Year: 2023

Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany

“I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel”

Epiphany is commonly said to be the Christmas of the Gentiles. With the coming in of the Magi-Kings, not only is the Christmas scene of Bethlehem completed but it goes global, we might say; it is omni populo, for all people. And while the Feast of Epiphany celebrates the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem, Epiphany as well launches us on the journey of the understanding in what we might call the break-out from Bethlehem, the journey of the soul to God. Thus, on the first two Sundays of Epiphany we find ourselves first in Jerusalem in the Temple with Jesus at the age of twelve and then at Cana of Galilee with Jesus and Mary at the wedding feast miracle of the water made wine.

The teaching of Epiphany as doctrine and not just event has to do with what is made manifest to our humanity through Jesus, at once “God of God” and “Light of Light” but also God with us. The focus is on the essential divinity of Christ albeit revealed through his humanity and in his engagement with us. In that lies the further Epiphany of God’s will and purpose for our humanity. And that is something universal, something for all. That sense of the universality of Christ’s coming is shown today in the Gospel story of a double healing; one within Israel in the healing of the leper, and one outside Israel, as it were, in the healing of the centurion’s servant. The one healing is direct and by word and touch; the other is indirect and by the power and truth of God’s Word alone in Christ.

But the real miracle lies not simply in the healings of the leper and the servant sick of the palsy – a weakness and lack of muscle control – but in the exchange between Jesus and the centurion and, especially, his words of faith that excite such great wonder in Jesus himself. Here Jesus wonders in astonishment at the centurion’s response to his simple statement that “I will come down and heal him”.

The miracle is ‘a miracle of insight’ into the mystery and truth of God who is not and cannot be subject to the constrictions and limits of our finite world but who makes himself known through the world and through us. The centurion, a Roman officer in charge of one hundred soldiers, recognizes that God is not subject to us at the same time as he alludes to the operations of God’s Word by way of an analogy to the passing of directions down the line of military command He recognizes something about the power of God’s Word that transcends the limits of human speech and human customs. “To whom will you liken me”, God says in the evening lesson from Isaiah, “and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike?” … “for I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning … I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it” (Isaiah 46. 5, 9b-10a, 11b). Epiphany makes known what God seeks for the whole of our humanity. The miracle lies in the faith of the centurion, a non-Israelite. “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed”.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 23 – 29 January

Tuesday, January 24th, Eve of the Conversion of St. Paul
7:00pm Holy Communion

Sunday, January 29th, The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

All services to be held in Parish Hall, January through March.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After The Epiphany

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

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, mercifully look upon our infirmities, and in all our dangers and necessities stretch forth thy right hand to help and defend us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:16b-21
The Gospel: St. Matthew 8:1-13

Sébastien Bourdon, Christ and the CenturionArtwork: Sébastien Bourdon, Christ and the Centurion, 1655-60. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Caen, France.

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Prayers and liturgy

Agnes, Virgin and Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Agnes (c. 291-304), Virgin, Martyr at Rome (source):

Eternal God, Shepherd of thy sheep,
by whose grace thy child Agnes was strengthened to bear witness,
in her life and in her death,
to the true love of her redeemer:
grant us the power to understand, with all thy saints,
what is the breadth and length and height and depth
and to know the love that passeth all knowledge,
even 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: Song of Solomon 2:10-13
The Gospel: St. Matthew 18:1-6

Vicente Masip, Martyrdom of Saint AgnesOne of the most celebrated of the early Roman martyrs, Agnes was only twelve or thirteen when she was executed in the Piazza Navona for refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods. Several early Christian leaders praised her courage and exemplary faith, including Ambrose, Pope Damasus, Jerome, and Prudentius. Although her story was embellished during the Middle Ages, it is certain that Agnes was very young and died as a Christian virgin.

St. Ambrose extolled her in his De Virginibus, written in 377:

[St. Agnes’ death was] A new kind of martyrdom! Not yet of fit age for punishment but already ripe for victory, difficult to contend with but easy to be crowned, she filled the office of teaching valour while having the disadvantage of youth. She would not as a bride so hasten to the couch, as being a virgin she joyfully went to the place of punishment with hurrying step, her head not adorned with plaited hair, but with Christ.

Because her name resembles agnus (‘lamb’), she is generally depicted in art with a lamb in her arms or by her feet. On her feast at Rome, the wool of two lambs is blessed and then woven into pallia (stoles of white wool) for the pope and archbishops.

Two notable Roman churches have been erected at locations associated with St. Agnes. The church of Sant’Agnese in Agone now stands in the Piazza Navona, the place of her martyrdom. The Basilica of Sant’Agnesi fuori le Mura (St. Agnes Outside the Walls) was built at her tomb in a family burial plot along the Via Nomentana, about two miles outside Rome.

Saint Agnes is the patron saint of young girls.

Artwork: Vicente Masip, Martyrdom of Saint Agnes, 1540s. Oil on panel, Prado, Madrid.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 19 January

They found him in the temple

This intriguing Gospel story was read in Chapel this week. It has a special relevance to our School and its history. There was once both the school and the university on this campus; the School founded in 1788 and the University of King’s College in 1789. Edgehill Church School for Girls was founded later in 1891 and in 1976 amalgamated with King’s Collegiate School to become King’s-Edgehill. But what about the University? In 1920, just after the devastations of the First World War and after the Spanish Flu epidemic, there was a fire and the main dorm burnt down. The University was forced to relocate to Halifax where it has been since 1923. So what does this have to do with Luke’s story about Jesus at the age of twelve being found in the Temple at Jerusalem?

