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Sermon – July 5, 2020 Fifth Sunday after Pentecost

Love, Compassion and Hospitality … by Nathaniel Athian Deng Mayen

(If the audio player above doesn’t work, try this link to the Anchor podcast hosting site)

Welcome to the Fifth Sunday after Pentecost in the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. 

Dear brothers and sisters, Apostle Peter invites us to be “hospitable to one another” and “serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received.” (1 Peter 4:9-10)This apostolic and prophetic request for love, compassionate, hospitality and generosity portrays a familiar scene to most of us.

As a nation, we welcome the refugees and asylum seekers to feel comfortable as they integrate into the Canadian society. As individuals, we invite friends and family members, throwing up parties for remembering significant life events, such as birthdays and anniversaries for marriage.

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Jesus: a Scandalously Particular Welcome

Homily for the Third Sunday after Trinity—28 June 2020

The Reverend Gene Packwood

Jesus 

is the first of two words I have for you today—as in Jesus Christ our Lord—The One in whom God’s free gift of eternal life comes to us according to St Paul in today’s reading from Romans (Ro6.23). The only one through whom that gift comes, as it happens. St Peter makes it clear in Acts chapter 4—not one of our readings for today, but to the point—when he wrote

there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men and women by which we must be saved.

Acts 4.12

No other name. No one else, but Jesus only. 

Well that’s not very open and inclusive someone might say—and people do. So, George Carey, three Archbishops of Canterbury ago, once wrote that

This is the scandal of particularity with which we must live. Christians cannot yield this un-negotiable element in their faith. We believe that the God of the universe longs to reveal Himself and He does in many different ways and forms, through religion, through reason, art, and human intelligence, but each and every one of these ways is limited. Only in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can God be fully known, worshipped, and obeyed.

The Most Reverend George Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury, “Archbishop’s Voice,” The Anglican Digest, Pentecost 1992, p63

Jesus only.

So—more from Archbishop Carey: 

Let’s not have any truck with bland theology, that Jesus is just one option among many. Dialogue with other faiths is very important, but I can respect another faith and a believer of that faith by saying I believe that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. Do with that truth what you may, but my job is to say that to you.

Ibid. 

It’s our job, too, and just as the Archbishop wrote, Jesus, however scandalously particular, must always be the first, the most important, the defining Word on our lips and in the things we do and the places we go. 

Which leads me to the second word for today. It appears six times in our Gospel reading. It’s closely associated with Jesus. The word is WELCOME. Jesus is God’s Word of welcome into the eternal life we read about in Romans this morning. Just as Archbishop Carey wrote, our job as Anglican Christians is to say, in all our words and deeds, in our relationships and consumption, in the way we live, as winsomely as we can, that we believe Jesus is the only way of salvation— welcome! Come on in. Come with us. Taste and see how good He is (Ps34.8). Welcome to the freedom and relief of a forgiven life—in Jesus (Lk1.77). Welcome to the richest, most satisfying, most challenging, fullest abundant life there is—in Jesus (John10.10). 

As you live your welcoming life—welcoming Jesus into your own life and welcoming others into His—do it with absolute confidence that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ 

always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere

2Cor2.14

Always. Sweet smelling. Welcoming. Even across the social distances visited upon us these days—perhaps especially across those “distances”—spreading the heady, heart-warming, heavenly fragrance of the knowledge of our unique and scandalously particular Lord and Saviour.

Two words which go together for today. Welcome, and

Jesus 

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Taken on Trust

Pastoral Letter for June 28, 2020

I’m wondering if anyone recognizes the face of this kind-eyed, elderly gentleman?

It belongs to Terry Waite, who back in 1980 was appointed by Robert Runcie to serve as the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs. In 1985, Terry Waite accompanied the Archbishop of Canterbury on a visit to Canada, that included a stop here in Regina (does anybody remember?) and Edmonton, where I was able to attend a special diocesan service to mark the occasion.

