Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, St. Barnabas/ First Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Feast of St. Barnabas / First Sunday after Trinity.
Day: June 11, 2023
Sermon for the Feast of St. Barnabas / First Sunday after Trinity
I have called you friends
Elsewhere in Acts, St. Barnabas is called “the son of consolation” or encouragement; a lovely and suggestive image (Acts 4.36). Do we not sometimes find strength and comfort, in short, our consolation, from one another? To be sure. But what, really, is our consolation? The radical message of this Sunday is that it is found simply in our abiding in the dynamic love of God the Blessed Trinity, our abiding in the grace of God. “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain,” Jesus says. The Lesson from Acts locates Barnabas within that sense of ministry, “Who, when he came [to Antioch], and had seen the grace of God, was glad; and exhorted them all that, with purpose of heart, they would cleave unto the Lord” (Acts 11.23). The consolation of Barnabas lies in that exhortation to cleave unto the Lord. It was in Antioch, Luke tells us in his understated way, that “the disciples were first called Christians” (Acts. 11.26).
The Gospel for this feast complements the lessons from John’s first Epistle which belong to the first two Sundays in the early days of the Trinity season about the divine love which commands us to love. The Gospel for the Feast of St. Barnabas follows directly upon one of the greatest Scriptural images of our abiding in the love of God; namely, the idea of the vine and the branches. “I am the vine, ye are the branches,” Jesus says, “abide in me.” It is the last, and to my mind, one of the greatest of the “I am” sayings in John’s Gospel. They illuminate two things: first, Christ as God echoing Exodus, “I Am Who I Am,” and, secondly, the forms of our incorporation into his life by way of a series of intimate metaphors, “bread”, “light”, “door”, “shepherd”, “resurrection”, “way, truth and life”, “vine”.
Yet the most powerful statement about our abiding in the love of God appears in this astounding statement where Jesus says “ye are my friends.” Somehow in Christ we are made the friends of God and so, too, friends of one another.
June at a Glance
Tuesday, June 13th
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting
Saturday, June 17th
9:00am Encaenia at KES
Sunday, June 18th, Second Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
Sunday, June 25th, Third Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
9:00am Reunion Service at KES
10:30am Holy Communion
(Fr. Curry away at the Atlantic Theological Conference (Mon., June 26th – Wed., June 28th)
Fr. Curry is priest-in-charge for Avon Valley Parish and Hantsport during July; Fr. Tom Henderson will be priest-in-charge for Christ Church during August when I will be on vacation.
St. Barnabas the Apostle
The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Barnabas the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O LORD God Almighty, who didst endue thy holy Apostle Barnabas with singular gifts of the Holy Spirit: Leave us not, we beseech thee, destitute of thy manifold gifts, nor yet of grace to use them alway to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Lesson: Acts 11:22-26
The Gospel: St. John 15:12-16
Artwork: Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Saints Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Sacrifice at Lystra), 1637. Oil on panel, Princeton Art Museum, Princeton, N.J.
The First Sunday After Trinity
The collect for today, the Second Sunday after Pentecost, commonly called The First Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O GOD, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee, mercifully accept our prayers; and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping of thy commandments we may please thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: 1 St. John 4:7-21
The Gospel: St. Luke 16:19-31
Artwork: Marcantonio Bassetti, Dives and Lazarus, before 1630. Pen and bistre wash, grey and white oil paint on paper tinted brown, Royal Collection, Great Britain.