Sermons

Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Trinity

“Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father is also merciful.”

Known as the Mercy Gospel, this gospel passage has been read for centuries on this day. Paradoxically, it seems to me, the mercy lies in the realization that we are all hypocrites! The parable Jesus tells is precisely about that. And yet, this is the good news!

The text about the blind leading the blind has become a commonplace in our world; we are quick to use it in relation to political and institutional leadership, but we forget that we are included in its range. The blind who are the leaders lead the blind who are the followers. In other words, this parable forecloses on our tendencies to judge and condemn one another as if we stood upon some superior platform. Quite the opposite, the parable goes on to suggest.

“Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.” This is a devastating reality check. We are utterly blind about ourselves. I love the language of beam and mote; more modern translations of log and speck just don’t have the same resonance. Think of the massive oak beams of this Church and, then, think of the tiny dust motes dancing in the morning light and you begin to get a sense of the contrast and the problem. And so, what is to be done?

(more…)

Print this entry

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 24 – 30 June

Monday, June 24th, Nativity of St. John the Baptist
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:00pm Holy Communion

Tuesday, June 25th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Friday, June 28th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge

Sunday, June 30th, The Fifth Sunday After Trinity (In the Octave of SS. Peter & Paul)
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, July 20th
7:30pm Christ Church Concert Series: Ensemble Seraphina

During the month of July, Fr. Curry will be priest-in-charge of Avon Valley; during August, Fr. Tom Henderson will be priest-in-charge of Christ Church (798-8921).

Print this entry

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):

Feti, Blind Leading the BlindO 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

Artwork: Domenico Feti, The Parable of the Blind Leading the Blind, 1621-22. Oil on panel, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Alban, Martyr

The collect for today, the Feast of Saint Alban, First Martyr of Britain, d. c. 250 (source):

Almighty God, by whose grace and power your 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 you in this world, that we may receive with him the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you 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: Christopher Hobbs, Albanus, 2001. Mosaic, Westminster Cathedral, London.

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity, 2:00pm service for Atlantic Ministry of the Deaf

“Rejoice with me”

Humility is the condition of our rejoicing, the condition of our redemption in Christ. Luke presents us with a very powerful message about the nature of humility as the counter to human pride and about the divine redemption of our humanity. The context is animosity and hostility. Tax Collectors and sinners, the despised and the outcast of the world, draw near to Jesus; Pharisees and Scribes, religious leaders, murmur in contempt because of the company which he keeps. They are scandalised. Doesn’t he know with whom he is associating? How can he be a true religious teacher? Jesus response is revelatory and transforming. He tells two parables; actually, three. We have in today’s reading two of the three, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. The third parable is the tremendous parable of the prodigal son.

The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke comprises these three parables, each told in sequence. It is a most powerful illustration of the message about redemption and humility. Humility is the counter to our pride which pretends to our self-sufficiency, on the one hand, and our self-centredness, on the other hand. Either we have it all and need nothing outside ourselves or we presume to think that we deserve what we presently don’t have but desire. The gospel of humility is the counter to our pride.

The lost sheep, the lost coin. What do they teach us? Simply this. They teach us the humility of God which is given to shape our souls in the love of Christ. The lost sheep is precious; the lost coin is precious. The shepherd and the woman seek diligently – lovingly – for the one that is lost. Without them the community is incomplete; our humanity less than itself. God seeks the lost. In him we are found.

The third parable captures most fully the dynamic of grace at work in bringing us home to ourselves. We cannot read these two parables without being aware of the third – or at least we shouldn’t. It is the parable of the lost son or the prodigal son.

(more…)

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity, 10:30am Morning Prayer

“Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness”

It is a tough saying, one of the toughest and, yet, one of the truest. Forgiveness is there for all who want it but if you deny the very possibility of forgiveness then that is to ‘blaspheme’ against the Holy Spirit. The unforgivable sin is about denying the power and the possibility of forgiveness. Nothing captures so completely the Christian sense of the incredible power and dignity of the human will. It is this passage that makes possible Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost and the whole power of Goethe’s Dr. Faustus. Our bond with the deceiver is captured in the denial of the possibilities of forgiveness. It is dogmatic and coercive. It means the rejection of any sort of realization of our own weaknesses and shortcomings; for to acknowledge sin is to recognize grace. But even more, it belongs to a denial of the possibilities of God’s grace. It denies God’s grace entirely! It denies to God what alone belongs  truly and properly  to God – mercy and forgiveness. This is actually the great insight of the Christian religion.

While it provides an insight into the nature of God, we might say, it also points to the radical nature of human freedom. We are free to condemn ourselves, to will our complete and utter separation from God. In other words, Hell is us precisely because we get what we want but deny what God wants for us. Heaven – a state of blessedness – is only possible through the grace of God. This, too, is a deep truth of the Christian religion. Hell is entirely our doing.

