Year: 2013

Sermons

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

“Behold a door was opened in heaven”

Today is Trinity Sunday. It celebrates the great, grand, and central teaching of the Christian faith. It is about the extravagance of God, how God is always more and greater than we can ever imagine. The Trinity is that greater extravagance – the extravagance of God, both in himself and for us. The Trinity is the mystery of God revealed, the mystery of love made known, the love that is God.

Think God and everything else comes after. But how can we think God? Only by the extravagance of God’s grace that embraces and enfolds us in the community of love, the communion of God. There is the extravagant grace of Holy Baptism when we are named in the intimacy of God’s own naming of himself as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There is the extravagant grace of Holy Communion which gathers us into the community of love, the communion of the Trinity.

And there is the extravagant grace of language, the language of Creed and Liturgy, of poetry and song. It is the language of adoration. The language of adoration is grace-given and spirit-inspired. The Athanasian Creed, found tucked away in the back of the Prayer Book, for example, proclaims in the most extravagant language imaginable the mystery of the Trinity by way of negation and affirmation.

God is always more – always of another order of reality beyond the mundane and the worldly, beyond what is merely human. “He therefore that would be saved, let him thus think of the Trinity” – think of the Trinity in this way, the way which God in the extravagant grace of his Son has opened out to us.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 27 May – 2 June

Monday, May 27th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, May 28th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

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

Sunday, June 2nd, The First Sunday After Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion (followed by Men’s Club Breakfast)
10:30am Morning Prayer
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church
4:30pm Holy Communion – KES

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, July 20th
7:30pm Christ Church Concert Series: Ensemble Seraphina

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Prayers and liturgy

Trinity Sunday

The collect for today, the Octave Day of Pentecost, commonly called Trinity Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech thee, that this holy faith may evermore be our defence against all adversities; who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 4:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 3:1-15

Artwork: Tintoretto, The Trinity, c. 1564-68. Oil on canvas, Galleria Sabauda, Turin.

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Prayers and liturgy

Aldhelm, Bishop and Scholar

The collect for a Bishop or Archbishop, on the Feast of Saint Aldhelm (c. 639-708), Abbot of Malmesbury, Bishop of Sherborne, Poet, Scholar, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Sherborne Abbey, St. AldhelmO GOD, our heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful servant Aldhelmto be a Bishop in thy Church and to feed thy flock: We beseech thee to send down upon all thy Bishops, the Pastors of thy Church, the abundant gift of thy Holy Spirit, that they, being endued with power from on high, and ever walking in the footsteps of thy holy Apostles, may minister before thee in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43

Aldhelm became the first Bishop of Sherborne in AD 705. Before then he had been Abbot of Malmesbury for some thirty years. He was born in about AD 639 and died in 709 in Doulting, Somerset. St Aldhelm is buried at Malmesbury. His name translated from the old English means “Old Helmet”. For more information, click here.

Photograph: St. Aldhelm, Sherborne Abbey, Dorset, U.K.
© Copyright Sarah Smith and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

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Sermons

Sermon for Pentecost

“He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance”

Pentecost. God is believable and thinkable. I am not so sure about our contemporary institutional churches but Pentecost marks the birthday of the Church universal and makes Church and churches at once believable and thinkable.

There is a wonder to Pentecost. It marks the descent of the Holy  Ghost upon the disciples to form the Apostolic Church, the Church, if you will, of which Anglicans notionally lay claim to belonging. And rightly so.

But what is the wonder? After all of the comings and goings of Christ, we might wonder, what on earth is Pentecost really about? Simply the absolute spiritual reality of God. No greater message to our depressed, discouraged and despairing age. The whole point of the religions of the world, and, especially, the Christian religion, is the idea that we are incomplete without God. That bears repeating because the assumption of the Western cultures has been that we have matured and out-grown God. We have come of age! Sadly only to discover our adolescence!

Pentecost challenges us about the spiritual reality of God and about ourselves as spiritual beings. It marks the beginning of the Church as a spiritual society, a community defined by the clarity and the charity of Christ. Nowhere is that more apparent than at Pentecost.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 20 – 26 May

Monday, May 20th, Monday after Pentecost
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Tuesday, May 21st, Tuesday after Pentecost
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Still Life by Louise Penny and The Lord God Bird by Tom Gallant

Thursday, May 23rd, Eve of Ember Friday
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Friday, May 24th, Ember Friday
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge

Sunday, May 26th, Trinity Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
2:00pm AMD Service of the Deaf
4:00pm Choral Evensong – Christ Church

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, July 20th
7:30pm Christ Church Concert Series: Ensemble Seraphina

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Prayers and liturgy

The Day of Pentecost

The collects for today, The Day of Pentecost, being the fiftieth day after Easter, commonly called Whitsunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

O GOD, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon thy disciples in Jerusalem: Grant that we who celebrate before thee the Feast of Pentecost may continue thine for ever, and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, until we come to thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 14:15-27

Artwork: Joseph Ignaz Mildorfer, Pentecost, 1750s. Oil on canvas, Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest. (Originally on an altar in the Church of the Holy Spirit, Sopron, Hungary.)

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Sermons

Sermon for the Sunday after Ascencion Day

“Christ sits on the right hand of the Father”

The Ascension and the Session of Christ are two scriptural and creedal teachings. They are at once forgotten and assumed, I think, with respect to Christian thinking and faith. And yet, they speak profoundly to the confusions and complexities of contemporary culture. They point us to an understanding of the objective reality of God and to a larger view of our humanity. They recall us to who we are in the sight of God.

As such these doctrines or teachings provide a strong counter to our fatalisms, ancient and modern and to our existential despair. Either the world is too much with us or we are too much with ourselves.

The great religions of the world offer the profound insight, in one way or another, that our humanity is radically incomplete without God. For Christians that insight is captured in what we might call the comings and goings of God signaled in the story of Christ. The Ascension and the Session of Christ are important moments in that story; the story of God, we might say, in which we find our story.

The image is strong and wonderful. Christ ascends and sits on the right hand of the Father. What does it mean? It speaks at once of the transcendence of God – God as utterly beyond, as almighty and all knowing – and of the immanence of God, God as having engaged our humanity in the intimacy of Christ, God as being with us. Both these theological concepts – transcendence and immanence – are comprehended in the Christian idea of God as Trinity signaled in the revealed names of God as Father, Son and Holy Ghost, names which are largely made known to us by Jesus. It is especially in the story and in the season of Christ’s Death and Resurrection that Jesus teaches us about the Father, about himself as the Son and certainly about the Holy Ghost or Spirit. It is in this understanding that God is God and that God is also with us.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 13 – 19 May

Monday, May 13th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, May 14th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, May 16th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, May 17th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, May 19th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, May 21st, Tuesday after Pentecost
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Still Life by Louise Penny and The Lord God Bird by Tom Gallant

Sunday, May 26th, Trinity Sunday
4:00pm Choral Evensong

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Prayers and liturgy

The Sunday After Ascension Day

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

O GOD the King of Glory, who hast exalted thine only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph unto thy kingdom in heaven: We beseech thee, leave us not comfortless; but send to us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and exalt us unto the same place whither our Saviour Christ is gone before; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:7-11
The Gospel: St. John 15:26-16:4a

Andrea del Castagno, Last SupperArtwork: Andrea del Castagno, Last Supper, 1447. Fresco, Cenacle of Santa Apollonia, (formerly Refectory of the Benedictine monastic sisters of Saint Apollonia), Florence. Photograph taken by admin, 19 May 2010.

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