Christ Church

The Good Shepherd giveth his life for the sheep

It is a most familiar and, perhaps, a most comforting image. It is the classical and quintessential image of care for Christians and even for non-Christians. Yet, as is often the case with familiar images, we take them for granted and sometimes miss their more radical meaning.

It is not by accident that the central icon or image in the School Chapel is the image of Christ the Good Shepherd, visible in the central window above the altar. It signals an ideal and principle about the nature of the School and about the kind of education that it promotes. At issue is how well we live up to the expectation and idea that this image conveys. It is, I suggest, about an education that cares for the whole person. King’s-Edgehill School is, I hope, an institution which cares for you as students.

That care is signaled in a myriad of ways in and through the myriad of experiences that contribute to the learning ambience of the School. The question for you is: do you care? Do you care about the School which cares about you? Do you care enough to step up and take your place in the various things that belong to the busy life of the School? Do you care enough to take on duties and responsibilities towards the community as a whole and for others?

The powerful passage about Christ the Good Shepherd turns on the whole matter of care. The Good Shepherd is contrasted with the hireling, the one who is hired, “a wage-slave,” we might say. The hireling is in it for the money, for a kind of self-interest. “The hireling,” we are told, “careth not for the sheep.” This is in complete contrast to the Good Shepherd who cares for the sheep and who knows his sheep. The word for “care” here means “to bestow careful thought upon” something or someone. That is the challenge for all of you every day. How do you think about one another and by extension the community and the world around you?

The image of Christ the Good Shepherd draws explicitly upon a number of familiar images from the Jewish Scriptures, particularly the so-called “Shepherd’s Psalm,” Psalm 23. “The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore can I lack nothing.” It signals the idea of God’s care and commitment towards our humanity as the Good in whom we find our good. Several of our hymns are based directly upon this psalm, such as “The King of Love my Shepherd is,” connecting care with love. The Psalm shows us something of the divine love for our humanity. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” Why?“For thou art with me; thy rod and staff comfort me.”

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The end of all things is at hand

“The end of all things is at hand,” Peter tells us. It sounds rather ominous and threatening yet the central message of this day is all about our joy and delight in God and in the redemption of all things to God, the one who is without end. Such is the radical meaning of the Ascension of Christ and his Session, his “sitt[ing] at the right hand of God the Father Almighty” as the Apostles’ Creed puts it. That idea of having an end with God is part of the Ascension theme of Christ’s homecoming and thus our home. In our secular culture in Canada today is Mother’s Day. In Britain and in other parts of the commonwealth, Mother’s Day was on Mothering Sunday, the Fourth Sunday in Lent when we were reminded that “Jerusalem which is above is free which is the mother of us all.” In a way, the theme of home and especially the role of mothers is gathered into the radical meaning of Christ’s homecoming.

What do the Ascension and the Session really mean? They proclaim Christ as Pantocrator, as the ruler of all things. Several years ago, travelling in England and visiting a number of Cathedrals and Churches, I was struck with how many of them had icons. Icons are a particular feature of the churches of Eastern Orthodoxy and embody a kind of sacramental sensibility. They draw us into the mystery of God’s engagement with our humanity and our world. They suggest something which belongs to the Ascension of Christ, a way of seeing ourselves and our world in God.

It is that orientation and understanding that is so critical and necessary for our church and world, for our souls and our lives. Some of you will have noticed that we have an icon here at Christ Church in the crossing just in front of the organ pipes. It is an icon of Christ Pantocrator, Christ the Ruler of All, already pointed to in the theme of this morning’s gradual psalm, “for God is the King of all the Earth.” The Icon presents an image of Christ holding an open book. The words are written in Russian in the Cyrillic alphabet. The open book symbolizes the idea of Christ Pantocrator as Teacher. Other icons depict Christ as holding a closed book, symbolizing Christ Pantocrator as Judge, albeit the merciful judge of all creation.

