Year: 2019

Sermons

Sermon for the Eve of the Conversion of St. Paul

I could not see for the glory of that light

He was blinded into sight, we might say. Conversion is the paradox of radical transformation. The Conversion of Paul is a striking example of that kind of paradox. He who persecuted “this Way unto death,” meaning the followers of Jesus who are not yet called Christians, becomes himself a follower and even more the outstanding “apostle to the gentiles”. With Paul’s ‘conversion’, Christianity will become Christianity, we might say, and goes global. In that sense, it complements wonderfully the Epiphany season. Something is made known and what is manifest changes us. And sometimes in dramatic ways.

Paul, his name itself is a consequence of his ‘conversion’, tells us his story three times in The Book of the Acts of the Apostles, a book which might equally be called the Book of the Acts of Paul. He was Saul of Tarsus, a learned Jew, “born” as he says “in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city”, Jerusalem, “at the feet of Gamaliel”, a learned rabbi, “and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers,” a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He is laying out his credentials before the Jews on the very steps of the Temple in Jerusalem. They have sought to kill him because of what he is saying about Jesus as the Messiah. The ensuing riot and commotion has resulted in the Roman legion intervening to keep the peace.

But before being taken away by the Roman soldiers, Paul speaks to the tribune, the commanding officer, Claudius Lysius. We actually learn his name. To the surprise of the tribune, Paul addresses him in Greek. The tribune, who is apparently Latin speaking but knows Greek, is surprised because he had thought that Paul was an Egyptian and indeed one of the Sicari, a group of Jewish zealots opposed to the Roman occupation and dominance of the Jewish people. Sicari refers to the daggers which they would use to assassinate both Roman soldiers and Jewish collaborators with the Roman authorities. It is the only time the word is used in the New Testament, an hapax legomenon.

Paul asks to be allowed to speak to the Jewish people. He speaks to them in Hebrew. The entire scene shows us something of the interplay of cultures and languages that belongs to the emergence of Christianity. What is his story? It is his famous account of his ‘conversion’ on the road to Damascus. It becomes iconic; ‘a road to Damascus experience’ signals the idea of a radical change of direction in thought and character.

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Timothy and St. Titus, Apostolic Men

The collect for today, The Feast of St. Timothy and St. Titus, Apostolic men, Companions of St. Paul (source):

Norwich Cathedral, Saint TimothyHeavenly Father,
who didst send thine apostle Paul to preach the gospel,
and gavest him Timothy and Titus to be his companions in the faith:
grant that our fellowship in the Holy Spirit
may bear witness to the name of Jesus,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 1:1-8 or Titus 1:1-5
The Gospel: St. John 10:1-10

Artwork: Saint Timothy, stained glass, Norwich Cathedral. Photograph taken by admin, 3 October 2014.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 23 January

This beginning of signs

The story of Jesus teaching in the Temple at the age of twelve is complemented by the story of the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. Both are epiphanies of the divinity of Christ; the one about divine wisdom, the other about divine power. The order is significant and speaks directly to our contemporary confusions in which reason or knowledge is subordinate to power. Human reason and power are finite and limited, on the one hand, and deficient and flawed, on the other hand. To know this is wisdom.

The deep lessons of the Epiphany are very much about what God seeks for our humanity. What is the purpose or end of our being and existence? Do we presume to think that human reason on its own power is sufficient to achieve human perfection? Or are we able to recognize the limits of our knowing and the problems of our doing? The questions are not simply rhetorical.

Wisdom and power are complementary divine attributes; properties of God made manifest in Jesus Christ in the Christian understanding. Such attributes of divinity are recognized in the other religions and philosophies of the world, albeit with differences of emphasis about the relation of wisdom and power.

In our contemporary global world, the technocratic reason that dominates our culture is very much about the subordination of reason to power. There is, however, no wisdom where reason is reduced to a tool or instrument of domination. These stories offer a corrective and a counter to our assumptions about power achieved through technology, a power which compromises the integrity of our humanity by reducing human thinking to thinking like a machine or to being “organic algorithms” as Yuval Noah Harari imagines. Greg Lukianoff’s and Jonathan Haidt’s The Coddling of the American Mind, Maryanne Wolf’s Reader, Come Home, James Bridle’s New Dark Age, Emerson T. Brooking’s and P.W. Singer’s Likewar, and Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now are but a few of a great and growing number of books and from a range of perspectives that highlight the problems of our over-dependence and uncritical relation to the digital world.

