27th June, 2021

​My dear friends,

We had a special celebration of Holy Communion for the feast of St John the Baptist last Thursday, 24th June, when I prayed for the work of the Order of St John, St John Ambulance, St John Eye Hospital and St John Fellowship, as well as for the other Alliance Orders of St John around the world.

There was also a scaled-down but nonetheless very moving service yesterday at the Priory Church in Clerkenwell. It was transmitted via YouTube and where it can be viewed: <Click Here>. It was nice to see familiar faces and the music – provided by four singers and an organist – was wonderful.

The coming week is rather special because it contains further important saint’s days. On Tuesday 29th June we keep the feast of two saints, St Peter and St Paul. On Saturday 3rd July we keep the feast of St Thomas. All three have special places in the Holy Land and Jerusalem associated with them, which would have all been familiar to the original Hospitallers of St John. Each saint’s life tells us something about following Jesus Christ.

St Peter was a simple fisherman from Lake Galilee who followed Christ and went on to become the head of the apostles.

St Paul, by contrast, was a highly intelligent and gifted Jewish scholar who initially persecuted the followers of Jesus Christ. He was dramatically converted to Christianity on the road to Damascus and thereafter used his gifts to help the Early Church work out the significance of the life, death and Resurrection of Christ, and to spread Christianity around the Mediterranean.

St Thomas has sometimes been unfairly nicknamed ‘Doubting Thomas’ because he missed Christ’s first Resurrection appearance in the Upper Room and found his fellow disciples’ story of seeing the risen Lord too hard to believe, until Christ appeared to him a week later. This experience of the risen Christ changed Thomas – as indeed it changed the others too – and he travelled spreading the Gospel, and is believed to have got as far as India.

All three men had very different personalities and skills, but God was able to use them in His service. We, too, all have different personalities and skills, and yet God has called us to serve Him in St John. As I say in today’s sermon below, ‘pain, sorrow and broken hearts are the same whether we are rich or poor.’

We are called by God to do what we can to help all who are suffering and in pain – whoever they are, wherever they have come from, whatever they are like – Pro fide et pro utilitate hominem, For the faith and for the benefit of humanity.

We may sometimes doubt our ability to cope, but the same God who helped St Peter, St Paul, St Thomas, and the first little group of Jerusalem monks who pledged themselves to care for the sick under the patronage of St John almost a thousand years ago, will also help and support us too. 
With my continued prayers and all good wishes,

​                                             The Rev. Dr  ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
TRINITY 4 – 27th JUNE 2021.
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Gospel: St Mark, chapter 5, verses 21-43
When I read today’s Gospel reading, I found myself recalling a young woman called Lynn whom I met over forty years ago when I began my first degree. Lynn had been a nurse – and I imagine rather a good one. However, things went awry when they put her to work on the children’s ward. As time passed, Lynn started becoming very upset whenever a child she had nursed died. In the end, her parents had to suggest she did something else, so she signed up for a degree course.

​            I think we can all understand how it was that Lynn became upset. We can certainly understand the feelings of Jairus in today’s Gospel, whose twelve year old daughter was gravely ill and likely to die. Jairus is a leader or patron of the local synagogue. He is clearly a man of substance and some local influence. Jairus is beside himself with worry. All his money and local standing means nothing when his daughter is hovering between life and death. As I said to someone in the week, pain, sorrow and broken hearts are the same whether we are rich or poor.

            In his desperation, Jairus approaches Jesus for help. Now, this was a brave and bold move on Jairus’ part. We need to recall that Jairus was a respectable, important Jewish layman – and we need, too, to remind ourselves that for a lot of Jewish people in first century Palestine, Jesus Christ appeared as perhaps not entirely respectable. We, of course, know that Jesus was the Incarnate Son of God. However, for many top people in Jewish society, Jesus was an outsider. Jairus might have heard that the religious top brass in Jerusalem regarded Jesus as a troublemaker and bad influence. Not the sort of person Jairus would normally have had very much to do with. But Jairus was desperate, and in his agony he set off to find this Jesus about whom he had heard: “My little daughter is at the point of death” he said, “Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well and live.” We can all understand his feelings. Jesus readily agreed to go with him.
As they walked to Jairus’ house, they were interrupted by messengers with the worst possible news: the little girl had finally died. “Do not fear, only believe,” said Jesus to Jairus. He carried on to Jairus’ house, taking with him Peter, James and John – note, the inner circle of disciples who would subsequently observe his Transfiguration. When they arrived, they found the heartbroken family weeping and wailing. “Why do you make a commotion and weep?” he asked, “The child is not dead, but sleeping.” This was met with mocking laughter. So, taking the child’s parents and his three disciples, he went into the bedroom where the dead girl lay. Jesus held her hand and said in Aramaic, ‘Talitha cum,’ which means, ‘Little girl, get up.’ The child immediately came back to life and got up. He told her amazed parents to give her something to eat and to keep quiet about what had happened.

