Year: 2016

Prayers and liturgy

John West, Missionary

The collect for a missionary, in commemoration of The Rev’d John West (1778-1845), Priest, first Protestant missionary to the Red River Valley, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

John WestO GOD, our heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thy blessed Apostles and send them forth to preach thy Gospel of salvation unto all the nations: We bless thy holy Name for thy servant John West, whose labours we commemorate this day, and we pray thee, according to thy holy Word, to send forth many labourers into thy harvest; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 4:13-24a

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Prayers and liturgy

John Wycliffe, Scholar and Translator

The collect for today, the commemoration of John Wycliffe, (c 1320-84), Scholar, Translator of the Scriptures into English (source):

O Lord, thou God of truth, whose Word is a lantern to our feet and a light upon our path: We give thee thanks for thy servant John Wyclif, and those who, following in his steps, have labored to render the Holy Scriptures in the language of the people; and we beseech thee that thy Holy Spirit may overshadow us as we read the written Word, and that Christ, the living Word, may transform us according to thy righteous will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: Daniel 2:17-24
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:9-16

Yeames, Wyclif Giving “The Poor Priests” His Translation of the BibleArtwork: William Frederick Yeames, Wyclif Giving “The Poor Priests” His Translation of the Bible, c. 1910. Illustration from ‘The Church of England: A History for the People’ by H.D.M. Spence-Jones.

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Prayers and liturgy

Thomas Becket, Archbishop

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Thomas Becket (1117-1170), Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr (source):

O Lord God,
who gavest to thy servant Thomas Becket
grace to put aside all earthly fear and be faithful even unto death:
grant that we, caring not for worldly esteem,
may fight against evil,
uphold thy rule,
and serve thee to our life’s end;
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: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43

Stothard, Martyrdom of St. Thomas BecketThomas Becket was a close personal friend of King Henry II of England and served as his chancellor from 1155. When the Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1162, Henry, seeing an opportunity to exercise control over the church, decided to have his chancellor elected to the post. Thomas saw the dangers of the king’s plan and warned Henry that, if he became archbishop, his first loyalty would be to God and not the king. He told Henry, “Several things you do in prejudice of the rights of the church make me fear that you would require of me what I could not agree to.” What Thomas feared soon came to pass.

After becoming archbishop, Thomas changed radically from defender of the king’s privileges and policies into an ardent champion of the church. Unexpectedly adopting an austere way of life in near-monastic simplicity, he celebrated or attended Mass daily, studied Scripture, distributed alms to the needy, and visited the sick. He became just as obstinate in asserting the church’s interests as he had formerly been in asserting the king’s.

Thomas rejected Henry’s claim to authority over the English Church. Relations with the king deteriorated so seriously that Thomas left England and spent six years in exile in France. He realised that he had to return when the Archbishop of York and six other bishops crowned the heir to the throne, Prince Henry, in contravention of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s rights and authority.

He returned to England with letters of papal support and immediately excommunicated the Archbishop of York and the six other bishops. On Christmas Day 1170 he publicly denounced them from the pulpit of Canterbury Cathedral. It was these actions that prompted Henry’s infamous angry words, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?”

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of the Holy Innocents

“Rachel weeping for her children, And would not be comforted,
because they are not”

There is no more disturbing and troubling image than the deaths of the little ones whether as here in the witness of the Scriptures or in the horrendous pictures of the suffering children of the world – in Calais, in Aleppo, in Kenya and elsewhere. We live in a world where children are not only commodities but collateral damage in the pursuit of power and dominance. There is no innocence, it seems.

There is blood in Bethlehem. To be sure, we have already seen blood, as it were, in the martyrdom of St. Stephen who was stoned to death confessing Christ and in imitation of the sacrificial sufferings of Christ. But that was in Jerusalem. Here we have the slaughter of the Holy Innocents, as they have been called, in Bethlehem, killed as a policy of infanticide in Herod’s effort to eradicate a potential rival to his kingdom. Herod’s policy to kill all the little ones, two years and under in Bethlehem, echoes the policy of infanticide by Pharaoh to control the population of the Hebrews in Egypt out of which came the birth of Moses. Thus we are made aware of a deeper theological idea, the idea that God and God alone can make something good out of the machinations of human evil.

“Never that which is shall die”, a famous fragment from the Greek poet, Euripides, avers. In a way, the Christian story both challenges and confirms his poetic insight. Christ, the everlasting Son of the Father, comes to redeem and save by dying for us. His rising to life again though is testament to the greater power and truth of God who ever is, the God who negates the negation, as it were. The death of death itself is accomplished in the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “Never that which is shall die” because it dies and lives again for it is what lives forever. Love conquers all because love never dies.