In his role, Terry Waite was involved in negotiating the release of Anglican clergy and British Nationals held hostage in the Middle East.  But Terry Waite was himself kidnapped in Beirut in 1987 by members of the Islamic Jihad, and spent the next four years in solitary confinement, before finally being released.  Throughout those years, a member of the chapel community that I was a part of then, would constantly intercede for Terry at our weekly Eucharist. “Taken on Trust” was the title of the book Terry wrote about his experiences.

In an interview in 2013, Terry Waite was asked how he coped during all this time in isolation in a dark cell. 

He said,

You have got to be able to discipline your mind, because everything is lived from within. There is no external stimulation. There is no books, no one to speak with, no one to feed your identity back to you.

I was fortunate, firstly, because through life I had been an avid reader and therefore I had built up a store of books, poetry and prose in my memory. Secondly, I’d been brought up as an Anglican—I’m an Anglican Christian—and had been brought up with the Book of Common Prayer. The language of that was very, very helpful. I had unconsciously memorised it as a choir boy. If I can just give you an example of what I mean from one of the great old collects of the prayer book:

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night . . .

That is very, very meaningful when you’re sitting in darkness. That collect not only has meaning, but it also has poetry and rhythm. There is a relationship between identity, language and prayer; somehow they help you hold together at your centre.

Some people may find this strange, but I never engaged in what is called extemporary prayer during that time. I felt that if I did I would be begin to, sort of, go down a one-way track, reveal my own psychological vulnerability and just get into the business of saying, ‘Oh God, get me out of here’—which isn’t prayer at all. That’s just being like a child. So by falling back on that which I knew, the Prayer Book and the balance of that, I was able to keep a bit more balance in my mind and also maintain some degree of inner balance… (1)

Well, it’s been 15 weeks since we began our own “isolation” under COVID, and 15 weeks since we dusted off and started praying through The Order of Service for Morning Prayer from our own Book of Common Prayer. Some of us, perhaps, are getting a little tired of this, but then again, perhaps some of us are finding the poetry and rhythm of the prayers are working their way not only into our hearts, but our memories, giving us an anchor for the soul in these tumultuous times.  As Terry Waite discovered, “ life is lived from within” and “there is a relationship between identity, language, and prayer that help you hold together at your centre…and also  maintain some degree of inner balance.”

With every prayer and blessing, from “my cell” to “yours”, as together we lift up holy hands, hearts and voices in prayer and praise to the Lord,

Claude + 

(1)For the whole thing see:  https://hope1032.com.au/stories/open-house/2013/terry-waite-break-my-body-bend-my-mind-but-my-soul-is-not-yours-to-possess/

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The Cost of Discipleship

Sermon for Trinity 2 – June 21, 2020
Beth Christianson

When I was a teenager, there was a phrase we heard a lot in youth-oriented church ministries: being “on fire for Christ.”  Being on fire for Christ meant going to youth group every Friday, and showing up for Sunday School every week at 10 am.  It meant going to the various youth retreat weekends on offer throughout the year, and going to Bible camp in the summers.  It meant signing up for short-term missions.  Being on fire for Christ meant going to the front of the church when the worship band was playing to sing and dance, raise your hands and speak in tongues.  Being on fire for Christ meant going back from these mountaintop experiences to your school and telling your classmates about how cool God is, and how cool you were by association.  Being on fire for Christ meant being fearless.  You couldn’t care if anyone was looking at you, or talking about you.  But that’s easy, right?  What teenager cares about those things anyway?

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Sermon for Trinity 1, 2020

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church,
Trinity 1, June 14, 2020,
Matthew 9.35- 10.23.
Canon Claude Schroeder

Today on this the First Sunday after Trinity where we are embarking on the long season of Trinity in our church calendar, which is the season devoted towards the long, slow, patient work of  growing in our knowledge and love of God, who is “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” This as we learned last Sunday, is who God is, and who it is that we have come to love and adore.

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