Day: April 25, 2010

Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. Mark/Easter III, 2:00pm Service for the Atlantic Ministry of the Deaf

“Woman, behold thy Son…then to the disciple, behold thy Mother”

Christ crucified beholds us in his love for the Father. At one point he looks down from the cross. He looks down upon us and bids us look upon one another. It is the third word from the cross: “Woman, behold thy Son; and then, to the disciple, behold thy Mother.” These are, we may say, the words of the Good Shepherd. They are the words of his care for us.

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He does not flee like the hireling – the wage slave – in the face of danger. No. The Good Shepherd endures the danger and overcomes it. His endurance means his suffering and death. His victory means his resurrection and life. He lays down his life for the sheep so that his life might live in us. That life is the life of the resurrection. It flows out in his care for us through the Church.

We hear talk all the time about “caring communities”. But I wonder if we know what it really means. We forget, I think, the lessons of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, there can be no true caring without the care of Christ. The crucifixion and the resurrection reconstitute the human community and give it life and meaning.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. Mark/Third Sunday After Easter

“They were afraid”

It is known as the short ending to The Gospel according to St. Mark because some of the earliest texts of St. Mark’s Gospel end at verse eight of the sixteenth chapter rather than with the accounts of the resurrection that take us to verse twenty. To be sure, the canonical gospel, the gospel that is authoritative for orthodox Christians, includes those additional twelve verses. The shorter ending does not mean that Mark does not believe in the doctrine of the resurrection or that the additional verses are somehow unrelated and disconnected to the rest of his gospel and unfaithful to it. Quite the contrary.

But what are we to make of that shorter ending? From a literary point of view, I think, it is powerful and poignant ending, and serves to make the doctrinal point about the resurrection even more strongly. After all, it is only in the light of the resurrection that the story of Jesus makes any sense at all. The resurrection captures the imaginations of the gospel writers and compels them to see things in a new light without which they would never have written what they have written about Jesus at all.

The additional verses serve as an epilogue and as a further point of confirmation, whether as added by Mark or by someone else later on is entirely uncertain and unknowable, and, I might add, quite irrelevant to our understanding of the Christian Faith.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 26 April-2 May

Tues., April 27th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. in the Hall

Thursday, April 29th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Fri., April 30th
6:15pm KES Cadet Choral Evensong

Sunday, May 2nd, Easter IV
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer at KES

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Statements and other writings, Theology

A raft of books dealing with the King James Version of the Bible

This morning we will dedicate a new Pulpit Bible – King James Version – which has been kindly donated by Bev & Jacoba Morash!  This article by Fr. David Curry calls attention to the significance and importance of the King James Version of the Bible.

A raft of books dealing with the King James Version of the Bible – Alistair McGrath’s In the Beginning, Benson Bobrick’s Wide as the Waters, and Adam Nicolson’s God’s Secretaries, for instance – all witness to a revival of interest and scholarly appreciation for the remarkable achievement of the King James Bible. Among publishers’ phantasmagoria of biblical translations available in bookstores, it is still possible to find the King James Version of the Holy Scriptures. But is it being read? Is it being heard?

The Pocket Canons is another project that calls attention to the significance of the King James Bible. A publishing initiative by Grove Press, New York, books of the King James Version of the Bible are published individually in small volumes, each 4 1/8” by 5 5/8” in size. They can also be purchased in box sets; thus far two sets are available covering a range of Old and New Testament books. But what is really outstanding and of interest is the way this initiative undertakes to engage contemporary culture in all its diversity. Each volume is provided with an introduction by a contemporary writer.

The range of writers is remarkable. They include such figures as P.D. James writing on The Acts of the Apostles – an interesting twist on the genre of the whodunit; Charles Frazier of the novel Cold Mountain, now a movie, writing about another struggle of epic proportions, the struggles of Job; the novelist, non-fiction and short-story writer Doris Lessing on Ecclesiastes; the author, poet, journalist and literary critic par excellence of The Spectator and the Sunday Times, Peter Ackroyd on the Book of Isaiah; the Dalai Lama on the Epistles of James, Peter, John and Jude; novelist Joanna Trollope on the books of Ruth and Esther; the mystery writer Ruth Rendell on The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans; Karen Armstrong, famed for, among other things, The History of God, writing on The Letter to the Hebrews; Thomas Cahill, author of such books as The Gift of the Jews, The Desire of the Everlasting Hills, How the Irish Saved Civilisation, and Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter writing on The Gospel according to John; and without exhausting the list of writers but bringing it to some sort of finale, last but not least, singer and writer, humanitarian and activist and sometime court jester at the coronation of Paul Martin, Paul David Hewson, better known as Bono of the rock-band U2 writing, appropriately enough, on the Psalms!

Intrigued? You should be for what is on offer through these writers is more than Oprah fluff and puff. Here are some pretty high-powered writers engaging in a lively, serious and reflective manner with the most formative translation of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament in the English speaking world. What is amazing is the depth of the engagement. They are not biblical scholars, mercifully, but they more than do the job of providing informative and satisfactory introductions to the often very complex texts that are before them. Along the way they reveal, if not a yearning, then at least, an openness to the sacred and a profound respect for the language of revelation and its formative power that reaches, thankfully, beyond institutional religion to literature and the arts. Paradoxically, that reach of the transforming Word is often through exposure to the Word proclaimed in the life of the Church.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Mark the Evangelist

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

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast instructed thy holy Church with the heavenly doctrine of thy Evangelist Saint Mark: Give us grace, that, being not like children carried away with every blast of vain doctrine, we may be established in the truth of thy holy Gospel; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 4:11-16
The Gospel: St Mark 13:1-10

Bronzino, Saint Mark

Artwork: Agnolo Bronzino, Saint Mark, c. 1525. Oil on wood, Cappella Capponi, Santa Felicita, Florence.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After Easter

The collect for today, The Third Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St John 16:16-22

Andrea del Castagno, Last Supper

Artwork: Andrea del Castagno, The Last Supper, 1447. Fresco, Sant’Apollonia, Florence.

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