This is all part of the dark mystery and wonder of the disturbing Christmas feast of the Holy Innocents. They are innocent because in truth they are unable to harm and yet they are seen as a threat to Herod just by virtue of being infants like the child king sought by the Magi. They are already viewed as in Christ and that is the deeper wonder that redeems the horror and their slaughter. Their deaths, like the deaths of the little ones throughout history, are not without meaning. They share in the infancy of Christ and so in the purpose of Christ’s coming.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Innocents’ Day

The collect for today, The Feast of the Holy Innocents, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast ordained strength, and madest infants to glorify thee by their deaths: Mortify and kill all vices in us, and so strengthen us by thy grace, that by the innocency of our lives, and constancy of our faith, even unto death, we may glorify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 14:1-5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 2:13-18

Fra Angelico, Massacre of the InnocentsWhen wise men from the East visited King Herod in Jerusalem to ask where the king of the Jews had been born, Herod felt his throne was in jeopardy. So, he ordered all the boys of Bethlehem aged two and under to be killed. On this day, the church remembers those children.

The Massacre of the Innocents is recorded only in St Matthew’s Gospel, where it is said to be fulfillment of a prophecy of Jeremiah.

The church has kept this feast day since the fifth century. The Western churches commemorate the innocents on 28 December; the Eastern Orthodox Church on 29 December. Medieval authors spoke of up to 144,000 murdered boys, in accordance with Revelation 14:3. More recent estimates, however, recognising that Bethlehem was a very small town, place the number between ten and thirty.

This episode has been challenged as a fabrication with no basis in actual historic events. James Kiefer has a point-by-point presentation of the objections with replies in defence of biblical historicity.

This is an appropriate day to remember the victims of abortion.

Artwork: Fra Angelico, Massacre of the Innocents, c. 1450. Tempera on wood, Museo di San Marco, Florence.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. John the Evangelist

“Even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written”

“Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh,” Ecclesiastes observes, an observation, no doubt, with which many a student would concur. John, too, at the very end of the last chapter of his Gospel reflects on the writing of books; somehow the reality and full meaning of Christ would comprise more books than what the world could contain. There is always something more and more to the meaning of Christ as Word.

The Word proclaimed “at sundry times and in diverse manners … unto the fathers by the prophets”, Hebrews reminds us, “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” That Word and Son is the Word made flesh, as John reminds us in his powerful Prologue read as the great Gospel of Christmas Eve. There is a focus on Word; Word proclaimed, Word made flesh, but also the Word as written “even if the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”

The Feast of John the Evangelist belongs to our Christmas observances. His Epistles and his Gospel provide the strongest testimony to the idea and reality of the Incarnation, the greatest insight into the mystery of God with us in the humanity of Jesus Christ. “That which was from the beginning,” he says, echoing at once the opening words of his Prologue but also the opening words of Genesis, “which we have heard,” he says, “which we have seen with our eyes,” he says, “which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of life,” he says, that is what “declare we unto you.” And to what end? “That ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” It is a remarkably concise and stirring theological testament to the Incarnation and the Trinity, to the deeper mystery of Christmas.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint John the Evangelist

The collect for today, the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

MERCIFUL Lord, we beseech thee to cast thy bright beams of light upon thy Church, that it being enlightened by the doctrine of thy blessed Apostle and Evangelist Saint John may so walk in the light of thy truth, that it may at length attain to the light of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 1:1-5
The Gospel: St. John 21:19-25

Juan Ribalta, St. John the EvangelistJohn and his brother James (St. James the Greater) were Galilean fishermen and sons of Zebedee. Jesus called the two brothers Boanerges (“sons of thunder”), apparently because of their zealous character; for example, they wanted to call down fire from heaven on the inhospitable Samaritans. John and James, together with Peter, belonged to the inner group of the apostles who witnessed the Transfiguration and the agony in Gethsemane. It was John and Peter whom Jesus sent to prepare the final Passover meal.

In the lists of disciples, John always appears among the first four, but usually after his brother, which may indicate that John was the younger of the two.

According to ancient church tradition, St. John the Evangelist was the author of the New Testament documents that bear his name: the fourth gospel, the three epistles of John, and Revelation. John’s name is not mentioned in the fourth gospel (but 21:2 refers to “the sons of Zebedee”), but he is usually if not always identified as the beloved disciple. It is also generally believed that John was the “other disciple” who, with Peter, followed Jesus after his arrest. John was the only disciple at the foot of the cross and was entrusted by Christ with the care of his mother Mary.

