Author: CCW

Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, 8:00am Holy Communion

“Go thy way, thy son liveth”

A miracle story, to be sure. The Trinity season and the season of Epiphany abound in miracles. They teach us something about the nature of God and about the truth of our humanity. But there is something particularly special and important about this gospel story. It is taken from The Gospel according to St. John and there are few gospel readings from John’s Gospel in the long Trinity season. Yet that season runs out in wisdom as we are reminded in the offices of Morning and Evening Prayer today, the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity. For we begin to read from the Apocrypha and, particularly, from the wisdom literature in the Apocrypha on this Sunday. I want to suggest that there is an important connection between Word and Wisdom that is wonderfully illustrated in this Gospel.

It is a miracle, to be sure, a miracle of healing, and so not unlike any number of healing miracles, it might seem. But there is something special about this story and it is not that Jesus is reluctant to make house calls! John tells us that this was “the second sign that Jesus did, when he was come out of Judea into Galilee.” That begs the obvious question about the first sign. What was that? Not a healing miracle per se but the story of the turning of the water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee, a miracle that points us to the meaning of the Incarnation and to the social joys of heaven which God seeks for us in and through the fellowship of the Church here and now as well as in heaven. This second sign, the word sign here is significant, teaches us something profound about the nature of God and about our humanity.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 21 – 27 October

Monday, October 21st
4:45-5:15pm World Religions/Inquirer’s Class, Rm. 206, King’s-Edgehill School
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, October 22nd
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, October 24th
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Sunday, October 27th, Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
2:00pm AMD Service of the Deaf
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church
4:30pm Holy Communion – KES

Upcoming Events:

Friday, November 1st
3:00pm 225th Anniversary Service of the Founding of King’s Collegiate School (now King’s-Edgehill)

Saturday, November 23rd
4:30-6:00pm Annual Parish Ham Supper

Friday, December 20th
7:00pm Christ Church Concert Series II: Capella Regalis presents “To Bethlehem with Kings”

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Prayers and liturgy

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

Vien, Jesus Healing Officer's SonArtwork: Joseph-Marie Vien, Jesus Healing the Son of an Officer, 1752. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille, France.

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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

St. John Lateran, St. LukeVirtually all that we know of Saint Luke comes from the New Testament. He 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. Nicolas 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

Harvest Thanksgiving

The collects for today, Harvest Thanksgiving Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who crownest the year with thy goodness, and hast given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season: Give us grateful hearts, that we may unfeignedly thank thee for all thy loving-kindness, and worthily magnify thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O LORD, we pray thee, sow the seed of thy word in our hearts, and send down upon us the showers of thy grace, that we may bring forth the fruit of the Spirit, and at the great day of harvest may be gathered by the holy angels into the heavenly garner; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson Isaiah 55:1-12
The Gospel: St. John 6:27-35

Thanksgiving is a special and wonderful celebration. It seems to speak to a deep-seated spiritual sensibility in us even in our confusions, uncertainties, and denials of all things religious and spiritual. I would argue that it is fundamentally and essentially spiritual, especially in the Christian understanding.

Thanksgiving embraces at once Harvest Thanksgiving and National Thanksgiving, our thanks for the bounty of the harvest (whether or not there has been one!) and for the rational and spiritual freedoms that we enjoy (however much we ignore them!) in our nation and country. Those ‘thanksgivings’ are raised into the great thanksgiving, the eucharist of the Son to the Father, re-enacted, recalled, and re-presented in “our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” in the service of the Holy Eucharist. Jesus tells us he is the “bread of life.” That life is spiritual life that gathers into the life of God all that belongs to creation and to our humanity.

If a pumpkin could talk, what would it say? Yea, God! We are more than pumpkins (pumpkin regattas notwithstanding!) and we have the privilege and the freedom of the highest sort in giving articulate praise to God for the harvest, for the nation, for our communities, and for one another and, above all, for God himself.

Fr. David Curry

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Sermons

Sermon for Harvest Thanksgiving

“I am the bread of life”

Powerful and yet familiar words. They speak profoundly to the special meaning and purpose of Thanksgiving. Ultimately, thanksgiving is a spiritual activity. To push it even further, I would argue that there is no true thanksgiving which is not a thanksgiving to God.

We are rather good about the idea of thanksgiving for something or other. We get that because we like to be on the receiving end. The idea of thanksgiving makes some kind of sense if we have been given something, especially if it is something which appeals to our appetites and desires. Where we fall down on the thanksgiving front is on the radical idea of thanksgiving to God for all and everything that exists. For that requires reflection and awareness, an aspect of self-consciousness. The deeper and more explicitly spiritual aspects of the act of thanksgiving reveal to us what runs completely counter to our culture of entitlement. You may like to have turkey, squash, potatoes, pumpkins, even zucchini, and so forth – certainly I do – but no, none of us deserves any of it. Even if we have raised and slaughtered the turkey, grown and harvested the various fruits and vegetables of creation, all of those things and our labour included depends radically and completely upon God and upon the good order of his creation.

We create nothing of ourselves. We are only secondary creators, acting in accord with the good order of God’s world and out of the idea of having been made in the image of God. God is the Creator. Thanksgiving reminds us of our human limitations and recalls us to God’s “bountiful goodness” as this Sunday’s Collect so wonderfully puts it. There can only be life and there can only be a bountiful harvest of edibles and delectables as well as a harvest of rational and spiritual pleasures and principles because of God’s great “bountiful goodness”.

That is the central spiritual insight of thanksgiving. It is less about thanksgiving for and more about thanksgiving to. Why? Because there can be no harvest whether of material or spiritual goods without God.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 14 – 20 October

Tuesday, October 15th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Christ Church Book Club: The Geometry of Love by Margaret Visser & Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King

Thursday, October 17th, Eve of St. Luke
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Brownies Mtg. – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Friday, October 18th, St. Luke
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home
7:30pm Christ Church Concert Series I: Violin(s) & Piano, Nellie & Stan Chen ($10 / $5 students)

Sunday, October 20th, Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Morning Prayer
4:00pm Choral Evensong – Christ Church
4:30pm Holy Communion – KES

Upcoming Events:

Friday, November 1st
3:00pm 225th Anniversary Service of the Founding of King’s Collegiate School (now King’s-Edgehill)

Saturday, November 23rd
4:30-6:00pm Annual Parish Ham Supper

Friday, December 20th
7:00pm Christ Church Concert Series II: Capella Regalis presents “To Bethlehem with Kings”

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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

Dionisy, Parable of the Wedding FeastArtwork; Dionisy, Parable of the Wedding Feast, c. 1502. Fresco, Cathedral of the Nativity of the Virgin, former Ferapontov Monastery, Ferapontovo, Russia.

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