Author: CCW

Sermons

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Easter

And when he is come, he will reprove the world

It is a remarkable phrase that Jesus uses about the coming of “the Comforter, the Spirit of truth” who “will guide [us] into all truth.” What does it mean to “reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement”? The word runs a gamut of meanings from ‘convince’ and ‘refute’ to ‘examine’ and ‘question’, from ‘put to shame’ to ‘accuse.’ To reprove is about a kind of critical assessment of something that is not ethical. It implies a kind of judgement upon the world. Things are not quite as they should be nor even as we would like them to be. An understatement, to be sure!

We would all like Covid-19 to go away, perhaps even more for the fear of it to go away and never come again. And yet the language of the Epistle and Gospel for today is about the comings and goings of God which is somehow expedient, good or beneficial for us, whatever the times or circumstances.

Every good and perfect gift comes down from above, “from the Father of lights,” James tells us, while Jesus in the Gospel talks about going his way to the one that sent him, going to the Father, which means going away from the disciples such that they shall “see [him] no more” and “sorrow hath filled [their] hearts.” Yet that is said to be expedient or good for us because only so can the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, be sent unto us. What, we may ask, is going on in these readings? A confusion of motions, comings down and goings up? The comings and goings of God, the Son to the Father, and the Spirit as sent by the Son? What does it mean?

It all belongs to the radical meaning of Christ’s Death and Resurrection and to our participation in the divine life through these motions. The way up and the way down are one and the same. The ascent of our souls to God as the true end and desire of our being and God’s descent to us both in Christ’s Incarnation and in the coming down of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, are really one and the same, differentiated in time but united in the eternity of God. Time, as Plato famously said, is but the moving image of eternity (Timaeus).  These Eastertide readings offer a wonderful commentary, perhaps, on that philosophical insight. It is simply and profoundly about how we are embraced and participate in the divine life. Our comings and goings are gathered up into the comings and goings of God to us and with us but, more importantly, as belonging to the comings and goings of God himself, so to speak, since we can only speak in these human ways. The mystery of Easter gathers us into the eternal dynamic of the love of God.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday After Easter

The collect for today, The Fourth Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: St. James 1:17-21
The Gospel: St. John 16:5-15

Franz Anton Maulbertsch, Last Supper, c. 1760Artwork: Franz Anton Maulbertsch, Last Supper, c. 1760. Oil on canvas, Christian Museum, Esztergom, Hungary.

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Prayers and liturgy

Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop and Doctor

The collect for today, the Feast of St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-89), Monk, Bishop, Theologian, Doctor of the Eastern Church (source):

Alexey Tarasovich Markov, St. Gregory the TheologianAlmighty God, who hast revealed to thy Church thine eternal Being of glorious majesty and perfect love as one God in Trinity of Persons: Give us grace that, like thy bishop Gregory of Nazianzus, we may continue steadfast in the confession of this faith, and constant in our worship of thee, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who livest and reignest for ever and ever.

The Lesson: Wisdom 7:7-14
The Gospel: St. John 8:25-32

Artwork: Alexey Tarasovich Markov, St. Gregory the Theologian, 1849. Oil on canvas, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

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Prayers and liturgy

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 6 May

Blessed art thou among women

A phrase associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary, it has its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures and in later Jewish writings with the figure of Jael, on the one hand, and the figure of Judith, on the other hand. They are blessed among women or even above all women. They belong to a quartet of holy women who at once embody the essential features of Judaism: Jael from the Song of Deborah, Esther, Judith, and Susanna. They are each in their own way strong women who had to deal with adversities in one way or another. In turn, they shape the moral imaginary of the Christian world in the figures of Mary and Christ.

We have in Chapel this week read two passages from the Book of Judith. It has only come down to us in Greek, and yet entered much later into Jewish culture and ritual, paradoxically, because of its vitality and presence in the cultures of both Eastern and Western Christianity. For Eastern Orthodoxy the Book of Judith belongs to their canonical (authoritative) scriptures since they derive the Old Testament from the Septuagint. In the Christian West, largely through the interpretative influence of Jerome’s Prologue to the story, the Book of Judith belongs to the Deutero-canonical texts for Catholics and to the Apocrypha for Protestants, such as Anglicans. In other words, the Book of Judith provides an intriguing and interesting example of the interchange and interaction between and within religious cultures, philosophically understood.

