusing their services, they say, “on building self-esteem and emotional well being, preparing our children for a fulfilling adult life.”
Captain Coram did not have such noble goals in mind when he first sought to rescue London’s orphans; his primary concern was their survival, although as they grew up the children did receive schooling and vocational training. A shrewd businessman, well known for his moral uprightness, the Captain attracted the attention of the “great ladies,” possessing what one historian calls a “robust charm,” as revealed in his portrait by William Hogarth, an early supporter who donated a number of his paintings to the hospital where the “great and good” were invited to see them and learn about the institution’s good works – and, of course, leave behind a substantial contribution.
And contribute they did; the weekly religious service became a fashionable event. At the baptism of the 30 newly taken in children, the collection included a bank note for 100 pounds, an enormous sum in those days, and one year’s salary for a clergyman in the Church of England. (A house maid earned eight pounds a year). The fashionable flocked to Coram’s hospital - eager to be seen; eager to see Hogarth’s paintings and to hear Handel’s “Messiah” which he performed on a regular basis to raise money; kind of like a Baroque Bono.
For the first 17 years of its existence, the facility was dependent on private contributions, despite Coram’s petitions for government funding. Resistance in the palace and in Parliament was high to the idea of a Foundling Hospital, partly because it was considered to encourage wantonness and prostitution; once again, who paid the price for this puritan prudery? Among Coram’s many gifts, one was his ability to bypass the politicians and get the “better sort” of people interested in the care of babies, illegitimate babies at that – orphans. After all, as we’ve seen, they were everywhere.
“London in the eighteenth century was a swirling mass of contrasts,” writes one historian. “A rowdy, hedonistic, gin-swilling public rubbed shoulders with gentlefolk keen to do good work.” And what better, what more compassionate; indeed what finer Christian work is there but to take care of orphans? As the Letter of James puts it: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress…”
Long before these words were inscribed, the prophets were commanding the people to take up the cause of its most helpless citizens. In the very first chapter, Isaiah issues Israel the following instructions: “Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” Jeremiah echoes these remarks: “…If you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow…then I will dwell with you…in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.”
It took those dwelling in the Western world a while to catch up to this idea; and for some reason it took the English the longest. As early as the 13thcentury, Rome had established an orphanage for boys and, one hundred years later, Venice had one for girls. Indeed, in Britain the charter for the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was granted in 1824; that of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children sixty years later.
Clearly Coram was ahead of his time; 145 years before the nation took official notice of the plight of children, he opened the doors of his hospital, tapping into a major philanthropic streak that swept through the country in the wake of the epidemics of disease and drink. A streak partly motivated by the teachings of the Latitudinarian branch of the Church of England.
Originally called “Latitude-men” for their wide instead of narrow interpretation of religious teachings, the group, which originated in Cambridge,“were,” says the noted church historian J.R.H. Moorman, “broad minded men, tired of controversy and the intensity of religious feeling in which they had grown up and anxious for a quiet life in the pursuit of goodness and righteousness.” (Frankly, the more I follow the trials and tribulations of the current Anglican Communion, the more I pine for such a pursuit.)
Moorman goes on: “They were perfectly sincere, devoted much of their energy to the performance of good works, set a high standard of decency and morality in an age of loose-living, and pleaded for a spirit of charity and toleration among their fellow Christians…The best … represented a type of religion which was reasonable, sincere and within the range of ordinary (people). It may not have been heroic,” he concludes, “but at least it was conscientious.”
Well, as far as I can tell the Isaiah and Jeremiah never pushed the people towards heroics, just decency. James did not demand sacrifice, just compassion. And, while Jesus did indeed tell his followers to take up their crosses and follow him, he did not intend us to climb Cavalry’s Hill and die with him but to love one another and so live with him. “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another…By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
That’s what he said back at the beginning of what we call the Farewell Discourse in Chapter 13 and that’s what he says as the discourse continues today. “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” How can he possibly be any clearer? And why, oh why, does it take us so long, as a collect in the original Prayer Book says, “to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest” his words?
As long as we ignore this seemingly simple but in reality oh so difficult commandment, physically, if not spiritually, we will be little different from those abandoned children on the frozen streets of London, looking to be fed, yearning for a home, desperate for someone to care for us, to love us. As long as we ignore the purpose of true religion and neglect those in distress – and waste our time on secondary matters of who is or is not pure - we will remain as children bereft of their parents - alone, helpless, without direction - a fate the disciples feared most of all.
As they listened to Jesus, united in their anxiety and grief, how, they wondered, would they be able to manage without him; how could they maintain their sense of themselves as those who have received the “spirit of adoption” as Paul says when the one in whom the Father was revealed – the one who has taken them off the streets - has vanished from their eyes, leaving them where they were, fending for themselves in a world that just seems to get colder every day. Outsiders to begin with, having Jesus leave them is like getting abandoned twice.
As a symbol of loss, it’s hard to imagine a more powerful image than being orphaned. Jesus knows, of course, that that is how they will feel – that’s why he addresses it so early and so clearly - and he does not attempt to deny the disciples’ grief or minimize their fears; losing a parent is never easy, no matter what our age. This is what he says; he says they may feel like orphans but they will not feelthat way forever. They will not remain alone.
Yes, he will send them the Spirit, who will remain with them forever and lead them into all truth. But, he also says, there is something they can do themselves to keep the Father’s presence in their lives; something they can do to keep alive the love that fed them and kept them warm and delivered them from their distress. After all, they are not infants but adults; God’s grown up, conscientious offspring.
“If you love me,” he says, “you will keep my commandments.” We will “keep;” that is, as the term John uses suggests, we will “keep watch over,” we will “hold dear,” perhaps as a father makes sure the doors are locked at night as a mother cradles her infant to sleep. We will keep each other safe and hold each other close and then God will abide with us. It’s so simple, it seems; when we concern ourselves with the welfare of those least able to care for themselves, when we live into the commandment to love, God is revealed and we are no longer orphans.