Prayers and liturgy

Trinity Sunday

The collect for today, the Octave Day of Pentecost, commonly called Trinity Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of the Divine Majesty to worship the Unity: We beseech thee, that this holy faith may evermore be our defence against all adversities; who livest and reignest, one God, world without end. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 4:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 3:1-15

Jusepe de Ribera, Holy TrinityArtwork: Jusepe de Ribera, Holy Trinity, c. 1635. Oil on canvas, Prado, Madrid.

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King's-Edgehill School Sermons, Sermons

Sermon for Encaenia 2019

How can this be?

What? It’s all over? “How can this be?” you might ask like Nicodemus in the lesson Nick read. High School no more?! IB no more?! “Hit the road Jack and don’t cha come back, no more no more no more no more”! Really? It’s all over and I have to go? Hooray! Or perhaps not! Do I have to leave? Can’t I come back?

“How can this be?” your parents, too, might be asking? My dear little one is graduating from High School?! It seems it was only “yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away”. Now it’s all over? Well enough of the old geezer tunes from the remote past with apologies to Ray Charles and the Beatles. But you get the point. There is a question. “How can this be?”

Nicodemus’ question to Jesus conveys a sense of wonder as well as perplexity that belongs to the special qualities of this day. Today you step up and step out no longer as students but shortly as graduates and alumni of King’s-Edgehill School. As such today is an ending and a beginning, a looking back and a looking ahead but as well a looking inward.

This service is called Encaenia, which is a Greek word – ‘Oh no, not another Rev kind of word. You mean I have to think in the morning? Isn’t it all over?’! Well, duh! No. Encaenia refers to a renewal of purpose and identity. Originally an annual dedication of holy places, it has become associated with “the annual commemoration of founders and benefactors at Oxford University in June” (O.E.D) and, by extension, to academic institutions derived from the medieval universities of Oxford and Cambridge throughout the English speaking world; such as King’s-Edgehill. Encaenia recalls us to our beginnings, to the foundational principles and ideals belonging to the life of the School and to the nature of education. Endings and beginnings, as it were.

Those things are embodied in the Edgehill motto, fideliter, meaning ‘faithfulness’, as married to the motto of King’s, Deo Legi, Regi, Gregi, which means ‘for God, for the Law, for the King, and for the People’. Such things signify an approach to education that connects learning and living, a turning of our hearts and minds to the things that belong to service and sacrifice, to things worth doing and worth doing well, especially academically speaking, but with the intention of seeking the good of the human community. These mottos express an enlightenment sensibility about an education that contributes to lives of service whether in church, law, government or social, economic, and domestic life wherever you are and wherever you go in the world. It has very much to do with the education of the whole person within a community of persons.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 12 June

He shall teach you all things

The school year runs out in the week of Pentecost. Pentecost marks at once the Jewish festival of Shavuot, a harvest festival and a celebration of the giving of the Law, and in the Christian understanding, a celebration of the descent of the Holy Spirit to give birth to the Church. Wind and fire and the speaking in tongues are the distinctive and outward signs of the Pentecostal event. And yet for all of the emphasis upon the ecstatic and the experiential, the whole point of Pentecost is on teaching. Jesus explains that the Holy Spirit “shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” There is a clear sense of the interplay of Word and Spirit.

Peace and order and unity are the defining themes of Pentecost but they are all about God’s peace, God’s order, and the unity of God in whom we alone find peace, order, and unity. The point is that we can find none of these things simply in and of ourselves. In that sense, Pentecost is about the redemption of our humanity.

It is neither reductive nor gnostic. It is not about the collapse of God into the material world (reductive) any more than it is about a flight from nature and matter as if they were somehow evil, as if spirit and matter were to be understood in some sort of fatal opposition (gnostic). Precisely through the wonderful yet elusive images of wind and fire we are opened out to the mystery of God at once with us and beyond us. Precisely through the differences of languages that so often divide and separate us we are recalled to the truth of God, to a unity of the understanding that grounds the diversities of human language and culture in what is universal; in short, in God. This is enormously suggestive and speaks, I think, to the diversities of culture and language at our School.

For in the story of Pentecost, one thing is heard in and through the diverse tongues of the peoples of the world. That one thing is the praise of God. “We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” Pentecost celebrates the unity of God in whom true diversity is found and is redeemed. Instead of separation and opposition, there is unity and truth found in and through the diversities of tongues and cultures. This is profoundly counter-culture because the emphasis is on what is understood as one in and through the differences of culture and language. We are reminded of our humanity as one, as universal not in spite of its diversity but through it. The insight of Pentecost is that the human community has no unity in itself but only in God.

