King's-Edgehill School Sermons, Sermons

Sermon for Encaenia 2009

“I am the vine, you are the branches … abide in me”

Wow! Here you are! Look at you! All dressed up – again – and everywhere to go! We salute you for your accomplishments. Today you are the pride of the school, the pride of your parents and grandparents, your relatives and friends, your cultures and communities. There is always something just a little overwhelming about these occasions; a day super-charged with so many emotions. We are both sad and glad to see you go!

You meet for the last time here this morning as students of King’s-Edgehill School.  In a short while you will step up and step out as graduates. You have made the grade and are about to step into a whole new set of relationships. Such is graduation. You do so because of the things that have belonged to your time here whether it has been for one year or for six. It has been the place of your abiding, to strike the note in the lesson which Ashley read. This is the place where you have lived and learned – sometimes, no doubt, the hard way (let’s not go there!), sometimes not! And perhaps, some of the lessons have yet to take root, let alone to bear fruit, in you!

Together we have been through a lot. We have laughed and sung together – well, at least we’ve tried! We have cried and grieved together, known suffering and loss and sorrow together as well as joy and delight. We have experienced the agonies of defeat and the ecstasies of victory. It is almost as if you have already lived several lifetimes, so intense and busy everything has been. And there have been the quiet times of reflection and meditation, too; in sum, the hard lessons of thinking and acting beyond yourselves. All these things enter into the making of who you are. They are part of the formation of character; they belong to the shape of your being.

But only because you have embraced the challenges and the responsibilities that have been set before you. Not always willingly perhaps. After all, there are many things that we don’t like doing, many things that we kick against and rebel. It is called adolescence and it lives on in all of us, as arrested, atrophied or simply extended. It reaches back to the old, old story of humanity’s rebellion against the limits and the restraints that properly define freedom. We have rehearsed that story many times both in what has been read and heard but also in the awareness of what we have all done, “by thought, word and deed”, as it were. And yet, that is all part of the larger story of human redemption and the hope of transformation.

(more…)

Print this entry

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 15-21 June 2009

Tuesday, June 16th
3:30pm Holy Communion – Windsor Elms
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place

Friday, June 19th
11:00am Holy Communion – Dykeland Lodge
3:30pm Holy Communion – Gladys Manning Home

Sunday, June 21st, Trinity II
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30 pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

Print this entry

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

Bassano, Rich Man & LazarusArtwork: Leandro Bassano, The Rich Man and Lazarus, c. 1590-95.  Oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Saint Anthony of Padua

The collect for today, the Feast of St Anthony of Padua (1195-1231), Franciscan friar, priest, Doctor of the Church (source):

O God, who by thy Holy Spirit didst give to thy servant Antony a love of the Holy Scriptures, and the gift of expounding them with learning and eloquence, that thereby thy people might be established in sound doctrine and encouraged in the way of righteousness, grant to us always an abundance of such preachers, to the glory of thy Name and the benefit of thy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: 1 Corinthians 4:9b-14
The Gospel: St Luke 12:35-40

Maso di Banco, St Anthony of PaduaBorn to a noble family in Lisbon, St Anthony (or Antony) is associated with the city of Padua, Italy, where he resided in the final years of his life and is buried in a magnificent basilica that bears his name.  Unimpressive in his appearance, his dynamic and charismatic preaching sparked a spiritual renewal in the church in Europe.  He has been called “the Billy Graham of the thirteenth century”.  He became one of the most renowned and beloved saints of his time; still today, his life and witness inspire great devotion.

When he was 16, he began studying the Bible, theology, and apologetics under several respected teachers.  In 1220, he was admitted to the Order of St Francis and joined a group of Franciscan friars going to Morocco to preach the Gospel among Moors.  A serious illness soon forced him to return to Europe, however.

Initially assigned to kitchen duty at a monastery in Forli, Italy, his preaching ability became known when he was asked to speak at an ordination service because no one had prepared a sermon.  Told to say whatever the Holy Ghost should put into his mouth, he delivered an address that astonished everyone with its eloquence, passion, and insight.

News of his gift soon reached Franciscan superiors, who called him to preach throughout central Italy.  He was also appointed the first teacher of the Franciscan order, reportedly at the behest of St Francis himself, and began to teach theology to the friars in Bologna and Padua.  He is credited with introducing Augustinian theology to the Franciscans.

