Month: October 2023

Sermons

Sermon for the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity

“Friend, how camest thou in hither, not having a wedding-garment?”

God’s questions call us to account, to a sense of intentionality and agency without which we are lost in indeterminacy and indifference. “Be ye not unwise” Paul bids us, “but understanding what the will of the Lord is.” That will of the Lord is about the quality of our life in Christ, he in us and we in him. It is sanctification, the grace which moves in us. It requires our full hearted attention to the transcendence of God, to the givenness of the created order, and to the realities of our common life in the body of Christ. Something is required of us. This is the meaning of the wedding-garment.

“See then that ye walk circumspectly,” Paul says, paying attention to all that is around us, “redeeming the time,” a lovely phrase which is about our life as ordered to God, our God-awareness, as it were, even in the awareness that “the days are evil.” We know this only too well. How to live a good life is not about possessions and pleasures. It is about life in Christ, a life of prayer and praise, of a kind of joy in the midst of the disturbing and dark times in which we live. The constant thrust of the Christian faith is that we are not fundamentally defined by the circumstances and events of our world and day, however much the days are evil. That is simply the context for our lives in faith which is about our constant attention to God in and through our lives with one another. Being alive to God in Christ is our calling and our challenge.

This means, as Paul suggests, being “filled with the Spirit,” another lovely phrase which is explained in terms of the qualities of prayer and praise alive in us through the liturgy: “speaking to yourselves in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is a wonderful and vibrant statement of living faith which contrasts with contemporary claims about personal faith and/or personal identities which are radically incomplete and indeterminate, solipsistic and narcissistic. They are really all about oneself in a kind of idolatry of the self. “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God,” on the other hand, speaks to our lives together in the Faith which is corporately confessed and lived in the body of Christ.

Quite simply something is required of us. This is illustrated in the powerful Gospel parable which Jesus tells: the kingdom of heaven is likened to the marriage feast of a certain king for his son to which we are bidden, or invited. But what is our response? First, those who were bidden, “would not come.” They refuse or ignore the invitation. The invitation is issued yet again for “all things are ready; come unto the marriage”. Some “made light of it and went their ways,” turning to their own immediate interests of property and merchandise; others took the servants of the king “and entreated them spitefully, and slew them;” a reference to the prophets sent by God to call us to repentance. The consequence is their destruction.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 23 – 29 October

Tuesday, October 24th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Moss, Robin Wall Kimmerer (2003); and Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree, David George Haskell (2021).

Sunday, October 29, Trinity 21
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

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).

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twentieth Sunday After Trinity

The collect for today, the Twentieth Sunday after Trinity, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY and most merciful God, of thy bountiful goodness keep us, we beseech thee, from all things that may hurt us; that we, being ready both in body and soul, may cheerfully accomplish those things that thou wouldest have done; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 5:15-21
The Gospel: St. Matthew 22:1-14

Pieter Aertsen, The Parable of the Marriage FeastArtwork: Pieter Aertsen, The Parable of the Marriage Feast, 1550-54. Oil on panel, Cummer Museum, Jacksonville, Florida.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 19 October

What have you done?

It was the last question of God in the story of the Fall in Genesis 3, one of four questions that awaken us to self-consciousness and so too to our accountability as rational and spiritual creatures. The self-same question appears in Genesis 4 in the equally significant story of Cain and Abel. With this story we step into the violent and disturbing world of human sin and evil, a world of murder and destruction. We step into human history.

Genesis in one sense is the story of sibling rivalry, of brothers against brothers and, perhaps, of the possibilities of their reconciliation. Cain and Abel inaugurate the long tradition of fratricide and thus the sordid tale of humanity’s constant inhumanity towards one another. It won’t do to reduce this story to a conflict between shepherds and farmers, a kind of shallow sociologism. The story builds exactly upon the story of the Fall, even to the point of the repetition of questions. But it offers the beginnings of a philosophical and psychological account of human pride and envy that leads to murder and exile, and to the animosities and hatreds that are so much a part of our fallenness.

