Category: Sermons

The Rev’d David Curry, Rector of Christ Church, preached this sermon for the Feast of St. Patrick.

“The people which sat in darkness have seen a great light”

The Gospel (Matthew 4. 13-24, BCP., 315, Propers of a Missionary) says nothing about shillelaghs, shamrocks or even about snakes, let alone green beer! It does say something about places “upon the sea-coast”, about the preaching of Christ seen as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy of light coming to “the people which sat in darkness” and in the “shadow of death”, about repentance, about discipleship, and about healing and salvation; in short, about all the things that belong to the evangelium – the good news that is the meaning of the word, gospel.

And the lesson, too, (Acts 12.24-13.5) underscores the same theme. “The word of God grew and multiplied,” meaning what, exactly? (more…)

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The Rev’d David Curry, Rector of Christ Church, preached this sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent, based on the Gospel reading, St Luke 11:14-28.

“Seven other spirits, worse than the first … enter in”

All sermons should come with an advisory, a warning that this may be dangerous to your health, either because it is too underwhelming or too demanding, too controversial or too boring. Or too long or just plain impossible. Today’s sermon is all of the above. You may want to ponder the Athanasian Creed or the Thirty-Nine Articles; if you can find them in the Prayer Book before the end of the sermon, extra bonus points and kudos to you! An advisory, I suppose, is most appropriate for today. It is the 15th of March, after all. Beware the Ides of March!

This gospel is the necessary counter to our greatest fault, spiritual pride. The capital sin of the seven capital or chief sins, we might say, pride is the head of all the deadly sins. It is actually the principle that is at work in all of “the seven deadly sins,” to use the categories which belong to the Christian moral tradition. Why? Because pride is the explicit denial of the grace of God without which we are indeed dead in ourselves. (more…)

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The Rev David Curry, Rector of Christ Church, preached this sermon at St John’s Church, Port Williams, for Choral Evensong, Lent II, based on St Mark 14:27-52.

“He left the linen cloth and ran away naked.”

Last words are often the most compelling or at least in this case, perhaps, the most perplexing. Who was this young man “with nothing but a linen cloth about his body” and who ends up running away naked? It must seem odd in what is otherwise a most disturbing and deeply touching scene, the scene of Christ’s agony of prayer in Gethsemane, his betrayal by a kiss and his arrest. It is all part of the intensity of the drama of the Passion. But how odd!

And what are we to make of the story of God’s covenant promise to Noah juxtaposed with the story of the building of the Tower of Babel with its last words? “There the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.” (more…)

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The Rev’d David Curry, Rector of Christ Church, preached this sermon at Morning Prayer for the Second Sunday in Lent, based on the first lesson: Genesis 18:1-15.

“Sarah laughed”

The laughter of Sarah echoes down the empty corridors of the centuries of human ignorance and presumption. She, of course, “laughed to herself.” But that, of course, cannot be hid from God. “Almighty God, unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid,” for what kind of God would that be if things could be hid from him? Not a God worth believing in, surely. (more…)

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The Rev’d David Curry, Rector of Christ Church, preached this sermon at Holy Communion for the First Sunday in Lent, based on Hebrews 5:8.

“Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”

Learning through suffering was an ancient maxim of the Greeks most wonderfully illustrated in the story of Odysseus. Many in modern times have been graduates, too, of that proverbial school of hard knocks. Necessity can be one heck of a teacher.

But what is it that is learned through ancient suffering and the contemporary school of hard knocks? What are the lessons? (more…)

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