Pentecost 24 (Christ Church St. Lucia – Defence Forces Sunday)
Readings: Joshua 24: 1-3a,14-25; Psalm 78:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:9-18; Matthew 25: 1-13
Today, the Sunday before Remembrance Day we observe Defence Forces Sunday – this particular day was chosen by General Synod in 2014. Bishop Grant Dibden, the current Bishop to the Defence Force writes: "Defence Sunday" is an opportunity to thank the members of the Defence Force for their work, to remember those who have served in war and particularly to highlight the work of the Anglican Church among Defence personnel and their families through Defence Chaplaincy.
Pastoral care and advocacy for ADF members and their families,
Advice to commanders on pastoral, religious, ethical and cultural issues as they affected the performance, morale, morals, welfare, and spiritual needs of ADF members and their families,
Leadership, character and ethics training,
Worship and ceremonial services, occasional services for example weddings, bible studies, etc.[1]
Chaplains also play an integral support role with members on overseas deployments.
General David Hurley, a former Chief of the Australian Defence Force says in a video released that this year’s General Synod that chaplains stand at the intersection of courage, conscience and care, and that ministry that shares the danger reaches the heart in ways that distant support cannot. A chaplain’s presence, he says, is a quiet reminder that members of the Defence Force are not alone and are not forgotten by God. He speaks of how much he has valued the ministry and presence of chaplains through his career and ends by saying that chaplains are essential for our people in uniform.[2]
Ministry to the Defence Force is a significant commitment – did you know that 96 Anglican clergy, women and men, serve as chaplains in the Regular and Reserve Forces? And that together, they make up one third of chaplains to the Defence Force. There are two General Synod Canons relevant to this – one establishes the position of Bishop to the Defence Force, and the other a Defence Force Board which administers chaplaincy to the ADF.
I’m sometimes asked if I was a chaplain – I wasn’t, but I sort of am now. For the last five or six years, Libbie and I have been honorary padres to the First Australian Field Hospital Association. The hospital was raised in April 1968 at Vung Tau in South Vietnam and remained there until it returned to Australia in November 1971. We didn’t serve there, but many we knew did. We both value our ministry to the Association and its members.
I want to offer a few vignettes to illustrate something of what chaplains do and have done, the issues they face, and for your own reflection.
The Rev’d Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy, better known in the First World War begins his dialect poem “Well?” like this;
Our Padre were a solemn bloke,
We called ‘im dismal Jim.
It fairly gave ye t’bloomin creeps,
To sit and ‘ark at ‘im,
When ‘e were on wi Judgement day…..[3]
It’s the absolute anthesis of the kind of padre Studdert- Kennedy was himself – renowned for his compassion and decorated for his bravery. In my 20 years in the Army, I must say I never met a Dismal Jim – or Jill.
My first experience of the ministry of a chaplain was at Easter 1970. I was halfway through my initial officer’s course at the School of Army Health, then at Healesville in Victoria. The School stood down over Easter, apart from duty staff. Everybody left for days off. I didn’t know a soul in Melbourne and didn’t have the means to get back to Queensland. I was told I’d have to move out of my hut – we were four to a room- into a tent on the old golf course. It was freezing. Somehow the Roman Catholic padre got wind of this. I ended up spending Easter in a warm, comfortable bed at Ozanam House in North Melbourne. I can’t remember much except that I slept a lot, but it was a simple act of kindness I’ve never forgotten. I’ve also never forgotten the astonishing array of bottles of wine I discovered under the bed – an eye opener for a good Methodist boy.
Chaplain Howard Dillon arrived at the Field Hospital in 1969. He writes; Sometimes, I felt that you were kind of powerless. I mean nurses are giving injections and people are taking pulses and I wonder whether I was doing anything good. I talked to the CO about it saying, “Sometimes I feel we’re just in the way.” He rebuked me pretty strongly replying “No, you’re the one normal thing here. Everything else is abnormal. We’re all flat out saving the digger’s life; but you represent mother, father and brother – the normal world. You do for him what a family would do.[4]
Chaplain Denby Holmes writes of Christmas 1970 at the hospital, beginning with a truckload of “spirited” people accompanying the padre, setting off from the mess for a round of boisterous carol singing. At 10pm on Christmas Day he was called back to the hospital – to the morgue where he found himself praying beside the body of a soldier who’d been killed – praying for the family who were about to hear the news that their son and brother would not be returning alive.[5]
A young soldier in the 26th Infantry Battalion writing to his older brother from Bougainville in August 1945, just a few days before Victory in the Pacific was declared. He writes of how the war has changed him but says that his faith is still strong and he’s felt the presence of the Lord, he mentions the few books he’s carried with him all the time, two of which are the New Testament and the Pilgrim’s Progress, he writes of the death of his best mate in combat beside him. And then he writes openly and vulnerably that to his knowledge he has directly killed twelve men. He writes that it is something he wants to forget as soon as possible and to wipe the whole memory of it from the tablets of his mind, and so, he says, he’ll probably never speak of it again.[6] To my knowledge, he never did. He was my Uncle Harold.
