Year: 2013

Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday in Lent

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

Doré, Jesus Healing Man PossessedArtwork: Gustave Doré, Jesus Healing the Man Possessed with a Devil, c. 1866, Engraving, The Holy Bible with Illustrations by Gustave Doré.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

John and Charles Wesley

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Wesley (1703-91) and Charles Wesley (1708-88), Evangelists, Hymn Writers, Leaders of the Methodist Revival (source):

Merciful God,
who didst inspire John and Charles Wesley with zeal for thy gospel:
grant to all people boldness to proclaim thy word
and a heart ever to rejoice in singing thy praises;
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: Isaiah 49:5-6
The Gospel: St. Luke 9:2-6

Salisbury, John Wesley as an Old ManHudson, Reverend Charles Wesley

Artwork:
(left) Frank O. Salisbury, John Wesley as an Old Man, 1932. Oil on canvas, John Wesley’s House & The Museum of Methodism, London, U.K.
(right) Thomas Hudson, Reverend Charles Wesley, 1749. Oil on canvas, Epworth Old Rectory, Epworth, Lincolnshire, U.K.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Chad, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Chad (d. 672), Bishop of Lichfield, Missionary (source):

Saint ChadAlmighty God,
who, from the first fruits of the English nation
that turned to Christ,
didst call thy servant Chad
to be an evangelist and bishop of his own people:
grant us grace so to follow his peaceable nature,
humble spirit and prayerful life,
that we may truly commend to others
the faith which we ourselves profess;
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 Epistle: Philippians 4:10-13
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:1,7-14

Print this entry

Sermons

The Kiss of Judas: Themes of Betrayal & Forgiveness in the Scriptures – II

This is the second in a series of four Lenten devotional reflections given by Fr. David Curry on The Kiss of Judas: Themes of Betrayal & Forgiveness in the Scriptures. The first is posted here.

UPDATE (22 Mar.): The four addresses have been compiled into a booklet, which can be accessed here.

“Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?”

There is something wonderfully appropriate about commemorating St. Matthias in the course of our Lenten Programme on the Kiss of Judas. The Feast Day for St. Matthias is February 24th which this year fell on a Sunday in the season of Lent. The Feast of St. Matthias frequently, though not always, falls within Lent; sometimes it coincides with the pre-Lenten season of the Gesimas. But whether during the Gesimas or in Lent, if the 24th is a Sunday, the celebration of St. Matthias is transferred to the following Tuesday. What makes this wonderfully appropriate, even providential, is that the story of St. Matthias is directly related to the story of Judas. Matthias is the apostle chosen to take the place of Judas, the betrayer of Christ.

The readings for the Feast of St. Matthias are wonderfully illuminating about this connection to Judas. The lesson from Acts tells the story of Judas’ reaction to his betrayal – his self-destruction by falling headlong, bursting asunder and all his bowels gushed out (other accounts have him going out and hanging himself) – and the subsequent decision to choose another among those “which have companied with us” (Acts 1.21) and with Jesus “to be a witness with us of his resurrection” (Acts 1.22). The story of Matthias is about the one chosen by lot to take the place of Judas the betrayer. The Gospel from St. John is the last of the seven ‘I am’ sayings in which Jesus identifies himself in relation to us as the vine; we are the branches (John 15.5). We live from him. The image is inescapably sacramental and recalls us to the night on which he was betrayed, the night in which he institutes the form of his sacramental presence with us.

The kiss of Judas marks the greatest betrayal, one that gathers into itself all of the forms of betrayal. Not least is the idea of the betrayal of brotherhood and fellowship, betrayals that are related to our betrayals of ourselves and God. In a way, those aspects of betrayal are captured best in the Old Testament story of Joseph and his brothers and in the New Testament story of Peter’s betrayal of Christ. Both stories bring out the nature of betrayal and the prospect of forgiveness through contrition and repentance; paradoxically, the very things refused and denied by Judas himself.

(more…)

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

St. David of Wales

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint David (c. 520-589), Bishop of Menevia, Patron Saint of Wales (source):

Almighty God,
who didst call thy servant David
to be a faithful and wise steward of thy mysteries
for the people of Wales:
in thy mercy, grant that,
following his purity of life and zeal
for the gospel of Christ,
we may with him receive the crown of everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom with thee and the Holy Spirit
be all honour and glory,
world without end.