It begins with Cain being angry. At what? At Abel. Why? Because his gift was accepted rather than Cain’s. In other words, he is upset at the good fortune of another. This will later be named as envy: our inability to be happy at the good of another. There is nothing more destructive of human life in community than envy. We resent the good of another not just because we want that good for ourselves but also because we don’t want it for them. It is division and animosity over the good of another which we choose to see as an evil that harms us.

God’s first set of questions to Cain highlight the contradiction. “Why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen?” We sometimes wear our hearts on our faces. “If you do well will you not be accepted?” This question is about our commitment to what is good and right and true. To reject it leaves us open to exactly what follows: the giving in to sin which seeks to master you rather than you being responsible to truth and honesty.

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Luke the Evangelist

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who calledst Luke the Physician, whose praise is in the Gospel, to be an Evangelist, and Physician of the soul: May it please thee that, by the wholesome medicines of the doctrine delivered by him, all the diseases of our souls may be healed; through the merits of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 2 Timothy 4:5-13
The Gospel: St. Luke 24:44-52

Guido Reni, Saint Luke, 1621Luke was a physician, a disciple of St. Paul and his companion on some of his missionary journeys, and the author of both the third gospel and Acts.

It is believed that St. Luke was born a Greek and a Gentile. According to the early Church historian Eusebius, Luke was born at Antioch in Syria. In Colossians 4:10-14, St. Paul speaks of those friends who are with him. He first mentions all those “of the circumcision”–in other words, Jews–and he does not include Luke in this group. Luke’s gospel shows special sensitivity to evangelising Gentiles. It is only in his gospel that we hear the Parable of the Good Samaritan, that we hear Jesus praising the faith of Gentiles such as the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian, and that we hear the story of the one grateful leper who is a Samaritan.

St. Luke first appears in Acts, chapter 16, at Troas, where he meets St. Paul around the year 51, and crossed over with him to Europe as an Evangelist, landing at Neapolis and going on to Philippi, “concluding that God had called us to preach the Gospel to them” (note especially the transition into first person plural at verse 10). Thus, he was apparently already an Evangelist. He was present at the conversion of Lydia and her companions and lodged in her house. He, together with St. Paul and his companions, was recognised by the divining spirit: “She followed Paul and us, crying out, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation’”.

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Prayers and liturgy

Etheldreda, Queen and Abbess

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Etheldreda, Queen, Foundress and Abbess of Ely (d. 679) (source):

Saint Etheldreda windowO eternal God,
who didst bestow such grace on thy servant Etheldreda
that she gave herself wholly to the life of prayer
and to the service of thy true religion:
grant that we may in like manner
seek thy kingdom in our earthly lives,
that by thy guidance
we may be united in the glorious fellowship of thy saints;
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 Epistle: Philippians 3:7-14
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:29-34

Artwork: Joseph Edward (Eddie) Nuttgens, Saint Etheldreda, 1952. Stained glass, St. Etheldreda’s Church, Ely Place, London.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, Bishops and Martyrs

The collect for today, the commemoration of Hugh Latimer (1485-1555), Bishop of Worcester, and Nicholas Ridley (c. 1500-1555), Bishop of London, Reformation Martyrs (source):

Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness, that, like thy servants Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, we may live in thy fear, die in thy favor, and rest in thy peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 3:9-14
The Gospel: St. John 15:20-16:1

Burning of Ridley and Latimer

Two leaders of the English Reformation were burned at the stake in Oxford on this day in 1555. Nicholas Ridley, Bishop of London, and Hugh Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, were removed from their positions and imprisoned after Queen Mary ascended the throne in 1553. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1533, was deposed and taken to Oxford with Latimer and Ridley.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

“Be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another,
even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

Paul’s strong and powerful words are complemented and illustrated wonderfully in the Gospel. The teaching of both is, perhaps, best concentrated for us in the Collect: “forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee: Mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts.” For the readings all turn on the question about what is moving in our hearts. In short, the emphasis is upon the qualities of Christ present or absent in us and in ways that challenge our thinking.

