Christ Church

This is the third of four Lenten meditations on original sin. The previous meditations are posted here and here.

“A house divided against itself falleth”

In the course of these little considerations of the big theme of “original sin”, I have tried to locate our reflections in the propers for the Sundays in Lent. The Third Sunday in Lent would seem to offer a particularly dismal view of our humanity that complements perfectly the negativity, as some would see it, of the doctrine of original sin. To the contrary, I would hope to argue, since the doctrine of original sin is really part and parcel of the good news of human redemption. Without the honest appreciation of the sin-wracked nature of our humanity, it is pretty hard to make sense of human experience and the grace of Christ crucified.

In other words, the honest recognition of how compromised we are by the habits of sin is really the entry point to the transformative power of God’s grace that leads us as Dante puts it, “from misery to felicity.” It does so by working on our hearts and minds. We are drawn into the drama of our redemption. The doctrine of original sin belongs to that drama.

We are, in the words of the gospel, radically divided within ourselves. The many divisions and tensions and contradictions within the institutions that drive our social and political lives are really a further extension of the idea and the doctrine of original sin.

The doctrine of original sin is the necessary counter to a variety of social and political viewpoints in our world and day. It is the counter to the ideology of progress, the idea that things are always going forward, that our humanity is constantly on the march towards the more and the better, the better, of course, always measured in terms of the more. It is the counter to the idea that the future is ever brighter and the past always a yawning abyss, the proverbial dark ages. The doctrine of original sin reminds us instead of the perennial darkness of the human heart, the much more persuasive concept of “the heart of darkness,” to borrow Joseph Conrad’s title.

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The collect for today, the commemoration of John Keble (1792-1866), Priest, Tractarian, Poet (source):

Father of the eternal Word,
in whose encompassing love
all things in peace and order move:
grant that, as thy servant John Keble
adored thee in all creation,
so we may have a humble heart of love
for the mysteries of thy Church
and know thy love to be new every morning,
in 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.

The Epistle: Romans 12:9-21
The Gospel: St Matthew 5:1-12

John Keble’s Assize Sermon entitled “National Apostasy“, delivered at Oxford on 14 July 1833, is regarded as the beginning of the renewal movement known as the Oxford Movement or Tractarian Movement. In that sermon, preached at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Rev. Keble condemned the growth of liberalism in the Church of England and took the nation to task for turning away from God and ignoring the prophetic calling of the church. The sermon caused a sensation across Britain.

Between 1833 and 1841, Keble, John Henry Newman, Edward Bouverie Pusey, and others issued a series of 90 pamphlets called Tracts For The Times (hence Tractarian Movement), in which they presented their views on ecclesiology and theology. Tractarianism emphasised the importance of the ministry and the sacraments as God-given ordinances and ultimately developed into Anglo-Catholicism, which has been highly influential in the Anglican Communion as well as other Christian traditions.

Keble College, Oxford, was founded in his memory in 1870. The College was designed by William Butterfield, a leading exponent of Victorian Gothic who had been raised in a Nonconformist family but later became a convinced High-Church Anglican. He and other architects influenced by the Oxford Movement looked to medieval cathedrals for inspiration and designed churches full of colour as a celebration of God’s creation. The walls of Keble College Chapel are lined with brilliant mosaics showing scenes from the Old Testament and the life of Christ, and patristic and medieval saints. Some see Keble College and Chapel as the high point of Butterfield’s architectural achievements.

John Keble’s page at the Cyber Hymnal lists 72 hymns. Some of Rev Keble’s writings, including “National Apostasy” and seven Tracts For The Times, are posted here. All of the tracts are posted here.

“And the last state of that man is worse than the first”

It is a terrifying picture really, the picture of the darkness of utter desolation. It is something which our contemporary culture knows about or, at least, experiences in one way or another. We have all been there. “I am desolate and in misery,” the Psalmist says. You know about desolations and miseries. It may because of sorrow and loss; it may be because of hardship and troubles. It may be because of the enmity of others or it may be because of our own sinfulness. “Look upon my adversity and misery, / and forgive me all my sins.”

It can lead to a sense of hopelessness, the sense of utter futility, the sense of the empty nothingness of life.

We live, of course, in a world that is seemingly full of everything; there is a fullness of images. We are constantly besieged and bombarded by a vast array of images which flicker and dance before our imaginations. The consequence is that our sensual imagination is overloaded. What are these images? They are the images of violence and self-indulgence; in short, the images of destruction and consumption.

And yet, there is a terrible emptiness to this fullness of images. They are, as it were, nothing worth and quite unsatisfactory. But, they consume us. We are possessed by what beguiles us. We find that we are strangers to ourselves. We are alienated from ourselves.

What shall we do? Shall we empty our selves of these empty images through some heroic effort of will? Just disconnect the internet? Pull the plug on the TV? Perhaps, but is it really “nirvana,” a state of empty nothingness that we seek? For in the culture of images even the emptying ourselves of the images of sensual immediacy is to find ourselves empty and lost. Whether we are full of these empty images or aware of their emptiness we are nonetheless empty and lost to ourselves. “And the last state of that man is worse than the first.”