Donatello, Virgin and Child between St Anthony and St FrancisSt Anthony was driven by a passion for souls.  Thousands came to listen to him speak; spiritual renewal followed wherever he went.  Churches were often too small to hold the crowds who wanted to hear him, so he preached in market squares and other open-air locations.  His zealous and powerful preaching against the Cathari and Albigensians in Italy and France earned him the title “Hammer of heretics”.

From 1226, he lived in Padua, where the fruits of his ministry were evident in widespread reformation of conduct.  His series of Lenten sermons in 1231 saw 30,000 listening to him preach in an open field, and was accompanied by acts of repentance and reconciliation.  The ungodly confessed Christ.  Thieves and swindlers publicly made restitution.  Long-standing feuds were settled and friendships renewed.

St Anthony was canonised by Gregory IX within a year of his death at age 36.  His relics are kept in the Basilica of St Anthony, Padua.

Artwork:

Maso di Banco (active 1320-46), St. Anthony of Padua.  Tempera on wood with gold ground, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Donatello, Madonna and Child between St Francis and St Anthony, 1448. Bronze, High Altar (detail), Basilica di Sant’Antonio, Padua.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Saint Barnabas, Apostle

The collect for today, the Feast of St 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

Berchem, Paul and Barnabas at Lystra

Artwork: Nicolaes Berchem, Paul and Barnabas at Lystra, 1650. Oil on canvas, Musée d’Art, Saint-Etienne, France.

Print this entry

Prayers and liturgy

Saint Columba

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

Almighty 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

Photo taken by admin, St Margaret’s Chapel, Edinburgh Castle, 24 July 2004.

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for the Kirkin’ o’ the Tartans

The Rev’d David Curry preached this sermon at the 13th annual Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan, held at The Covenanters’ Church, Grand Pré, on Sunday, 7 June.

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

My thanks to the organizers of this service of the Kirkin’ o’ the Tartans, to Barry & Flo MacDonald, Murdina McCrae and to Rev’d Robyn Brown-Hewitt for the privilege of being the preacher on this occasion in this historic edifice in the beautiful land of Grand Pré. The ironies of history, and what I can only call the humour of God’s Providence, are particularly striking.

That an Anglican Priest, particularly one who is devoted to the Jacobean and Caroline expressions of classical Anglicanism, and who is the Rector of a Parish associated with and Chaplain of a School founded by Charles Inglis, the First Bishop consecrated for an Anglican diocese overseas, should be invited to preach in a Kirk dedicated to the memory of the Covenanters, who were defined precisely by their opposition to Episcopacy, the Prayer Book, and all things English in general, and upon such an occasion as “the kirkin’ o’ the tartans”, which claims to be an 18th century Scottish tradition and ceremony related to the banning of the wearing of the tartans after the rout at Culloden in 1745 of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites (those who were devoted to the cause of the Stuarts against the protestant Hanoverians), but is actually a Scots-American tradition that began in Washington, D.C. in 1941 by the Presbyterian clergyman, Rev’d Peter Marshall, is either testimony to the colossal forgetting of our histories or testimony to Christian ecumenism and the deeper principles of the Gospel which truly define and unite us through our cultural identities. I think it is the latter but I hope that I haven’t begun by mentioning the unmentionables! Fortunately, I realize that I am standing at least ten feet above contradiction!

Our histories are the histories of displaced peoples. We are constantly reminded, it seems to me, about the multi-layered and interconnected aspects of the cultural landscape of the Maritimes, a land shaped by the comings and goings of various ‘come-from-aways’, ‘sent-aways’, ‘returning-back-from-aways’, ‘grab-and-run-aways’, not to mention the native aboriginal ‘never-been-aways’, but who have suffered, as a consequence, in the same sense of dislocation and displacement. The narrative of Ernest Buckler’s classic novel, The Mountain and the Valley, is framed by a hooked rug. It could just as easily be a tartan. In a way, the warp and woof of our historic identities is like the weave of a tartan, each line and colour capturing some feature or other of our heritage.