The Ascension and the Session of Christ are what we celebrate on this day. They affirm in the fullest way possible the idea that who we are is found entirely in God through the redemptive work of Christ. We are gathered to God in Christ and live in that understanding. That requires our constant learning about what that means. Hence the significance of Christ Pantocrator as Teacher. Our lives are gathered into the life of Christ and thus into the rule of his life in us. Our vocation is to be the learners of Christ. Disciples, after all, means learners.

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Monday May 14th
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, May 15th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-8:00pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room: Ross King, “Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of The Water Lilies” and Christian Madsbjerg, “Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm”

Wednesday, May 16th
6:30-8:00pm Brownies – Parish Hall

Friday, May 18th
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, May 20th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

Wednesday, May 23rd
3:00pm KES Cadet Corps Church Parade

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

Artwork: Valentin de Boulogne, The Last Supper, 1625-26. Oil on canvas, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome.

The collect for today, the commemoration of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), Nurse, Social Reformer (source):

Life-giving God, who alone hast power over life and death, over health and sickness: Give power, wisdom, and gentleness to those who follow the example of thy servant Florence Nightingale, that they, bearing with them thy Presence, may not only heal but bless, and shine as lanterns of hope in the darkest hours of pain and fear; through Jesus Christ, the healer of body and soul, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Isaiah 58:6-11
The Gospel: St. Matthew 25:31-46

Artwork: Francis William Sargent, Florence Nightingale Memorial, 1913. Main Cloister, Basilica di Santa Croce, Florence. Photograph taken by admin, 17 May 2010.

Florence Nightingale was born in Florence to an English couple touring Europe. Her parents loved the city so much that they gave its name to their daughter.

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Cyril (826-69) and Saint Methodius (c. 815-85), Apostles to the Slavs (source):

O Lord of all,
who gavest to thy servants Cyril and Methodius
the gift of tongues to proclaim the gospel to the Slavic people:
we pray that thy whole Church may be one as thou art one,
that all who confess thy name may honour one another,
and that from east and west all may acknowledge one Lord, one faith, one baptism,
and thee, the God and Father of all;
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: Ephesians 3:1-7
The Gospel: St. Mark 16:15-20

St. Cyril and St. Methodius were brothers born in Thessalonica who went to Constantinople after being ordained priests. (Cyril was baptised Constantine and did not become known as Cyril until late in his life.) Around AD 863, Emperor Michael II and Patriarch Photius sent the brothers as missionaries to Moravia, where they translated into Slavonic the Gospels, the Psalms, and the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. With his brother’s help, Cyril created an alphabet that later developed into Cyrillic, thus laying the foundation for Slavic literature.

German missionary bishops in the area celebrated the liturgy in Latin and opposed the brothers’ use of the vernacular. In 867, Cyril and Methodius participated in a debate in Venice over the use of Slavonic liturgy and were soon received with great honour in Rome by Pope Hadrian II, who authorised the use of Slavic tongues in the liturgy.

In 868, Cyril became a monk and entered a monastery in Rome, but died soon afterward and was buried in the church at San Clemente. Shortly after Cyril’s death, Methodius was consecrated archbishop of Sermium and returned to Moravia where he ministered for another fifteen years. He continued the work of translation and evangelisation, while continuing to face opposition from German bishops. Before his death in 885, he and his followers completed translations of the Bible, liturgical services, and collections of canon law.

St. Cyril and St. Methodius are honoured for evangelising the Slavs, organising the Slavic church, and pioneering the celebration of liturgy in the vernacular. For these reasons, in 1980 Pope John Paul II named them, together with St. Benedict, patron saints of all Europe.

Artwork: Jan Matejko, Saints Cyril and Methodius, 1885. National Museum, Poznan, Poland.

Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?

The question seems to capture a critical commonplace about religion: gazing into the heavens instead of paying attention to the things of the world, religion as utter nonsense and of no earthly value. In a way, it is partly true, at least in the sense that religion, in this case the Christian religion, is not to be measured by the world. Though the World Council of Churches famously (or infamously) once opined that the world sets the agenda for the churches, this is at best highly questionable. To be sure, the Church in the form of the churches finds itself in the world but it is not of the world. World improvement is not exactly the role and purpose of the churches, however much the churches have contributed to the stability and order of human communities in the world at times.