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Sermons

Sermon for Pentecost

He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance

“The old world,” Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) famously claimed, “made spirit parent of matter. The new makes matter parent of spirit,” thus capturing and anticipating the materialistic spirit of Darwin and Marx that still haunts our thinking. Pentecost provides the strongest counter to such determinisms. It does so not simply through the many, many examples of the “confluences of mind and matter, and indeed, of mind precedingmatter,” as John Lukacs observes about contemporary science (At the End of An Age) but by way of a sacramental understanding whereby the things of the world are made the instruments and vehicles of spiritual grace.

It is all about the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. Pentecost celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit to give birth to the Church as the spiritual community of our humanity. As such, and as we have seen throughout Eastertide and the Ascension, it is about the redemption of our humanity. It is neither reductive nor gnostic. It is not about the collapse of God into the material world (reductive) any more than it is about a flight from nature and matter as if they were somehow evil, as if spirit and matter were to be understood in some sort of fatal opposition (gnostic). Precisely through the wonderful yet elusive images of wind and fire we are opened out to the mystery of God at once with us and beyond us. Precisely through the differences of languages that so often divide and separate us we are recalled to the truth of God, to a unity of the understanding that grounds the diversities of human language and culture in what is universal, in God.

The simple point is that the human community has no unity in itself, only in God, and only in our being gathered and guided by God’s Holy Spirit given to us, as Pentecost teaches, through these signs and wonders, through these sacramental realities, we might say, which envision our unity and our understanding. For all of the ecstatic and experiential features of the Pentecost story, what stands out are the qualities of things intellectual and spiritual that redeem and sanctify every other aspect of our lives individually and corporately. As the Gospel makes clear, Pentecost shows the indwelling power of God in himself and with us. “I am in my Father,” Jesus says, “and ye in me, and I in you,” and all through the truth of God as Spirit, transcendent and beyond, yet immanent and near. It is all through the Comforter “abid[ing] with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth.” “Ye know him,” Jesus says, “for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you.” Pentecost is about the indwelling love of God in us. This happens only through teaching, only through the opening of our minds to the spiritual realities of God and of ourselves. “He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.”

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 10 – 16 June

Tuesday, June 11th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:00pm Parish Council Meeting

Thursday, June 13th
6:30-7:30pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Friday, June 14th
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Saturday, June 15th
9:00am Encaenia Service
10:15am Graduation & Prize Day – KES

Sunday, June 16th, Trinity Sunday
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

Pentecost or Whitsunday celebrates the coming down of the Holy Spirit, the gift-promise of the Father and the Son, upon the disciples gathered in Jerusalem. The mission of the Spirit inaugurates the mission of what becomes the Christian Church. The readings all point to the universal and celebratory wonder of this event actuated through the diversity of gifts in the unity of the Holy Spirit, the bond of the divine and eternal love between the Father and the Son.

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Prayers and liturgy

The Day of Pentecost

The collects for today, The Day of Pentecost, being the fiftieth day after Easter, commonly called Whit-Sunday, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O GOD, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit: Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

O GOD, who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon thy disciples in Jerusalem: Grant that we who celebrate before thee the Feast of Pentecost may continue thine for ever, and daily increase in thy Holy Spirit, until we come to thine eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 2:1-11
The Gospel: St. John 14:15-27

Hans Multscher, The Descent of the SpiritArtwork: Hans Multscher, The Descent of the Spirit (Upper part of the outer right wing of the “Wurzach Altarpiece“), 1437. Oil on panel, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin.

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KES Chapel Weekly Reflections

KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 5 June

Metanoia: “He came to himself”

The parable of the prodigal or lost son (or sons) was read in Chapel at the two last Chapel services. The parable is the third of three parables Jesus tells to counter the ugly spectre of self-righteousness, a quality by no means restricted to religion. The Pharisees and the Scribes murmur against Jesus for associating with “tax-collectors and sinners.” The three parables are all about repentance, about its power and truth, its significance and its necessity. The word in Greek is metanoia which offers a deeper and more profound understanding of repentance.