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Prayers and liturgy

Vincent, Deacon and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Vincent of Saragossa (d. 304), Deacon and Martyr (source):

Almighty God, whose deacon Vincent, upheld by thee, was not terrified by threats nor overcome by torments: Strengthen us, we beseech thee, to endure all adversity with invincible and steadfast faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Revelation 7:13-17
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:4-12

Diogo de Contreiras, Saint VincentVincent is the proto-Martyr (first known martyr) of Spain and the patron saint of Lisbon. He was deacon of Saragossa, Aragon, under Bishop Valerius. Both were arrested during the persecution instigated by edicts of Diocletian and Maximian. Because Valerius had a speech impediment, Vincent testified to their faith in Christ, boldly and without fear.

Dacian, Roman governor of Spain, subjected Vincent to horrible tortures. The saint was thrown into prison and weakened by semi-starvation. After refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods, he was racked, burned, and kept in stocks. He died as a result of his sufferings.

St. Augustine of Hippo preached a sermon on Vincent’s martyrdom. Here is an excerpt:

“To you has been granted in Christ’s behalf not only that you should believe in him but also that you should suffer for him.” Vincent had received both these gifts and held them as his own. For how could he have them if he had not received them? And he displayed his faith in what he said, his endurance in what he suffered. No one ought to be confident in his own strength when he undergoes temptation. For whenever we endure evils courageously, our long-suffering comes from him Christ. He once said to his disciples: “In this world you will suffer persecution,” and then, to allay their fears, he added, “but rest assured, I have conquered the world.” There is no need to wonder then, my dearly beloved brothers, that Vincent conquered in him who conquered the world. It offers temptation to lead us astray; it strikes terror into us to break out spirit. Hence if our personal pleasures do not hold us captive, and if we are not frightened by brutality, then the world is overcome. At both of these approaches Christ rushes to our aid, and the Christian is not conquered.

Artwork: Diogo de Contreiras, Saint Vincent, 16th century. Oil on panel, Private collection.

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Prayers and liturgy

Agnes, Virgin and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Agnes (c. 291-304), Virgin, Martyr at Rome (source):

Eternal God, Shepherd of thy sheep,
by whose grace thy child Agnes was strengthened to bear witness,
in her life and in her death,
to the true love of her redeemer:
grant us the power to understand, with all thy saints,
what is the breadth and length and height and depth
and to know the love that passeth all knowledge,
even 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: Song of Solomon 2:10-13
The Gospel: St. Matthew 18:1-6

Taddeo di Bartolo, Saint AgnesOne of the most celebrated of the early Roman martyrs, Agnes was only twelve or thirteen when she was executed in the Piazza Navona for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods. Several early Christian leaders praised her courage and exemplary faith, including Ambrose, Pope Damasus, Jerome, and Prudentius. Although her story was embellished during the Middle Ages, it is certain that Agnes was very young and died as a Christian virgin.

St. Ambrose extolled her in his De Virginibus, written in 377:

[St. Agnes’ death was] A new kind of martyrdom! Not yet of fit age for punishment but already ripe for victory, difficult to contend with but easy to be crowned, she filled the office of teaching valour while having the disadvantage of youth. She would not as a bride so hasten to the couch, as being a virgin she joyfully went to the place of punishment with hurrying step, her head not adorned with plaited hair, but with Christ.

Because her name resembles agnus (‘lamb’), she is generally depicted in art with a lamb in her arms or by her feet. On her feast at Rome, the wool of two lambs is blessed and then woven into pallia (stoles of white wool) for the pope and archbishops.

Two notable Roman churches have been erected at locations associated with St. Agnes. The church of Sant’Agnese in Agone now stands in the Piazza Navona, the place of her martyrdom. The Basilica of Sant’Agnesi fuori le Mura (St. Agnes Outside the Walls) was built at her tomb in a family burial plot along the Via Nomentana, about two miles outside Rome.

Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls.

