Prayers and liturgy

Irenaeus, Bishop and Doctor

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Irenaeus (d. 202), Bishop of Lyon, Doctor of the Church (source):

O God of peace,
who through the ministry of thy servant Irenæus
didst strengthen the true faith and bring harmony to thy Church:
keep us steadfast in thy true religion
and renew us in faith and love,
that we may ever walk in the way
that leadeth to everlasting life;
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: 2 Timothy 2:22b-26
The Gospel: St. Luke 11:33-36

Pierrot Feré, Baptism of St. IrenaeusArtwork: Pierrot Feré, Baptism of Saint Irenaeus (detail of the Saint Piat Tapestry), 1402. Treasury of the Cathedral, Tournai.

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Prayers and liturgy

Audio file of 8:00am Holy Communion service, Fourth Sunday after Trinity

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the 8:00am service of Holy Communion at Christ Church on the Fourth Sunday after Trinity (in the Octave of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist).

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Sermons

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity (in the Octave of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist)

“Thou hypocrite”

It is sometimes called ‘the Mercy Gospel’. It is part of the “Sermon on the Plain” in Luke’s Gospel which complements the more famous “Sermon on the Mount” in Matthew’s Gospel. Both ‘sermons’ present to us some of the most powerful ethical and spiritual teachings of the Christian Faith, teachings which we have either forgotten or of which we are completely unaware. Mercy, as this rather challenging reading makes clear, is inescapably connected to justice. Hypocrisy, starkly and sternly presented in the parable, is injustice masquerading as justice in the form of self-righteousness and judgmentalism so prevalent in the current confusions of our culture and in ourselves.

The mercy is that we “groan within ourselves,” as the Epistle puts it, waiting for the fuller realization of what we know is yet incomplete in us. Mercy lies in suffering the forms of our finitude and our sinfulness, our unrighteousness, but only if we can be brought to know our unknowing; in short, the blindness about ourselves that belongs to our self-righteous judgments about others. It is an ancient and classical theme and by no means unique to Christianity. Buddhism, for instance, arises in part out of a critical rejection of the Brahmin class of Hinduism who are seen as “the blind leading the blind” especially with respect to the question of human suffering. In today’s Gospel, the point is made in very graphic and personal terms as suggested in the use of the second person. Why do you behold the mote, the small faults of others, while remaining unaware of the much greater faults in yourself? Such is hypocrisy, the only answer to which is self-criticism and self-correction. We are quick to judge others but only so as to absolve ourselves in the emotive forms of passionate outrage.

We are hypocrites, to be sure. The mercy is that God calls us to self-understanding in which we are made aware of our absolute need for mercy. We all stand under the same condemnation; in other words, none of us is fully righteous. “There is none that doeth good, no, not one“ (Rom. 3.12) as Paul puts it, “the good that I would I do not, the very evil that I would not do is what I do” (Rom. 7.19). This is to confront the limitations and failings of our very hearts. Yet, this is good news precisely because it turns us to the desire for the mercy of God and puts a check on empty emotivism.

We meet within the Octave of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, the patron saint of French Canada and associated with the European encounter with North America through the landing in Newfoundland of John Cabot supposedly on his feast day in 1497. Thus the Collects for the Nativity include prayers for the nation of Canada, prayers which are surely much needed. Yet John’s birth signals primarily his vocation within the Providence of God in the working out of human redemption. His life and death point inescapably and necessarily to the one for whom he exists. He preaches, as Luke puts it, “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Lk. 3. 3). He is not that forgiveness but the one who belongs to its necessary preparation and ultimate fulfillment in Christ who is the forgiveness of sins. The desire for righteousness leads to its highest expression in mercy.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Fourth Sunday After Trinity

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

O GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for Jesus Christ’s sake our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Romans 8:18-23
The Gospel: St Luke 6:36-42

Henrik Olrik, Sermon on the MountArtwork: Henrik Olrik, Sermon on the Mount, c. 1880. Altarpiece, Sankt Matthaeus Kirke, Copenhagen.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

The collect for today, the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY God, by whose providence thy servant John Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of thy Son our Saviour, by preaching of repentance: Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching, and after his example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth’s sake; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Isaiah 40:1-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 1:57-80

Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Birth of John the BaptistArtwork: Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Birth of John the Baptist, 1486-90. Fresco, Tornabuoni Chapel, Santa Maria Novella, Florence.

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Prayers and liturgy

Alban, Martyr

All Saints Margaret Street, St. AlbanThe collect for today, the Feast of Saint Alban, First Martyr of Britain, d. c. 250 (source):

Almighty God, by whose grace and power thy holy martyr Alban triumphed over suffering and was faithful even unto death: Grant to us, who now remember him with thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to thee in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 3:13-16
The Gospel: St. Matthew 10:34-42

Artwork: St. Alban, 1869, stained glass, All Saints Margaret Street, London. Photograph taken by admin, 25 September 2015.

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Prayers and liturgy

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity

“God … shall himself restore, stablish, strengthen you”

Some ancient texts add ‘settle’ to this list of verbs, as in being “settled upon a foundation”. In a sense, our return to in-person worship here at Christ Church is about our restoration, about our being established, about our being strengthened, and about our being settled upon the foundation of our life together in Christ. It is good to be back and I hope that we can begin to settle into the regular forms of our corporate life in Christ with a spirit of gratitude and forbearance, knowing that there are and will be uncertainties ahead. We have, I hope, learned something about ourselves in and through these troubling times. The challenge has been to keep our focus on the spiritual teachings that alone restore, stablish, strengthen, and settle us upon the care of God; “casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you.”

The care of God is a radical concept and teaching. It belongs to the even more radical concept of God as love, whose love is the ground of all life and being, all knowing and loving. Yet again, the Gospel provides us with a telling illustration of what the care of God means for us in our lives. In the face of the critical murmurings of the Pharisees and Scribes about Jesus being in the company of publicans and sinners, “receiving sinners and eating with them,” as they suggest, Jesus tells three powerful parables, two of which comprise today’s Gospel. They are the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the parable of the prodigal or lost son. The fifteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel is a tour-de-force of teaching about repentance and rejoicing. Repentance and joy go together. That alone is worth pondering and thinking about. We are meant to see ourselves in these parables.

Such a view underlies an important aspect of the Prayer Book liturgy as penitential adoration and reminds us of the deep love of God for us that derives from the love of God himself. Our whole liturgy is about joyful repentance; our turning back to God because God has turned us back to himself. Such is restoration and the grounding of our lives in God, restored, established, strengthened, and settled upon his love.

I have on occasion thought about the ethical teaching of this chapter of Luke’s Gospel aesthetically, by way of the idea of a triptych. A triptych is three panels, usually painted, depicting certain biblical stories understood in relation to each other and often placed just above or standing on the altar. In this case, the whole chapter could be captured in a triptych illustrating the theme of repentance and rejoicing. Triptychs are a feature of Medieval Christian art and usually take the form of a large central panel framed by two hinged side panels each half the size of the central panel. The hinges allow the side panels to enclose the central panel if desired at certain times in the liturgical year. In terms of the fifteenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, the parable of the prodigal son would have to form the central panel framed by the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.

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