The Epistle: 1 Thessalonians 2:2b-12
The Gospel: St. Mark 4:26-29

St. David, Jesus College ChapelArtwork: Saint David, stained glass, late 19th century, Jesus College Chapel, Oxford.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

George Herbert, Poet

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

George HerbertKing 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 his death, when his poetry collection The Temple was published.

He is buried in Saint Andrew Bemerton Churchyard.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Saint Matthias the Apostle

The collect for today, the Feast of St. 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

Workshop of Simone Martini, St. MatthiasThe 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: Workshop of Simone Martini, Saint Matthias, c. 1317-19. Tempera on wood, gold ground, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

(This commemoration has been transferred from 24 February.)

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, 2:00pm service for Atlantic Ministry of the Deaf

“O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”

It is called The Prayer of Humble Access, one of the beautiful prayers of the Anglican liturgical tradition.

“We do not presume to come to this thy table, O merciful Lord; Trusting in our own righteousness, But in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy So much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, Whose property is always to have mercy…”

The prayer echoes explicitly the Gospel for this day, the story of the Canaanite woman who approaches Jesus so resolutely, so determinedly and yet so humbly.

There are two words which stand here in a complementary relation. They are the words “humble” and “access.” Humility is the condition of our access to God. What the prayer expresses is a fundamental attitude of Faith. It is not our presumption, our “trusting in our own righteousness,” but our humility, our trusting in the “manifold and great mercies” of God. Against everything that is thrown at her, she has a hold of this one thing – the mercies of God in Christ Jesus. To have a hold of that is humility. She presumes upon nothing else and it is this that gains her access to the heart of Christ.

(more…)

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, 10:30am service

“Have mercy on me, O Lord”

An appropriate text, I suppose, for anyone about to preach!

Dust and ashes, temptations, heartfelt desire. Such are the strong images that are before us in the early days of Lent. The dust of creation and of our common mortality and the ashes of repentance on Ash Wednesday, the temptations that challenge the truth of very being and belong to the disorders of our hearts on the First Sunday in Lent, all these raise important religious and philosophical question about human desire, “for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Mt. 6. 21). Unlike the Buddhist annihilation of desire, Lent seeks the redemption of desire. Nowhere, perhaps, is that seen more wonderfully and powerfully in this Gospel story for the Second Sunday in Lent. “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David,” the Canaanite woman cries unto Jesus.

It is the recurring refrain of the Lenten season and so, too, of the pilgrimage of our lives, echoed in the liturgy of the Church: “Kyrie Eleison” – “Lord, have mercy upon us.” Is it about groveling and wallowing in self-pity? Is it about a sense of self-denigration and self-degradation – putting ourselves down, making ourselves feel miserable, the proverbial beating up on ourselves? No, emphatically no. For such things are, to be rigorously truthful, all about pride – the pride which cuts us off from truth, the truth of God and the truth about ourselves both in terms of our God-given capacities and potentialities and our all too real sins and wickednesses. We are too much with ourselves.

(more…)

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent, 8:00am service

“Have mercy on me, O Lord”

It is the recurring refrain of the Lenten season and so, too, of the pilgrimage of our lives, echoed in the liturgy of the Church: “Kyrie Eleison” – “Lord, have mercy upon us.” Is it about grovelling and wallowing in self-pity? Is it about a sense of self-denigration and self-degradation – putting ourselves down, making ourselves feel miserable, the proverbial beating up on ourselves? No, emphatically no. For such things are, to be rigorously truthful, all about pride – the pride which cuts us off from truth, the truth of God and the truth about ourselves both in terms of our God-given capacities and potentialities and our all too real sins and wickednesses. We are too much with ourselves.

Far from being a plaintive cry of the weak and the pitiful, “have mercy upon me, O Lord” is the strong prayer of the honest soul. Nowhere does the strength of that honesty appear more forcibly and clearly than in this gospel story. The prayer for mercy is incredibly insistent. The Canaanite woman in the story won’t give up and won’t shut up. She is like the blind man whom Jesus encounters on the way to Jerusalem who also cried out to Jesus “have mercy on me” that he might receive his sight. He, too, would not be silenced but “cried so much the more, Thou Son of David, have mercy on me” (Luke 18. 39).

(more…)

Print this entry