Luke 10 v 27:

“And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself.”

The dialogue between Jesus and the unknown lawyer is one of the most intriguing and revealing episodes of the New Testament. From the standpoint of the questioner this was a fairly obvious trap. When he asked Our Lord about the qualifications for eternal life his interest lay beyond ‘the spiritual’. Depending on the answer he received he sought an opportunity to catch Christ in his own words. If he got the answer he wanted he could challenge the orthodoxy of this man who claimed such divine authority – and a lack of orthodoxy lay close to the agenda of discredit, the agenda of entrapment and the agenda of downfall arrayed before Jesus of Nazareth.

Not for the first or last time the response of Christ was to take the recognisable, the law, and link it to an example of compassion, love and understanding which could not be misinterpreted – the story of the Good Samaritan.

Then at the end of this episode comes the crunch. Which of the three characters was the real neighbour to the victim on the road? The lawyer’s answer was characteristically brief and to the point:

“He that showed mercy on him.”

The dialogue was over:

“Then said Jesus unto him, Go and do thou likewise.”

Mercy, compassion action – three key ingredients in the Christian response to human need.

Today in this Cathedral we meet to re-dedicate ourselves to the great Christian principles of this ancient Order. We do so as we also remember the fiftieth anniversary of the Commandery of Ards. This is a notable occasion and I know our many colleagues and visitors are so welcome to this city and Province as we celebrate before God. Those visitors have come from England, Scotland, Wales, Western Australia, the Republic of Ireland and Cyprus. Beyond the ceremonial of this Cathedral service we thank God for generations of those who have given of their time and talents in the service of human-kind through the Order of St John. Throughout that long history none can doubt that those three key elements from the story of the Good Samaritan – mercy, compassion and action – have provided the vision and the impetus. That vision and that impetus have been the means of answering genuine human need and suffering. For that we thank God. For that we re-dedicate ourselves to meet whatever lies ahead in this troubled and suffering world.

A few months ago together with the Archbishop of Canterbury I visited Jerusalem and the Gaza strip. Those locations immediately conjure up in our minds the horrors of the conflict which have plunged the Holy Land into such human distress. That visit was to respond to the cry for help from the Churches of Jerusalem and to meet the political leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I will not soon forget the scenes which met us. Devastation, crumpled buildings, refugee people, broken bodies and widespread fear. We met the Prime Minister of Israel and his Cabinet colleagues. We travelled to Gaza to meet President Arafat. Beyond what was or was not achieved by our efforts it is the human picture of suffering people which remains so vivid. Coming from Northern Ireland I was not unfamiliar with such scenes of human need and suffering. But nothing, experience or otherwise, prepared me for my visit to the St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem. Rarely have I been so impressed by dedication and courageous service. The wards were full. Patients lay on trolleys in corridors and some were even being treated in the car park. All age groups and all races were represented by the suffering. Shrapnel injuries, rubber bullet injuries, gun-shot injuries, blindness and indescribable facial scars. A little baby blinded on his threshold of life. An elderly Palestinian woman who would never see again.

The staff came from many nations and creeds. They struggled to cope as night after night ambulances brought casualties to the hospital.

What were those three key words from the parable of the Good Samaritan – mercy, compassion – and thank God – action.

In that hospital as we listened, watched and prayed the Order we affirm today in this service witnessed to the highest elements of our calling. The work at this moment of the St John Eye Hospital in Jerusalem goes on and there are hundreds who thank their God for it.

The second cameo I mention this afternoon is nearer home.

St John Ambulance is for many in this part of the world the most obvious manifestation of the vision of our Order.

Together with my clerical colleagues here today I have had the great privilege of exercising Christian Ministry through years when we have seen the heights as well as the depths human beings exhibit in periods of trouble, violence and suffering. High on that scale of experience must lie the work of St John Ambulance.

When my memory reaches back to Enniskillen on a Remembrance Sunday morning, the devastating silence of a recreation centre at Omagh as relatives waited for news, to the horrors of an explosion in a crowded shopping area on the Shankill, or to numerous of other scenes of atrocities I see again the uniforms of St John Ambulance volunteers in the chaos, the rubble and the suffering. Through all those years of community trauma the Brigade has written a glorious chapter of courage, service and compassion. Today we pay tribute to all of them.

Mercy, compassion and action. We thank God for the response of the St John Ambulance on our native soil.

Here today we are called to pause in the life and activity of this historic Order, to think of what has gone before – but to recognise that while none of us can look with clarity into the future – those same ideals will face many demands in the years to come.

Whatever the nature of those demands may be the simplicity and yet the profound nature of those three key words must drive us on to respond to the suffering human kind inflicts on itself.

What was it the lawyer was told? To love God with every fathom of his being – but to love his neighbour as himself.

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these the least of my children, ye have done it unto me.”
“Go - and do thou likewise.”