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Monday, March 28th
4:45-5:15 Confirmands meet in Rm. 204, KES

Tuesday, March 29th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies Mtg. – Parish Hall
7:30pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme: Original Sin III

Saturday, April 2nd
6:00pm Holy Matrimony: Heather Brown & Emmanuel Bourque

Sunday, April 3rd, Fourth Sunday in Lent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Confirmation & Communion, followed by a short reception with refreshments in the Hall
4:30pm Evening Prayer

Upcoming event:
Tuesday, April 5th
7:30pm Holy Communion & Lenten Programme – Original Sin IV

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

WE beseech thee, Almighty God, look upon the hearty desires of thy humble servants and stretch forth the right hand of thy Majesty to be our defence against all our enemies; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 5:1-14
The Gospel: St Luke 11:14-26

Artwork: Giusto de’ Menabuoi, Jesus’ Miracles, 1376-78. Fresco, Baptistery, Padua.

The collect for today, The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canada, 1962):

WE beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 7:10-15
The Gospel: St Luke 1:26-38

Artwork: Ludovico Pogliaghi, The Annunciation, 1894-1908. Central Bronze door, Milan Cathedral. Photograph taken by admin, 2 May 2010.

This is the second of four Lenten meditations on original sin. The previous meditation is posted here.

“Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David”

Kyrie eleison. Lord have mercy upon us. It is the recurring refrain, not just of the season of Lent, but of our Anglican liturgy. In a way, it is an implicit acknowledgment of the condition of our sinfulness, the on-going legacy of original sin, if you will, the mystery which we are pondering in this series of Lenten addresses.

The Canaanite woman in the Gospel story for the Second Sunday in Lent cries out for mercy. It is, evidently, not a cri de coeur that is restricted to the people of Israel. It is universal. She cries out for mercy to Jesus for her daughter who is grievously vexed with a devil, deeply troubled spiritually or mentally, we might say. But that whole idea of being vexed by a devil suggests the power and hold of evil on our souls. Somehow it seems that we cannot just go and do all that we would like to do or even believe that we ought to do for ourselves or for one another.

Paul expresses that deep sense of how we are divided within ourselves. He states the condition of our divided wills, “the good that I would I do not, the evil that I would not do, that do I do.” We are a divided house and we cannot stand on the power of our strength of will, crowing to the universe, like Frank Sinatra, that “I did it my way.” Time and time again, the Church in the liturgy through the Collects and the Scripture readings especially, reminds us of this deeply disturbing feature of our human lives, the condition of our divided selves, the reality of our corrupted wills.

And yet, to pray for mercy is to acknowledge this reality without succumbing to the utter hopelessness of despair. To pray for mercy is to be open to God’s power and grace which is greater than the contradictions of our being. This is an important point, I think, because logically there is something incomplete in defining ourselves negatively. It presupposes something positive. Sin, original sin, is about privation, a lack or absence of being and truth. But it is totally dependent upon what it denies. Sin is nothing in itself.

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The collect for today, the Feast of St. Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-550), Abbot of Monte Cassino, Father of Western Monasticism (source):

O eternal God,
who made Benedict a wise master
in the school of thy service,
and a guide to many called into the common life
to follow the rule of Christ:
grant that we may put thy love above all things,
and seek with joy the way of thy commandments;
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.

The Lesson: Proverbs 2:1-9
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:27-33

Artwork: St. Benedict, late 15th century. Fresco on stone pillar, Chiesa di Sant’Agostino, San Gimignano, Italy.

The collect for today, the commemoration of Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556), Archbishop of Canterbury, Reformation Martyr (source):

Father of all mercies,
who through the work of thy servant Thomas Cranmer
didst renew the worship of thy Church
and through his death
didst reveal thy strength in human weakness:
strengthen us by thy grace so to worship thee in spirit and in truth
that we may come to the joys of thine everlasting kingdom;
through Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Advocate,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 3:9-14
The Gospel: St. John 15:20-16:1

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

It is a powerful and amazing Gospel story. And very disturbing. I wonder if we can hear it. Sometimes, I think, ours is the culture of fragile, wounded and broken souls, strong, perhaps, mostly in its sense of entitlement and in its sense of injury. This story surely disturbs and disquiets us. Why?

Consider what we see here. A mother whose daughter is sick. Ordinarily, we may uphold the strength of a parents’ love for their children as being quite powerful and most strong. Isaiah, in a remarkable passage asks the question whether “a woman can forget her sucking child” and suggests that even that form of love is not as strong as God’s love. “Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you,” he has God say. His point is that our human loves are always incomplete in comparison to the divine love. “Behold, I have graven you on the palms of my hands,” God says in a wonderful image.

And yet, we may wonder about such loves, the love of a mother for her child as a limited love and the unlimited, unforgetting love of God, in the wake of this story. We may see here the power of a mother’s love for her daughter, to be sure, but we may question the love of God. If the love of God is what we are meant to see in Jesus Christ, then that love seems very odd, harsh and strange; indeed, disturbing. So what then are we to make of this story?

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