Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity.
Year: 2022
Sermon for the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity
“He had answered them well”
The context is controversy, and quite intense. It always is in matters of spiritual truth. Truth which unites frequently divides; yet it is only through the divisions of our hearts that a deeper unity may sometimes be grasped. Only when our hearts are broken and opened to view may we discover what truly matters, what is truly to be believed and looked for; in short, what belongs to the truth of ourselves. Sometimes it takes controversy to move us beyond our limited and partial perspectives and dogmatic attachments to a larger and more comprehensive understanding, to the truth which is greater than ourselves.
This is to say that we learn through controversy. “Which is the first commandment of all?” Jesus is asked by a member of the literary caste, the scribes. This scribe, about whom Jesus will ultimately say, “thou art not far from the Kingdom of God”, perceived that “[Jesus] had answered them well” in the context of reasoning and disputing with others. Who are they and about what? Well, first, there are “the chief priests and the scribes and the elders” (Mk.11. 27) who challenge his authority about what he is saying. This leads to the parable about the tenants or, as the King James version puts it more accurately, the husbandmen of the vineyard, the farmers (literally, ‘earthworkers’) who are supposed to be taking care of the vineyard for the Lord but instead beat up and kill those sent by the Lord including “his beloved son” (Mk. 12. 1-11). A kind of foreshadowing of Christ’s crucifixion as well as a commentary on Creation and the Fall, they see the parable as being told against themselves and so try to arrest him (Mk. 12. 12).
There are, secondly, “the Pharisees and some of the Herodians” (Mk. 12. 13), a curious coincidence of opposites – the Pharisees as the strict sect of Jewish law in its fullness and separateness from political life, and the Herodians, Jews who collaborated with the Roman authorities. They conspire “to entrap him in his talk” about whether “it is lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Mk. 12. 14), a question about our fundamental loyalties. Jesus replies with the famous “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Mk. 12. 17), thus cutting through the false dichotomy or divide which they both assume to the principle of God himself from whom all authority ultimately derives and which is delegated even to Caesar. As Jesus will say to Caesar’s man, Pilate, at his trial, “thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above” (Jn.19.11).
Week at a Glance, 17 – 23 October
Monday, October 17th, Eve of St. Luke
7:00pm Holy Communion
Tuesday, October 18th
7:00pm Coronation Room
Christ Church Book Club: Reset: Reclaiming the Internet for Civil Society, Ron Deibert (2019) & The Anthropocene Revisited: Essays on A Human-Centered Planet, John Greene (2021).
Sunday, October 23rd, Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Upcoming Events:
Thursday, October 28th, Saint Simon and Saint Jude the Apostles
7:00pm Holy Communion
Friday, November 11th, Remembrance Day
11:00am Service at Windsor Cenotaph
12noon Service at KES Cenotaph
Saturday, November 19th
4:30-6:00pm Parish Hall: Ham Supper
The Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity
The collect for today, the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
LORD, we beseech thee, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and with pure hearts and minds to follow thee the only God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 1:4-8
The Gospel: St. Mark 12:28-37
Artwork: El Greco, Christ as Saviour, c. 1612. Oil on canvas, El Greco Museum, Toledo, Spain.
KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 13 October
Love your enemies
This powerful passage, read in Chapel this week, from Luke’s Sermon on the Plain complements Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. The latter begins with The Beatitudes. In the last Beatitude, Jesus says “blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” and, as if to drive the lesson home, he adds “blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.” Or, as Luke more simply puts it, “blessed are you when men shall hate you.” Wow. Yet how is this even remotely possible to think let alone do?
How do we deal not only with “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” (Shakespeare, Hamlet) but with slander, with character assassination, with those who seek to harm us? In short, with enmity? Well, it is, to be sure, not at all easy especially when you are such a target. Yet here is one of the most radical of all ethical teachings. We are bidden not to be indifferent, not to ignore the enemy, as if they did not exist, nor to succumb to the pressures of subservience by giving in to bullies and cowards. Neither are we to retaliate in the spirit of revenge, the false justice of ‘getting even’, as it were. We are bidden instead to love our enemies. Why?
