Christ Church

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity.

“And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and in all judgement”

It is, as Shakespeare puts it, “that time of year … when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/ upon those boughs which shake against the cold,/ bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang” (Sonnet 73), the time of scattered leaves which lie in abundant heaps upon the ground, scattered leaves too many to number. “I had not thought that death had undone so many,” T.S.. Eliot says in the Waste Land, written just after the devastations of the First World War but also after the greater devastations of the Spanish Flu. He is channeling Dante’s observation about the souls in the vestibule of Hell. Numbers beyond numbers.

Yet in the season of scattered leaves and in the culture of scattered souls, there is a gathering, the spiritual gathering of All Saints’ and All Souls’. Today, the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity marks the Eve of All Saints, Halloween. Rather providentially, the Epistle and Gospel complement and prepare us for All Saints and its Octave of commemoration. Paul, in our text, prays “that [our] love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgement”. In response to Peter’s question about how often shall I forgive the one who has sinned against me, suggesting a limit, “till seven times?”, Jesus says “I say not unto thee, until seven times; but seventy times seven.” It is a deliberate exaggeration to teach that love in forgiveness is without limit. He uses number to point to what is beyond number.

In the lesson for All Saints’ Day, John the Divine in his Revelation beholds “a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” who along with angels, and the elders (numbered earlier in Revelation as four and twenty), and the four living creatures, are all engaged in the ecstatic praise and worship of God. It is a marvellous vision of redeemed humanity, a vision of the Communion of Saints.  As the Apostles’ Creed wonderfully reminds us, the forgiveness of sins is the connecting link between the Communion of Saints and the Resurrection of the Body which belongs to our participation in that spiritual community.

The parable of the unforgiving servant is a strong indictment of our failure to act out of the abundant love of God in Jesus Christ. He is the forgiveness of sins and as such serves as a strong incentive to forgive even as we have been forgiven. We are recalled to the infinite love of God which is greater than our finite loves but in which by grace we are called to embrace and enact. Here is the love which properly defines us and belongs to the vision of the redemption and perfection of our humanity, come what may in the ups and downs, the confusions and uncertainties of our fallen world where we are scattered in our worries and fears like leaves on the wind. Our being gathered together can only be through the forgiveness of sins.

Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, November 1st, All Saints’ Day
7:00pm Holy Communion

Sunday, November 7th, Twenty-Third Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

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

LORD, we beseech thee to keep thy house hold the Church in continual godliness; that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 1:3-11
The Gospel: St Matthew 18:21-35

Artwork: Circle of Pieter Coecke van Aelst the Elder, Parable of the Unmerciful Servant, 16th century. Oil on panel, Private collection.

The collect for today, the commemoration of James Hannington (1847-85), first Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Missionary to Uganda, Martyr (source):

Precious in your sight, O Lord,
is the death of your martyrs
James Hannington and his companions,
who purchased with their blood a road into Uganda
for the proclamation of the gospel;
and we pray that with them
we also may obtain the crown of righteousness
which is laid up for all
who love the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 3:14-18,22
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:16-22

Scattered leaves … that time of year

It is, as Shakespeare puts it, “that time of year … when yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang/ upon those boughs which shake against the cold,/ bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang” (Sonnet 73), the time of scattered leaves. More than an observation about the passing seasons of the natural world, the images are about ourselves in the passage of time. We behold in ourselves “that time of year”, seeing in ourselves “the twilight of such day as after sunset fadeth in the west”, seeing in ourselves “the glowing of such fire that on the ashes of his youth doth lie.” The dying of nature’s year reminds us of human mortality but also about growing in maturity of understanding and love. Perceiving such changes in ourselves, the poet suggests, “makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ere long.”

The sonnet sounds a sombre yet reflective note that befits the spiritual meditations belonging to the end of October and the beginning of November with the Feast of All Saints in the Christian understanding. Halloween is the Eve of All Hallows. The saints are the holy ones not by their own presumption but as seen by God. All Saints’ signals the vocation of our humanity. It reminds us of the corporate nature of our lives together in communion with God and with one another. Such is the Communion of Saints.

We are neither cosmic orphans adrift in an indifferent universe, nor isolated individuals separated and apart from one another, alone in our aloneness. We are citizens of an heavenly city, “a great multitude, which no one could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues” united in the praise of God as Revelation envisions. This counters the loneliness and fearfulness that defines our current world.

Thus in the season of scattered leaves and in the culture of scattered souls, there is a gathering, a spiritual gathering. Dante, drawing upon the imagery of Vergil’s Aeneid, thinks about that gathering as the scattered leaves of ancient Sybil’s oracles being bound by love “into one volume”. Belit-Sheri’s “book of the dead” in Enkidu’s dream vision of the Sumerian underworld in The Epic of Gilgamesh has been transformed into the book of life inscribing the whole of our humanity. All Saints’ is a profound remembering of who we are and what we are called to be in the sight of God.

