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Three Lectures on the Late Mediaeval Sarum Use: The Hidden and the Revealed

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“The Hidden and the Revealed:

Less Familiar Aspects of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter Day

in the Late Medieval Use of Sarum.”

A Series of three lectures by Professor John Harper

available online to be be given at 2 p.m. (EST) on  

Monday (21st February), 

Tuesday (22nd February), and 

Wednesday (23rd February), 

To register go to

http://americansarum.org

This series of lectures is part of a virtual conference and will be given by John Harper, Emeritus Professor of Christian Music and Liturgy at Bangor, and founder director of the International Centre for Sacred Music Studies. From 1998–2007 he served as Director General of the Royal School of Church Music

A distinguished Church musician and expert on the medieval English liturgy, He has had a life-long career in church and choral music, starting as a chorister at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge under the direction of Boris Ord and Sir David Willcocks. He was later organist & Informator Choristarum at Magdalen College, Oxford, in the 1980s, having previously directed the music of St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham (where he received the Benemerenti award from Pope Paul VI for his services in 1978., and the Edington Music Festival in the 1970s. He has held academic lectureships in musicology at the universities of Birmingham and Oxford and was awarded the Lambeth Degree of Doctor of Music by Archbishop Rowan Williams. His compositions include a Jubilate written especially for the Queen’s visit to Bangor Cathedral for the Golden Jubilee celebration in Wales in 2002, and a bilingual setting of the Eucharist for the Church in Wales – Cymun y Cymru

He is the author of a great many articles and publications including that indispensable handbook: The Forms and Orders of Western Liturgy from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century: A Historical Introduction and Guide for Students and Musicians, Oxford in 1991.

(For further details of his recent publications see https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/john-harper(ae858d3c-aef5-4b3e-b890-023e8069f916)/researchoutputs.html)

Professor Harper is a principal member of “American Sarum,” which is an organisation dedicated to the study and creative recovery of elements and insights of the medieval English liturgy  (to which PBS BSA Board Member Professor Jess Billett has given a paper on “The Twelve Days of Anglo-Saxon Christmas” at their 2020 conference in Princeton, NJ.)

Professor Harper will be offering three online presentations on the theme “The Hidden and the Revealed: Less Familiar Aspects of Lent, Holy Week, and Easter Dayin the Late Medieval Use of Sarum.”

The lectures will be given on Monday (21st February), Tuesday (22nd February), and Wednesday (23rdFebruary), starting at 2pm EST each day.

For full details see the flyer below

There is a registration fee  of $20 USD per lecture, or $50 for all three with a 50% discount for “students and ordinands,” and further discounts while free admission may be available for those unable to afford the fee.

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The American Sarum movement describes itself as a liturgical and musical laboratory examining Anglican liturgy and music bequeathed to us from the medieval liturgies of Salisbury Cathedral. In an age when it is increasingly difficult to define what it means to be Anglican, our conferences examine the origins of our liturgical and musical Anglican heritage. Discussions and re-creations of early liturgical practices provide liturgical and musical insights that are intrinsically Anglican and completely relevant to the liturgies of the 21st century.


Article 8

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Quinquagesima Sunday

February 27, 2022

“Behold we go up to Jerusalem.”(Luke 18.31)

(The painting above: Nicolas Poussin, Healing of The Blind Man near Jericho, 1650, Musée du Louvre)

In the Gospel for today, Jesus announces his final journey to Jerusalem:

Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, He says, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished. 

Today we go up. We have changed our direction. For we have just completed the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany. In those liturgical seasons, we meditate upon a certain coming down-God’s coming down in His Son, the Word’s coming down from the Father to be made flesh, Jesus’ coming down to purify and cleanse our consciences of all that is unclean, unholy, and unrighteous. But today we begin to go up, to travel up with Jesus to Jerusalem. He must go up to die and rise again. Behold, we go up to Jerusalem and we go up with Him to gaze upon and share in His suffering and His passion, to be healed and transformed by that vision of the Divine Love.  Behold we go up to Jerusalem in order to see and experience the love of God, and how the love of God while enduring all manner of malevolent rejection, will keep on loving. In faith we go up to Jerusalem, in hope we reach forward towards greater wisdom, and in love, we desire to find a passion that can be made our own –that principle of Primal Love that alone can save and that alone can heal.

But this coming down and going up seem confusing. We faithfully follow Jesus, we hope for the best, but we do not understand what it means to go up to His death. Death seems to be a kind of going down, like going down into the grave. What profit is therein my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth? (Psalm xxx. 9) Like the Apostles who went up with Jesus to Jerusalem, we might be a bit befuddled and confused. For, the more they went up, the less they grasped how they were actually going down. Jesus said that the Son of Man…shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again. (St. Luke xviii. 32,33) But we read that the disciples understood none of these things, and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken. (St. Luke xviii. 34)The Apostles and we do not understand this. We can’t be going upif our understanding has not emerged up out of the dark pit of ignorance.

But as they will soon learn, going up to Jerusalem with Jesus will involve illumination or enlightenment of a most unusual kind –the illumination that Jesus is God and that God is Love. The eyes of the Apostles, our eyes, will be opened; there is no doubt about it. But not before, with the blind man in this morning’s Gospel, we beg for Jesus to lift us up out our miserable condition. Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy upon me. (St. Luke xviii. 38) We cannot go up to Jerusalem with Jesus until we beg for the mercy of God in Jesus Christ to lift us up into His light. Jesus asks the blind man what he desires of him. The blind man responds, Lord, that I may receive my sight. (St. Luke xviii. 41)The blind man receives his sight, and so too can we if Jesus lifts us up to see more clearly. And immediately he received his sight, and followed him….(St. Luke xviii. 43) Vision is the door that opens the eyes of the heart to know Jesus and to go up with Him to Jerusalem.

Vision is the reward bestowed upon the man whose faith persistently seeks out the source of true healing. What we think should be the gateway to the external and visible world alone, becomes the door to a spiritual vision that goes up to the Cross of Christ’s Love. Christ says in this morning’s Gospel that his impending suffering and death will be necessary that all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of Man shall be accomplished. (St. Luke xviii.31) What the blind man will see and the Apostles will go up to behold is a vision of a healing Love that is always going up and into heart of our Heavenly Father. St. Paul speaks of this Love in this morning’s Epistle. King James’ able translators penned it as Charity. 