A chaplain with the 83rd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery writing to his wife on 3rd April 1918 from France. The unit had been caught up in the German Spring Offensive which began on 21st March 1918 and had been in retreat for days. He writes Tomorrow we hope to arrive at our destination and have a certain amount of time out of the front to refit. By all accounts the front is going quiet just now and the Hun is losing thousands. I do hope I have killed some. I hate the beasts now more than ever and am aching to fight..[7] Soon after, he resigned his chaplaincy and ended the war as an Artillery Officer. His name was Charles Parkinson, Libbie’s grandfather.
Defence Force Chaplaincy is a ministry built on presence, trust and faith: walking alongside people through the responsibilities, pressures and uncertainties of Defence life. It has many dimensions as I’ve tried to demonstrate. One which has grown in significance over the last couple of is decades at least is the area of moral injury. Within the context of military service, particularly regarding the experience of war, “moral injury” refers to the lasting emotional, psychological, social, behavioural, and spiritual impacts of actions that violate a service member’s core moral values. It’s not the same as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, although the two overlap. Moral injury is an assault on one’s deeply held values, and as you can see from the definition, there is a spiritual dimension. Chaplains have had a significant ministry here in raising awareness, and in walking alongside sufferers, offering understanding and hope as people live through it. Libbie and I both believe that the vignettes I’ve quoted from her grandfather in particular , and from my uncle show the effects of moral injury. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy would write in his poem “My Peace I give unto you”;
Blessed are the souls that solve
The paradox of pain,
And find the path, that piercing it,
Leads through to Peace again.[8]
So what can we do? Back to the beginning – to thank the members of the Defence Force for their work, to remember those who have served in war and particularly to highlight the work of the Anglican Church among Defence personnel and their families through Defence Chaplaincy. Our churches can be safe spaces for those who continue to suffer as a result of their service – places where people get alongside and offer compassion and a non-judgemental listening ear. The Archbishop has recently licensed The Rev’d Rob Sutherland as a Mission Chaplain in our Diocese with a special ministry to veterans and their families. Rob is a former infantry officer and then Army Chaplain and has done much in the area of moral injury. He was until recently Priest-in-Charge of the Parish of Moggill Mount Crosby. Please pray for him as he begins this ministry. And above all, we can support the ministry of Defence Force Chaplains – the pew bulletin has details about how you can support financially – and we can pray for them. There is a prayer printed in the bulletin – let’s pray it together.
Lord God of Hosts, We pray for your clergy whom you have called to the ministry of uniformed chaplaincy, and for those who proclaim your love and compassion in battle areas and defence establishments where Australian military personnel serve. Strengthen their faith as they seek to witness to you in a secular world. Protect them from all dangers and comfort them in the long separations from families and the familiar things of church that they must endure. Lord who blessed the peacemakers, bless especially those chaplains serving overseas, helping to bring peace to nations new and old that are struggling to find their identity and place in the world. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, One God, now and for ever. Amen.[9]
The Reverend Bill Crossman
[1] www.defenceanglicans.org.au
[2] The video can be viewed at www.defenceanglicans.org.au
[3] G.A. Studdert-Kennedy The Unutterable Beauty re printed Cosmic Jive Publishing 2026 p 130 (first published 1927 by Hodder and Stoughton)
[4] R. Searle, D. Bell, P. Danaher, G. Anderson Call Sign Vampire 1st (Aust) Field Hospital Association Inc 2021 p 172
[5] Ibid p 174
[6] Personal Correspondence
[7] Personal Correspondence
[8] G. A. Studdert-Kennedy ibid p 57
[9] I am grateful to Mr. Alan Gallimore (a former member of the Defence Force Board) for drawing my attention to this prayer.