Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Twenty-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 Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity.
Month: October 2023
Sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity
“Above all, take the shield of faith”
We go from the “wedding-garment” to “the whole armour of God,” an intriguing juxtaposition of opposites, it might seem. The image of clothing in these readings – at once of last week’s gospel about the wedding-garment and in this week’s epistle reading from Ephesians about the whole armour of God – is not about external appearances but about what moves in us inwardly. Once again is about faith; hence the significance of Paul’s words, “above all, taking the shield of faith.”
This is illustrated for us rather wonderfully in the Gospel story of a certain nobleman “who believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him” about the healing of his son and whose faith is deepened into knowledge upon hearing from his servants that his son was healed. Note that his faith extends to the faith of his whole house. Faith is never simply personal but corporate.
The image of the shield is particularly striking and powerful and belongs to a long tradition of reflection upon the paradoxes of the human condition. Homer’s Iliad presents a detailed description of Achilles’ shield as part of the armour created by Hephaestus as he prepares to return to the battle to revenge the death of his friend Patroclus. The shield is marvellously described as depicting two cities: the city at peace and the city at war. How is the city of peace described? By a wedding festival and by a court of law reconciling a conflict. Virgil reworks the same contrast between war and peace in his depiction of the shield of Aeneas in The Aeneid. And the image of the shield of Achilles is reworked in modern times by the poet W.H. Auden in his poem entitled The Shield of Achilles.
Written in 1952, that poem speaks to the dark and troubling realities of our world soaked in blood and hatred. He has in mind the horrors of the Second World War. Auden depicts Thetis, the mother of Achilles, looking over the shoulder of the techno-god Hephaestus “for vines and olive trees,/Marble well-governed cities,” looking “for ritual pieties,/ White flower-garlanded heifers, libation and sacrifice,” and looking “for athletes at their games, Men and women in a dance/ Moving their sweet limbs/ Quick, quick to music;” all images of the city at peace. But instead of such images of peace and life, what she sees is “an artificial wilderness/ And a sky like lead,” a barren and empty world with “no blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,/Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,” a meaningless world of armies “column by column in a cloud of dust/ … march[ing away] enduring a belief/Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief;” a world of “barbed wire,” “bored officials” and “sweating sentries” where “a crowd of ordinary decent folk/ Watched from without and neither moved nor spoke”, silent in their despair or indifference “as three pale figures were led forth and bound/To three posts driven upright in the ground;” a reference to Calvary by way of the holocaust.
Week at a Glance, 30 October – 5 November
Friday, Nov. 3rd & Saturday, Nov. 4th
St. Thomas’ 3-Mile Plains Xmas Sale – Parish Hall
Sunday, November 5th, Trinity 22 / Octave of All Saints
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
7:00pm Holy Baptism – KES Chapel
Upcoming Events:
Saturday, November 11th
11:00am Remembrance Service – Windsor Cenotaph
& at the KES Cenotaph afterwards
Saturday, November 18th
4:00-6:00pm Annual Ham Supper – Parish Hall
Also please take note of the annual Missions to Seafarer’s Campaign for 2023. Deadline for donations at Christ Church Windsor is the last Sunday in November (Nov. 26, 2023).
The Twenty-First Sunday After Trinity
The collect for today, the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
GRANT, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace; that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: Ephesians 6:10-20
The Gospel: St. John 4:46-54
Artwork: Bartholomeus Breenburgh, Christ and the Nobleman of Capernaum, c. 1630. Oil on panel, Private collection.
St. Simon and St. Jude the Apostles
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.
KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 26 October
Law is liberation
How wonderful that we go from the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis to the giving of the Law in Exodus in the form of the Ten Commandments! In the story of the Fall and in the story of Cain and Abel, God calls us to account, to an awareness of our separation from what belongs to the truth of our being and knowing. It is the beginning of an ethical understanding which has its fullest expression in the Law as the moral and ethical code for our humanity. It has its counterpart in the ethical teaching of Confucianism and Daoism, of Hinduism and Buddhism, of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, what C.S. Lewis termed the Tao, the ethical way of life for our humanity.
The principles that define the worth and dignity of our humanity in relation to God and to one another are set before us. The Book of Leviticus will give us explicitly the commandment “to love your neighbour as yourself,” the neighbour who is also the sojourner, the stranger in your midst! Yet already in the Ten Commandments we have explicit directives about the nature of our obligations and duties towards one another. The love of God and the love of neighbour are inseparable.
There is all the difference in the world between Law or legislation and Rules or regulation. Rules and regulation bind and limit our thoughts and actions; in a way they imprison us. Law liberates and frees us towards God and one another. This is clearly shown in the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses. It begins with Revelation: God reveals himself to Moses in the burning bush – another great and powerful story that contrasts God, the Uncreated, with the things of the created order. The bush burns but is not consumed. God speaks out of the burning bush and identifies himself to Moses as “I Am Who I Am,” the principle of reality. This leads to the exodus journey of Israel out of bondage in Egypt into the wilderness where the challenge is about learning what it means to be the people of God. The high point of the exodus is the giving of the Law to Israel. They are to be the people of the Law who are freed to God.
The Law is given precisely in the context of liberation. It begins with God’s words: “I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” “I am the Lord thy God” is a circumlocution for “I Am Who I Am.”
Alfred, King
The collect for today, the Feast of St. Alfred the Great (849-899), King of the West Saxons, Scholar (source):
O God our maker and redeemer,
we beseech thee of thy great mercy
and by the power of thy holy cross
to guide us by thy will and to shield us from our foes,
that, following the example of thy servant Alfred,
we may inwardly love thee above all things;
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: Wisdom 6:1-3,9-12,24-25
The Gospel: St. Luke 6:43-49
Artwork: Robert Lindsey Clarke, Alfred the Great, 1913. High Street Crossroads, Pewsey, Wiltshire, England.
Cedd, Missionary and Bishop
The collect for a Bishop or Archbishop, on the Feast of St. Cedd (c. 620-664), Abbot of Lastingham, Bishop of the East Saxons, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):
O GOD, our heavenly Father, who didst raise up thy faithful servant Cedd to be a Bishop in thy Church and to feed thy flock: We beseech thee to send down upon all thy Bishops, the Pastors of thy Church, the abundant gift of thy Holy Spirit, that they, being endued with power from on high, and ever walking in the footsteps of thy holy Apostles, may minister before thee in thy household as true servants of Christ and stewards of thy divine mysteries; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
The Lesson: Acts 17:22-31
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:1-16
Crispin and Crispinian, Martyrs
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: Ghislain Vroyelinck, Beheading of Saints Crispin and Crispinian, 1613. Groeninge Museum, Bruges, Belgium.
Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Twentieth Sunday after Trinity
Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity.
(Or click here to listen to mp3 version of audio recording.)