Our Gospel, of course, does not finish here. There is also the story within the story of a woman who had been ill and haemorrhaging blood for twelve years – coincidentally, the same as the age of the little girl. The idea flashed through my mind as I was preparing this sermon: Was this woman the little girl’s mother, suffering some complication after childbirth? We shall never know, and the New Testament is not exactly clear as to what it was she was suffering from.

What we can be sure about is that, for the unfortunate woman, the consequences would have been devastating. The Jews, you will recall, had rather a thing about blood. The woman would have been permanently ritually unclean. Had she touched anyone, they too would have become unclean, and, for instance, unable to enter the Temple in Jerusalem. The woman’s life would have been severely circumscribed. She would have had to have lived by herself, relying on others to bring her food, water, wood for the fire, and so on.

The woman heard that Jesus was passing through the town and she stole out into the street, seeking healing from him. Now, this was potentially a very dangerous thing to do. Had she inadvertently touched someone in the crowd, been recognised, and made that person ritually unclean, he or she could have demanded that the woman be stoned to death. However, the woman was determined to risk it. So, she crept out, mixed in with the crowd, and touched Jesus’s cloak. Immediately – notice that, it was a dramatic and sudden healing – she felt different. Her poor, aching, troublesome body had been made well again.

Jesus asked who had touched him? The disciples pointed out that he was hemmed in by a crowd and anyone might have brushed against him, but Jesus said that he had felt power go out from him – an interesting observation. At this point, the poor woman, realising she had been rumbled, came forward, fell before him, and in a terrible state of trembling, told all. However, Jesus just said, very gently, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Clearly, as far as Jesus is concerned, there are no untouchables. No one is so low, so besmirched, that the Lord will not take an interest in them and extend a helping hand.

This Gospel reading is all about faith. If you recall, last Sunday’s Gospel from St Mark was about the disciples being caught with Jesus in a boat in a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee. When they thought they were about to drown, their faith deserted them and they awoke Jesus saying ‘Teacher, do you not care they we are perishing.’ Jesus stilled the storm and then rebuked the disciples, saying ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’

These men, we might remind ourselves, were Jesus’s disciples: the men he had called to follow him and help him. Their faith was decidedly flaky. By contrast, in today’s Gospel we see the faith not of the disciples but of a father who is worried sick about his daughter and a woman who has been ill for twelve years and in consequence has led a very unhappy life.

This story is about faith – which is sometimes to be encountered in not terribly obvious people. It is also a further indication of the divinity of Jesus Christ. The resuscitation of the little girl – like the resuscitations of the widow of Nain’s son and of Lazarus to ordinary human life (for they would still have to die again one die) – prepares the way for the still greater miracle of Jesus’s own resurrection to eternal life. For myself, I observe how gentle Jesus is towards Jairus, his daughter, and the poor outcast women. He is gentle, likewise, towards each of us. We are also never told the names of Jairus’ daughter or of the sick woman. Perhaps their names were forgotten, or thought unimportant, or unknown to St Mark when he wrote his Gospel. It is regrettable, but the point is that no-one is unimportant to Jesus.

This double-miracle of the healing of Jairus’ daughter and of the sick woman is a call to us to believe. ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease,’ said Jesus to the woman. A few minutes later he said to Jairus, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ Faith is clearly the common denominator; for by faith, we tap into the life and love of God. The challenge, I suppose, is not merely to have faith in moments of crisis –it was said in the First World War that there were no atheists in shell-holes – but, to have faith on the good days, too, when our personal need of God seems less obvious.