         Charity is the Queen of the Theological virtues. It outruns faith and fulfills all hope since its nature is the love of God that knows no end. St. John tells us that, God is love; and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God in him. (1 St. John iv. 16) Love is Charity, and Charity is the everlasting expression of God’s nature. Charity is that one essential virtue that must command all others. St. Paul suggests this morning that Charity is preeminent because it alone binds God to Man and Man to God. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. (1 Cor. xiii. 1-3) Articulate speech, theological knowledge, and earthly kindness alone can never save a man, says St. Paul. They go out but don’t necessarily go up. All sorts of men can speak eloquently and inspirationally. Such virtue does not save a man. Countless others can have right belief, near-perfect knowledge of theological truth, and spiritual understanding. Such virtue does not save a man. Generous and liberal people may spend their lives feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and sheltering the homeless. Such virtue does not save a man. What they are missing is Charity. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. (1 Cor. xiii. 4-7) Charity is that constant and persistent love of God that comes down in order that we might go up with Jesus to the Cross and beyond. It sums up in one word God’s inestimable forgiveness that has come down from Heaven, was made flesh and dwelt among us, and that come down from Heaven so that we may go up and back to Heaven. It fulfills all hope that every man has for redemption. It sees in all men the possibility of salvation, though their ways be wicked, their hearts hardened, and their motives murderous. Charity comes down to conquer all vice. Why? Because God is love, and God’s love is that pure goodness that can come down into the lowest place removed from Himself. He comes down to over evil with His goodness. It is of Charity’s nature to persistently visit man with the Divine Goodness.
          Charity is the love of God that is forever alive in the heart of Jesus Christ. Jesus is both God coming down into Man and Man going up into God. In Jesus Christ, we find in one what men have tried to divide since the dawn of time. Of course, the devil will do all he can to divide these two aspects of Charity. As we go up to the Cross of Christ’s Charity, we shall see that Jesus will be tempted in His unjust suffering to think that God is no longer coming down to Him. In His innocent death, He will be tempted to go up and call forth His legions of angels to conquer His enemies. He will be tempted to feel that God’s coming down and His going up have come to a tragic end. Rather than going up and into the embrace of His heavenly Father’s Charity, He will be tempted to come down from the Cross, abandon Himself as the forgiveness of sins, and abandon the death that ensures that sin has no power over Him.

But as we go up to His Crosswe shall find that He will not come down into these temptations. He is God’s Charity made flesh for Man; He is Man’s Charity and Love for God made divine. He goes up to die for us. He will come down to rise in us. What we think of as two distinct kinds of Love will persist as one in the heart of Jesus. Sin divides; Love unites. The God-Man’s going up and coming down are but one expression of dying to sin and rising to righteousness.

This morning a blind man became conscious that Jesus Christ was passing by. His cry goes up and Jesus comes down.Cyril of Alexandria reminds us that the blind man had faith in the love of God that he found in the heart of Jesus.

Let [us] admire…the steadfastness with which the blind man proclaimed his belief, 

for there were some who, while he confessed his faith, cried out for him to be silent. 

But he did not cease, nor lessen the confidence of his prayer…

For faith knows how to combat all things and overcome all. (On the Gospel: St. Cyril of Alexandria)

Christ is God’s Charity that has come down from Heaven so that we might go up. True Charity comes down in order that through Him we all may go up with Jesus to God. The vision of Charity in the flesh will come down to us this Lent so that we may go up to the Cross to die. Let us pray that this coming Lent we shall play the man and see, with the blind man,the Charity that Christ is, cherishing and treasuring not only the vision but enduring His incessant love, as old loves fade and come down into death and true Loveis stirred to go up into New Life. Our hearts will be broken if we go up to gaze upon this Charity; but in their breaking comes an opening, into which the love of God in Christ will flow, grow, expand and triumph. Christ is always coming down. Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, to die, to rise, and then to see His love that we must share with others as we come down to touch the hearts of others.

Amen.

©wjsmartin

Ash Wednesday Sermon

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 Christ Tempted by the Devil, 1818, John Ritto Penniman,
Smithsonian American Art Museum

 

 

Ash Wednesday Sermon

The Revd Fr William Martin

Today we begin the great season of Lent. Our liturgical season goes back to the earliest days of the Christian Church when the faithful were called into memory the journey up to Jerusalem and the great events of the Passion which came to pass in the life of Jesus Christ. Lent is a journey. Lent is a time of journeying in memory with Christ, so that we may embrace more profoundly the Word of God in himself and in us. Journeying with Christ means being with him, accompanying him, and accepting his offer of nearness and friendship.

“With its duration of 40 days, Lent acquires an undoubted evocative force. It tries to recall some of the events that marked the life and history of ancient Israel, also presenting to us again its paradigmatic value. Let us think, for example, of the 40 days of the universal flood, which ended with the covenant established by God with Noah and thus with humanity, and of the 40 days of Moses’ stay on Mount Sinai, which were followed by the gift of the tablets of the Law.” (Benedict XVI, Ash Wednesday, 2006)

Our First Sunday in Lent begins with the Jesus being tempted by Satan in the wilderness. But we shall also remember that he was led by the Spirit into this place and experience. The Holy Spirit will take us with Jesus into a place where we have no food, no water, and no shelter. There we shall be asked to face both God our Heavenly Father and Satan’s opposition to His will. There, with Jesus, we must face our temptations and ask Jesus to help us to conquer them. It will help if we keep a journal or notes. We must honestly face our temptations when they arise, jot them down, describe them, find where they come from, and give them over our spiritual poverty to the Lord for destruction. This exercise will help us to conquer the sin they all lead to with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Lent should be a time of quiet stillness in the desert. We should know that Jesus is with us and wants to help us to resist temptation and cleave to His powerful goodness.

Today we prepare to go up to Jerusalem. We pray to go up to the Jerusalem of Jesus’ Cross. In Lent, we shall follow Jesus up to the great city of the Jewish Kings to accompany Jesus into His unearned, unmerited, and wholly undeserved rejection, torture, suffering and death. We shall follow Jesus up to that experience that we, as fallen creatures, could never endure. Jesus is the Holy Child of God. Jesus is the Son of God made man. As man, He goes up to Jerusalem to do a work for us what we could never sustain. He will take on sin, death, and Satan. He will be tempted again to reject God the Father, to choose the evil over the good, and to abandon His mission and calling to win our salvation. He will be tempted at the point of extreme remove from God to say no to God and yes to Himself. On the Cross, as in the wilderness, Jesus will be with God and Satan alone. He will be attacked by all demons that threaten His relationship to God the Father. He will say no to Satan. In the nothingness of His death, He will begin to remold, refashion, and recreate the universe. In the place of his own annihilation, He will become the Creator and Redeemer God from the Tree of Calvary.

Today we rehearse the age-old custom of The Imposition of Ashes. Ashes will be imposed on our foreheads, and we shall hear the words, Remember O Man, that dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return. (Genesis iii:19). The words, taken from the First Book of Moses Genesis, remind us that our bodies were molded and fashioned from the dust of the earth. These words humble us. They remind us that are corruptible, that we all shall die and return to the earth, and that we are fallen and sinful also. But in God’s presence, we are reminded that we need another kind of death, a spiritual death, the kind of death that we must die with Jesus on His Cross of Calvary. We shall be reminded that we must die to the world, the flesh, and the devil, in and through Jesus Christ. We must go to Calvary to see the vision of a new death that becomes the seedbed of our new life.

