Sermon by Canon Jo | Sunday 18 July

Jeremiah 23.1-6; Ephesians 2.11-22; Mark 6.30-34,53-56

‘My attention was focused on the four great warships, anchored at some distance from each other in the harbour… they were enormous, like castles on the sea… It was an extraordinary sight, one I realized few would ever witness. The warships were beautiful with their clean lines and perfect balance on the water. The sides of the soaring fore and after-castles and the waists in the middle were brightly painted, the Tudor colours of green and white predominating. Each had four enormous masts, the largest rising a hundred and fifty feet into the air, flags of England and the Tudor dynasty flying at the top… The second largest ship was the nearest… It had a long high aftercastle and an even higher forecastle. At the bottom of the bowsprit a large circular object was fixed, brightly coloured in concentric circles of red and white. “A rose” said my companion, “that is the Mary Rose. The King’s most favoured ship… if only we could see them move. That must be astounding.”’

In the novel by C. J. Sansom called Heartstone, that is the first sight we have of the Mary Rose, at anchor in Portsmouth Haven. I first read that book and was struck by that depiction before ever I knew I would come to serve here in Portsmouth, or in this cathedral. Fifty years on, this year, from when the wreck site was first discovered in 1971, the story of the ship still has the power to move. In the novel, the protagonist Shardlake incidentally ends up on the Mary Rose on that fateful late afternoon of July 19th, when a French fleet, greater than the Armada would be some 40 years later, was threatening English sovereignty. And (I don’t think I am giving away too much of the plot) Shardlake manages to escape from an upper walkway as the ship sinks - and he survives.

This is fiction, dramatic enough, and yet the reality was that most of the ship’s company numbering at least 400 did not survive. Some would have left behind families here in Portsmouth, bereaved and orphaned by the tragedy. Others came from much further afield, conscripted by Henry’s great campaign against the French: among those who lost their lives on board, we now know, some came originally from southern Europe and even North Africa.

The harbour here, as mentioned in that novel, was home to the ships of Navy Royal (as the Royal Navy was originally known) and was regularly called Portsmouth Haven. ‘Haven’ is an older word in English than ‘harbour’ and, both before and since the time of the Mary Rose, Portsmouth Haven used to be the way to describe our natural sheltered waters. We have revived something of a local usage with our Cathedral motto: calling ourselves a ‘safe haven’ here as the Cathedral of the sea, anchored in Jesus Christ.

A haven is what ships hope for after any voyage. In our Gospel reading, Jesus took his disciples off in a small boat to the other side of the lake to try to find some rest after a busy time, to try to find a haven – a place to be still. And yet, as Mark describes it, Jesus couldn’t escape the needs of all the people who were trying to follow him and find healing: it is almost comic, the way we hear that people saw where Jesus was heading

and hurried off on foot, rushing around the shore to get there ahead of him. Instead of somewhere to be still, he came in to land to find crowds waiting for him, harassed and desperate.

Their rush however, and their faith brought healing and hope: the disciples of Jesus might not have found the stillness and rest ‘in a place apart’ that they had imagined they were heading for – but the crowd for all their rush gained what they longed for, in the healing they found, Mark says, by touching ‘even the fringe of his cloak’.

Our need for stillness and rest and recuperation is something we should never overlook – it is part of why the longing for holiday is so acute at this time, and why the unlocking of travel restrictions needs to be so carefully judged. Jesus tried to take his disciples away to the other side across the lake. He intended like the good shepherd that Jeremiah had spoken of, to gather the flock and attend to their needs and bring them to a place of safety and flourishing. But, in the end, it was the crowds who found stillness and safety through the healing he gave, and not just the small number of Jesus’ disciples.

To be still is to be at a place that is both poised and peaceful: it is an intentional choice to stop and rest and attend to what may be important. In the signals and salutes that are played on board ships, using the pipe or whistle known as the bosun’s call, “the Still” is the signal used to call people to attention and tell them to stop. It is a single long high note, used to make sure everyone is listening – usually before some further orders or instructions are given. We might perhaps imagine that Jesus was taking his disciples away to be still before giving them some further teaching or encouragement for their mission. But “the Still” signal is also piped as a sign of respect or a mark of honour for a ship to salute a senior vessel or an important arrival or departure. In a moment when we have the Act of Commemoration for the ship’s company of the Mary Rose, we will hear the ‘Still’ – a single long high note - piped for both these reasons: to invite people to stop and attend and as a sign of respect, before we keep silence together.

And after the silence, the signal we will hear piped is the ‘Carry on’: a shorter whistle that starts high and drops quickly to a low note. On board a ship, this dismisses the company to return to their duties, to carry on with what they were doing or with the new instruction they have received. After our silence, it is as if we return to our tasks more mindful of those who have gone before us, and like the Reveille bugle call, there is a sense also that the departed are carrying on into the life of heaven, that ‘great company which no one can number’ of all who have gone before us.

We commemorate and honour the Ship’s Company of the Mary Rose each year, remembering that they did not come safely back to the haven they had envisaged at the end of that day. And yet, in a profound sense, they crossed over to the other side like those who sailed with Jesus across to the further shore. Beyond this life is the haven we all long for, the place of peace and stillness and joy. Jesus brought not just enemies at hostility with one another together in his body on the cross, but Jesus brought both this life and the life to come together: living and departed held in one. And we reach that haven by crossing the deep waters of death to arrive on the further shore.

The Company of the Mary Rose came to an everlasting Haven that day and gained their eternal rest. And we too, strengthened by Communion here, our food for the journey, set out each day onward on that journey. With each undertaking, each daily voyage that we make through life, we travel closer to that further shore, and sail nearer to finding our true fulfilment at the last - a safe haven, anchored in Jesus Christ, that will truly last for ever.

Amen.