The collect for today, Sexagesima (or the Second Sunday Before Lent) from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O LORD God, who seest that we put not our trust in any thing that we do: Mercifully grant that by thy power we may be defended against all adversity; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 11:21b-31
The Gospel: St Luke 8:4-15
Artwork: Jacopo Bassano, Parable of the Sower, 1567-68. Oil on canvas, Palatine Gallery, Pitti Palace, Florence.
Il faut cultiver notre jardin. This famous conclusion to Voltaire’s great work of intellectual satire, ‘Candide’, speaks to us about our relation to the conditions which we face. “To cultivate our garden” really means to do the best you can in the situation in which you find yourself to make things better. Satire seeks amendment; in short to make things better in the realm of morals and manners. The idea of cultivation has to do with civilisation and, particularly with the idea of honouring and respecting nature. Cultivating is about working with nature but without destroying it. In other words, it speaks to the idea of respect and honour towards nature which stands in complete contrast to the culture of exploitation and the destruction of nature in our own times and of ourselves. God “looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes”.
Isaiah’s great love song complements Paul’s great hymn of love in 1st Corinthians. “Let me sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard” (Is. 5. 1). The vineyard is an image of creation, and, more particularly, an image of Israel. In other words, we cannot think about creation or nature without thinking about ourselves and about how we engage the world.
The idea of the vineyard offers a positive image about the nature of our labours. Our labour is not simply a curse, bearing “the burden and heat of the day” and working “in the sweat of our face” for bread. Rather it is about respect for three things: for creation itself, for one another as fellow-workers, and for God, the Lord of the vineyard of creation and of ourselves who are made in his image. The image of the vineyard recalls the pageant of creation in Genesis and the place of our humanity in the order of creation. One of the mistaken ideas, promoted by Lynn White’s 1967 paper, ‘The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis’, is that Christianity teaches that “nature has no reason for existence save to serve man”. This is simply not true and obscures the far more interesting development, well documented by Peter Harrison in his ‘The Territories of Science and Religion’ (2015), which chronicles the profound shifts in terminology from natural philosophy’s interest in understanding nature to ‘science’, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in its interest in changing nature under the ideology of progress. As Karl Marx put it, the point is not to understand the world but to change it. We are, perhaps, now far more aware of the problems belonging to our technocratic domination and destruction of nature precisely on the basis of that assumption.
That God gives to our humanity “dominion” over the natural world does not mean and cannot mean in the context of Genesis the power to manipulate and destroy, to exploit and use the natural world. It can only mean to act in accord with the Dominus, the Lord, in his care and respect for the goodness of all created things; in short, an honouring of nature as having intrinsic truth and meaning. We cannot not leave a mark on nature; the question is always what kind of mark.
The collect for a Martyr, on the Feast of Saint Valentine (d. c. 269), Bishop, Martyr at Rome, 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 Martyr Valentine, 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
Artwork: Leonhard Beck, St. Valentine, c. 1510. Oil on canvas, Coburg Fortress, Coburg, Germany.
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on Septuagesima Sunday.
Click here to download the full Rector’s Annual Report for 2021 (in pdf format).
The Rector’s Annual Reports for 2003 through 2020 can be accessed via this page.
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom”. It could be the motto for our Parish in these troubling times. It signals wonderfully what we have endeavoured to do together as a Parish in the face of covid (no longer always capitalised) and its fears and in terms of the restrictions that have curtailed worship in various ways. We have pressed on carefully but in a principled way with the protocols we have established and which have been welcomed by you. This has allowed us to continue with worship for the most of the year until the suspension of services by the Bishop, over and above the mandates of Public Health, which resulted in the cancellation of Christmas and most of Epiphany season. It is the first time, I think, in the history of the Parish that there have been no Christmas services. We have lately learned, too, that you can’t count on the weather, especially in this winter unlike any other, it seems. A “bleak, midwinter” indeed!