Lent doesn’t end in death. Lent is all about a death that will lead us into new and Resurrected Life. We repent to believe. We believe to follow. We follow to die and then to rise up into new life. Lent is part and parcel of our return to God through Jesus Christ’s Cross and beyond. Lent is about becoming partakers of His all-sufficient sacrifice on Calvary’s Cross so that we might ingest and imbibe the food and drink of His Sacred Love, His Body and Blood, that give us the strength to die to sin and come alive to righteousness.

Today we pray that we shall look forward to Christ and His Cross and not back. We look forward to Lent as a time of fasting and abstinence. We look forward to Lent as a time of pilgrimage with Jesus to His Cross. We look forward to Lent as a time of journeying into our death to sin and our coming alive to righteousness. The old gods and our old sinful ways must be left behind. We must face our temptations. We must confront the stubborn and hard rocks of our old sinful selves. In the stillness, we must ask Jesus to assist us in our spiritual warfare. We must ask Jesus to enable us to sit still even in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation so that, with Him, we may embrace the power and submit to the Wisdom of our Heavenly Father.

Remember the words of T. S. Eliot’s poem “Ash Wednesday.”

“Because I do not hope to turn again…” This is how it begins. He hopes not to turn back and into a world of sin, illusions, lies, and false gods.

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

He then turns to Mother Church and commits his soul to her rule and governance as he begins his Lenten pilgrimage.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit
of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Amen.

February 21, 2007    ©wjsmartin

Sermon for the First Sunday in Lent

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(Above: Christ Tempted by the Devil, 1818, John Ritto Penniman, Smithsonian American Art Museum

Lent I

March 5, 2022

For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; 
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yetwithout sin.
(Hebrews iv. 15)
 

Monsignor Ronald Knox reminds us that “the whole story of the Temptation is misconceived if we do not recognize that it was an attempt made by Satan to find out whether our Lord was the Son of God or not”. (The Epistles and Gospels, p. 89) Perhaps this is our question too. To be sure Satan tempts Jesus, but we tempt Jesus also. We want to know if He is the Son of God. We want evidence and proof that provide certain facts; we want confirmation. And today on the First Sunday of Lent we are given good evidence that He is, at least, moving towards revealing this truth to us. After all, proofs aren’t bad things; and in this case, we can thank Satan for confronting Jesus and providing Him with the opportunity to reveal to us how He overcomes temptation.

We begin with our Gospel lesson for today, remembering that we have accepted Jesus’ invitation to, “go up to Jerusalem”. Presumably, then, we are going up not merely to be recognized as devout pilgrims, but to find out for ourselves just who this Jesus of Nazareth is. We read that “Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.” (St. Matthew iv. 1,2) St. Matthew records that this happened just after Jesus was baptized by St. John Baptist in the River Jordan, “when the heavens were opened…and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: and lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”(St. Matthew iii. 16,17)

Jesus had been doubly blessed by the Father and the Holy Ghost. He had fasted for forty days in order to prayerfully embrace this blessing. But as the Son of God made flesh, He was hungry. Jesus is famished and there is nothing in the desert but stones. So, Satan says to Him, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” (St. Matthew iv. 3) Jesus knows that God sent Him not to destroy human nature but to redeem it. The temptation is fleshly and involves lust and gluttony. Jesus is the Son of God in the flesh is famished. He cannot put His earthly hunger before His spiritual mission. Monsignor Knox reminds us that “Jesus remembers Moses and flat stones in the wilderness waiting to receive the new law…for that, men’s souls are hungering”. (R. Knox: Sermon, ‘The Temptations of Christ) They reveal to man his duty to God as His Maker and Redeemer. Because the Son of Man is first the Son of God, He will “hunger and thirst for [God’s] righteousness.” (St. Matthew v. 6) The Son of God was made man so that man might become a son of God once again.  Jesus will teach, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, that….all [other]….things may be added unto you.” (St. Matthew vi. 33) Jesus remembers who He is truly and that He “has meat to eat that Satan does not know of. His meat is to do the will of Him that sent…. Him.” (St. John iv. 32,34) In a world without God, there is only food and drink, sex, and material pleasure. But Jesus knows that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” (St. Matthew iv. 4) St. Paul, in today’s Epistle, reminds us that only with “patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, and in fastings” (2 Cor. vi. 4) in the flesh, can we share in the sufferings of the Son of God for our salvation.

Jesus’ physical hunger is overcome by His spiritual longing to eat and digest the bread of God’s will. Satan will not be deterred. He will tempt Jesus with pride, envy, and wrath. Fasting in the body often brings anger in the soul. This soon brings envy of God’s pure and simple blessedness. Then comes the pride that tempts the Son of God to leave the body altogether and to fast-track salvation by proving His almighty power. “He has denied the good of the body,” Satan thinks, so let Jesus dispense with his body entirely, cleaving as he does to this ‘Word’ of God. He trusts in God, then “let Him deliver Him now, if he will have Him: for he said, I am the Son of God.” (St. Matthew xxvii. 43) “Then the devil taketh Him up into the holy city, and setteth Him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto Him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou thy foot against a stone.” (St. Matthew iv. 5,6) Satan tempts Jesus to prove that He is the Son of God by calling angels to save Him from sure and certain death. Jesus has put the good of His soul over that of His body. If you cannot perform a miracle with regard to the body’s hunger, prove your unbreakable unity with God through the mind or the soul, Satan suggests. Cast yourself down; surely God will not let one perish who places the good of his soul above that of his body.” Jesus, however, knows that this is no way for the Son of God to redeem and save all men. Man’s soul is in a body. God doesn’t intend for the Son of God to save us by performing dazzling magic and miracles on Himself to provoke our faith in Him. The Son of God must save us by perfecting faith and reason. That He is the Son of God will require much more than a selfish, rash, and defiant cry to God to save Him after he has irrationally subjected Himself to danger. Jesus knows that as the Son of God He must use His soul in His body to save us selflessly and innocently.

