Christ Church

“Truth, Lord; yet the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall
from their masters’ table”

Such a powerful and instructive Gospel. It highlights so many things which are distinctive and important about the Christian journey of faith so wonderfully concentrated for us in the season of Lent. Here is the story of a remarkable woman who gets it, who gets what we so often forget or deny. Here is the story about sticking-with- it and not giving up, no matter what the obstacles.

She is a Canaanite woman, Matthew is at pains to point out. Mark describes her as a Syro-Phoenician woman. The point is abundantly clear: she is a non-Israelite. She is from outside the religious community of Israel.

And yet, she comes to Jesus seeking the healing of her daughter “grievously vexed with a devil,” possessed we might say, emotionally troubled, the therapeutic culture of our day would euphemistically say. She sees in Jesus something of the power of God which might heal her daughter. She has, quite simply, an insight into the truth of God in Jesus Christ. For who else can restore and redeem except the God who has created and made us? Such is the logic of redemption. It always turns us back to the doctrine of creation without which redemption – salvation and wholeness – really makes no sense.

What she senses in Jesus is a truth which she will not relinquish. It is her sticking with it in the face of adversity that makes her story so compelling. Yet at the same time, the responses to her request must trouble and disturb us. She is met, first, with silence; secondly, with what amounts to a rebuke; and, thirdly, with what must utterly seem to be a grievous insult. What is going on here? Simply the way in which we learn how the Christian Gospel is for all people and not the possession of a few. This gospel particularly challenges the tribalism of our churches and communities. It opens us out to what is for all people and in all places. The whole dynamic is not only about the woman but about us.

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Monday, March 2nd
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00-7:30pm Confirmation Class – Rm. 206, KES

Tuesday, March 3rd
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme II: “Poets, Preachers & the Passion of Christ”

Thursday, March 5th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Sunday, March 8th, Third Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, March 14th
9:00am-4:00pm Lenten Quiet Day – King’s-Edgehill School
Sponsored by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, NS/PEI Branch

Tuesday, March 17th, St. Patrick
7:00 Holy Communion & Lenten Programme III – Parish Hall

The collect for today, the Second Sunday in Lent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who seest that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves: Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls; that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body, and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
The Gospel: St. Matthew 15:21-28

Artwork: Ludovico Carracci, Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 16th century. Oil on canvas, Brera, Milan.

The collect for today, the commemoration of George Herbert (1593-1633), Priest, Poet (source):

King of glory, king of peace,
who didst call thy servant George Herbert
from the pursuit of worldly honours
to be a priest in the temple of his God and king:
grant us also the grace to offer ourselves
with singleness of heart in humble obedience to thy service;
through Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 5:1-4
The Gospel: St. Matthew 5:1-10

The hymn, “Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing”, was originally a poem by George Herbert, published in The Temple.

Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,
My God and King.

The heavens are not too high,
His praise may thither fly:
The earth is not too low,
His praises there may grow.

Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,
My God and King.

The church with psalms must shout,
No door can keep them out:
But above all, the heart
Must bear the longest part.

Let all the world in ev’ry corner sing,
My God and King.

George Herbert was born to a wealthy family in Montgomery, Wales. Educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, he appeared headed for a prominent public career, but the deaths of King James I and two patrons ended that possibility.

He chose to pursue holy orders in the Church of England and became rector at Bemerton, near Salisbury, in 1629, where he died four years later of tuberculosis. His preaching and service to church and parishioners contributed to his reputation as an exemplary pastor. He did not become known as a poet until shortly after he died, when his poetry collection The Temple was published.

He is buried in Saint Andrew Bemerton Churchyard.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Matthias the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who into the place of the traitor Judas didst choose thy faithful servant Matthias to be of the number of the twelve Apostles: Grant that thy Church, being alway preserved from false Apostles, may be ordered and guided by faithful and true pastors; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:15-26
The Gospel: St. John 15:1-11

The name of this saint is probably an abbreviation of Mattathias, meaning “gift of Yahweh”.

Matthias was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot after Judas had betrayed Jesus and then committed suicide. In the time between Christ’s Ascension and Pentecost, the small band of disciples, numbering about 120, gathered together and Peter spoke of the necessity of selecting a twelfth apostle to replace Judas. Peter enunciated two criteria for the office of apostle: He must have been a follower of Jesus from the Baptism to the Ascension, and he must be a witness to the resurrected Lord. This meant that he had to be able to proclaim Jesus as Lord from first-hand personal experience. Two of the brothers were found to fulfill these qualifications: Matthias and Joseph called Barsabbas also called the Just. Matthias was chosen by lot. Neither of these two men is referred to by name in the four Gospels, although several early church witnesses, including Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, report that Matthias was one of the seventy-two disciples.

Like the other apostles and disciples, St. Matthias received the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Since he is not mentioned later in the New Testament, nothing else is known for certain about his activities. He is said to have preached in Judaea for some time and then traveled elsewhere. Various contradictory stories about his apostolate have existed since early in church history. The tradition held by the Greek Church is that he went to Cappadocia and the area near the Caspian Sea where he was crucified at Colchis. Some also say he went to Ethiopia before Cappadocia. Another tradition holds that he was stoned to death and then beheaded at Jerusalem.