Yet in the face of the things that lie beyond our control, we have pressed on with the Christ Church Connections email message every week and with recordings of the 8am communion service or, when services were completely curtailed, with an audio file of the Services of Matins and Ante-Communion. Homilies and meditations, on my poor part, have attempted to provide some food for the soul in these times of spiritual famine and eucharistic fast. The upside of these things, perhaps, is that it has allowed for deeper reflection on the wisdom of the Scriptures and to the ways in which Scripture in its own voice speaks to our souls even in the midst of the storms and tempests of our disordered world. In other words, as a Parish we have not been simply in survival mode but are growing spiritually in maturity and understanding about who we are in the Body of Christ. Such things have also been an important part of our spiritual outreach to “the friends of Christ Church” further afield whose prayers and support have been most encouraging. We have also persevered with the Christ Church Book Club throughout the course of the year.
For all of these spiritual labours may God be praised. It has meant looking beyond the inconveniences and frustrations that so often beset us. It has been about keeping our minds on the things of God. We have learned to appreciate better the things which truly matter, and so, like Mary, “have chosen the good portion”, I hope, “which shall not be taken away”. It is about “let[ting] the word of Christ dwell” in our hearts and minds “richly in all wisdom”, words which we heard on the Fifth Sunday after Epiphany last week which happened to coincide with the first time that we were able to return to worship since the last Sunday in Advent, 2021.
“My beloved had a vineyard”, Isaiah says, in a remarkable passage of triple reflexivity. “Let me sing for my beloved a love song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard”. The prophet sings a song about God’s love, the beloved who in turn loves us. The vineyard of creation is the place of our being loved. How have we responded? “He looked for it to yield grapes but it yielded wild grapes”.
Isaiah captures the human dilemma. We are created in the image of God, as Genesis 1 reminds us in the first lesson at Matins every year on Septuagesima Sunday. We are also made out of the dust of the ground into which God breathes his spirit. In other words, the early chapters of Genesis remind us of two essential things: our connection to every other created thing, from dirt to angels, as it were, and our relation to God in whose image we are made. Genesis 1 places our humanity in the context of the whole order of creation. Creation is about nothing more than a relation to a Creator, which is to say that we are part of an intelligible order of reality. But what is the dilemma which Isaiah highlights? It is our turning away from the order and purpose of creation to pursue our own interests. As with Genesis, that reveals a contradiction within ourselves and with reality. The intelligibility of creation is all about the wisdom of God over against the folly of our humanity.
Yet our folly does not negate the truth of the vineyard, itself an image of creation and of the proper form of engagement with the natural world. But what is the purpose of creation? Lynn White’s 1967 paper, ‘The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crisis’, claims that it is “the Christian axiom that nature has no reason for existence save to serve man”. This has played a major role in blaming Christianity for the environmental and ecological catastrophes of our times. But is that the Christian teaching? He was right to note, as Alistair McGrath observes, the importance of religion in relation to ecology.
There is a long and rich tradition of reflection within the religious and philosophical traditions about our relation to nature. But to suppose that creation exists simply for us really reveals more about the impulses of our utilitarian and technocratic world which attempts to reduce the world to our interests and pursuits, in short, to technological domination. It results in the endless and often thoughtless manipulation of nature and ourselves which destroys both. This is the opposite of what Genesis means by God giving man “dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth” which can only mean in the context of Genesis acting in the image of the Dominus, the Lord, in terms of care and respect for the whole created order. To view dominion as license for humans to manipulate and destroy is a serious misreading of the story and one which is profoundly false to Christian theology in its history and in its various forms of reflection on creation and nature.
Tuesday, February 15th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Alistair McGrath’s The Reenchantment of Nature: The Denial of Religion and the Ecological Crisis (2002) & Peter Harrison’s The Territories of Science and Religion (2015).
Sunday, February 20th, Sexagesima
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Services to be held in the Parish Hall, January through March.
The collect for today, Septuagesima (or the Third Sunday Before Lent) from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O LORD, we beseech thee favourably to hear the prayers of thy people; that we, who are justly punished for our offences, may be mercifully delivered by thy goodness, for the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
The Gospel: St. Matthew 20:1-16
Artwork: Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich, Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, 1750s. Oil on canvas, Lazienki Palace (Palace on the Isle), Royal Baths Park, Warsaw.
The collect for a Doctor of the Church, Poet, or Scholar, in commemoration of Saint Caedmon (d. 680), Monk of Whitby, first English poet, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O GOD, who by thy Holy Spirit hast given unto one man a word of wisdom, and to another a word of knowledge, and to another the gift of tongues: We praise thy Name for the gifts of grace manifested in thy servant Caedmon, and we pray that thy Church may never be destitute of the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Daniel 2:17-24
The Gospel: St Matthew 13:9-17
Saint Caedmon is the first English poet whose name is known. Saint Bede the Venerable tells Caedmon’s story in Book IV, Chapter 24, of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People.