Jesus is the Son of God by that inner determination to cleave to His Father’s will and to reveal His way. Jesus the Son of God came down from Heaven to redeem the whole of human nature. The Son of God can “feed the multitudes with a few loaves and fishes” later and will perform miracles on others soon enough. Fulton Sheen reminds us that, ” the Son of God had no need to become a Communist Commissar who provides only bread…. He says too that the Son of God would not prove Himself by avoiding His Cross by commanding faith in miraculous powers that would provoke God to contradict reason…and to exempt the Son of God from obedience to natural laws which were the laws of God.” (F. Sheen: The Life of Christ, p. 67) “Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” (St. Matthew iv. 7)

We come to the final temptation. Satan thinks that only one temptation remains. Surely if He is the Son of God as flesh, He can still be tempted by greed and sloth. Jesus has come to save all men, but He wonders if He is held captive and enslaved to His Father’s will as the Son of God? His last temptation, full of the sloth that these temptations have brought, is to covet with greed His Father’s power and to make off with it for His own selfish glory. He is tempted to think that the Son of God is no Son but His own god. “Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” (St. Matthew iv. 8,9) Satan tempts Jesus to despair of His Father’s Kingdom and to rule over His own kingdom. Perhaps His power to resist the first two temptations gives Him the freedom to embrace the third. Jesus has forsaken everything for God and His kingdom and has been rendered utterly powerless. His sense of impending weakness is weighing so heavily upon Him that He is tempted to give it all up, “to do evil that good may come of it.” (Idem, Knox, p. 65) “Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” (St. Matthew iv. 10) The Son of God is God’s only perfect Son. The Son of God is nothing if He does not come from the Father to embrace what His will requires to lead all men to His Kingdom. The Father rules the whole of creation, and He gives meaning to all creation through His Son. As the Father’s Word, the Son of God must create more than an earthly kingdom that satisfies men’s earthly happiness. “Then the devil leaveth Him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto Him.” (St. Matthew iv. 11) 


          The Sons of Man are born to become Sons of God. What the Son of God reveals to us is that if we are to become Sons of God, we must go to the Cross with Jesus to die. “The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.” (St. Matthew xx. 28) At the end of our Gospel lesson for today, we read that, “Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.” (St. Matthew iv. 11) Luther tells us that the angels came down from Heaven to feed Him. This is the proper order and nature of God’s provision. The Son of God is hungering and thirsting for the Father’s righteousness. God the Father rules Christ’s spirit, nourishes His soul, and now cares for His body. It follows that the Son of God has come to serve and redeem us all. The Son of God will go on to win our salvation on the Cross of Calvary. There Satan will attack Him one last time.

In Lent, Jesus the Son of God calls us to His Cross. With Fulton Sheen, the Son of God says:

“All I now want of this earth is a place large enough to erect a Cross; there I shall let you unfurl me before the crossroads of your world. I shall let you nail me in the name of the cities of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, but I will rise from the dead, and you will discover that you, who seemed to conquer, have been crushed, as I march with victory on the wings of the morning.” (Idem) 

Amen.
©wjsmartin 

Sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent

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 Jesus and the Canaanite or Syrophoenician woman, Manuscript illumination, from Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry, Folio 164r, Musée Condé, Château de Chantilly in Chantilly, Oise (Public Domain)

Sermon for Lent II

The Revd. Fr. William Martin

He is no unkind physician who opens the swelling, who cuts,

who cauterizes the corrupted part. He gives pain, it is true, but

he only gives pain, that he might bring the patient on to health. He

gives pain, but if he did not, he would do no good.

(St. Augustine: Sermon xxvii)

         Last week we examined the temptations that Jesus withstood for us to draw us deeper into His love for God our Heavenly Father. And I pray that we came away with a real sense of His desire to serve God alone and to fulfill His will for us. This week we shall come to see and grasp the nature of sin and our powerlessness over it; and, because of this, I pray that we shall come to learn that all sin whether subtle or direct threatens to control us. Lastly, I pray that we shall find deliverance from sin through persistent and humble submission to the Lord’s judgment of our condition and His provision of cure. I pray also that we might be willing to submit ourselves to Jesus’ potent and stinging medicine so that we might be healed fully.

This morning, we read in the Gospel that Our Lord Jesus Christ comes to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.(St. Matthew 15. 21) He comes to the borders of the pagan Gentile world. Jesus never went into non-Jewish territory. Rather, He visits the periphery and hopes to draw Gentiles into the land of Promise and Salvation. Jesus’ motives should fascinate us. Jesus intends that all men should be saved. He must offer salvation to God’s chosen people first. Yet, isn’t it interesting that more often than not He finds Himself drawn to the borders of heathen nations. Today, He had just finished a discourse to His own people about how sin originates in man’s heart and soul. He said, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. (St. Matthew xv. 8) What Jesus experienced from his own people was the outward shell of meticulous religious observance of the Law but hearts that were not devoted to the Spirit of the Law.         

So, the Spirit draws Jesus to the borders of Canaan. He will find the need for what He brings into the world from foreigners, aliens, and outcasts. A Syro-Phoenician woman, a Greek inhabitant of Canaan will approach Jesus. From a distance, she had learned that the Jews had brought those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatics to Jesus for healing. (St. Matthew 4. 24) She had heard that Jesus’ cures were instantaneous. His cure was efficacious, and she was determined to have it also. Jesus was coming, and she wasted no time. We read that she cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. (St. Matthew 15. 22) She comes from afar not for herself but for her daughter who is further away. She bears the burden of her daughter’s illness in her heart. Her daughter’s misery is her misery. She will learn that Jesus’ misery is our misery. She cries out for His mercy, but we read that He answered her not a word. (Ibid, 23) Jesus is silent. St. John Chrysostom writes: The Word has no word; the fountain is sealed; the physician withholds His remedies. (Homily LII: Vol X, NPNF:I)

Jesus, however, will elicit more from her to teach us about true faith –the faith that storms the gates of Heaven until Jesus responds. 

We learn that the Apostles cannot see what Jesus is doing. While they have been with Him for some time and have witnessed what He can do, they prefer to hoard Him selfishly, so that seeing, they see, and do not perceive. (St. Mark 4. 12) Like many Christians, they settle for the observing more of what Jesus can do than what all men need. Send her away, for she crieth after us. (St. Matthew 15, 23) The woman is ruining their spiritual friendship with Jesus. They want only to be rid of this pestiferous annoyance. Theirs is that heartless granting of a request, whereof most of us are conscious; when it is granted out of no love to the suppliant, but to leave undisturbed his selfish ease from whom at length it is exhorted. (Trench: Gospel) They are selfishly annoyed. Jesus is not. He will engage the woman, for He knows that in her heart there is a faith that persists in finding the cure that God alone can give.

Jesus is teasing the woman. His first response to the woman is I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (St. Matthew 15. 24) In St. Mark’s Gospel, He says, Let the children first be filled. (St. Mark 7. 27) In both, He means that His mission is first to the Jews because they should be the Children of Promise. Jesus, the Great Physicianbegins to open this heathen woman’s spiritual swelling. The Apostles are silent. She is neither daunted, disheartened, nor disturbed. She needs more from Jesus than the Apostles, for now. As audacious and brazen as it would have seemed to these Jews, she moves closer to Jesus. The more acute the disease, more urgent is the need for the physician’s immediate attention. Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me. (St. Matthew 15.25) She will insist that Jesus is her Lord and she will submit to His rule. From His heart, Jesus is already healing her. As Calvin writes, We see then that the design of Christ’s silence was not to extinguish the woman’s faith, but rather to whet her zeal and inflame her ardor. (Calvin’s Comm’s. xvii) Jesus is amazed. She is courageous, determined, and true to herself.

