Address by the Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt
Rev James Jones
Service for the Order of St John
8 October 2005
For many people on Merseyside the closest they get
to the Order of St. John is Aintree, Goodison and Anfield. Not that they would
know it! Their minds are understandably on other things! Nevertheless, the
Order, in the form of St. John Ambulance, is there at their service ready
to respond to requests for help.
I was myself approached at the start of a match when Liverpool were playing
Manchester United in the days when a recently injured David Beckham was on
their side. On the way into Anfield someone rushed up to me and asked if I
would pray for Beckham’s foot!
I’ll leave you to guess as to exactly how I prayed for Beckham’s
foot. But many here will be pleased to know that Liverpool won!
I am always intrigued when I see an order of service that certain verses have
been left out of a reading. The first lesson has omitted verses 17 and 18
from Lamentations Chapter 3. Let me assure you I do not disapprove! It is
good to keep readings short! And as my wife never ceases to advise me it is
even better to keep sermons short! There’s a story about a vicar preaching
a very long sermon on his first Sunday. After the service as he stood by the
door an elderly man from Yorkshire remonstrated with him about the length.
The vicar tried to excuse himself by saying that there was no clock in the
church. “Nay” said the man, unimpressed “But there is a
calendar!”
When I looked up the missing verses from Lamentations I found that they set
my mind to work and so I hope very much that you will not object if I do something
I’ve never done before and take as my text those missing verses:
“My soul is bereft of peace
I have forgotten what happiness is”.
I chose it for two reasons.
Firstly, the origin of St. John lay with the Knights Hospitaller who through
their hospices cared for the pilgrims who made their pilgrimage to Jerusalem
in search of peace and happiness. Secondly, if ever a society exhibited the
symptoms of being bereft of peace and having forgotten what happiness is it
is our own. In this sermon I would like to make and explore the connection
between the two, and see how it is that the Order of St. John has so much
more to offer nine hundred years on from its foundation.
Very few people can hear and be unmoved by Parry’s anthem “I was
glad”. It was the song of pilgrims as they came to the House of the
Lord. Although my soul leaps with the stirring opening chords it is the middle
passage when the mood changes that most affects us with the petition “Pray
for the peace of Jerusalem ……….. peace be within her walls
and plenteousness within her palaces”.
That city is the focus of so much prayer and yet still so much hostility.
How good it is therefore that the Order maintains the Eye Hospital as a “spiritual
lighthouse” in that city and also the clinic in Gaza, ministering to
both Jew and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian. If ever there is to be peace in
the world, there must be peace in that city. It is one of the ironies of history
that the name Jerusalem means “Possession of Peace”. It is a microcosm
of the world. Its future depends on Jew, Muslim and Christian finding a way
of inhabiting the same land in peace, indeed the world looks on wondering
if these great Abrahamic faiths can inhabit the earth in harmony without destroying
it. It is my hope that as you strengthen your resolve to maintain both hospital
and clinic your work will be the answer to your own prayer for the peace of
Jerusalem and the whole world.
Those 12th Century pilgrims have their own counterparts today, people travelling
in search of peace and happiness. And along the way finding the helping hand
of volunteers from the Order of St. John. The destinations of modern pilgrims
are much more varied. Concerts and National Festivals; the Grand National
and the Southport Flower Show; the modern pilgrim goes far and wide in search
of peace and happiness from Shopping Mall to Car Boot Sale! But far from being
that “Happy Band of Pilgrims” treading onwards and upwards the
modern tourist is stressed, distressed, depressed and even the other day when
I asked someone how he was at the end of his holiday said “compressed”.
It seems we are a society which in spite of all its possessions is bereft
of peace - a company of people who have forgotten what happiness is. Apparently
the founder of the Coca-Cola company based his whole enterprise on the maxim
that the world belongs to the discontented. He made his appeal and very successfully
to those who are bereft of peace and have forgotten happiness. Such is the
world in which you operate.
But in your foundation, in your ethos and motto is to be found the secret
of that elusive happiness. “Pro utilitate hominum” , “For
the Service of Mankind”. Happiness and peace are not to be found in
searching for them; they are to be experienced along the way of searching
for something else namely the opportunity to serve. Which is the example that
Jesus gave us when (having had his own feet anointed) he knelt and washed
the feet of his disciples.
Your Order comprises the most remarkable company of servants. 45,000 volunteers,
30,000 under the age of 25 serving the community with over three million hours
a year!
You offer a different vision of life: one that is satisfied not by the salty
water of consumerism that make people evermore and insatiably thirsty but
the living water of voluntary service.
This is the example of Jesus that St. John saw and recorded so beautifully
for us. This is the example upon which to model our life. Here again how Jesus
put it:“If I your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also ought
to wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example ………”
Jesus speaks to us as the truest and most fulfilled human being ever to walk
the face of the earth. He is both the pilgrim and the destination. As we come
to him so he shows us the way to peace and happiness.
I am very aware that one of the features of the modern world is that it is
increasingly difficult to find people to give of themselves for voluntary
service. People are ensnared and enslaved to a style of life that chases an
illusion of happiness that has little time for the voluntary and unpaid service
of mankind. Little do they know that this is the path of peace and happiness.
It is why these annual visitations are so important; so vital that you gather
in a place such as this to rehearse the reasons for your service and to extol
the virtues of your ethos.
I commend you for your work of healing and wholeness in a world that is bereft
of peace and has forgotten what true happiness is.
May your work be blessed and be a blessing to others.