Prayers and liturgy

The Second Sunday After Trinity

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

O LORD, who never failest to help and govern them whom thou dost bring up in thy stedfast fear and love: Keep us, we beseech thee, under the protection of thy good providence, and make us to have a perpetual fear and love of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 3:13-24
The Gospel: St. Luke 14:15-24

Thornycroft, Parable of the Great SupperArtwork: Theresa Georgina Thornycroft (1855-1947), The Parable of the Great Supper. Oil on canvas, Croydon Art Collection, Museum of Croydon, UK.

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King's-Edgehill School Sermons, Sermons

Sermon for Encaenia 2015

“How readest thou?”

“How came we ashore?” Miranda asks her father, Prospero, in Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest. And perhaps, you and your parents, grandparents and guardians, too, are asking yourselves that very same question. How did you get here? How did you do it? For you have done it! Today you step up and step out. In a short while you will be no longer students but graduates and alumni!

You have done it, to be sure, but how? Simply on your own? Because it’s just you? Think again. Prospero answers Miranda’s question with a wonderfully profound phrase. “By Providence divine.” Something good and wonderful, “a sea-change into something rich and strange,” has happened in spite of the vagaries of time and experience, in spite of our own follies and mistakes, even, as the play reveals, in spite of human wickedness and sin, of betrayal and deceit. And that is the wonder. Miranda is a wonder – both our Miranda, to be sure – but all of you are the wonder on this day. Not just because of each of you by yourselves but because of the wonder of all of you together in the purpose of this place, in the wonder of the education that belongs to the School. “By Providence divine,” indeed.

The events of this day might seem to suggest an ending but the term for this service is Encaenia from a Greek word signifying something new and fresh, a kind of beginning (εγκαινια: εν & καινος). The term is used for festivals of dedication in which there is a renewal of devotion, commitment and consecration to the defining principles and ideas that belong to institutions in their truth and integrity. Originally used for the anniversary dedication of temples and churches, it is associated with “the annual commemoration of founders and benefactors at Oxford University in June” (O.E.D), and by extension to schools and colleges, such as King’s-Edgehill, founded upon those traditions of learning. Sometimes known as Commencement, it means that something begins, not just ends. That, too, is all part of the wonder of this day.

“How readest thou?” In some way or other the wonder has entirely do with our reading and understanding. Ideas have been presented before you, not altogether unlike the story of Ezra reading from a newly discovered book of the Law, probably, Deuteronomy, in the lesson from Nehemiah which Cooper read. That sense of being gathered around words proclaimed and ideas presented is a feature of Judaism, Christianity, and of course, Islam, not to mention the schools of ancient philosophy. There is a sense of awe and wonder. All the people stood and listened attentively to the proclamation of the Word and to its interpretation. I am not going to ask you when was the last time you heard a lesson from The Book of Nehemiah! Suffice to say this is probably the only encaenia service in the world where such a text has been read! Yet how profoundly it captures the wonder of your education. The challenge is about your understanding, about the way in which you have made what has been presented to you your own.

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Sermons

Sermon for the Feast of St. Barnabas

“This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you”

The Saints’ Days commemorations provide us with wonderful ways to reflect upon the essential nature of our Christian identity. They concentrate for us at once our vocation to holiness of life and witness and to our communion with God. They are a poignant reminder of our life in Christ here and now. They encourage us and perhaps never more so than in the commemoration of St. Barnabas whose name means “son of consolation” or “encouragement.”

Can there be any greater consolation or encouragement than this commandment to love as Christ has loved us? Can there be any greater consolation or encouragement than to realise that we are the friends of God and not simply servants? In short, can there be any greater consolation or encouragement than to be recalled to our communion with God?

The Gospel reading for the Feast of St. Barnabas is from the 15th chapter of John’s Gospel. The passage follows immediately upon the last and perhaps greatest of the seven so-called “I am” sayings of Jesus, sayings where through metaphor and image, Christ indicates the forms of our incorporation in the life of God. The last and perhaps greatest of those images is that of the vine. “I am the vine,” Jesus says and goes on to talk about our abiding in him and he in us for “without me,” he says, “ye can do nothing.” Here the force of that image extends to the explicit idea of friendship; our friendship or communion with God in Jesus Christ which is the basis of our friendship or communion with one another. We live in the love of God.