Jesus is first silent and then discouraging. Now, He rubs salt into her wound. Jesus says: It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. (St. Matthew 15. 26) He calls her a dog! He takes the ancient Jews’ prejudice of the Gentiles and hurls it at her. Yet, if we look more closely, Jesus is trying to tease out of this woman not only faith but humility. Is he mocking this woman or the Jews? He knows that this woman, no matter what her race or cultural origin, might actually possess a faith that will put His faithful Jewish followers to shame. 
          This Gentile outcast is on a journey after and for Jesus. She is going up to Jerusalem with Him in heart and mind. She needs Him completely. She hangs upon every His every word and refuses to let Him out of her grip. She will follow Him come what may. She believes Jesus is God’s own Son. She responds with, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. (St. Matthew 15. 27) She needs Jesus’ severe mercy and hard love. She may be a dogand not a lost sheep. But she knows herself to be dog who needs the Master’s attention. Jesus can become hers. I am a stray dog who, when found, will sit at my master’s feet. A dog belongs to its master. I sit at his feet but will not be cast out -under but not forsaken. I belong to thee, O Lord. So she says, Let me be a dogIf you are the master, I shall eat of the crumbs that fall from the table that you have prepared for your chosen people. The crumbs shall be more than sufficient for my daughter’s healing. As St. Augustine says, It is but a moderate and a small blessing I desire; I do not press to the table, I only seek for the crumbs. (Serm. xxvii, vol. vi. NPNF) My daughter is sick, and if I am a dog, let me at least eat the crumbs and morsels of mercy that fall from your table. I believe that ‘thou hast the words of eternal life.’ (St. John 6. 68) Lord, evermore give [me] this bread. (St. John 6. 34) 

         With her words, this woman storms the gates of Heaven and conquers its Lord. Jesus says, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour. (St. Matthew 15. 28) Jesus cauterizes her wound, and her faith ensures that her daughter is healed. In the end, it is her faith that secures the healing she seeks. Faith in Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God and the Power of God, is what always obtains Jesus’ healing for our sin-sick souls. This woman’s faith did not demand that Jesus come down in person to heal her daughter. This woman’s faith knew that the Word could easily retrace the distance she traveled to find her daughter. In faith, she believed that Jesus need speak the word only and [her daughter] would be healed. (St. Matthew viii. 8) St. Mark writes that when the woman was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed. (St. Mark 7. 30) 

         With our opening St. Augustine reminds us that [Christ] the Good Physician gives pain, it is true, but He only gives pain, that He might bring the patient on to health. He
gives pain, but if He did not, H would do no good. (Idem) So, we must be willing to endure the pain of hearing the hard truth we learn about ourselves from Jesus. He comes to diagnose our condition and provide the cure. He intends to empty us of any pride that our faith might persist in finding His loving cure. Matthew Henry warns us that there is nothing got by contradicting any word of Christ, though it bear ever so hard upon us. But this poor woman, since she cannot object against it, resolves to make the best of it. ‘Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs…. (Comm. Matt. xv.) 

With the example of the Syrophoenician’s faith and humility let us confess that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves. (Collect, Lent II) Let us beg deliverance from all evil thoughts that may assault and hurt the soul. (Idem) With her, let us abandon the lust of concupiscence in Gentiles who know not God. (1 Thes. i. 3) Jesus longs to find a faith that will not cease until it finds His cure. Let us all admit that we are dogs. He calls us out as dogs because God call us not to uncleanness, but unto holiness. (Idem) Jesus is always overcome by the faith of dogs who fulfilled with His crumbs can conquer demons and heal human hearts. Jesus may resist us at times, but only to tease out that faith that will have Him, and Him alone as Master.

Amen.
March 13, 2022

©wjsmartin

Reflection from All Saints’ Cathedral Cairo with Choral Music for the opening of Lent (Ash Wednesday) in the Coptic Calendar

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Reflection with Choral Music for the Opening of Lent (Coptic Calendar) from All Saints’ Cathedral Cairo

March 13, 2022 By sinetortus Leave a Comment

To listen to the audio click on this link below:

Reflection on Ash Wednesday (in accord with the Coptic Church Calendar as observed at All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral, Zamalek, Cairo)
with Choral Music  (from the Sound Archive of the Choir of the Church of the Advent Boston)

Opening Antiphon:
Thou hast mercy on all things, O Lord, and hatest nothing which thou hast created: and winkest at man’s iniquities, because they should amend, and sparest all men, for they are thine, O Lord, thou lover of souls…..

Kyrie eleison. Christe eleison. Kyrie eleison.
(from the Missa “Emendemus in melius”
by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina c. 1525–1594)

The Hymn:
O Kind Creator bow thine ear….
Audi benigne Conditur (attributed to St Gregory 540-604 AD)
Tune: St Venantius

Reflection by The Revd Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff

Psalm 51: Miserere mei Deus
to the setting by Gregorio Allegri (c 1582–1652)
“Have mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness
according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences…..”

(Solo quartet heard in this:
Elise Groves, soprano; Camila Parias, soprano;
Caroline Nielson, mezzo; & Henry Clapp, baritone.)

Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum, dele iniquitatem meam.
Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea: et a peccato meo munda me.
Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco: et peccatum meum contra me est semper.
Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci: ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris.
Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum: et in peccatis concepit me mater mea.
Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti: incerta et occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi.
Asperges me hysopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.
Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam: et exsultabunt ossa humiliata.
Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis: et omnes iniquitates meas dele.
Cor mundum crea in me, Deus: et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis.
Ne proiicias me a facie tua: et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me.
Redde mihi laetitiam salutaris tui: et spiritu principali confirma me.
Docebo iniquos vias tuas: et impii ad te convertentur.

Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus salutis meae: et exsultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam.
Domine, labia mea aperies: et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam.
Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium, dedissem utique: holocaustis non delectaberis.
Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus: cor contritum, et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies.
Benigne fac, Domine, in bona voluntate tua Sion: ut aedificentur muri Ierusalem.
Tunc acceptabis sacrificium justitiae, oblationes, et holocausta: tunc imponent super altare tuum vitulos.

HAVE mercy upon me, O God, after thy great goodness : according to the multitude of thy mercies do away mine offences.

2 Wash me throughly from my wickedness : and cleanse me from my sin.

3 For I acknowledge my faults : and my sin is ever before me.

4 Against thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight : that thou mightest be justified in thy saying, and clear when thou art judged.

5 Behold, I was shapen in wickedness : and in sin hath my mother conceived me.

6 But lo, thou requirest truth in the inward parts: and shalt make me to understand wisdom secretly.

7 Thou shalt purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean : thou shalt wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

8 Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness : that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

9 Turn thy face from my sins : and put out all my misdeeds.

10 Make me a clean heart, O God : and renew a right spirit within me.

11 Cast me not away from thy presence : and take not thy holy Spirit from me.

12 O give me the comfort of thy help again : and stablish me with thy free Spirit.

13 Then shall I teach thy ways unto the wicked : and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

14 Deliver me from blood-guiltiness, O God, thou that art the God of my health : and my tongue shall sing of thy righteousness.