Metanoia is about our minds, literally a thinking after; in short, reflection upon our “thoughts, words and deeds”. In a way, it is very much about Chapel within the educational project of the School. The three parables are the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son or sons, the prodigal son and the elder son. “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents,” Jesus says, “than over ninety and nine that need no repentance.” The phrase is ironic in that everyone in this view needs to repent, to reflect and to return to the principles from which we have wandered away. The further point is that the return of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost sons signals the redemption and wholeness of the whole community; hence joy.

What stands in the way of metanoia is ourselves, our ignorance of ourselves. This is why the third parable is so important. It shows us the dynamic of metanoia, reflection in action, as it were. And it counters the kind of gnostic moralism which appears in the various forms of self-righteousness in our own world and day, dividing the world into them and us; in short, demonizing others. ‘Others are bad and I’m good’ is the unmistakable assumption and by definition. Some have called this way of thinking neo-Marxist: extending Marx’s division between the proletariat (good) and the bourgeoisie (bad) to the ideologies of identity politics, for instance. An unhealthy dualism, to say the least.

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Prayers and liturgy

Boniface, Missionary, Bishop and Martyr

St. Augustine Kilburn, St. BonifaceThe collect for today, the Feast of Saint Boniface (Wynfrith) of Crediton (c. 675 – 754), Bishop, Apostle to the Germans, Patron Saint of Germany, Martyr (source):

O God our redeemer,
who didst call thy servant Boniface
to preach the gospel among the German people
and to build up thy Church in holiness:
grant that we may hold fast in our hearts
that faith which he taught with his words
and sealed with his blood,
and profess it in lives dedicated to 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: Acts 20:17-28
The Gospel: St. Luke 24:44-53

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

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Sermons

Sermon for the Sunday after Ascension Day

Sing ye praises with understanding

“The end of all things is at hand,” Peter tells us. What does he mean? The Ascension and the Session of Christ, his sitting at the right hand of the Father, are a kind of ending. But what kind of ending? Is it like Great Big Sea’s “It’s the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine”? Only I don’t think we feel quite so fine.

“It is finished.” Jesus’ penultimate word on the Cross is about an ending, an ending which carries over into the Resurrection and the Ascension. What is finished, ended, is all that belongs to the reconciliation between humanity and God. The overcoming of sin and death inaugurates the radical new life of the Resurrection. We only live when we live for God and for one another. The Ascension is the culmination of the Resurrection and belongs to its essential logic. The Ascension and the Session of Christ are two of the great creedal doctrines of the Christian Faith and yet are often overlooked and ignored. We forget their radical meaning and connection to Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection.

They are altogether about our life with God, our life as lived to and for God and one another. They are about our life as embraced in God’s will and purpose for our humanity; in short, they are about humanity’s end with God. End here signifies purpose. The Ascension is Christ’s homecoming to the Father having gone forth into the world and having returned to the Father, not empty but having accomplished God’s will for our humanity through his sacrifice. Christ’s sacrifice gathers us to God.

In the tradition of the Seven Last Words of Christ from the Cross, “it is finished” is the penultimate word. What, then, is the ultimate word, the last of the last words? It is exactly what the Ascension and the Session signify. “Father, into thy hands, I commend my spirit,” Jesus says. The first and last words of Christ are the words of the Son to the Father, words of prayer that in turn shape our prayer. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” – what we do. “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” What then do the Ascension and the Session mean? Quite literally, that “he’s got the whole world in his hands.” Everything is gathered back to God. “God,” as Thomas Aquinas notes in a kind of summary phrase, “is the beginning and ending of all things, especially of rational creatures.” In other words, the radical truth of the world and of human life is found in God. The Ascension and the Session celebrate the gathering of all things to God. They teach us that the world and our humanity are embraced in the knowing love of God. We live in that sense of ending, an ending that is about the purpose  and truth of our lives. We live for God and in God.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 3 – 9 June

Tuesday, June 4th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, June 6th
3:15pm Service – Windsor Elms
6:30-8:00pm Sparks – Parish Hall

Friday, June 7th
6:00-7:30pm Pathfinders & Rangers – Parish Hall

Sunday, June 9th, Pentecost
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion

The Ascension and the Session of Christ, his ascending to and his sitting on the right hand of the Father, are two of the creedal mysteries of the Christian Faith. Through these powerful and suggestive images we are reminded of the spiritual nature of our humanity. As the ancient fathers of the Church express it, the Ascension is “the exaltation of our humanity.” These doctrines speak to the spiritual understanding of our lives in faith.

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