This is the wonder which turns the world on its head. The idea of communion and fellowship with God and with one another. But why a commandment? Do friends command friends? Yes and no. The wonder here lies in the communion between God and our humanity that has been established – created – by God. “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” Jesus says. The distance between God and Man is not denied even as a connection and an intimacy between God and Man has been created. The God who is love commands love because of the necessity of love itself – because of its essentially divine nature.

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Prayers and liturgy

St. Barnabas the Apostle

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Barnabas the Apostle, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O LORD God Almighty, who didst endue thy holy Apostle Barnabas with singular gifts of the Holy Spirit: Leave us not, we beseech thee, destitute of thy manifold gifts, nor yet of grace to use them alway to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Acts 11:22-26
The Gospel: St. John 15:12-16

Pynas, Paul and Barnabas at LystraArtwork: Jacob Pynas, Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, 1627-29. Oil on wood, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

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Prayers and liturgy

Columba, Abbot of Iona

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Columba (c. 521-597) Abbot of Iona, Missionary (source):

Church of the Advent, Boston, St. ColumbaAlmighty God,
who didst fill the heart of Columba
with the joy of the Holy Spirit,
and with deep love for those in his care:
grant to thy pilgrim people grace to follow him,
strong in faith, sustained by hope,
and made one in the love that binds us to thee;
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: 1 Corinthians 3:11-23
The Gospel: St. Luke 10:17-20

Artwork: St. Columba, stained glass, Church of the Advent, Boston.

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Sermons

Sermon for the First Sunday after Trinity

“If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded
though one rose from the dead.”

“God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him.” Familiar words perhaps, though we know them better through the scriptural sentences in the Offices for the Trinity season with the word, “abideth” rather than the King James version, “dwelleth.” Either way the phrase captures the essential point of the Christian Faith – our being with the God who dwells with us. We live in the love of God without which we do not live at all. Something of the radical meaning of our communion with God is wonderfully and, perhaps, terrifyingly set before us on The First Sunday after Trinity.

We either live out of what we have been given to behold – “a door opened in heaven,” as we heard last week – or we are, quite literally, it seems, in Hell. To live out of the love of God as Trinity governs how we look at one another and treat one another. As today’s epistle reading from 1 John and the Gospel parable from Luke make clear, heaven and hell are right here in how we hear and see; in short, in how we think God and how we regard one another. “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” To love God means loving our brother also.

The parable makes it clear that this ethical principle has its basis in the Jewish Scriptures spoken of here as “Moses and the prophets.” What does that mean? Simply that the love of God and the love of neighbour belong to the essential ethical insight of Judaism which is carried over into Christianity. In telling this strong and powerful parable, Jesus convicts both Jew and Christian alike of the way in which we betray God in ignoring one another. Lazarus lies at our feet. Do we simply walk over him or do we care for him? “Our life and death,” one of the desert fathers says, “are with our brother.”

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 8 – 14 June

Monday, June 8th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, June 9th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, June 11th, St. Barnabas
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Saturday, June 13th
9:00am Encaenia Service – KES Chapel
10:15am Graduation & Prize Day Ceremonies – KES

Sunday, June 14th, The Second Sunday after Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer

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Prayers and liturgy

The First Sunday After Trinity

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

O GOD, the strength of all them that put their trust in thee, mercifully accept our prayers; and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that in keeping of thy commandments we may please thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. John 4:7-21
The Gospel: St. Luke 16:19-31

Francken the Younger, Parable of the Rich Man and LazarusArtwork: Frans Francken the Younger, The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, early 17th century. Oil on canvas, Musée de Cambrai, France.

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Prayers and liturgy

Boniface, Missionary, Bishop and Martyr

The 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

Wittmer, Boniface Felling Donar's OakArtwork: Johann Michael Wittmer, Saint Boniface Felling Donar’s Oak, 1861. Oil on canvas, Private collection.

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Prayers and liturgy

Justin Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Justin (c. 100 – 165), Philosopher, Apologist, Martyr at Rome (source):

St. Justin MartyrO God our redeemer,
who through the folly of the cross
didst teach thy martyr Justin
the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ:
free us, we beseech thee, from every kind of error,
that we, like him, may be firmly grounded in the faith,
and make thy name known to all peoples;
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: 1 Corinthians 1:18-30
The Gospel: St. Luke 12:1-8

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