(Shirley ‘Eden’ Evans is a gifted teacher, writer and speaker using these to great effect in local, regional and national church organisations. As one who has experienced the liberating power of God, she is keen for others to experience this same God in action via community action and getting saints to activate their Kingdom mandate. Check out other contributions she’s made to this blog.)
The year is 1864 and Britain with its allies is heavily involved in the Crimean war.
Mary Seacole a Jamaican born women of dual heritage travels to Britain to ask the war office to allow her to travel as a nurse to the Crimea where there are heavy casualties, and poor conditions. She is refused. Mary does not settle for the no, funding the trip herself she travels to the front, and she sets up a hotel near the war zone providing a place for convalescing soldiers to receive a comfortable bed and much need nourishing meals. But Mary did not stop here she also travelled into the battlefield sometimes under fire to tend to the wounded.
As I look at the remarkable story of Mary, I see parallels for the Church today. The buildings we gather to worship should be field hotels or hospitals offering a place for recovery for those who arrive at its doors wounded and broken by the ravages of war. Jesus calls the broken to Him, but He calls us to full recovery through the power of His Spirit. But the need is urgent this is the day of the rescue and like Mary we are tasked with going out into the middle of the battlefield to tend to the wounded.
The world is at war and hostility and the effects of this hostility are all around: – I listen to news report after news report, and I encounter situations in my daily walk, the prevailing image in my mind’s eye is of a battlefield. I hear the noise of machine gun fire, round after round, I see the bombs exploding and I see the injured and dying falling. This is a field of blood, and the ground is covered with the wounded. But here there is no Mary Seacole no one ventures beyond the enemy lines and the wounded lay where they fall whilst the battle rages on.
Graphic indeed, some may say, but we know that the enemy is real, and his agenda is clear – steal, kill, and destroy. All around I see communities, cities and entire countries under siege by the armies of injustice, greed, violence, racism, poverty, secularisation, gang violence, exploitation on every level, drugs, immorality, chaos, and decadence and degeneracy. We see portrayed on our screens before the watching world an officer of the law charged with upholding the law kneeling on the neck of a fellow human being for almost ten minutes, this just one incident in so many. I watch as desperate refugees fleeing war, famine and lawlessness are dying at sea and the nations look on. I see in the UK the fifth richest country in the world working families visiting food banks to feed their children. I see the families torn apart by drugs, alcohol abuse, and debt whilst government and business continue to make unjust laws, and all strive for bigger profit margins. This is war!
In Matthew 25 Jesus presents a picture of the kingdom, those who are invited to inherit the kingdom are those who were actively engaged in feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty and hospitality to strangers, they have clothed the naked, cared for the sick and visited those who are in prison. Jesus goes on to say that when we refuse to help those counted the least, we have in effect refused to help Him. Our instructions are clear as the church we must be actively engaged in the war. This is the day of the rescue, the Church is called to be the modern-day Mary Seacole, those willing to cross enemy lines into the line of fire to rescue the dying.
May the healing in our world begin with a Spirit filled church, empowered to do good works and to share the truth of the gospel that salvation is in Jesus Christ alone.
Blessings,
Shirley Rosemarie Evans of Eden Cumi Ministries
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