The Empress St Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, is said to have brought St Matthias’s relics to Rome c. 324, some of which were moved to the Benedictine Abbey of St Matthias, Trier, Germany, in the 11th century.

Artwork: Saint Matthias, stained glass, Norwich Cathedral. Photograph taken by admin, 3 October 2014.

The collect for today, the commemoration of Lindel Tsen (1885-1946), Bishop in China, consecrated 1929, and Paul Sasaki (1885-1954), Bishop in Japan, consecrated 1935 (source):

Almighty God, we offer thanks for the faith and witness of Paul Sasaki, bishop in the Nippon Sei Ko Kai [Anglican Church in Japan], tortured and imprisoned by his government, and Philip [Lindel] Tsen, leader of the Chinese Anglican Church, arrested for his faith. We pray that all Church leaders oppressed by hostile governments may be delivered by thy mercy, and that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may be faithful to the Gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ; who livest and reignest with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8
The Gospel: St. Mark 4:26-32

“Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness,
to be tempted by the devil”

Two phone calls, back to back; the one about the baptism of an eight-month old child, the other about the dying of a ninety-five year old lady – Helen Gibson. Birth and death, rebirth and the hope of the resurrection. “As dying and behold, we live,” as Paul puts it this morning (2 Cor.6.9). It is remarkable sometimes how the meaning of our lives is wonderfully concentrated and clarified in such seemingly serendipitous moments.

There is something wonderfully clarifying about the clear air of wilderness places, even about the air of the wilderness winters of February that have so beset us this year. “Jesus,” we are told, “was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil.” Mark is even more emphatic. He tells us that the Spirit drove him, literally threw him out, into the wilderness. “He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by satan.”

The whole marvel of the stories of the temptation of Christ is partly about the significance of the wilderness. It is an important biblical concept found in the Scriptures time and time again: from the Fall to Moses; from Joshua to the Babylonian captivity, itself a kind of wilderness; from the prophets in exile to the ministry of John the Baptist. “What went ye out into the wilderness for to see?” Jesus asks the followers of John about John. Now Jesus is in the wilderness and so must we. There is something intriguing and complex about the wilderness both for the ancients and for us as moderns. That intriguing complexity and ambiguity about the theme of the wilderness is captured in the story of the temptations of Christ.

Somehow in the wilderness of human life we learn about the nature of our life with God, about life and death, rebirth and renewal.

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Monday, February 23rd
7:00-7:30pm Confirmation Class – Rm. 206, KES

Tuesday, February 24th, St. Matthias
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme: “Poets, Preachers & the Passion of Christ” (I)

Thursday, February 26th
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. – Parish Hall

Friday, February 27th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, March 1st, Second Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast)
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, March 3rd
7:00 Holy Communion & Lenten Programme II – Parish Hall

Saturday, March 14th
9:00am-4:00pm Lenten Quiet Day – King’s-Edgehill School
Sponsored by the Prayer Book Society of Canada, NS/PEI Branch

The collect for today, the First Sunday in Lent, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O LORD, who for our sake didst fast forty days and forty nights: Give us grace to use such abstinence, that, our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteousness and true holiness, to thy honour and glory; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 6:1-10
The Gospel: St Matthew 4:1-11

Artwork: Sandro Botticelli, The Temptations of Christ, 1481-2. Fresco, Capella Sistina, Vatican.

“Make me a clean heart, O God, / and renew a right spirit within me”

And so it begins, the great ‘make-over’ which is the purpose of the pageant of Lent. Once again we are being challenged that life does not have to be just the ‘same old, same old’. Lent is the pilgrimage of love, the divine love which seeks the redemption of our human loves which are in such sad and sorry disarray.

And so it begins with dust and ashes recalling us to creation and repentance and challenging us about our hearts and minds. “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double-minded,” James exhorts us. “Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” and “not upon earth where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal… For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” Jesus tells us. Where are our hearts? What do we treasure? Somehow this is critical to the whole project of transformation captured in the great Penitential Psalm of Lent and this day we call Ash Wednesday.

What does it mean to ask God to “make me a clean heart” and to “renew a right spirit within me”? Only that we know ourselves to be incomplete, fallen, and wounded, unhappy and sad, miserable and, perhaps, even in despair, and yet somehow desiring something more in spite of ourselves.

The poet ,T.S. Eliot, begins his poem called Ash Wednesday with the sense of despair and uncertainty that calls into question the whole idea and purpose of any kind of journey that might make us clean and new, as if this journey, the journey of Lent, were far more folly than even the Epiphany journey of the magi. “’A cold coming we had of it,/ Just the worst time of the year/ For a journey, and such a long journey: / The ways deep and the weather sharp, / The very dead of winter’,” Eliot says, quoting a nativity sermon of Lancelot Andrewes, and imagining the thoughts of the magi-kings about the hardness and the uselessness of the journey, “with the voices singing in our ears, saying / That this was all folly.” And yet the journey to Bethlehem concludes with the journey from Bethlehem whereby they are changed by virtue of what they had been given to see, “no longer at ease” in the ‘same old, same old’. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and for us here in the Valley it might seem all folly, too, and, certainly, “just the worst time of the year/ For a journey”, “the ways deep” with mountains of snow, “the weather sharp” and cold, “the very dead of winter”.

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