Bede records that Caedmon was a herdsman who at an advanced age suddenly received the gift of poetry and song. Someone appeared to Caedmon in a dream one night and asked him to sing. In response, he spontaneously sang verses in praise of the God the Creator. When he awoke, he remembered the words of his song and added more lines.
He went to speak with Hilda, Abbess of Whitby. She and several learned men examined Caedmon and affirmed that his gift was from God.
Caedmon became a monk at Whitby and composed a large body of poetry and song on many Christian subjects, including the Creation story, the Exodus, the birth, passion, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the teaching of the apostles.
Unfortunately, almost none of Caedmon’s work survives. Only his Hymn, written down by Bede in Latin and Old English, is known to us. Here is a modern English translation:
Praise we the Fashioner now of Heaven’s fabric,
The majesty of his might and his mind’s wisdom,
Work of the world-warden, worker of all wonders,
How he the Lord of Glory everlasting,
Wrought first for the race of men Heaven as a rooftree,
Then made he Middle Earth to be their mansion.
Source: Bede, A History of the English Church and People, translated by Leo Sherley-Price, rev. ed. 1968, Penguin, p. 251.
A humble and holy monk, Caedmon died in perfect charity with his fellow servants of God.
Photograph: Memorial to Caedmon, St Mary’s Churchyard, Whitby, North Yorkshire, Great Britain. The inscription reads, “To the glory of God and in memory of Caedmon the father of English Sacred Song. Fell asleep hard by, 680”. © Copyright RichTea and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
It is a remarkable passage (1 Cor. 13. 1-13) and worthy of attention. Traditionally read in Chapel during the week of winter carnival, now morphed into ‘spirit week’, it speaks to the true nature of things spiritual that counters the dogmatic forms of technocratic reason in our current culture. In the King James Version, the operative word mentioned explicitly nine times is charity; it is implicitly present eleven more times for a total of twenty times in a passage of thirteen verses. Charity is the English translation of the Latin caritas and of the Greek agape. In contemporary English translations the word is love.
In Greek and Latin, there are a number of different words for love as distinguished by the object loved. As Plato in his treatise on love, The Symposium, observes, love is love of something. It is not simply an object, a thing, but the active desire for the Good in us. Paul contributes wonderfully to this way of thinking. Charity or love here is a theological virtue, a grace which perfects human character. In that sense, it is a higher form of justice. The classical virtues of temperance, courage, and prudence are “nothing worth”, we might say, without justice as the principle of their proper relation. But beyond these four classical virtues which concern the natural person, Paul identifies the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity that speak to who we are as spiritual creatures and which transforms the classical virtues into forms of love. Faith has to do with a kind of knowing, the idea that things are knowable; hope concerns our desire for an ultimate good. And charity? It is “the greatest of these three”. Why? Because it unites our knowing and our desiring. It speaks to the ultimate perfection of our souls signalled in the qualities of love which Paul describes.
Charity or love is not simply a human activity but the activity of God’s grace in us. Such is the power of love. It cannot be reduced to a technique, to a set of rules, prescriptions, and proscriptions. It transcends the realm of things contingent and arbitrary and shapes a whole discourse of love in the theology of amor, itself another Latin word for love.
Whenever I ask students (and faculty) about the meaning of charity, I always get the same answer. It is inevitably associated with giving to the poor and needy. This is one of its meanings, to be sure, but only part of its larger meaning as amply shown in Paul’s hymn. Our concern for those in need should be a form of love towards the other but not out of pity or a kind of guilt both of which say more about ourselves and our own self-interest. Charity seeks the good of all. Love is motion towards the other as neighbour not as fearful enemy. It is, in that sense, a higher form of justice. Portia, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, wisely notes that “mercy seasons justice”, perfects it. Mercy is love. As Thomas Aquinas profoundly argues, “grace does not destroy nature but perfects it”. Charity is the grace of God at work in human souls. It engages the whole person as made in the image of God to whom honour, respect, and dignity are rightly and freely owed.