The paradox is great. The Church in being true to God contributes to the world but cannot be defined by the world and the world’s agendas. The paradox is poignantly manifest in The Feast of the Ascension of Christ. It marks the culmination or fulfillment of the doctrine of the Resurrection. The overcoming of sin and death is about our being restored to fellowship with God signaled in the homecoming of the Son to the Father in the Spirit. In the going forth and now the return of the Son to the Father, we have the highest expression of human dignity and truth. We have a home with God now in the world because of Christ’s being “at the right hand of the Father.” His going from us into heaven establishes the real truth and meaning of our lives spiritually and sacramentally.

The Ascension is cosmic in scope and signals the redemption of the world and our humanity by the gathering of both to God. We live in that understanding and that orientation. Our liturgy is really the liturgy of the Ascension. “Lift up your hearts!” In prayer and praise we participate in the return of all things to God from whom all good things to come. The whole point is about the world and our humanity in God, not God in the world and in us. It is a question of emphasis and direction.

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The collect for today, The Ascension Day, being the fortieth day after Easter, sometimes called Holy Thursday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

GRANT, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continuously dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 1:1-11
The Gospel: St. Mark 16:14-20

Artwork: Hans Memling, The Ascension (right panel of The Triptych of the Resurrection), c. 1490. Oil on wood, Louvre, Paris.

Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?

The question raises a certain contemporary attitude towards religion. Isn’t religion, after all, utterly useless and of no earthly good? “Don’t just stand there, do something?” Isn’t that the familiar mantra of the culture of busyness? This presupposes the fatal separation between doing and thinking. It might be better and truer to say, “don’t just do something but sit and think”!

It is, to be sure, a post-Christian world and one in which there appears to be no end of suspicion and disdain for all forms of religion. But the triumph of secularism is itself an illusion. Our post-Christian culture is also a “post-secular age,” a point which has been well known for several decades, notably expressed by the self-described metaphysical atheist, Jurgen Habermas. He pointed out the demise of ‘secularisation theory’ in the phenomenon of the modern return of religion. That return is ‘the good, the bad and the ugly,’ perhaps, but it means, at the very least, that religion has to be thought about seriously. The gaping hole in our systems of public education is the place (or non-place) of religion.

There is no area of knowledge, no subject or discipline in the academic world, that does not have some sort of connection to religion as philosophy. The terms ‘science’ and ‘religion’ are themselves very modern constructs which presuppose a conflict narrative perpetuated on both sides. The term, scientia, knowledge, was for more than two millennia about an inner disposition of the mind, about the discipline of thinking ethically with respect to any number of different areas of knowledge and interest. It was only in the 19th century that the term was reduced to a body of knowledge and a way of thinking, mostly empirical, about the natural world and, sadly, without a sense of the ethical. Ironically, it is easily conflated with a body of knowledge at the expense of us as knowers. The term, religio, religion, too, is at once ambiguous and uncertain and does not easily map onto the earlier forms of philosophical discourse. Religion, historically, was more about philosophy as a way of life; our knowing as knowing and living ethically.

These observations simply go to the important question about how we read and think, speak and act, something which often gets addressed in Chapel. This week brought us to the Christian mystery of the Ascension of Christ. The question about gazing up into heaven is not about the uselessness of all things religious and spiritual but more about how Christ’s Ascension is the fullest possible affirmation of our humanity, soul and body, and of human individuality. The Ascension celebrates the homecoming of the Son to the Father. At once cosmic in scope, it says something profound about the dignity of our humanity; “the exultation of our humanity,” as the Fathers spoke about it. It highlights the spiritual insight that our bodies and the world of nature are not nothing; they belong and have their place and truth with God. The Ascension is the culmination of the Resurrection. It points us to a profound view about our humanity, about who we are in the sight of God.

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The collect for today, the Feast of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-89), Monk, Bishop, Theologian, Doctor of the Eastern Church (source):

Almighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Wisdom 7:7-14
The Gospel: St. John 8:25-32

Artwork: Peter Paul Rubens, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, 1620-21. Oil on wood, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.