Author: CCW

Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Trinity

“We give thanks to God … for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven.”

At the heart of Paul’s lovely flow of words of prayer and praise to God for the people of Colossae is the hope of heaven which they have heard and received in what he calls “the word of truth in the Gospel; which is come unto you” and which “bringeth forth fruit and increaseth” in them “since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth.” His prayer is that they “might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding,” and that they “might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.”

The passage in its intensity of warmth and expression belongs to the grace of God at work in our lives which has been a dominant feature of the Trinity season in terms of the idea of sanctification. Yet at the same time, the readings in the late Trinity season also point us to the coming of that grace towards us that belongs to Advent. Thus these Sundays are transitional; at once an ending and a beginning.

T.S. Eliot’s poem East Coker, the second of the Four Quartets, begins with the phrase “in my beginning is my end” and ends with “in my end is my beginning,’ capturing the nature of the transition that belongs to the interplay between justification and sanctification. It is really all a kind of redire ad principia, a kind of circling around and into the mystery of Christ, what Eliot terms the “still point of the turning world” … for “there the dance is” (Burnt Norton).

Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

That end which is always present is God and the hope of heaven in us that “makes us meet to be partakers of the saints in light,” as Paul puts it. What that hope looks like is illustrated in the Gospel story. It is the yearning or desire for wholeness, for the integrity of our lives as found in Christ. That yearning is captured in the unspoken prayer of the woman who was diseased with an issue of blood for twelve years who came behind Jesus and “touched the hem of his garment.” As Matthew tells us, “she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole.” Such is her insight into the grace of God in Christ and such is her desire for healing, for wholeness. Yet it is as if she thinks she can steal a cure from Jesus without his awareness. As such her desire is incomplete.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 20 – 26 November

Tuesday, November 21st
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club – Parish Hall: The Visible Unseen: Essays, Andrea Chapela & Kelsi Vanada (2022); and Floodmeadow, Toby Martinez de las Rivas (2023).

Sunday, November 26th, Sunday Next Before Advent
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Upcoming Services:

Thursday, Nov. 30th, St. Andrew’s Day
7:00pm Holy Communion

Friday, December 1st
2:15pm Advent/Xmas Lessons & Carols
Junior School: Hensley Memorial Chapel. KES

Saturday, December 9th
Advent Quiet Day – Fr. Curry at St. George’s, Halifax, 9am – 1:30pm

Upcoming Events:

Annual Missions to Seafarer’s Campaign for 2023. Deadline for donations at Christ Church Windsor is the last Sunday in November (Nov. 26, 2023).

Tuesday, November 28th
7:00pm Packing shoeboxes for Mission to Seafarer’s Campaign – Parish Hall

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Trinity

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

O LORD, we beseech thee, absolve thy people from their offences; that through thy bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the bands of those sins, which by our frailty we have committed. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our blessed Lord and Saviour. Amen.

The Epistle: Colossians 1:3-12
The Gospel: St. Matthew 9:18-26

Gabriel von Max, The Raising of Jairus Daughter, 1878Artwork: Gabriel von Max, The Raising of Jairus’ Daughter, 1878. Oil on canvas, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hilda, Abbess

St. Augustine Kilburn, Saint HildaThe collect for today, the Feast of Saint Hilda (614-680), Abbess of Whitby (source):

O eternal God,
who madest the abbess Hilda to shine as a jewel in England
and through her holiness and leadership
didst bless thy Church with newness of life and unity:
so assist us by thy grace
that we, like her, may yearn for the gospel of Christ
and bring reconciliation to those who are divided;
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: Ephesians 4:1-6
The Gospel: St. Matthew 19:27-29

Artwork: St. Hilda, stained glass, St. Augustine Kilburn, London. Photograph taken by admin, 26 September 2015.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 16 November

Love your neighbour as yourself

The remarkable parade of the ethical teachings of the Scriptures which we have canvassed over the past several weeks in Chapel would not be complete without Leviticus. While the love of God and the love of neighbour are implicit in the Ten Commandments and, for that matter, in the Beatitudes, and are concentrated in what is known as the Summary of the Law, the love of neighbour is made explicit in Leviticus and as explicitly connected to God.

The phrase “I am the Lord” punctuates repeatedly the various directives and laws in Leviticus. Thus Leviticus 19.9-18 ends with the commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord.” Thus this important ethical teaching is grounded in God and God’s relation to our humanity. The ethical and the holy are united. Leviticus helps us to think about the meaning of holiness and to see its relation to our lives ethically.

Leviticus is an especially formidable book. Yet it is an essential part of the Torah and reflects deeply upon the themes of creation. What makes Leviticus so formidable? It is a collection of rules and regulations that seem arbitrary and obscure in their detail and proscription. Yet is that really very much different from the technocratic world which we inhabit? A world of dictates and rules, of the endlessness of bureaucracy that seems to serve only itself? Our reading and meditating upon Leviticus may awaken us to a wisdom that speaks more deeply to us in our relations with one another.

One of the least read of the Scriptures, at least in the Christian Churches, it is also one of the most misunderstood. Why? Because some parts of it seem so antithetical to our contemporary sensibilities. There are daunting passages about cultic rituals and practices that have emerged over many centuries, the origins of which are obscure. They may seem entirely arbitrary but actually there is a logic at work in the distinction between clean and unclean, or pure and impure. Following the work of the sociologist, Mary Douglas, holiness and purity are closely associated but holiness means more than simply that which is set apart from common usage. It also relates to wholeness, to the idea of the integrity of beings. As she puts it: “To be holy is to be whole, to be one; holiness is unity, integrity, perfection of the individual,” in the idea of things in their class or kind. As such, the distinctions in Leviticus are a further working out of the Genesis logic of creation as order through the distinguishing of things from one another. Similar arguments are present in Philo and Origen, Jewish and Christian exegetes from the first and third centuries CE as well as other Patristic writers.