Read the rest of this entry »

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Simon the Zealot and Saint Jude, Apostles, with Saint Jude the Brother of the Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast built thy Church upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the head corner-stone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doctrine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable unto thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect for the Brethren of the Lord, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O HEAVENLY Father, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning: We bless thy holy Name for the witness of James and Jude, the kinsmen of the Lord, and pray that we may be made true members of thy heavenly family; through him who willed to be the firstborn among many brethren, even the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. Jude 1-4
The Gospel: St. John 14:21-27

In the various New Testament lists of the Twelve Apostles (Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:16-19; Luke 6:14-16; Acts 1:13), the tenth and eleventh places are occupied by Simon and Judas son of James, also called Thaddaeus.

To distinguish Simon from Simon Peter, Matthew and Mark refer to him as Simon the Cananaean, while Luke refers to him as Simon the Zealot. Both surnames have the same signification and are a translation of the Hebrew qana (the Zealous). The name does not signify that he belonged to the party of Zealots, but that he had zeal for the Jewish law, which he practised before his call. The translation of Matthew and Mark as Simon “the Canaanite” (as, e.g., KJV has it) is simply mistaken.

The New Testament contains a variety of names for the apostle Jude: Matthew and Mark refer to Thaddaeus (a variant reading of Matthew has “Lebbaeus called Thaddaeus”), while Luke calls him Judas son of James. Christian tradition regards Saint Jude and Saint Thaddaeus as different names for the same person. The various names are understood as efforts to avoid associating Saint Jude with the name of the traitor Judas Iscariot. The only time words of Jude are recorded, in St. John 14:22-23, the Evangelist is quick to add “(not Iscariot)” after his name.

Read the rest of this entry »

The collect for a Martyr, on the Feast of Saint Crispin and Saint Crispinian, Martyrs (d. c. 285), from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who didst bestow upon thy Saints such marvellous virtue, that they were able to stand fast, and have the victory against the world, the flesh, and the devil: Grant that we, who now commemorate thy Martyrs Crispin and Crispinian, may ever rejoice in their fellowship, and also be enabled by thy grace to fight the good fight of faith and lay hold upon eternal life; through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 4:12-19
The Gospel: St. Matthew 16:24-27

Crispin and Crispinian are believed to have been brothers and Roman noblemen martyred for their faith during the persecution of Emperor Maximian.

Artwork: Aert van den Bossche, Martyrdom of Saints Crispin & Crispinian, 1494. National Museum, Warsaw.

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity.

“O Lord, I believe; help my unbelief”

Mark alone records this phrase in his Gospel (Mk. 9.24). It arises in the context of the healing of a boy who has what we might call epilepsy and his father’s request to Jesus, “if you can do anything, have pity on us and help us.” Jesus reacts to the conditional, “if you can” with a certain asperity. “If you can! All things are possible to him who believes.” That is the occasion for this response, “O Lord, I believe; help my unbelief” which leads to Jesus rebuking the unclean spirit and thus healing the child.

The story and the phrase go to the issue of faith and to the struggle of faith in all of us. Ours is the culture of little faith. “O ye of little faith” ((Mt. 6.30), Jesus says to us about our fears and worries, our anxieties and our over-carefulness, our being too full of cares about the world. We are caught in the ambiguities and confusions of competing certainties and uncertainties in contemporary culture and especially with respect to faith. What do we believe and how strong are we in our faith? This text, I suggest, speaks to today’s Epistle and Gospel. Paul in this powerful passage from Ephesians bids us “put on the whole armour of God” and “above all, taking the shield of faith.” The Gospel story of the certain nobleman who seeks the healing of his son sick at Capernaum illustrates what “taking the shield of faith” really means.

He has asked that Jesus “come down and heal his son” who is “at the point of death.” Jesus simply says to him, “go thy way,  thy son liveth.” The wonder and the miracle is not simply the healing, a healing at a distance by way of the power of the divine word, but that “the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken and went his way.” He further learns as he returns that his son was healed “at the same hour, in the which Jesus said unto him, Thy son liveth.” In other words, he had faith in the word of Jesus but not according to his own demand that Jesus come down. He does not let his own assumptions get in the way of God. He has faith in the word of Jesus, an insight into what truly abides, in what is truly substantial (υποστασις), as Hebrews defines faith.

This Gospel story of a miracle of healing was, we are told, “the second sign that Jesus did.” The first sign or miracle in John’s Gospel is, most significantly, the story of the turning of the water into wine at the marriage feast in Cana of Galilee. What makes that story so significant is that it signals the true meaning of all of the Gospel miracles, namely, that God seeks our social joys as found in our communion with God and with one another.

Read the rest of this entry »