15 Thou shalt open my lips, O Lord : and my mouth shall shew thy praise.

16 For thou desirest no sacrifice, else would I give it thee : but thou delightest not in burnt-offerings.

17 The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit : a broken and contrite heart, O God, shalt thou not despise.

18 O be favourable and gracious unto Sion : build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifice of righteousness, with the burnt-offerings and oblations : then shall they offer young bullocks upon thine altar.

Postlude: Vater unser im Himmelreich, BuxWV 219
Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707)

Music — by kind permission of the Revd. Douglas Anderson, Rector of the Church of the Advent and Mark Dwyer, D. Mus., The Director of Music, Andrew Scanlon, FAGO, Assoc. Organist & Choirmaster

The new-look Anglican Way Magazine is going to press !

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https://conta.cc/3IsfjuG

The first new look Anglican Way, print edition, is going to press! 

The long planned, eagerly anticipated and completely redesigned quarterly print magazine of the Society has finally emerged from the vicissitudes and delays of COVID

We really want you to get your print copy so if you are not already an existing donor 
Please sign up here !

(We are sending out the first new-look edition free to our full existing mailing listbut to ensure that you continue to get future copies please do subscribe and become a PBS ANGLICAN WAY SUPPORTER You will then help to advance our expanding range of activities including the coming National Conference, Colloquia web-casts and more….)

The many articles in the new editioninclude the following

Jesse Billett on

the Prohibition of the Eucharist in Ontario on during the COVID Lockdown

_____________________________

Torrance Kirby on

Jewel, Hooker and the True Presence in the Eucharist

______________________________

Dean William McKeachie

on the life and work of Fr William Ralston not forgetting Elizabeth I and Mae West


Currently on the Anglican Waywebsite :

A Reflection for the beginning of Lent(according to the Coptic Calendarfrom All Saints’ Cathedral Cairo) with additional Choral Music(including Allegri’s Miserere)


To visit the Anglican Way page click here
To hear the audio directly from the Soundcloud Website click here

_______________________________________________________

CHURCH TIMES OP-ED ON 
THE UKRAINE CRISIS:
by Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff who outlines:

“The strategic and moral difficulties of dealing with Russia under Vladimir Putin”
“Standing ovations, the holding of many minutes of silence and no doubt the construction of deeply moving future memorials, will never make up for deciding for now, only to oppose Putin down to the last Ukrainian”.

Full text allso available here

_________________________________________

SERMON For the THIRD SUNDAY IN LENTby 
The Revd Fr. William Martin

To read please click here

Sermons for Palm Sunday and Monday of Holy Week

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Sermon for Palm Sunday

by the Revd. Fr. William Martin

 

The Entry into Jerusalem, Agostino Aglio, (public domain)

Sermon for Palm Sunday 2022

The Revd Fr. William Martin

When Pilate was set down upon the judgment-seat, his wife sent

Unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man:

For I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of Him.

(St. Matthew 27. 19)

Holy Week has been set aside from the time of the early Church to ponder our Lord’s suffering in silence. If we approach this time with a determined silence and stillness, we will, no doubt, find that it will interrupt and confound the usual course of human reason and its expectations, as it tears and wrenches the human heart from the fulfillment of its usual expectations. Then, if we sustain the stillness, and with a quiet mind ponder the unfolding drama of Holy Week, the blanket of Divine Otherness might begin to make sense of what seems to be wholly wrong, unjust, and even unthinkable.

Following Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem He had told his Apostles: All ye shall be offended because of me this night: for it is written, I will smite the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered abroad. (St. Matthew 26.31) This Word that was made flesh would be rejected on a number of different levels. Men always find excuses for refusing to allow the Word to be made flesh in human life. In the interests of political expedience, Pilate will convince himself, perhaps, that he has rid the world of a temporary religious nuisance. The Jews’ self-righteous indignation will be justified…or so they think. Jesus’ Disciples will abandon Him out of confused fear and cowardice. Peter will deny Him and repent, and Judas Iscariot will betray Him and hang himself.

In the lections for today, we already begin to see and hear the truth that will emerge through the trial, arrest, and condemnation of Jesus Christ. Pontius Pilate, Governor of Judaea, is confronted with that earthly chaos and confusion that the Pax Romana must never abide, especially on what should be just another peaceful Friday afternoon in an insignificant outpost of the Roman Empire. He seems a reasonable and just enough man, who is neither drawn to nor impressed by the strange religion of the Jewish Aristocracy, which has interrupted his afternoon rest. He is commissioned with enforcing the Pax Romana –the peace of Octavian Augustus, that has brought unimaginable law and order in the now civilized the world. So he will do his best to treat the problem of this Jesus of Nazareth expeditiously with a kind of Stoical calm that the Romans had mastered with fine precision. In the interest of Roman Law, he will rebuke the Jews for their envy, commanding them to judge Christ themselves, or send him to Herod….but to no avail. (St. Matthew xxvii. 14) Then another kind of stillness, silence, and peace will emerge from this strange man, Jesus Christ, whom he must interrogate. Pilate marvel[s] greatly. (Ibid, 14) His wife has the spiritual sense to warn him to have nothing do with that just man (St. Matthew xxvii. 19), not realizing that she will be the prophetess of a new world order.And, in a sense he will try to do just that. But the crowd will demand that Barabbas be released and Jesus be crucified. Pilate’s conscience is nevertheless stirred, for he finds no evil or crime in the defendant. Why, what evil hath he done? (Ibid, 23) Let Him be crucified, the crowd demands. In response to the passionate envy that threatens further chaos and anarchy, we shall read that, he took water and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see you to it. (Ibid, 24) The Jews will confess: His blood be on us, and on our children. (Ibid, 25) And they too will prophesy a judgment of themselves that has never since been eradicated.

Many people, including Christians down through the ages, have never had enough time for Jesus of Nazareth, the Word of God’s love in the flesh. As T. S. Eliot reminds us, Christ speaks to them and us:

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word

Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence

Not on the sea or on the islands, not


On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,

For those who walk in darkness

Both in the daytime and in the night time

The right time and the right place are not here

No place of grace for those who avoid the face


No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

                                             (Ash Wednesday: Eliot, v.)

But for those who can become contemplatively still and quiet by God’s Grace, the sound and sight of God’s Word of Love will emerge through the suffering and death of Christ, His own Son. From the still and silent center –the heart of the Son of God, who will be suffering and dying not only to the world, the flesh, and the devil enfleshed in others, but also to Himself, the Word will be seen and heard. It will be perceived and received, slowly, even hesitatingly, by those who have chosen to believe and to follow. Even now, as the world and its words assault and kill the Word of God in human flesh, the Word of God endures, to be spoken from the center and through the stillness of His unchanged and unmoved heart. This is the heart whose mind made all things and now intends to redeem them. For this Word made flesh –this Jesus Christ– always sees and hears the Father, and then reveals, communicates, and articulates the Father’s will to the world. He will not cease to do so, and especially through His suffering and death when He will be most challenged not to love the Father’s will and bring it to life in the world. He came from God and He will return to God. But not before He willingly offers Himself to God and man by laying down all claims and rights to Himself.

