Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity
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.
Day: November 13, 2022
Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity
“Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant,
even as I had pity on thee?”
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us.” “Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.” “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Such are some of the great ethical teachings that belong to the philosophical and religious traditions that once shaped our souls and our worlds. Are we alive to them and to their transformative power? That is the question which is set before us in today’s readings.
The year runs out in a wonderful juxtaposition of the themes of judgement and forgiveness. In the Gospel, the servant whose ears are still ringing with the words of forgiveness refuses to forgive another. In the Epistle, Paul prays “that your love may abound yet more and more in all knowledge and in all judgement … being filled with the fruits of righteousness.” The pageant of the Trinity season is concentrated for us in these readings. These are all the motions of God’s grace towards us but is that grace moving and alive in us?
We come to the near end of the Church year. Next Sunday is the Sunday Next Before Advent. It marks the transition from the pageant of God’s grace which seeks our increase in holiness and virtue, the grace of sanctification, to the pageant of justifying grace in Advent through to Trinity Sunday. We come to an end only to be returned to our beginning. Our end and beginning are one and the same. We end and begin again with the grace of forgiveness. As always the challenge is about what is in our hearts with respect to the ethical teachings which in some sense or another belong to the truth and dignity of our humanity as found in God. The Gospel offers at once a strong warning and great mercy. The warning is all about ignoring the great mercy, the forgiveness which is really beyond number. It is, after all, the infinite quality of God’s grace given to us in the finite conditions of our lives.
Week at a Glance, 14 – 21 November
Tuesday, November 15th
7:00pm Parish Hall: Christ Church Book Club: Plunder: Napoleon’s Theft of Veronese’s Feast (2021) by Cynthia Saltzman & By Any Other Name: A Cultural History of the Rose (2021) by Simon Morley;
Saturday, November 19th
4:30-6:00pm Parish Hall: Ham Supper
Sunday, November 20th, Sunday Next Before Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
The Twenty-Second Sunday After Trinity
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: Domenico Feti, Parable of the Wicked Servant, c. 1620. Oil on canvas, Gemaldegalerie, Dresden.