It is a story about Jewish identity in the face of persecution and has grown in symbolic significance for Jews and Christians alike. A fictional work, composed sometime in the second century BC, whether first in Hebrew or in Greek is unclear, it is clearly set within a Jewish milieu and in the context of a global power struggle between the Assyrians and the Medes. Set in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, like the Book of Daniel to which the story of Susanna is appended, it concerns the persecution of the Jews by the dominant powers of the day. Judith is a beautiful widow in the fictional city of Bethulia which stands as the gateway to Jerusalem. Holofernes, Nebuchadnezzar’s general, puts Bethulia under siege on his way to capture Jerusalem. At issue is the subordination of the Jews to the Assyrians and to the demand, as in the Book of Daniel, to worship Nebuchadnezzar as god. The siege places the city in great distress with food and water shortages. Its leadership decides that if God does not do something within five days, they will capitulate to the demands of the Assyrians.

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Prayers and liturgy

Monnica, Matron

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Monnica (c. 331-387), mother of Saint Augustine of Hippo (source):

O faithful God,
who didst strengthen Monica, the mother of Augustine,
with wisdom,
and by her steadfast endurance
didst draw him to seek after thee:
grant us to be constant in prayer
that those who stray from thee may be brought to faith
in thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Lesson: 1 Samuel 1:10-11,20
The Gospel: St. Luke 7:11-17

Giuseppe Riva, St. Monica teaches the Christian Faith to AugustineArtwork: Giuseppe Riva, St. Monica Teaches the Christian Faith to Augustine, 1890-99. Duomo di Bergamo (Cattedrale di S. Alessandro), Bergamo, Italy.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Easter

“Your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you”

Really? Do we really believe this? It lies at the heart of the Christian understanding. “You now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice.” Death and Resurrection are the fundamental pattern of Christian life. That pattern marks the rhythm of the liturgy and of our lives of service and sacrifice. It is really all about dying to live, dying to ourselves and living for one another. It is only possible through our being alive to God, to Christ in us.

The lessons of the Resurrection are quite profound and poignant. They are all about the dawning awareness on the part of the disciples and by extension in us of the truth and power of the Resurrection. It changes our understanding and outlook. The Gospels of Eastertide show us how we come to learn the things which matter most. And far from being a flight from the past, they reveal the redemption of the past and show us the power of memory.

Jesus makes himself known on the Road to Emmaus not just in the opening of our understanding about his Passion through the Scriptures but “in the breaking of the bread.” Jesus tells us Mary Magdalene not to touch him but “go and tell” the disciples about his mission and ours in his going to “my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” Yet in the same chapter he tells Thomas to touch and see and so believe. Jesus proclaims peace and forgiveness behind closed doors to all of us huddled in our fears about Covid-19, our fears, I am afraid, of one another and our world, our modern fears of death and uncertainty. Jesus bids us “come and have breakfast” at a barbecue on a beach – Oh, don’t we wish!

All of these encounters have this point in common. They are all about what Christ teaches. They are all about the radical presence of God with us, not as collapsed into the world, but as raising us and our world into its real truth and meaning in God. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (Jn.1.4).  The recurring theme is signalled here in today’s Gospel when Jesus says, “I will see you again.”

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Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After Easter

The collect for today, The Third Sunday After Easter, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, who showest to them that be in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness: Grant unto all them that are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s religion, that they may forsake those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 2:11-17
The Gospel: St. John 16:16-22

Dieric Bouts the Elder, Last SupperArtwork: Dieric Bouts the Elder, Last Supper (Central Panel, Altarpiece of the Holy Sacrament), 1464-67. Oil on panel, Saint Peter’s Church, Leuven, Belgium.