Artwork: Taddeo di Bartolo, Saint Agnes, c. 1415-20. Tempera on poplar panel, Private collection.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

“O woman, what is that to thee and to me? Mine hour has not yet come”

This, too, is an Epiphany, a making known of the essential divinity of Christ. This, too, is a scene of wonder and amazement. This, too, is a matter of disquieting questions put to Mary. Here he says in response to her observation that they have no wine, “O woman, what is that to thee and to me?”A strange and disturbing question, not unlike the one we heard last Sunday. “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” Such questions might seem to border on the impertinent and the rude, perhaps even a tad disrespectful! But no.

In the context of the Epiphany, we are to see these scenes and hear these questions as belonging to the two natures of Christ, to the union of the divine and the human in the person of Christ. Only so can we begin to see that the making known of the things of God makes certain things known to us and our humanity. Last week, it was about the vocation of our humanity as students in matters of things divine. This week it is about the presence of God in our lives sacramentally and spiritually, but only through the awakening to human limitation that opens us out to the abundance of grace in God, the God who seeks the very best for us in our lives which is more than we can desire or deserve. Such is the radical significance of the miracles of the Gospel. They have to do with two things: the miracle of creation itself as the work of the Creator and the miracle of God’s redemption of our humanity. The miracle stories of the Epiphany all show us what God truly seeks for our humanity.

This is “the beginning of signs,” John tells us, the beginning of the miracles that belong to the understanding of human redemption. This beginning is most instructive. Most of the miracles are anything but mere displays of power. Most of the miracles of the Gospel are about human healing and salvation: “the blind see, the deaf hear, the lepers are cleansed, the lame walk, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel preached to them.” To be sure, and yet the beginning of all such signs is this miracle story of the changing of water into wine at the wedding feast of Cana of Galilee, a story which has, I think, an inescapable sacramental quality and significance. What does it mean?

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 21 – 27 January

Monday, January 21st
4:35-5:15pm Confirmation/Inquirer’s Class – Room 206, KES

Tuesday, January 22nd
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, January 24th, Eve of the Conversion of St. Paul
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Friday, January 25th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, January 27th, Third Sunday after the Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Event:

Sunday, February 10th
Pot-Luck Luncheon and Annual Parish Meeting following the 10:30am service.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday After The Epiphany

The collect for today, The Second Sunday after the Epiphany, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:6-16
The Gospel: St. John 2:1-11

Vladimir Makovsky, Miracle at CanaArtwork: Vladimir Makovsky, Miracle at Cana, 1887. Oil on canvas, Vitebsk Art Museum, Vitebsk, Belarus.

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Prayers and liturgy

Henry, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for a missionary, on the Feast of St. Henry of Finland (d. 1150), Bishop, Missionary, Patron Saint of Finland, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

Saint Henry of FinlandO 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 Henry, 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 Epistle: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 4:13-24a

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 16 January

Did you not know?


Epiphany is the season of teaching. It speaks profoundly to the nature of education at King’s-Edgehill. Teaching and learning concern the whole person and the formation of character. Such is the recurring emphasis on gentleness and learning, respect and dignity. So too with Epiphany. The question implies that there are things that we should know or at least come to know.

In the Christian understanding, the teaching is about the essential divinity of Christ. In other words, something about the idea and nature of God is made known through Christ. The stories of the Epiphany season illustrate the wisdom, the power and the eternity of God manifest in the words and deeds of Christ. The further point is that through the teachings about the nature of God something is shown to us about ourselves; indeed, something about the vocation of our humanity.

The lesson from Isaiah 42 read on Monday and Tuesday is the first of the four so-called ‘suffering servant’ songs in Isaiah. Powerful poetry, the prophet presents God as saying, “behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights; I will put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice to the nations.” The servant can be understood individually as a Messiah figure or collectively as the people of Israel. The vocation of Israel is as God’s servant, charged with “establishing justice in the earth,” as being “a covenant to the people”, “a light to the nations,” as “opening the eyes of the blind,” as “bringing the prisoners out of the dungeon”, “from the prison those who sit darkness.” The images speak to the redemption of our humanity and ground the vocation of our humanity in the life of God. For Christians the song is seen in relation to the Baptism of Christ understood as an Epiphany of Christ’s divinity, an Epiphany of the Trinity. Jesus “coming out of the waters of Jordan” “sees the heavens open and the spirit like a dove descending upon him.” He hears “a voice from heaven saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” It is the voice of the Father. The imagery draws explicitly upon Isaiah and continues the theme that the teaching of God’s Word and Will shapes human thought and action.

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