(more…)

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Trinity, 8:00am Holy Communion

“Rejoice with me”

Humility is the condition of our rejoicing, the condition of our redemption in Christ. Luke presents us with a very powerful message about the nature of humility as the counter to human pride and about the divine redemption of our humanity. The context is animosity and hostility. Publican, that is to say, and sinners, the despised and the outcast of the world, draw near to Jesus; Pharisees and Scribes, religious leaders, proud and self-righteous, murmur in contempt because of the company which he keeps. They are scandalised. Doesn’t he know with whom he is associating? How can he be a true religious teacher? Jesus response is revelatory and transforming. He tells two parables – actually, three. We have in today’s reading two of the three, the parable of the lost sheep and the parable of the lost coin. The third parable is the tremendous parable of the prodigal son.

The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke comprises these three parables, each told in sequence. It is a most powerful illustration of the message about redemption and humility. Humility is the counter to our pride which pretends to our self-sufficiency, on the one hand, and our self-centredness, on the other hand. Either we have it all and need nothing outside ourselves or we presume to think that we deserve or are entitled to what we desire. The gospel of humility is the counter to our pride.

The lost sheep, the lost coin. What do they teach us? Simply this. They teach us the humility of God which is given to shape our souls in the love of Christ. The lost sheep is precious; the lost coin is precious. The shepherd and the woman seek diligently – lovingly – for the one that is lost. Without them the community is incomplete; our humanity less than itself. God seeks the lost. In him we are found.

(more…)

Print this entry

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 17 – 23 June

Monday, June 17th
6:00-7:00pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall

Tuesday, June 18th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Thursday, June 20th
3:15pm Service at Windsor Elms
6:30-7:30pm Girl Guides – Parish Hall

Friday, June 21st
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, June 23rd, The Fourth Sunday After Trinity
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:00pm Evening Prayer – Christ Church

Upcoming Events:

Saturday, July 20th
7:30pm Christ Church Concert Series: Ensemble Seraphina

During the month of July, Fr. Curry will be priest-in-charge of Avon Valley; during August, Fr. Tom Henderson will be priest-in-charge of Christ Church (798-8921).

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

The Third Sunday After Trinity

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

O LORD, we beseech thee mercifully to hear us; and grant that we, to whom thou hast given an hearty desire to pray, may by thy mighty aid be defended and comforted in all dangers and adversities; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: 1 St. Peter 5:5-11
The Gospel: St. Luke 15:1-10

Artwork: The Parable of the Lost Coin, stained glass, St. Jacob’s Lutheran Church, Anna, Ohio.

Print this entry

King's-Edgehill School Sermons, Sermons

Sermon for Encaenia 2013

“I am the vine; ye are the branches … abide in me.”

Somewhere, in the past year, a man or a woman stepped out of the countryside and slipped into one of the world’s cities and, with that one step, the demographics of the world changed from being mostly rural to being predominantly urban. How strange, then, to hear in the Scripture readings about the agrarian themes of seedtime and harvest, of vines and branches, the images of humanity’s engagement with the natural and created world. How strange, too, on this day of leaving to hear about abiding. Yet, we meet this morning in the beauty of the rural landscape of Nova Scotia for your graduation from this School from which you go to into an inescapably urban world.

You made it! In just a few hours you will no longer be students of King’s-Edgehill School but graduates, literally those who have made the grade and now step up and step out as alumni of the School. On this day, you are the pride of the School and the pride of your parents, guardians, grandparents and friends. Today marks a significant milestone in your lives. I suspect, however, that if parents and grandparents, and even you, were honest, it could be said that we hardly recognize you, so much have you changed, and I am not referring to guys in skirts!

We meet in the 225th year of the founding of this school. You are part of something far greater than yourselves which is now part of you. This School, set in the rural idylls of Nova Scotia, a kind of paradise, you might almost say (forget the bleak mid-winter, at least for the moment!), has been your place of cultivation and learning, your place of abiding. You step out, glad to be free and yet so much of who you are has been shaped by all that you have been a part of here whether for seven years or one. If it has any meaning at all, something abides in you from your time spent here.

These have been some of the most critical years of your formation. Education is nothing if it is not about the formation of character. Nothing could be more counter-culture, yet nothing could be more classical. As soon as education is turned into a means rather than an end it ceases to be education. At issue is what it means to be human. It is a pressing contemporary question. The Canadian philosopher, Charles Taylor, points out that our question is not simply about what it is that is right to do but about what it is that is good to be. Morality and metaphysics are inseparable; the ethical is also the philosophical.

(more…)

Print this entry