(more…)

Print this entry

Anglican issues, Statements and other writings, Theology

The Primacy of Doctrine

The Rev’d David Curry delivered this address to the Open Door Conference (organised by Anglican Essentials Canada), Toronto, in June 2005.

The Primacy of Doctrine

“How came we ashore”, asks Miranda in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, having heard the litany of betrayal and deceit that exiled her and her father from Milan. “By Providence divine”, replies Prospero, himself the victim of the machinations of others but also aware of his own neglect of what belonged to his ducal office. Well, we have just heard powerfully and prophetically from David Short about the litany of betrayal and deceit, confusion and disarray, that brings us to this conference and this moment.

But I want to suggest that there is a wonderful providence, too, that brings us ashore, that brings us to this moment, a wonderful providence that is at work in the Anglican Communion. And it is not about who shouts the loudest, not about who holds the power cards, not about who has title and who has not. No. It is about the recovery of the doctrinal mind of the Anglican Communion. And if we are not part of that, make no mistake, we are nothing and nothing worth.

Doctrine, not praxis, though doctrine should shape and measure our actions. Doctrine, not process thinking, though doctrine should guide and direct our thinking. Doctrine, yeah! Just what you came to hear about, right? “These are a few of your favourite things” (I’ve always wanted to sing in Roy Thompson Hall!) But whether this is something which is your favourite thing or not, doctrine is the unum necessarium, the one thing necessary, without which we are nothing and nothing worth. The wonderful providence at work in the Anglican Communion is about the possibility of thinking again what belongs to our true and collective identity in the body of Christ. But we have to think it.

If we do not keep before us, front and centre, the teaching of the Church, the teaching which we have received through the witness of the Scriptures faithfully transmitted down through the centuries by the power of the Spirit in the ordered life of the Church, then we are nothing. If we do not hold ourselves accountable to the doctrines that define us, then we become the betrayers of Christ and his Church.

(more…)

Print this entry

Sermons

Sermon for Trinity Sunday

“No-one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son who is in the
bosom of the Father; he has made him known”

We meet together in the glory of the revealed God, the glory of the Trinity. All our beginnings and all our endings have their place of meeting in the Trinity. It is, we may say, the one thing essential. No Trinity, no Christianity. “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’, except by the Holy Ghost” (1 Cor.12.3). To say “Jesus is Lord” is to make a Trinitarian statement.

Essential Christianity is Trinitarian. What do I mean? That the doctrine of the Trinity is essential to Christian identity, corporately and individually. You are baptized in the Name of the Trinity, God the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. At Holy Communion, we participate in nothing less than the Son’s Thanksgiving to the Father in the Spirit. Our liturgy is full of the Trinity. And yet, we have the greatest difficulty about the essentials of the Christian Faith. The doctrine of the Trinity is what gives coherence and meaning to the things which are to be believed, the credenda, the things which we say in the Creed, first of all, and then the things which follow from them which belong to the moral and political order of the Church’s life and which shape the agenda, the things that are to be done in our practical lives. Essential things shape action without being reduced to particular issues and agendas.

The problem for the Anglican Communion lies in this confusion.  You see, there are endless numbers of things about which we might have quite legitimate but different opinions. About those things there can be no insistence, no coercion. They cannot be made the essential things of our Anglican and Christian identity. The doctrine of the Trinity, on the other hand, is essential. It is one of the non-negotiables of the Christian Faith. The result of the most intense reflection upon the Scriptures and human experience imaginable, it is at the heart of the consensus fidelium, the consensus of the faith, which we receive. It is not ours to re-invent, re-image or re-define. It is the mystery into which we can only enter and discover the rich fullness of its power and truth.

(more…)

Print this entry

Events, Month at a Glance

Week at a Glance, 8-14 June 2009

Tuesday, June 9th
6:00pm ‘Prayers & Praises’ – Haliburton Place
7:30pm Parish Council Meeting

Wednesday, June 10th Eve of St Barnabas
7:00pm Holy Communion

Saturday, June 13th
9:00am Encaenia Service at King’s-Edgehill School
10:15am Graduation Ceremonies at King’s-Edgehill School

Sunday, June 14th, Trinity I
8:00am Holy Communion
10:30am Holy Communion
4:30 pm Evening Prayer at Christ Church

Print this entry