Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Careers, Workplace and Religion
A tale of two hats

A tale of two hats

Last updated on: February 17, 2014 at 9:28 pm by London Institute for Contemporary Christianity

A tale of two hats 2014-02-17T21:28:24-05:00 London Institute for Contemporary Christianity

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By Mark Greene, Executive Director of LICC

God’s faithfulness connects two women across the centuries.

It happened on the 18th day of October in the Year of our Lord 2012 in the London borough of Islington – a glimpse of God’s hand working across the centuries. But we’ll come to that.

We don’t always get to see the ways in which God honors our prayers or how something we did, oh, so many years ago, is now bearing fruit in extraordinary ways… When the wealthy, childless Shunammite offers the itinerant Elishah a room, does she have any thought that her generosity will lead to her having a son who will die young and be raised from the dead? (2 Kings 4:8ff) Similarly, only very rarely do any of us get to see the role we might be playing in God’s long term plans. Does Rahab have any inkling that hiding two Israelite spies on the roof of her brothel will lead to her becoming the progenitor of the Messiah? (Joshua 2) Of course, we, with the benefit of hindsight, can see it, can see what God can do with a seed, or a word, can see too that God keeps his promises.

It happened about the same time as I found myself reflecting on Psalm 105. The writer is living in the land God had promised and provided, a member of a nation that may not yet be as numerous as the sand on the seashore but already numbers well over a million. And he rehearses the history of his people that he calls “the descendants of Abraham”. Indeed, one of the main themes in the psalm is the reminder of how the story began small, with one man, and then how they were but few in number, how a lone foreign slave becomes master of Egypt and how the few turn into the many, the nomads into landowners because the Lord “remembered his holy promise to his servant Abraham.” God working over the centuries to fulfil his promises.

But, we may wonder, does God still work like that today?

In the Year of our Lord 1561, a London girl called Alice Wilkes is walking in a field in Islington, wearing a hat, as girls would have done at that time. She stops to watch some cows being milked. Over in another field some men are practicing archery. One of them clearly needs the practice because a stray arrow ends up lodged in Alice Wilkes’ hat. She is an inch or two from death.

In gratitude for sparing her life, Alice Wilkes makes a vow to the Lord. If one day she has wealth, she will do something for the poor. So she marries. And her husband dies. And she marries again. And her second husband dies. This is perhaps a dangerous woman to marry. Undeterred, Judge Thomas Owen becomes her third husband. And in the course of time he dies.

By this point Dame Alice Owen has acquired quite a lot of money and she decides to fulfil the vow she made when she was young Alice Wilkes. And so she endows a school for 30 scholars and creates alms houses for poor widows, women who were not so fortunate as she was to marryrich men. And when Alice dies it is all put in trust with the Worshipful Company of Brewers. Over four hundred years later, the school she founded in Islington still educates children, on a site in Potter’s Bar, and the land she gave has, for over 400 hundred years, been used to generate income to bless the poor.

And so in the Year of our Lord 2010, the Worshipful Company of Brewers decide to assign a building project to Thornsett Group, a smallish development company in London. Their assignment is to develop some mixed residential and commercial property, offering roughly half social housing and half private housing on the land that Alice Wilkes once walked across.

And so it was that on Thursday October 18th 2012 I find myself in Islington going to meet the project developer who had been on one of our courses, walking on the land where the cows once grazed, and good Englishmen practised their archery. And the project director is called Bernadette Cunningham. She just happens to be a Christian who comes from a family devoted to building good buildings so that people might flourish.

When I meet her she just happens to be wearing a hat, although it’s a much harder hat than the decorative tissue that Alice Wilkes would have worn. Perhaps Bernadette was mindful of the fate of her predecessor and concerned about archers in Islington High Street or perhaps she was just following health and safety guidelines.

And as I look at Bernadette in her hat working to bless the poor of Islington, I realize that God is still honoring the vow that Alice Wilkes made over four hundred years before, still working through his people to bless others.

And I got to see it.

We don’t always get to see how God may be working in us or in others, how a word here or an action there might produce fruit for years to come. We don’t always get to see how we are participating in the purpose of God or how we might be the answers to other peoples’ prayers. We don’t get to see all the ways God might work through us.

The kingdom of heaven is like what? The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and planted in his field and, though it is a small thing –a vow in a field 400 years ago, a little action today,a kindness, a decision, a word, a gift, whatever it might be – though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.

All our small things now, over time, who knows…who knows…God is at work. And God has been at work in his people, in his church, in this land. And, no doubt, in you, in a myriad ways. We may not get to see the outcome in our lifetimes, but God is at work.

And so may the Lord be with you, whatever hat you wear.

From the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, EG Magazine, June 2013. Images: LICC.

Faith and the Workplace

Christian businesspeople

economic flourishing

II Kings

Joshua

London Institute for Contemporary Christianity

MISSION:WORK

Psalms

vocation

Previous Post

February 15, 2014

When life has killed the American dream

Next Post

February 18, 2014 Profit and religious liberty

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Art Audio posts Bible and Work Book Review Books Budgeting Calling Common Good Community Development Conferences Discipleship Economics Entrepreneurship Ethics Faith and Family Faith and the Marketplace Faith and the Workplace faith and work History of Work and Vocation Leadership Local Church Meaning New Blogger News Prayer Relationships Seminaries Theology of Work Uncategorized Video posts Vocation Worship Resources

Select a Month April 2026 October 2025 September 2025 July 2025 April 2025 January 2025 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 December 2023 November 2023 August 2023 July 2023 April 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 June 2021 May 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 January 2020 December 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 April 2018 March 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which prophet had a vision of a fiery chariot ascending to heaven?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Daniel Ezekiel Isaiah Elijah