It is not just that we are to see a blessing for ourselves in being persecuted, itself a troubling concept. It is much more radical. The command to love our enemies bids us seek the good of those who seek our harm. This is a complete reversal and completely counter-culture though it belongs to the wisdom of other spiritual traditions. There is, for instance, Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita of the Hindu tradition, caught in an ethical dilemma about fighting those who are his own relatives, and there is Plato, in The Republic, arguing that justice cannot mean ‘doing good to your friends and harm to your enemies’. Doing harm to any ‘other’ negates justice and truth. You remain caught in the binaries of contradiction, of them versus us.
The American writer and social, gender, and anti-racist activist, Roxanne Gay, notes that we have made “a fetish of forgiveness.” She has in mind, I think, apologies that are not really apologies. What does it mean, after all, to apologize for the faults of others while ignoring your own? We don’t need to worship “at the altar of forgiveness,” she says, “to live full lives”. Yet this is the opposite of what Jesus is saying. He counters the phenomenon of nemesis, the idea of retribution. In its place is the radical meaning of forgiveness. Instead of seeking the harm of another we are bidden to seek their good even in the face of their enmity towards us: “to do good to those who hate you.” Wow.
King Edward the Confessor
The collect for today, the Feast of St. Edward the Confessor (c. 1003-1066), King of England (source):
O Sovereign God,
who didst set thy servant Edward upon the throne of an earthly kingdom
and didst inspire him with zeal for the kingdom of heaven:
grant that we may so confess the faith of Christ by word and deed,
that we may, with all thy saints, inherit thine eternal glory;
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 Lesson: Ecclesiasticus 31:8-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:35-40
Artwork: St. Edward the Confessor, stained glass, St. Walburge’s Church, Preston, England.
St. Philip of Caesarea, Apostolic Man
The collect for today, the Feast of St. Philip of Caesarea, Deacon, Apostolic Man (source):
Almighty and everlasting God, we thank thee for thy servant Philip the Deacon, whom thou didst call to preach the Gospel to the peoples of Samaria and Ethiopia. Raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land heralds and evangelists of thy kingdom, that thy Church may make known the immeasurable riches of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever.
The Lesson: Acts 8:26-40
The Gospel: St. Matthew 28:18-20
Artwork: Claude Vignon, St. Philip Baptising the Eunuch of Candace, 1638. Engraving, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
Paulinus, Missionary and Archbishop
The collect for today, the Feast of St. Paulinus (c. 584-644), Monk, first Archbishop of York, Missionary (source):
Almighty and everlasting God, we thank thee for thy servant Paulinus, whom thou didst call to preach the Gospel to the people of northern England. Raise up, we beseech thee, in this and every land evangelists and heralds of thy kingdom, that thy Church may proclaim the unsearchable riches of our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
With the Epistle and Gospel for a Bishop or Archbishop, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
The Epistle: 1 Timothy 6:11-16
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:37-43
The St. Paulinus stained glass was made by the firm of C.E. Kempe of London and installed in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, St. John’s, Newfoundland, in 1913. Photograph taken by admin, 7 September 2009.
Harvest Thanksgiving
The collect for today, Harvest Thanksgiving Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who crownest the year with thy goodness, and hast given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season: Give us grateful hearts, that we may unfeignedly thank thee for all thy loving-kindness, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Additional prayers of Thanksgiving for the Blessings of Harvest, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O ALMIGHTY God and heavenly Father, we glorify thee that we are once more permitted to enjoy the fulfilment of thy gracious promise, that, while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest shall not fail. Blessed be thou, who hast given us the fruits of the earth in their season. Teach us to remember that it is not by bread alone that man doth live; but grant that we may feed on him who is the true bread which cometh down from heaven even Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour; to whom with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Spirit, be honour and glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
O ALMIGHTY God, whose dearly beloved Son, after his resurrection, sent his Apostles into all the world, and, on the day of Pentecost, endued them with special gifts of the Holy Spirit, that they might gather in the spiritual harvest: We beseech thee to look down from heaven upon the fields, now white unto the harvest, and to send forth more labourers to gather fruit unto eternal life. And grant us grace so to help them with our prayers and offerings, that when the harvest of the earth is ripe, and the time for reaping is come, we, together with them, may rejoice before thee, according to the joy in harvest; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson Isaiah 55:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 6:27-35
Artwork: John La Farge, Angels Representing Thanksgiving, c. 1890-1900. Watercolour, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Harvest Thanksgiving/Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on Harvest Thanksgiving/Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.