Month: June 2016

“Above all, take the shield of faith”

Most of you came into the church through the main entrance as did their Honours, the Honourable J.J. Grant and her Honour, Mrs. Joan Grant. As you did you passed under an inscription just above the doors. “Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God,” it reads. I wonder how many of you noticed it. But don’t worry. You are in good company. Hundreds and hundreds of parishioners over more than a hundred years haven’t noticed either!

A most curious phrase it comes from that most philosophical of all the books of the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes. It speaks metaphorically and poetically about the spiritual purpose of the holy places, places which are to be entered upon intentionally, paying attention to where we are and what we are doing, especially here this morning. I wonder if the men of the 112^th took notice of it as they came here for Divine Service in the winter, spring and early summer of 1916, wondering if it was simply code for more marching, but perhaps wondering, too, about the war over there.

A tablet erected by the congregation of Christ Church commemorates those of the parish who gave their lives in the Great War. Placed on the other side of the font from where the Colours of the 112^th rest, it also commemorates “the placing in this Church of the Colours of the 112^th Battalion C.E.F whose Officers and Men were faithful attendants at the services of the Church previous to their Departure for overseas in Defense of the Empire, July 1916”. Today we celebrate that commemoration of the laying up of the Colours of the 112^th Battalion. You are sitting where the Officers and Men of the 112^th sat a hundred years ago in the months leading up to their embarkation to England and to the theatres of war on the continent of Europe.

The hymn which we sang was written by Mrs. Annie L. Pratt who also designed and executed the Colours. The hymn was composed from a poem which she wrote in 1915. The hymn captures something of the hopes and fears that defined the war generations both of the First World War and the Second. It draws upon the language of the scriptures about God’s providential care, “a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night”, images from the Exodus journey in the wilderness of the people of Israel. There are as well scriptural references to strength and wisdom, to justice and light, to life and peace. Throughout the hymn and in the story of the 112^th Battalion, there is the sense of being caught up into something momentous and all-defining. It was the war that changed all wars, the war that shattered civilisation. It had a profound impact upon rural and small town Nova Scotia.

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“Rejoice with me”

“There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance”, Jesus says in a series of three famous parables that comprise the 15^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Luke. The parables appear in response to the criticism of the Pharisees and Scribes – 1^st century Jewish religious authorities, as it were – who criticize Jesus for the company he keeps, the company of tax-collectors and sinners. Jesus response is to tell three parables two of which are before us in this morning’s Gospel: the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin.

The parables are all about repentance and joy, about being lost and found. They illustrate the deep love of God which seeks our restoration to wholeness in the community of spirit, the ekklesia of God, the Church universal. The return of the lost is the occasion of the greatest joy, a joy both in heaven and in earth. Redemption occasions a greater joy than the joy of creation itself, it seems. It is a powerful moral and intellectual idea.

What is so powerful is that there is something more precious and more important about our humanity and our individuality than just our wayward and sinful actions. Good news indeed! For if we are defined simply by our thoughts, words and deeds that we are utterly condemned. Our hearts condemn us but God we have learned in these early days of the Trinity season is greater than our hearts. Such is the divine mercy.

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“If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart”

The Collect, Epistle and Gospel for each Sunday complement each other and contribute to a way of thinking and doing, especially so for the Sundays in the Trinity season. Today’s Gospel is Christ’s parable about the kingdom of heaven being likened to a great supper to which those who were invited all made excuse. The consequence of our refusals would seem to mean “no feast” and all because of our refusals of God’s inviting grace, as if our convenience were to take priority over God’s will. But such arrogant indifference is simply our atheism, our denial of the will of God for us. No feast because there is no God.

But can it be that our excuses frustrate God’s will? Surely not. We can only frustrate ourselves. God will have his house filled with those whom he makes ready – bringing them in who could not come on their own, compelling them to come in who would not come any other way. The parable signals the strong love of God for our humanity, for what he seeks for us even in spite of ourselves.

But those whom God invites are those whom he would have come willingly and freely – out of love – those of whom it may truly be said, “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” To refuse the invitation is to deny that love. To be sure, our refusals of God’s grace belong also to the freedom of our will. But to be freed to our own pre-occupations is to be enslaved to ourselves – to the misery of our self-will, to the condemnation of our hearts. It is not what God wants for us nor what he wants us to want either.

The purpose of the parable is to convict our hearts of our folly and foolishness but only so that we will be thrown back more fully and more freely upon the goodness of God. In this way, the Gospel for today follows the same logic and purpose as last Sunday’s Gospel. These are Gospel parables of strong encouragement to take seriously our life with God. It is all about our faithful abiding in the love of God. The epistle, too, signals the further extension of the theme of forgiveness that the goodness of God presents: “if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart”. God is neither indifferent to our predicaments nor is he captive to our concerns. At issue is how we are awakened to his presence and will for us in our lives.

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