Day: May 22, 2011

Sermons

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday After Easter, 10:30am service

“What mean ye by this service?”

It was the Exodus text that framed our Holy Week reflections. But it extends, I think, into our Eastertide meditations, particularly today. What do we mean by this service of Morning Prayer, I wonder?

So much is set before us in the readings and the canticles, the hymns and the prayers. In the ten-second sound bite culture of our consumer world and day, it must seem to be altogether too much. So I want to try to help you understand a little bit of what we are doing in this service and to see if we can’t begin to appreciate what God is doing for us and with us in this service. It is really all about our life with God in the mercies of Jesus Christ.

St. James, in the epistle reading at Holy Communion for today, exhorts us to “receive with meekness the implanted word.” Meekness or humility is about our openness to God’s word. The psalmist notes that “blessed are all they that fear the Lord and walk in his ways” (Ps. 128, vs.1). Fear, of course, means holding God in awe and wonder because God is God, we might say, and far more than we can desire or imagine. In the Scriptural view of things, there is something wonderful about God making himself known to us, about God’s revealing his will and presence to us.  Our first lesson this morning from The Book of Exodus reminds us of both. At issue is whether we are open to his word and will and presence.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday After Easter, 8:00am service

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away.”

There is a great fearfulness in our own age and culture. It goes beyond the ceaseless spectacle of a world of wars that is constantly before us in such things as the unrest in the Middle East or in the parade of natural catastrophes such as floods in Manitoba and fires in northern Alberta. It concerns the emptiness within the soul of a culture when it can no longer say what it is that is worth living for, when it can no longer identify the principles and the ideals that dignify our humanity.

When we can no longer say what makes life worth living for, then there is certainly nothing worth dying for either. There is nothing to give your life to. There is only the emptiness within, a darkness inside, out of which comes such frightening and senseless acts of violence, death and self-destruction that have become a regular feature of our world. The essence of such acts is their meaninglessness born out of a sense of the meaninglessness of contemporary life. As the philosopher, Peter Kreeft, has noted, the fear for our culture is not the fear of death as it was for the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome, nor is it the fear of Hell as it was for the mediaeval cultures – Christian, Jewish and Islamic; no, it is the fear of meaninglessness itself. There is no objective truth to which we should conform ourselves and hold ourselves accountable. This is our fearfulness, the fearfulness we have to confront and overcome.

We confront it in the Gospels. Jesus confronts our fearfulness. The Gospel of the Resurrection is especially about his overcoming of our fearfulness. The message of the angel to the women, coming early to the tomb and finding it empty, was “be not afraid”. Jesus comes into the midst of the disciples whether they are huddled behind closed doors in fear or on the road to Emmaus in flight from Jerusalem in fear.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 23-29 May

Tuesday, May 24th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies’ Mtg. – Parish Hall

Thursday, May 26th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

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

Sunday, May 29th, Fifth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
9:30am Holy Communion – KES
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

Upcoming events:

Saturday, June 4th, 7:30pm
King’s Chorale Concert (under the direction of Bill Perrot). Tickets are $10.00 (at the door or phone 798-2911 to reserve). Come out for this wonderful musical event. This choir hails from King’s County and will be featuring the music of Jongen, Howells, Fauré, Casals, Martin and Vaughan Williams.

Sunday, June 12th, 7:00pm
As part of the Relay for Life, Christ Church will host “An Inspirational Concert with Rachel MacLean”. No admission cost but a food donation for Harvest House is requested.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday After Easter

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

O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St James 1:17-21
The Gospel: St John 16:5-15

Poussin, Eucharist II

Artwork: Nicolas Poussin, Seven Sacraments: Eucharist II, 1647. Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.

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