Month: May 2019

Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday After Easter

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

O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:17-21
The Gospel: St. John 16:5-15

Simon Vouet, The Last Supper, 1615-20Artwork: Simon Vouet, The Last Supper, 1615-20. Oil on canvas, Apostolic Palace, Basilica of the Holy House, Loreto, Italy.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 15 May

Talitha Cumi

An Aramaic phrase, it means, “little girl, I say unto you, arise”. It is part of an intriguing scene in which Jesus heals and raises to life, a kind of double miracle, as it were, which helps us to understand the radical nature of the Resurrection. A ruler of the Jews, Jairus by name, comes to Jesus seeking the healing of his daughter who is “at the point of death.” Jesus goes with him and “a great crowd followed him and thronged about him.”

Jesus is in the midst. A woman in the crowd who had suffered “a flow of blood for twelve years” and “who had suffered much under many physicians” thinks that “if I touch even his garments, I shall be made well.” She touches his garment and immediately is healed. But the greater interest is in what follows. Jesus wants to know who touched him, even more he wants the woman who was healed to be embraced in his knowing love of our humanity rather than presuming to steal a cure unawares. She comes to him “in fear and trembling and and fell down before him and told him the whole truth.” His response shows us what God seeks for us: our being healed in his knowing love for us. “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” Only then does he continue on his way to the house of Jairus.

On the way, he is told that she is dead but he comes any way. In the face of the mockery and laughter of the household, he bids her in Aramaic to arise. She is raised up. It is one of three powerful stories where Jesus meets us as mourners and restores to life the dead. Such scenes prepare us and show us something of the radical nature of the Resurrection. It is the only scene, though, which shows our disdain and cynical mockery of the possibility of new life. We laugh and are dead, as it were, to the power of God. This story is meant to counter such behaviour and to awaken us to the wonder of God and to the nature of his will for us.

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King's-Edgehill School Sermons

Reflections for King’s-Edgehill School Cadet Church Parade, 2019

Church Parade Reflections 2019
Christ Church (Anglican), Windsor, Nova Scotia
May 14th, 2019
“But you, have you built well?”

I. “But you, have you built well?”

“But you, have you built well, that you now sit helpless in a ruined house?” T.S. Eliot’s question in ‘Choruses from “The Rock”’ reminds us that, one hundred years ago, the world was in ruins following the devastations and horrors of the First World War. His poem, The Waste Land, reflects on a world that is “a heap of broken images,” itself a scriptural reference about the wilderness which we create in contrast to the garden of creation that we heard about in the first lesson from Genesis read by Julia.

“You know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.”

It is a picture of desolation and despair. The only hope, he suggests, is found in “the shadow of this red rock.” “Come in under the shadow of this red rock.” The reference is to Holy Scripture, to the words which speak to our souls in all times and places, words which awaken us to comfort and consolation, and to thoughtful action. Only so might we learn from the ruins of our own making. Only so might there be a building anew.

“I will show you something different,” Eliot says, “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” It is at once disquieting and yet comforting. It recalls us to creation in which God breathes his spirit into the dust of our humanity and ‘Adam’ became a living being. Fear is not only about the things which frighten us; it is also about the awe and wonder of God, the Creator and maker of all things.

“But you, have you built well?”

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter

“Your sorrow shall be turned into joy”

Jesus’ words capture the meaning of the Resurrection. It is what we see in the mystery and the wonder of the Resurrection at Easter and throughout the Octave when we are suspended, as it were, in that wonder and mystery. Mary Magdalene comes in sorrow expecting a body; she encounters the Risen Christ. Sorrow is turned into joy. The disciples huddle in fear and anxiety behind closed doors; Christ appears in their midst. Sorrow is turned into joy.

Two disciples flee Jerusalem in fear and sorrow because of the traumatic events of Christ’s crucifixion; on the road to Emmaus, Christ comes alongside them and enters into conversation with them, drawing out their expectations and desires, all of which have been shattered and destroyed, and drawing out of them the confusing and perplexing things that belong to the accounts of the Resurrection: the women finding the tomb empty, the testimony of the angel, and the confirmation of the other disciples of the women’s words. He then opens their minds to the understanding of the Scriptures about his Death and Resurrection but is really only made known to them in the breaking of the bread. Only then do they get it and sorrow is turned into joy. “Did not our heart burn within us?”, they say. They return to Jerusalem, the very place from which they had been fleeing in fear and sorrow.  Sorrow is turned into joy.

But this Gospel reading is different. It is, as it were, before the fact and yet already explains the fact. It reveals the deeper and more difficult meaning of the Resurrection. It is not just sorrow turned into joy; it is joy found in the midst of sorrow (and paradoxically, sorrow in the midst of joy). It signals a deeper kind of turning that challenges our more linear way of approaching things and one which the Gospel seems to acknowledge. It does so by way of a metaphor: the metaphor of childbirth, appropriate enough, I suppose, on this day when in our secular culture we celebrate and remember motherhood. No motherhood without childbirth.

The Christian faith is wonderfully grounded in the everyday realities of human lives but without being reduced to them and ultimately provides an important critique of our assumptions about religion and human life. This is the challenge. To see the joy in the sorrow and the sorrow in the joy. That is to be radically changed in our whole outlook which in a narrow and linear way moves from one moment to another. Such a way of thinking is quite inadequate and false to what it means to be human. The Gospel readings of the these three last Sundays after Easter counter such simple determinisms.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 13 – 19 May

Tuesday, May 14th
6:30pm KES Cadet Church Parade

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

Friday, May 17th
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, May 19th, The Fourth Sunday after Easter
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

Tuesday, May 21st
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong, by Amin Maalouf, and From the Ruins of Empire, by Pankaj Mishra.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After Easter

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

ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St. John 16:16-22

Simon Ushakov, The Last SupperArtwork: Simon Ushakov, The Last Supper, 1685. Icon, Sergiev Posad State History and Art Museum Preserve, Moscow Oblast, Lavra, Sergiev Posad, Russia.