Have we learned Christ? Have we heard him? Have we been taught by him, “as the truth is in Jesus”? The question is put to us directly, not as external rebuke but as the strong reminder of our new creation in Christ, having put off “the old manhood” – the term is inclusive, our old sinful humanity (τον παλαιον ανθρωπον) – and putting on “the new manhood” (τον καιον ανθρωπον), our humanity as made new in Christ. How? By being “renewed in the spirit of your mind.” This is altogether about our sanctification, literally, “the holiness of truth,” the complete counter to our current intellectual and spiritual despair of truth in a world of lies and deceit.

This has to do with the quality of our lives together in the body of Christ. We are bidden to put away lying and speak truth to each other because “we are members one of another.” We are not isolated, autonomous beings; we have our life and being with one another in the body of Christ. Paul’s words unpack the whole meaning of our life in Christ in thoughtful but shocking ways. “Be ye angry,” he says! What! Isn’t our world angry enough and way too angry? Yes. But there is a place for righteous anger about things which should disturb us because they diminish and destroy what belongs to the truth of our humanity. Such is the righteous wrath of Christ in the cleansing of the temple, to take but one example. “Be ye angry but sin not.” Don’t let your wrath possess you. “Let not the sun go down on your wrath: neither give place to the devil.”

There is nothing here that is mere ‘feel goody-goodism’ or obsessive self-righteousness. It is really about a kind of critical self-appraisal but without wallowing in self-pity. He goes on to consider the forms of our relationship with one another; not stealing but labouring, “working with [our] hands the thing which is good” but doing so for the good of others as well, “that [we] may have to give to him that needeth.” Once again, the emphasis is on the ethical, upon our being together as “members one of another.” So too with our speech which is not about evil talk but about what edifies and builds up and “ministers grace to the hearers.” All of these exhortations belong to the Holy Spirit moving in us without which we risk grieving the Holy Spirit, in effect denying the Spirit of Truth in self-contradiction, and negating our being in God. The Epistle sums up in a magisterial fashion what we are to put away from ourselves and what we are to do: “Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 16 – 22 October

Tuesday, October 17th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Moss, Robin Wall Kimmerer (2003); and Thirteen Ways to Smell a Tree, David George Haskell (2021).

Sunday, October 22nd, Trinity 20
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Events:

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. More information is posted below.

MISSION TO SEAFARERS SHOEBOX CAMPAIGN

The Parish of Christ Church is collecting items for The Mission to Seafarers (Halifax) for their annual Christmas Shoebox Campaign.

The Shoeboxes are filled with the necessities and holiday comforts that will bring the spirit of the season to each seafarer. The Mission to Seafarers visits every vessel which visits the Port of Halifax in December and delivers a shoebox gift to every seafarer.

Each shoebox includes:

HAT, SCARF, GLOVES OR MITTS, SOCKS, WRAPPED HARD CANDY (NO CHOCOLATE), SOAP, TOOTHPASTE, TOOTHBRUSH, SHAMPOO, SHAVING FOAM, RAZORS, DEODORANT AND LYPSYL, PLAYING CARDS, MEMENTO OF NOVA SCOTIA, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND OR CANADA.

Full size toiletry items are preferred to sample/travel sizes.

Please, no alcohol, or sharp objects.

For safety concerns, no drawstrings, tassels, or pom poms.

For those who like to knit, a scarf and hat pattern are available at the back of the church.

If full shoeboxes are donated, please do not seal the shoeboxes. Any and all items to fill shoeboxes are also gladly accepted in all quantities.

We are also in need of shoeboxes (no boot boxes) and gift wrap.

Drop Box is available at the church for donations.

Deadline for donations at Christ Church Windsor is the last Sunday in November (Nov. 26, 2023).

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