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Prayers and liturgy

Hugh, Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Hugh (1135-1200), Bishop of Lincoln (source):

O God,
who didst endow thy servant Hugh
with a wise and cheerful boldness
and didst teach him to commend to earthly rulers
the discipline of a holy life:
give us grace like him to be bold in the service of the gospel,
putting our confidence in Christ alone,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Titus 2:7-8,11-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 24:42-47

Starnina, St. Hugh Exorcises a Man PossessedArtwork: Gherardo Starnina, Saint Hugh of Lincoln Exorcises a Man Possessed by the Devil, 1404-07. Oil on panel, Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan.

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Prayers and liturgy

Margaret, Queen

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Margaret (1046-1093), Queen of Scotland, Philanthropist, Reformer of the Church (source):

O God, the ruler of all,
who didst call thy servant Margaret to an earthly throne
and gavest to her both zeal for thy Church and love for thy people,
that she might advance thy heavenly kingdom:
mercifully grant that we who commemorate her example
may be fruitful in good works
and attain to the glorious crown 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 Lesson: Proverbs 31:10-11, 20, 26, 28
The Gospel: St. Matthew 13:44-52

William Hole, The Landing of St. Margaret at QueensferrySt. Margaret was born in Hungary to a Saxon noble family in exile. In 1057, she and her family were able to return to England, but they were forced to move to Scotland following William the Conqueror’s invasion in 1066. A few years later, the princess Margaret married Malcolm Canmore, King of the Scots, in Dunfermline.

Queen Margaret was married to Malcolm for almost twenty-five years; her death followed his by only a few days. She bore six sons and two daughters. Three sons ruled as kings of Scotland—Edgar, Alexander I, and David I (later saint)—while a daughter, Matilda, became the queen of Henry I of England.

Margaret, an inspirational monarch of great Christian devotion, undertook many works of charity. She protected orphans, provided for the poor, visited prisoners in her husband’s dungeons, cleansed the sores of lepers, and washed the feet of beggars. She encouraged and enabled the founding of monasteries, churches, and hostels. Her excellent education served Scotland well, for under her influence the Scottish court became known as a place of culture and learning.

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Prayers and liturgy

Charles Simeon, Pastor

The collect for today, the commemoration of Charles Simeon (1759-1836), Priest, Evangelical Divine (source):

O eternal God,
who didst raise up Charles Simeon
to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ
and inspire thy people in service and mission:
grant that we, with all thy Church, may worship the Saviour,
turn away in true repentance from our sins
and walk in the way of holiness;
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: Romans 10:8b-17
The Gospel: St. John 21:15-19

Charles SimeonCharles Simeon served as vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge, from 1782 until his death. His zealous evangelical preaching was bitterly opposed by parish leaders, but proved immensely popular and influential among Cambridge undergraduates. He supported the British and Foreign Bible Society and helped to found the Church Missionary Society. His curate Henry Martyn became chaplain of the East India Company and one of India’s best-known missionaries.

Historian Lord Macaulay wrote of him, “If you knew what his authority and influence were, and how they extended from Cambridge to the most remote corners of England, you would allow that his real sway in the Church was far greater than that of any primate.”

A meditation on the life of Charles Simeon, by John Piper, is posted here.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Twenty-Third 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-Third Sunday after Trinity.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-Third Sunday after Trinity

“Our citizenship is in heaven”

We are “strangers and pilgrims” who seek “a better country, that is, an heavenly,” as the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us in the Octave of All Saints’. That “better country” is what Paul means by “our citizenship in heaven”, for “we have here no continuing city.” Some worldly utopia is not our end, however we imagine it in the sense of being a human construct. What we desire is indeed a critical feature of our humanity but our desire for what is absolute and good is precisely beyond our constructing. Such is the delusion of thinking that we can make heaven on earth.

The readings today challenge our culture and church which assumes that the church and religion should mirror and reflect our ideological agendas. It doesn’t either anciently or now. Paul’s statement about our citizenship being in heaven points to the idea of how the things of this world have their truth and meaning only in God. The secular finds its truth only in the sacred; this is the strong teaching of these readings which transcend the opposition of sacred and secular to show the nature of their interrelation. It is neither a dogmatic assertion of the heavenly at the expense of the worldly nor is it mere relativism.

What is stated in the epistle is illustrated in the Gospel. “Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s”. The distinction is crucial to the understanding of our lives as “strangers and pilgrims” in this world. Caesar here is symbolic of the powers of this world; in short, the secular. Yet it has its truth and purpose as belonging to the greater truth and power of God. As Jesus says to Pilate, “thou couldst have no power … except what has been given you from heaven.”

We have forgotten this and have turned the secular agendas of our world and day into forms of religion and cult. The institutional churches fall prey to the assumption that religion is only a reflection of cultural and social ideologies and agendas. This is the advocacy culture which demands not acceptance and toleration but the celebration of identities and interests that negate the givenness of creation and the transcendence of God. Paul’s claim that our citizenship is in heaven does not negate the forms of our secular or worldly lives but redeems them by suggesting that they only have their truth in God. “We have here no continuing city.”

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