The story has influenced the educational project of both School and College. It is one of the few Scriptural stories represented in the stained glass windows of the Chapels of both the School and the College. Why? Because of what the story signifies about education. In our Chapel, the last part of the story is depicted in the central window in the nave on the quad side. It is about Jesus stepping into the life of public service. In the College Chapel, the first part of the story of Jesus being in the midst of the doctors both hearing them and asking them questions is the central icon in the window above the altar; the emphasis is on teaching and learning. These are images that give us pause to reflect about the purpose of education, about teaching and learning and about service Deo Legi Regi Gregi, for God, the Law, the King and the people, the motto of the School and the College.

This story is an Epiphany on several different levels and one in which we are very much a part of its meaning, again on several different levels. The main Epiphany in the Christian understanding is Jesus as human student, on the one hand, and divine teacher, on the other hand. But it also makes known a central feature of education, namely, the seeking or desire to learn; in short, the love of learning. In the story, there are four references to the idea of seeking, the idea of wanting to know. Without that there can be no learning. What Jesus says here to Mary is particularly instructive. It is captured in the rhetorical question, a question which presupposes the answer, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” meaning the heavenly Father. It highlights the making known of the purpose of the Incarnation. Human redemption is about learning what God seeks for us.

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Prayers and liturgy

Henry, Missionary and Bishop

The collect for a missionary, on the Feast of St. Henry of Finland (d. 1150), Bishop, Missionary, Patron Saint of Finland, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

R. W. Ekman, Bishop Henry Baptises FinnsO GOD, our heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thy blessed Apostles and send them forth to preach thy Gospel of salvation unto all the nations: We bless thy holy Name for thy servant Henry, whose labours we commemorate this day, and we pray thee, according to thy holy Word, to send forth many labourers into thy harvest; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The Epistle: Acts 12:24-13:5
The Gospel: St. Matthew 4:13-24a

Artwork: Robert Wilhelm Ekman, Bishop Henry Baptises Finns, 1850-54. Turku Cathedral, Turku, Finland.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 10:30am Holy Communion service, Second Sunday after Epiphany

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 10:30am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Second Sunday after Epiphany.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany

“There was a wedding in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there”

In some years there can be as few as two Sundays after Epiphany. This means that the stories of Jesus being found in the Temple and the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee are read every year in the liturgy. They show Epiphany as doctrine. This reminds us that the Scriptures are not simply a random collection of narratives and stories from which we might pick and choose whatever catches our fancy or our disdain but are essentially doctrinal; “a doctrinal instrument of salvation” to coin a phrase from Cranmer and Hooker. The Scriptures are seen as having a unity and an order, a purpose. They are understood credally, we might say. The Creeds come out of the Scriptures and return us to the Scriptures with a hermeneutic, a way of interpreting and understanding them.

Epiphany as a concept or idea is very much about the things that are made known to us: God revealing himself and his purpose for our humanity. Jesus, as we heard last week, “must be about [his] Father’s business”. He is both God and Man who reveals to us the things of God through his essential humanity as taken from Mary who, in turn, reveals the essentially Marian character of the Christian Faith and the Church; “keeping all these sayings in her heart”. Thus these two Gospel readings highlight two dialogues between Jesus and Mary that belong to Epiphany as manifestation, a making known.

The wedding feast at Cana of Galilee is unique to John’s Gospel. It is, we are told, the “beginning of signs” in which he “manifested forth his glory” and awakened faith in the disciples. It is an Epiphany of the divinity of Christ and of human redemption; in short, what God seeks for our humanity. It has very much to do with the concept of marriage theologically understood as an image or symbol of the union of God and man in Jesus Christ, “the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his church”, as the Marriage service so aptly puts it just before making explicit reference to this Gospel story about Christ’s “presence, and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee”.

The exchange between Mary and Jesus brings out the radical nature of this Epiphany. It reveals to us not simply the beginning of a series of miracles or wonders but the end or meaning of all miracles as belonging to the greater miracle of God’s revelation of himself. God seeks the good of our humanity which ultimately has to do with our social joys as found in communion with God and with one another. Most of the miracle stories concern the healing of our humanity wounded and broken by sin and suffering. But not “this beginning of signs”. It sets before us the end or purpose of all the miracles.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 16 – 22 January

Tuesday, January 17th
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021) by David Graeber and David Wengrow & A Culture of Ambiguity: An Alternative History of Islam by Thomas Bauer (2011, tr. 2021)

Sunday, January 22nd, Third Sunday after Epiphany
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

All services to be held in Parish Hall, January through March.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday After The Epiphany

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

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who dost govern all things in heaven and earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of thy people, and grant us thy peace all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 12:6-16
The Gospel: St. John 2:1-11

Leandro Bassano, Marriage at Cana (Prado)Artwork: Leandro Bassano, Marriage at Cana, 16th century. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.

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