Octavia Hill Society Sermon - St Peter's Church Wisbeech Sunday 6th December 2009

Sometimes as clergy we are invited to preach somewhere and we say yes and then afterwards think - why did i give up my sunday afternoon - especially during advent. Well that is maybe how i felt jumping on the train at King's Cross after my morning service on Sunday - but it wasn't how i felt at the end of the day.

For the members of the Octavia Hill Society of Wisbeach the sermon was probably the low point of the day or at least the lower point as it followed the most amazing dramatic presentation about the life of Octavia Hill by the students of the local college drama department. They had researched, written, rehearsed, sang and performed what was a truely breath taking piece which left me wiping away the tears. Some of these guys want to go into the theatre and i think many will have good careers ahead of them.

Anyway not really a sermon here but a reflection on Octavia Hill. I first came accross her as a social work student in 1988. The name Octavia Hill was the bright light in the midst of the gloom of the social policy lecture. Social Work training, although at this stage was very left wing and anti Christian, had to extol the virtues of a person of faith who put her faith into action and brought about housing and other reforms within the United Kingdom.

Hill as a child had a family friend who was a professor of theology and she said about him "he showed me a life in the creeds, the services and the bible, and interpreted for me much that was dark."

And she realised the words of Jesus "what ever you do for the least of these you do for me" were for her as well. There was no opt out clause.

But maybe her concern for the poor happened because she knew at an early age what difficulty was because of her own family circumstances and how through the era of depression and her father's ill health, that if others had not helped her and her family, she too might have been destitute. Forced to work to provide for her children, Hill's mother was accompanied by Octavia, who was apalled by the poverty she had seen in London.

In her working life she sought to transform lives by living among the poor, showing the love of Christ to them and listening to them. But she like many believed the state should not intervene but rather the poor should be given a dignity by helping themselves. She insisted on living with the poor, gaining a close knowledge of them, gaining their trust, respecting their point of view and sorting out the day to day problems.

In many ways she was a pioneer of the social work profession. She was a strong willed woman, but never used this for her own self. She was impatient in little things, persistent with big ones. She had high standards for everyone and for herself ruthlessly exalted ones, and her sympathy for those who fell below her standards was in the way of encouraging them to try and achieve her standards.

In the reading from Isaiah 32: 18 says "My people will live in peaceful dwelling places, in secure homes, in undisturbed places of rest." Isaiah paints a picture of God's promise and maybe if Hill knew this passage it drove her forward to give a God given hope and a dignity to all. Her faith clearly was one where she know the Christian calling did not allow her to do nothing - rather following Christ meant she was compelled to action. 

In the Holy Gospel (Matt 25:34-40) the only difference between the sheep and the goats is what they did and didn't do. I was hungry and you fed me verses i was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. And it is for those who showed compassion that Christ says " what ever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

So what is Octavia Hills legacy to us today:

If nothing else it should motivate us into action. An action based on faith. We still have the poor around in our society and world and what are we prepared to do for them?

It is no good saying we are a people of faith whist people still starve or children are abused or neglected.

Hill would challenge us to look to that which we beleive and demonstrate our faith in action through service to those around us and in serving others we serve Christ.