The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

    I have been trying to remember who it was – probably someone who wrote for The Oldie – who said that his greatest fear of growing old was being offered bed pans by nurses who called him by his Christian name. It would be an interesting exercise to share our own specific fears about the final stages of life, because we all have them – none of us can avoid such fears. Whatever pattern the end of our life takes, unless it is exceptionally sudden, it  will almost certainly involve some form of being taken care of.
    As those of you who have been to As You Like It will have been reminded by Jacques, we begin life as ‘a child mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms’, and we end life with our ‘second childishness.’ At both ends of life we are dependent on the care of others. Towards the end many of us will need the resources of the state, we shall be dependent on the care our taxes have paid for both for ourselves and for our relatives and friends. And, because this being cared for faces us all with various kinds of fear, we all have a Christian responsibility to take an interest in the issues  raised by these fears.
    We cannot remain untouched  by stories of cruelty, abuse and  inadequate nursing in care homes, or stories of those whose home carer arrives late, leaves early, seems unsure about what is needed, does not speak understandable English, and is replaced so frequently that there is no possibility of a caring relationship being formed. Of course not all home carers or care homes are like that. Many of us may have just as many, if not more, good stories to tell. But the media has ensured  that the bad stories are there  in the back of our minds so that they make us uneasy. So we may worry for, and feel guilty about relatives in need of care – we live in the most mobile age ever, so we may have a duty to care for a parent an aunt or uncle hundreds of miles away, we cannot bring them to live with us, they do not want to leave a familiar area – they have to go into a home or receive care in their own homes. Or on another scenario, we live alone and have no relative to help – we have to find the care, or accommodation for ourselves or with the aid of social services – but do we at that stage in our lives have the skills to make all the arrangements satisfactorily? We are dependent on the existence of Good Samaritans in the social services and the NHS to care for us. But it is not just in those organisations that samaritanship can be exercised.
Samaritans, as we have known for a long time, can be more than a single individual, they can be an organised group. Groups of Samaritans can take many forms – they are the unexpected saviours. Groups of citizens can be unexpected saviours. One such group is called North London Citizens; they consist, rather remarkably, of teenagers still at school, members of Jewish, Christian, Muslim congregations, people from all walks of life who have discovered a victim they feel moved to care for. The victim may be someone struggling to live on an exploitative wage, a child who has had her mobile phone snatched out of her hand and is scared to go out on to her street again, a care worker rushing from one client to the next who is not paid for her travel, and who may be nervous about whether she has the right skills to care for the person at the end of her journey.
    Our parish citizens group identified this last problem of care two years ago and, together with other North London Citizens, we have been deepening our knowledge of this area. You have in your hands this morning the charter which Citizens UK has now produced. It coincides nicely with Camilla Cavendish’s Review which has just been published; commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health it looks at the needs and problems of those working in care homes and providing domiciliary care in the community.
In 2011 three quarters of a million people were providing care in the home. Their average age was 35 and 59% of them only do the job for between 2-6 years – in other words there is little time for them to build up expertise or progress in such work. 84% of them are female, 29% come from black or minority ethnic groups and they earn on average just under £14.000 a year. They receive no nationally recognised training,  there are few quality assurance mechanisms, their work is given very little esteem, ‘I’m only a care worker’. And yet these are the people who are crucial in reducing the strain on the NHS, enabling people to live confidently with chronic conditions in their own homes.
    Why you might wonder devote a whole sermon to such matters? How can we make a difference? There are several ways in which we can make a difference. We can provide stories to build up the local picture which Camilla Cavendish has painted nationally. We can express an opinion on the subject to our local counsellor to ensure that our local carers are at least being paid a living wage. Council elections will be held soon and candidates can be asked to support this charter, as can eventually the mayoral candidates. Similarly if we have other contacts with  local councils, care providers, MPs,  we can highlight the issue, to ensure that it moves up a whole variety of agendas. That is the way Samaritans  make a difference. The priest and the Levite were too concerned with their own issues. The Samaritan did something himself but he also engaged the innkeeper to do a lot of the work. His kindness was intelligent – he engaged different circles of care.
There is a curious irony hidden in this familiar parable. The lawyer asks who is my neighbour? Jesus tells his story but then asks who proved to be a neighbour to the victim on the Jericho road. The  lawyer is reminded that a neighbour can be the person from whom you receive help, not just the person who needs your help. Your neighbour can even be ‘just a Samaritan,’ someone whom most people ignore or hold in low esteem. True neighbourliness is reciprocal. And until you see yourself needing help, you may be too preoccupied to make time to give it. Many of us will need  intelligent care in our own homes at the end of life. So we should be making sure now that our society trains, values, sustains and rewards those who provide it. That is the self interested approach. The Good Samaritan did what he did for love of God and neighbour. As Christians we should simply care, because here there is injustice, here there is scope for hidden tragedy. And so here we are called to notice and to do something. Amen.