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Prayers and liturgy

Cyril and Methodius, Missionaries

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

Saints Cyril and Methodius, Trebic, Czech RepublicSt. 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: Statue of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Trebic, Czech Republic.

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Prayers and liturgy

Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop and Doctor

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

Domenichino, Saint Gregory NazianzusAlmighty 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: Domenichino, Saint Gregory Nazianzus, 1609-12. Fresco, Cappella dei Santi Fondatori (Chapel of the Holy Founders), Abbey of Santa Maria, Grottaferrata, Italy.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 8 May

Living in the care of the Good Shepherd

Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of the dry bones is dramatic and compelling. The prophet is carried in a vision to a valley in which there are a host of dry bones. “Son of man,” God says to Ezekiel, “can these bones live?” He is commanded to prophesy to the bones: “hear the word of the Lord.” The dry bones are an image of the people of Israel who are dead to the living Word and Spirit of God. They are being recalled to life and purpose.

What Ezekiel faces in the proverbial valley of dry bones is exactly what every teacher, preacher, coach and leader faces. We look out and wonder: ‘is this gathering a collection of dry bones, dead and un-alive to the challenges at hand?’ How to inspire and enliven them? The story is about the principles and ideals which properly belong to our life and being at once individually and collectively. We only live when the animating principles that belong to the integrity of our institutions are alive in us. All that one can do, of course, is to proclaim them and make them known. Whether they will live in you or not says everything about you. Are you dead or alive?

The passage from Ezekiel is about that idea of principles being alive in us inwardly without which they can have no expression outwardly. The story is powerfully and colourfully told: bone upon bone, “a great rattling of bones,” and then sinew and flesh coming upon the bones. It is a wonderful image about the formation of our bodies, we might say, and yet the point is that something more is needed. We are more than our bodies, it seems. The story  intentionally recalls the Genesis story of creation about God forming our humanity from the dust but expands upon it in terms of bone joined to bone along with sinew and flesh. But that is merely external. The key point in Genesis a is the idea of God breathing his own spirit into our humanity so that we become living beings. And so, too, here in our being recalled to life, to living with purpose.

Ezekiel’s story is about Israel being raised back to life by God’s spirit being breathed into the dry bones. In other words, it is about Israel being recalled to the principles and ideals of the Law that properly belong to her identity and vocation. With Ezekiel there is now an emphasis upon what is no longer simply external but internal. Ezekiel argues that the Law must be engraven upon our hearts. The ideals and principles that are before us have to be realised in us. It is really a question about whether or not we are willing to let ideas live in us. It is an ancient question and one that remains for us.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday after Easter

“For ye were as sheep going astray”

The accounts of the Resurrection, especially in John’s Gospel, are particularly instructive about a fundamental feature of Christianity which extends to other religions. That is “a sacramental understanding,” which we attempted to explore in our Lenten series this year. A sacramental understanding, we suggested, connects to the idea of creation and to the idea that the things of God are made known through the things of the world and that our participation in the life of God is precisely through the things of the world becoming the instruments of grace and salvation. A sacramental understanding extends necessarily as well to the Resurrection, itself a new creation. In a way, the Resurrection is made known to us sacramentally, as it were.

We see this in Luke’s Gospel too in such things as the wonderful story of Christ and the disciples on the road to Emmaus where Jesus “opens their understanding of the Scriptures” about his death and resurrection but is really only made known to them “in the breaking of the bread;” in short, by recalling them to his words and actions at the Last Supper. In John’s Gospel after Mary Magdalene’s discovery first of the empty tomb and then her encounter with the Risen Christ, and after Jesus appears in the midst of the disciples twice behind closed doors and makes himself known directly to Thomas, there is the wonderful story of a beach barbecue breakfast with Jesus. This is not quite the same thing as the Men’s Club breakfast. “Have you any fish?” Jesus asks, and then invites us, “Come and have breakfast.” That story leads to the end of John’s Gospel where Jesus asks Simon Peter three times “do you love me?” and commands him each time “to feed my lambs,” “tend my sheep,” “feed my sheep.” Peter who had betrayed Christ three times is reconstituted in love three times. It is a wonderful statement about the radical power and nature of the Resurrection. Something new and wonderful is made out of the nothingness of our sins. The past is not denied nor forgotten but becomes the vehicle and vessel of new life. Such is redemption.

This brings us to today’s readings. Sheep and shepherds. We are the sheep who have gone astray; Christ is the Good Shepherd who gathers us and returns us to himself, “the Shepherd and Bishop of [our] souls.” The image of Christ the Good Shepherd is profoundly a resurrection image that belongs to our sacramental understanding. Today’s Collect speaks of Jesus as being “unto us both a sacrifice for sin and also an example of godly life”. He is the sacrifice for sin. He is the cure, the Good Shepherd who gives his life for the sheep. He stands in the face of the destroyer of the sheep – ultimately our sins are his destroyer. He is the shepherd who wills to be struck, not so that the sheep may be scattered but so that through his being struck and their being scattered he may gather them to himself. He is our care. He cares for us through his cure for us.

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