After Christ’s resurrection and ascension, John, together with Peter, took a leading role in the formation and guidance of the early church. John was present when Peter healed the lame beggar, following which both apostles were arrested. After reports reached Jerusalem that Samaria was receiving the word of God, the apostles sent Peter and John to visit the new Samaritan converts. Presumably, John was at the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). He is not mentioned later in the Acts of the Apostles, so he appears to have left Palestine.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. Stephen

“Lord, lay not this sin to their charge”

The words of the kneeling Stephen as he dies echo Christ’s first word on the Cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” It is no accident that the first of the holy days of Christmas is The Feast of St. Stephen. It signifies two things that are of the greatest importance. The first is that without the Cross there is no manger. The second is that Christ’s holy nativity inaugurates the mission of the Church. We are to follow in the steps of Christ. He is, as one of the Eastertide collects puts it, “both a sacrifice for sin and also an example of godly life” (Easter 2). The Feast of Stephen the Martyr reveals the real depth and meaning of Christmas.

It is about sacrifice and about a new orientation to life, a living for others in the spirit of forgiveness. Stephen is the proto-martyr, the first witness of Christ in the form of the giving of his life. In a way, he marks the beginning of a significant tradition, the tradition of the saints. What is that about? Simply the living reality of Christ in the body of his Church and in the lives and actions of his members.

Christmas celebrates the mystery of God with us. Part of its radical meaning is that Christ lives in us. His Incarnation marks his being with us but for a purpose. It is redemption. “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”, to be sure, but born and given for what? To suffer and to die for us. Why? To show us the true life which God seeks for us – life with God. To show us that sin is the negative feature of our humanity and not its real and radical truth which is found in our being with God. Sacrifice, meaning the giving over of ourselves to the one who has given himself fully for us, becomes the true measure and meaning of our lives. It is ‘another who lives in us’, the other who is Christ Jesus the Lord. Herein lies the importance of the Feast of Stephen.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Stephen the Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, O Lord, that in all our sufferings here upon earth, for the testimony of thy truth, we may stedfastly look up to heaven, and by faith behold the glory that shall be revealed; and, being filled with the Holy Spirit, may learn to love and bless our persecutors, by the example of thy first Martyr Saint Stephen, who prayed for his murderers to thee, O blessed Jesus, who standest at the right hand of God to succour all those that suffer for thee, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 7:55-60
The Gospel: St. Matthew 23:34-39

Stom, Stoning of St. StephenAll that is known of St. Stephen’s life is found in the Acts of the Apostles, chapters 6 and 7. He is reckoned as the first Christian martyr–the proto-martyr. Although his name is Greek for “crown”, he was a Jew by birth; he would have been born outside Palestine and raised as a Greek-speaking Jew. The New Testament does not record the circumstances of his conversion to Christianity.

Stephen first appears as one of the seven deacons chosen in response to protests by Hellenist (Greek-speaking) Christians that their widows were being neglected in the distribution of alms. The apostles were too busy preaching the word of God to deal with this problem, so they commissioned seven men from among the Hellenists “of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom”, then prayed and laid hands on them. Stephen, the first among the seven, is described as “full of faith and of the Holy Spirit”. A few verses later, Stephen is said to be “full of grace and power [and] doing great wonders and signs among the people”.

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Sermons

Sermon for Christmas Morn

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour,
who is Christ the Lord”

We meet in the contemplative wonder of Christmas morn after all the excitement of Christmas Eve. “And so it was, that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first-born son”. He is “the only-begotten of the Father full of grace and truth” as we heard last night from the heights of heaven, as it were. We come to Bethlehem. Why? What does it signify?

We contemplate the great wonder of the unity of God and Man and the whole of the created order. There are the three great masses of Christmas: first, the proclamation and celebration of the eternal Sonship of the child Christ which we heard last night; second, the story of his actual birth made known in the songs of the Angels in the gospel this morning; and, then, later, the Christmas of the Shepherds to whom this angelic news from heavenly heights is proclaimed and made known. The three masses of Christmas present to us something of the fullness of this wonder and delight. Bethlehem is paradise restored, to be sure, but Bethlehem is something more. It inaugurates a new vision and a new life, the new vision and the new life of what has been made known to us, God with us and God for us. “Unto you”, the Angels say to the Shepherds and to us, “unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour who is Christ the Lord”.

We are in the company of the Shepherds, it seems; only so, it seems, can we be in the company of the Angels; and even more, unless we are in the company of Angels and Shepherds, we shall not be with the holy Child who comes to us. The Angels proclaim something great and wondrous for us. Their words are strong words of proclamation that point to a wonder and mystery. They say it is for us. And for them? Only through us it seems, for in what they proclaim and make known we see the unity of the whole of creation with its Creator. The Angels, too, are part of that order. They do simply what belongs to their office and being, to their ministry, as it were. They are the messengers, the audible and visible thoughts of God made known to us.

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