Chaplain's Address - Tuesday 24th March.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee..."
John Donne, Priest and Poet, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)
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'She was a courageous woman both in life and death and the whole country have admired her determination to provide a bright future for her children.'
'She will be remembered fondly by all who knew her and her family can be extremely proud of the work she has done to raise awareness of cervical cancer which will benefit thousands of women across the UK.'
'Every death from cancer is a tragedy and my thoughts go out to her two sons, husband and family at this time.'
It was with those words that the Prime Minister led the tributes to 27 year old Jade Goody who died in her sleep, at home, on the morning of Mothering Sunday.
Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister, led similar tributes on 31st August 1997, to Princess Diana, in which he coined the enduring phrase 'the people's princess' that celebrated the ease with which Diana was able to have made an impact on the lives of ordinary people. I believe that it was the writer and presenter Stephen Fry who said that Jade Goody 'was a kind of Priness Di from the wrong side of the tracks.' I think there is more than we realise to be found in this analogy.
I confess to having watched nothing more of Big Brother since its first series in the year 2000 but I have been known of Jade Goody's rise to fame since she came fourth in Big Brother 3. I am, like many people, most aware of her since her racist attitudes towards Shilpa Shetty in Celebrity Big Brother back in 2007. Those are attitudes which can be traced back to her upbringing and education but I do not think they can be excused or any way condoned.
And yet there have been those - many in fact -- who have dismissed Jade Goody as being simply narrow, greedy, unattractive, overweight, ignorant and coarse. Even the Daily Mail, amongst the pages of photos and tributes that they knew would appeal to its buyers also found space to list some of Jade's displays of ignorance or insensitivity. I do not want to repeat any of those, as indeed I do not think any of us would want our ignorance or our mistakes retold again and again for the amusement of others, not least after our death. Jade Goody was an easy target for those whose humour was cheap and shallow.
And yet despite of her flaws, or perhaps because of them, Jade Goody was a person who caught the interest and emotion of the nation. I think the truth about the appeal of Jade Goody probably lies somewhere in the fact that had it not been for Big Brother, and for her sense of openness and honesty, we would never have heard about her.
She was the daughter of two drug addicts who was given her first joint before she was five. Her father left when she was two and has served prison sentence for robbery before dying in 2005 at the age of 42 from a drug overdose. After her mother lost an arm in a motorcycle accident when Jade was five, Jade became her main carer - cooking, cleaning and looking after her. Jade had a troubled upbringing and did not gain much from her experience of school but yet before Big Brother she was working as a Dental Nurse.
What Jade brought was an honesty and a naivety that was entertaining certainly but also challenging because it opened up a background of life that many would be grateful they had not shared but also, after her success, an experience of life to which many would aspire. Jade may not have been educated but she was wise enough to be able to manage the opportunities of her own career founded on the interest of others. In a society that celebrates fame and the ability to make money Jade was able to achieve both, not least in providing many millions of pounds to support her husband Jack and her sons Bobby and Freddie as they grow up without her. But will that be her only legacy?
Princess Diana was known for her charity support and in particular for raising awarness of and sympathy for sufferers of HIV. But her greatest legacy might be said to have been her work towards what came to be known as the Ottawa Treaty, signed in 1998 after her death, which banned the use of land mines, against which she had campaigned, designed to kill and mame people, many of whom were children.
Many people have also spoken of as the Jade Goody Effect on those now going forward for routine screening for cervical cancer or, as is happening in school at the moment, for girls to make sure they receive the vaccination against HPV human papilloma-virus - a risk factor for cervical cancer. Since Jade Goody's diagnosis, those going forward for testing has increased dramatically, particularly after Jade herself spoke about having, as many people do, ignored a number of reminder letters.
It may well be that many thousands of people's lives are saved because of the effect of Jade Goody upon their thoughts and their actions to take care of themselves.
But can we simply justify or sum up someone's life simply by reference to the good that sympathy for their death or the means of their dying might bring to others?
During the time of the next weeks of holidays, Christians throughout the world will be remembering the horrific death of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified as one of the thousands of victims of the Roman occupation of Palestine. Christians will, in many ways, be making sense for themselves of his death and trying to see what, if anything, the world learned or gained from his sacrifice.
Many will believe that through the death of Jesus, God put right a divide that existed since humanity turned away from God. Others believe that a price had to be paid to the forces of evil to win back humanity for God. Others say that only the offering of a perfect sinless life could put right the imbalance caused by all the sins of humanity. Jesus was the one who stood in their place, to take the punishment that was due to others.
I think it is right that many people do question these, as they are called, theories of atonement by asking why an all-powerful God would require such a sacrifice to achieve some sense of justice or balance in the system of the universe. Others reduce the need for Jesus to be divine and emphasise the human example of his life - a life that was not afraid to do and to say what was right and which led him into conflict and ultimately to his death.
When people speak of Jesus taking away the power of death it may not be the winning of a cosmic battle but in the courage that Jesus has given people to face death.
In a strange parodox, by stressing the human example of Jesus, many people have felt inspired by him to be fully human and even to accept the suffering that living a good life may bring. It is in being fully human that we actually appreciate what it means to live as God would intend and hope for us.
The celebration of Easter is not of one man being brought back to life, but a realisation that resurrection is the beginning of a new life that is expressed through the spiritual values which cannot be taken away even by the fear or the experience of death.
It is not enough to say that a person's legacy is simply in the lessons that others might gain or learn from their death. Who we are in the days we are alive is what defines us both now and in eternity. We can learn so much about life simply understanding and sharing in the lives of those around us. Let us never dismiss the life of another person or believe we have nothing to gain from knowing them.
I know some would feel very uncomfortable with the parallel that many people have made between Diana the people's princess and Jade the Essex princess. And I would not want you to feel that I am drawing direct parallels between Jade Goody's death and the death of Jesus that we will remember at Easter.
But I think that John Donne's meditation 'No man is an island' says much to us when we reflect upon the death or any person. He tries to show how much we are connected to one another and how the tolling bell announcing the death of anyone should at least remind us of our ultimate mortality and the imperative to live each day to its fullness as a gift of God and for the good of others.
People may not have cared for Jesus and his death on the hill at Calvary 2000 years ago, or even regarded him as a troublemaker whom they were pleased to have out of the way. People may not have known or cared about Jade Goody and her death from cervical cancer on Sunday morning. But I think that to be heartless or careless about the death of any person, to use John Donne's word, 'diminishes' us as human beings, because it devalues the most precious thing we have, the value of the gift of life itself.
Instead we should look for the good in the lives of everyone, whether that is Jade Goody, or Princess Diana, or Jesus himself; just as we would hope that, in life and in death, people would look for the good in us.