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Prayers and liturgy

Athanasius, Doctor and Bishop

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Athanasius (c. 293-373), Bishop of Alexandria, Theologian, Apologist, Doctor of the Church (source):

Ever-living God,
whose servant Athanasius bore witness
to the mystery of the Word made flesh for our salvation:
give us grace, with all thy saints,
to contend for the truth
and to grow into the likeness of thy Son,
Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 2 Corinthians 4:5-14
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:23-28

Santa Maria sopra Minerva, St. AthanasiusSaint Athanasius is one of the most inspirational leaders of the early church. His dogged and uncompromising defence of the full divinity of Jesus Christ against the Arian heresy saved the unity and integrity of the Christian religion and church. He saw that Christ’s deity was foundational to the faith and that Arianism meant the end of Christianity.

Arius and his followers maintained that Christ the Logos was neither eternal nor uncreated, but a subordinate being—the first and finest of God’s creation, but a creature nonetheless. Despite being rejected at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, which Athanasius attended as deacon under the orthodox Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, Arianism remained popular and influential in the Eastern church for most of the fourth century.

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Prayers and liturgy

Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles

The Collect for today, The Feast of Saint Philip and Saint James the Apostles, with Saint James the Brother of the Lord, Martyr, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us perfectly to know thy Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life; that, following the steps of thy holy Apostles, Saint Philip and Saint James, we may stedfastly walk in the way that leadeth to eternal life; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Additional Collect, of the Brethren of the Lord:

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. James 1:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 14:1-14

Giovanni Lanfranco, Glory of Saints Philip and JamesArtwork: Giovanni Lanfranco, Glory of Saints Philip and James with ten apostles, 1638-46. Fresco, Chiesa dei Santi Apostoli, Naples.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 29 April

Peace and forgiveness and love

Peace and forgiveness flow out of the Resurrection. Such is the love which reconstitutes us out of the chaos of sin and betrayal, out of the malaise of suffering and sorrow. Like all of us, the disciples were huddled in fear behind closed doors. “Then Jesus came and stood in the midst.” It is a wonderful phrase which goes to the heart of the Passion and the Resurrection. God is in the midst of our suffering world, a world broken and in disarray, in fear and uncertainty.

Christ appears behind closed doors twice in John’s Gospel; once on the evening of Easter Day, and then eight days later when Thomas, whom we have come to call “doubting Thomas” was also there. He had heard about the first appearance of the Risen Christ but said that he wouldn’t believe until he could not only see but touch the wounds of the Crucified. Seeing and believing, reaching out and touching, and so believing. The point is that those are important though not the only forms of knowing.

And three times Jesus says “peace be unto you.” He bestows the power of absolution, of forgiveness upon the disciples whom he sends in his name even as the Father has sent him. And he tells Thomas to reach out and touch, to be not faithless but believing. As another Thomas remarks some thirteen centuries later, Thomas’s doubting provides for us the greater certainty of faith (Aquinas).

But the greater marvel, perhaps, is that these scenes belong to the same chapter as the encounter between Christ and Mary Magdalene where he tells her not to touch him while also sending her on a mission, a mission to the other brethren that is grounded in the eternal mission of his going to “my Father and your Father, my God and your God,” wonderful words which complement Thomas’ exclamation upon encountering the Risen Christ, “My Lord, and my God.” To the one, do not touch; to the other touch and see. Both are gathered into the love which restores and redeems, the love which is resurrection.

One of the great literary and philosophical works of our humanity was written behind closed doors, in a prison, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (6th century). He was awaiting execution on trumped-up charges of treason. He was in grief and sorrow, in fear and dismay. Lady Philosophy appears to him and, like Christ the Good Shepherd, undertakes to return him to his true self, banishing like so many false comforters, all the appeals to emotion and self-pity in which he has buried himself. She recalls him to learning, to the things which abide and are eternal. A remarkable treatise, the work has shaped the imaginary of the intellectual culture of Europe and beyond. It was mirabile dictu translated by Alfred the Great in the ninth century, by Chaucer in the fourteenth, and by Queen Elizabeth the First in the sixteenth, to give some sense of its range and importance.

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