Sermons

Sermon for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity, 8:00 am service

Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?

Love gives without expectation of return simply because love is its own reward. The Gospels teach us to love for love’s sake. Love is its own reason. What does this mean?

It means that love cannot be a matter of calculation – giving with the expectation of receiving in return. For then we limit love. We put limits and restrictions on our love and the love of others. It is a poor and impoverished kind of love which constrains and restricts the boundless love, the unlimited love, the love-without-counting-the-cost kind of love shown to us in Jesus Christ.

Does this mean that love is crazy, irrational and without reason? No. Love is its own reason and that reason is known and named. “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as he gave us commandment.”

Christ’s love draws us into the company of the Trinity and into the Communion of Saints. The love that is without calculation is the infinite love of God. In this Gospel parable, Jesus uses a finite quantity, seventy times seven – you can do the math – to indicate an infinite quality that is beyond counting. The quality of love is something infinite. It is something of God in us. The love that is of God is always with God and with God all things are beyond mere calculation.

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Events

Breaking News

There has been considerable interest in the Rectory and in the other lots. We have been most fortunate to receive an offer for the lots and the Rectory together as a whole; an offer which especially respects the heritage aspects of the Church and its property and which allows us the use of the existing signage and the use of the King Street driveway. We have accepted that offer and await formal Episcopal approval for the sale. The sale will assist the Parish greatly in its life and mission. The buyers are interested in heritage restoration; not construction and not destruction. The closing date is early January. We have much to be thankful for and certainly much thanks is owed to our Parish Solicitor, Mr. Trevor Hughes, as well as to the Wardens and the Parish Council, for their guidance and counsel. Laus Deo.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 9-15 November

Tuesday, November 10th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:30 pm Parish Council Meeting

Wednesday, November 11th, Remembrance Day
10:00am Remembrance Day Service at KES Cenotaph
11:00am Remembrance Day Service at Windsor Cenotaph

Thursday, November 12th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Sunday, November 15th, Trinity XXIII
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Family Service — Holy Communion (Children’s Instructional Eucharist)
4:30pm Evening Prayer at KES

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Prayers and liturgy

The Twenty-Second Sunday After Trinity

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

LORD, we beseech thee to keep thy house hold the Church in continual godliness; that through thy protection it may be free from all adversities, and devoutly given to serve thee in good works, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Philippians 1:3-11
The Gospel: St Matthew 18:21-35

Drost, The Unmerciful ServantArtwork: Willem Drost, The Unmerciful Servant, 1655.  Oil on canvas, Wallace Collection, London.

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Prayers and liturgy

Meditation for All Souls’ Day

“Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord,
and may light perpetual shine upon them”

The Feast of All Saints embraces The Solemnity of All Souls. The one envisions the end and perfection of our humanity in the glory of heaven. Such is the Communion of Saints. The other recalls our sins and imperfections in the darkness of death and the stark reality of our mortality, common to us all. Such is the Solemnity of All Souls. Christ embraces both the glory and the grave.

In the year 998, as part of the Cluniac reform of Benedictine monasticism in Europe, Odilo of Cluny established the Commemoration of All Souls. It may seem morbid and dreary, negative and depressing, not to mention just plain, cold and miserable. After all, this is November! But why trouble our heads with what we would rather not think, let alone face and shiver? Ours is the culture of death through the distancing of death from our lives; death is even contracted out. But to the contrary, there is something wonderfully healthy and true about the Solemnity of All Souls. It signals nothing less than a mature and profound understanding of the Christian Faith.

The Christian Religion does not hide from view the realities of sin and death. Quite the opposite, it sets those things before us with an uncomfortable if not an unbearable clarity. It gives us a way to think about such hard and difficult things. Such is the way of charity. The death and resurrection of Christ is always front and centre to the Christian outlook, to the pattern of Christian life itself. There is the Communion of Saints which is not about “pie-in-the-sky/ by-and-by,” as if heaven were a vain hope and religion merely “the opiate of the masses,” as someone who was once famous once famously said. No. It signals, instead, the real meaning of our fellowship and communion, the real meaning of lives lived together in a community of faith, a community of faith that is far greater than what we can imagine, let alone see.

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Prayers and liturgy

All Souls’ Day

The collect for today, The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed, commonly called All Souls’ Day (source):

Everlasting God, our maker and redeemer,
grant us, with all the faithful departed,
the sure benefits of thy Son’s saving passion and glorious resurrection,
that, in the last day,
when thou dost gather up all things in Christ,
we may with them enjoy the fullness of thy promises;
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 Thessalonians 4:13-18
The Gospel: St John 5:24-27

Signorelli, The Elect

Artwork: Luca Signorelli, The Elect, 1499-1502. Fresco, Chapel of San Brizio, Orvieto Cathedral.

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Prayers and liturgy

Richard Hooker

The collect for today, the commemoration of Richard Hooker (1554-1600), Priest, Anglican Apologist, Teacher of the Faith (source):

O God of peace, the bond of all love,
who in thy Son Jesus Christ hast made for all people thine inseparable dwelling place:
give us grace that,
Richard Hookerafter the example of thy servant Richard Hooker,
we thy servants may ever rejoice
in the true inheritance of thine adopted children
and show forth thy praises now and for ever;
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 2:6-10, 13-16
The Gospel: St John 17:18-23

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Sermons

Sermon for All Saints’ Day

“After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number”

“I believe … in The Communion of Saints”. Do we? And where is that in the Creed which we just said? “And I believe in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church;” that’s where. The Communion of Saints, professed in the Apostles’ Creed, is intimately connected to the “One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church”, professed in the Nicene Creed. We forget this at our peril.

The Feast of All Saints’ teaches an important lesson, especially for a world fixated on the present and pressing pragmatic and practical concerns that belong to the culture of instrumental reason. It is not that such things don’t matter but that they aren’t everything. The great Feast of All Saints’ reminds us that there is more to reality than meets the eye, that we are part of innumerable company united by one thing, the love of God in Jesus Christ. It is a powerful and important message. It places us in a great company. We are, as The Letter to the Hebrews points out, wonderfully “compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.”

There is more to reality than meets the eye, even in the culture of scattered minds and in the season of scattered leaves. Thank God. But here is the point. We are not alone. We are part of a spiritual fellowship which is not to be defined or confused with the culture of our world and day. For contemporary Christianity, which has been taken captive by the cultures which it itself has produced, this is a salutary and timely reminder.

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Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 2-8 November

Tuesday, November 3rd
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
6:30-7:30pm Brownies/Sparks – Parish Hall
7:30 pm Christ Church Book Club – Coronation Room
“The Twilight of Atheism” by Alister McGrath

Thursday, November 5th
1:30-3:00pm Seniors’ Drop-In

Sunday, November 8th, Octave of All Saints’/Trinity XXII
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Morning Prayer
4:30pm Evening Prayer at KES

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Prayers and liturgy

All Saints’ Day

The collect for today, All Saints’ Day, from The Book of Common Prayer (Canadian, 1962):

O ALMIGHTY God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of thy Son Christ our Lord: Grant us grace so to follow thy blessed Saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Lesson: Revelation 7:9-17
The Gospel: St Matthew 5:1-12

Simone Martini, detail from the Maestà
Artwork: Simone Martini, Saints and Apostles (detail of the Maestà), 1315. Fresco, Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Italy.

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