This morning, with St. Paul, we remember that though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. (Phil. 2. 6-8) Jesus Christ empties Himself of His humanity, in order that pure powerlessness might be placed back in the hands of God, the maker and molder of all new human life. He will not desperately grab for, grasp, or clutch on to His Divinity in the hour of His human impotence. Rather He prefers to obey, fear, and follow God with all the humanity that remains in Him. He will become the Man who once again is the servant of God because God’s will and Word alone suffice to secure Man’s unbreakable union with Him. He will be one with the Word of the Father that He sees and hears. This is the Word that has spoken and continues to speak to Him, and through Him to us. And the Word that speaks is the eternal Desire of God for His people. This is the Word of Love that conquers hate, the Word of Good that conquers evil, and the Word of Truth that conquers ignorance.

This week, I pray, that each of us shall make time to travel with Jesus up to His Cross. We can travel with the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John looking and listening, to the Word made flesh, though we might be very confused and bewildered. This Word of God in Christ will be mostly silent. Pilate marveled, and so will we. In this Word who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously (1 Peter 2. 22, 23), we will begin to see the Word of God’s Love in the flesh. This is a Love that first touches and moves the still and silent hearts of those who remain faithful to it. This is the Love that was first seen and heard in miracles and parables, and now from the Cross persists in revealing itself to others in succinct statements of forgiveness and hope as He brings our old man, Adam, to death in Himself on the Cross. Ultimately and perfectly, this will be the Love that dies in order that all men might live. Christ takes on the burden of our sin and death, which we cannot bear. He bears it gladly and courageously, and even in the midst of unimaginable pain -not just the pain of the body, but the pain of the soul and the spirit also which nevertheless are true to God as the forgiveness of our sins and the seedbed of new and Resurrected Life.

On this Palm Sunday we sing Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. And yet it seems that as soon as the jubilant song of praise and celebration fades, new malevolent cries for Christ’s execution grow and swell. Crucify Him. Crucify Him. Let him be crucified. Where will we be this week? Will we follow the Word of God’s Love in the heart of Jesus into suffering and death? Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53. 4,5)

This week, let us listen to the silent Word of God’s Love alive in the heart of the dying Saviour. Let us listen as the Word of Love makes innocent suffering and death the occasion for His persistent pursuit of our salvation. Let us listen to the Word of Love that calls us into death. Let us be determined to die in the embrace of Love which offers Himself to God and to us in that simultaneous knot of fire that purges away all cruelty, malice, malevolence, ill will, envy, and pride. Let us be determined to leave our old selves and the familiar haunts behind that the new Man in all of us may be made alive. And let us remember, in stillness and silence, as contemplating the suffering and dying Beloved the words of Archbishop Trench:

Twelve legions girded with angelic sword
Were at his beck, the scorned and buffeted:
He healed another’s scratch; his own side bled,
Side, feet, and hands, with cruel piercings gored.
Oh wonderful the wonders left undone!
And scarce less wonderful than those he wrought;
Oh self-restraint, passing human thought,
To have all power, and be as having none;
Oh self-denying love, which felt alone
For needs of others, never for its own. 

Amen.

©wjsmartin

Sermon for Holy Monday

April 11, 2022

by The Revd. Fr.William  Martin

But woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! good were it for that man if he had never been born.

We begin our Holy Week with an act of betrayal. Judas Iscariot has betrayed Jesus

Christ out of resentment and bitterness for Jesus’ refusal to be the earthly liberator that Israel has longed for. At least, this is the view of the Church’s Tradition. Judas had thought that the Christ was set to liberate Israel finally from all foreign occupation. Judas was an earthly minded man for whom the affairs of this world mattered much more than the affairs of God and His plan for Man’s salvation. Tonight we contemplate betrayal.

In fairness to the Jews, who had spent well-nigh 600 years awaiting the fulfillment of promises to them, one might be more than a little sympathetic. Foreign domination had characterized the history of the Jews. But Judas, along with no small number of his race then and now, had not understood the true nature of the promises made to Israel. The Jews had become intoxicated with their own thralldom and slavery. It is a temptation to those in every age. Human bondage and the absence of liberty are bound to make any people forever conscious of their own suffering. Yet, Judas and his friends ignored the finer points of what God had promised to His people. In tonight’s Old Testament lesson, Isaiah is full of rage.

And I looked, and there was none, to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury it upheld me. I trampled the nations in my anger; in my wrath I made them drunk and poured their blood on the ground. (Isaiah lxiii. 5,6)

The wrath of God fills the heart of the prophet. He hears God intending to make atonement for the bondage that Israel endured. Isaiah hears the Word of the Lord who prophesies that blood must be poured out to rectify Israel with God. But he imagines a spiritual state that far exceeds Israel’s need for any earthly Redeemer. His mind is on God and what God alone can do for His people. Doubtless thou art our father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, O Lord, art our father, our redeemer; thy name is from everlasting. (Idem, 16) The prophet does not know what kind of Redemption the Lord will bring, but his focus in on God, His power and love and that Wisdom that alone can bring Israel to spiritual peace. Far be it for the prophet to focus on earthly things. He in consumed with the spiritual intention and plan of God for His people.

Judas and his kind are always overly consumed with earthly responses to earthly problems. To prefer the earthly to the spiritual is to engage in utter idolatry. God’s first mission to His people will always be spiritual. The nature of the promises themselves is hidden to the prophets. Sufficient it is for Isaiah to be focused on His Lord and the Lord’s nature. To be thus consumed will be the intention of God the Father for His people in His Son. Judas has missed the meaning of the Father’s message as articulated in the life of His Son, Jesus Christ.

We too are far too immersed in the affairs of this life on earth. Christ has better things in store for us. Judas, and so many of us, betray the Word of God with that anger and bitterness that reveal what kind of false gods truly move us mostly. Material happiness and worldly comfort seem all the rage and passion. Jesus responds to Judas and us this night with another kind of promise. Far removed from any kind of earthly hope, Jesus intends to fill His followers with what matters most. Tonight, Jesus redirects our attention to those things above and not the things of the earth.

Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it, and gave to them, and said, Take, eat: this is my body. And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them: and they all drank of it. And he said unto them, This is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many. Verily I say unto you, I will drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day that I drink it new in the kingdom of God. (Idem, 22-25)

In response to Judas’ betrayal, Christ bids His Apostles and us to wonder about something as simple as a meal. The promises of God are revealed then and now as something strikingly simple and seemingly earthly. But He speaks of some fragments of bread and a sip of wine as somehow linked spiritually to His Body and His Blood. In some mysterious way He prophesies both His leaving us and His coming to us again. The earthly is not abandoned but will become something remarkably new. Through the elements of necessity -bread, and the cause of mirth and all joy -wine, Christ promises to come to His people and to be with them forever. His Body will be offered to them. His blood will be outpoured for them. And more than this, both will be present to them whensoever they repeat the words of this simple ceremony. And He seals this manual act with the promise that He will not eat and drink with them until He drinks it new in the Kingdom of God. (Idem) This earthly action will be an instrument and means of His ongoing presence with them until they reach His Kingdom. Spiritually, Man will commune with God over a meal that will become a Heavenly feast.

To the ancient Jews, what He said must have sounded like gibberish. But to those who believed then and have faith now, this is the seal of God’s promise to His people. There will be no need for any earthly deliverance from tyrannical rulers. In what follows, He will promise His people that they must trust that this is the way that matters most. What matter most is to repent and believe. What matters most is the Forgiveness of Sins that Jesus Is.

The day following, He will offer His Body on the Tree of Calvary and will pour out His blood for the sins to the whole world. The key to grasping the promises is in trusting God’s promise to be our God and we His people as earth is swallowed up in Heaven’s feast. In partaking of His Body, He will indwell His people with His suffering and death. His suffering and death will remain with them as they blend theirs with His in absolute obedience to the Father. In drinking His Blood, they all shall be quickened and resurrected into new life and virtue. What more can man need for the fulfillment of all his hopes in God’s promises? To eat His Body and to drink His blood fulfill God’s promises to His people. In eating His Body and drinking His Blood, men are invited to participate in the meaning of the Forgiveness of Sins and the Resurrection into the New Life. All is well with Jesus. Nothing more is needed. Jesus’ presence with us depends upon nothing less than His promise. This is. Our task this night is to trust and obey. Our calling this night is to follow Jesus to His Cross so that the bread and wine might be ever so simply linked to His broken Body and poured out Blood on Good Friday.

Amen.

©wjsmartin

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Sermon for Easter Sunday

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Resurrection-painting-892x1024

Giovanni Bellini, Resurrection of Christ, 1474-1479,

oil on panel transferred to canvas, Berlin, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,

Easter Sunday

April 17, 2022

by Fr William Martin

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above,         
Where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affections on 
Things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life
Is hid with Christ in God. 
(Col. 3. 1-3)

There is something rather strange about our Easter Epistle, which was addressed by St. Paul to the infant Church at Colossae in small Phrygian city in Asia Minor, or modern day Turkey. Easter Sunday is the first of 40 days. Before He ascended back to the Father, during the period of 40 days, Christ appeared to Peter, to Mary Magdalene, to the women, to James and all the Apostles, to some five hundred, to Stephen prior to his masdsrtyrdom, and later to St. Paul as one born out of due time. (1 Cor. xv. 8)  So why does Mother Church have us reading an Epistle that seems to be all about the spiritual relationship that we have with Christ after Pentecost? In it, St. Paul speaks about our relationship with the hidden GodYour life is hid with Christ in God. (Col. iii. 3) We haven’t even begun our 40 days of getting used to the Resurrected Christ than the Church turns our minds upward and into the Heavenly realm!
So why are we reading about having our lives hid with Christ in God? For St. Paul, something has happened on the Day of Resurrection that forever changes our lives in relation to God the Father. Jesus Christ is not a mere soul or Spirit. Jesus Christ, the God/Man, has risen from the dead. Article IV of the Thirty Nine Articles of Religionstates this: Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man’s nature; wherewith he ascended into Heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to judge all Men at the last day.  St. Paul believes that Christ indeed died in a natural body and rose a spiritual body. What he means is that Christ raised up the body through which He lived and died and has transfigured it. His soul took back his body, and penetrated it through and through making it spiritual…this spiritual body is transparent, obedient to the Spirit, unconstrained and lightsome…the instrument of the Divine Saviour’s soul. (Mouroux, p. 89) The Risen Christ is, then, a glorified unity of body, soul, and spirit. He is the same Lord who died once for all our sins. His Risen Body bears the wounds of His Crucifixion, reminding us that He has borne our sufferings, grief, and sin and brought them to death. But the same wounds remind us of His ongoing love for us, as this spiritual Body that He bears will expand deepen to include us in His new Resurrected life, as His Body, the Church. But even during the 40 days of His Resurrection, He begins to call believers into the new Body that He will share with all who will follow Him. This Body has been raised up with the Father’s Blessing and the Spirit’s power. This spiritual Body is in more than one place at one time. Peter sees Him and then James does also. Magdalene has seen Him and so too have the men walking on the Road to Emmaus. Jesus’ Body is already spiritually greater than what our earthly senses can ever comprehend. It is of such a nature that will ensure that our lives [can be] hid with Christ in God. 

Of course, it takes time for the Apostles to realize what is going on. The 40 days are necessary. For Man to come to understand timeless Truth, it all takes time. But in that time what they come to realize is that Christ is calling them to become one with Him in a new way. Christ is now ready to share Himself with them in the way that has enabled Him to conquer sin, death, and Satan and to open to them the Gates of Everlasting Life.
So how can our lives be hid with Christ in God? St. Paul reminds us in another place that Christ our passover is sacrificed for us;  therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Cor v. 7,8) Christ Jesus our Saviour is Risen from the dead. He invites us into that life that has gained the victory over all sin in all ages. Just as Christ’s victory is complete, so too does He conquer all sins in all times. Jesus died at the hands of sinful men and their sin. But He died, being dead unto sin. Sin had no claim or power over Him. Christ conquered sin through His obedience to God the Father and because He has always been alive unto God. (Idem) In the Resurrection, Jesus Christ invites us to begin to participate in His obedience to the Father. Christ, even in death, was alive unto God. We are seldom alive unto God, since with the Jews and Romans and all sinners in all ages, we have killed God’s Word in the flesh -the flesh of Jesus Christ in our own flesh and the flesh of all others. We have been dead but now Christ invites us into the New Life that He reconstitutes for us following His crucifixion. So now, we must seek those things which are above. (Col. iii. 1) Not above and beyond our reach, but above and beyond our wildest expectations, above and beyond what we desire or deserve, above and beyond what Man can do for himself in any age. And yet not above and beyond what God’s love can and will do for us as Heaven reaches down to earth to lift us up back into His loving embrace. Not above and beyond God’s healing touch, His quickening spirit, His ever-present and all-powerful presence, even here and now. But yes, above and within the heart of Jesus, whose Glorified Body and Being are with the Father pleading our case in all ages. Yes, above and within Jesus Christ Himself, in whom every aspect of our lives can become a new occasion for our rising up and out of ourselves, mortifying [our] members which are upon earth; [up and out of] our uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry…(Col. iii. 5) In our bodies, because in His Risen and Glorified Body because Christ is always in God. In our souls, because in His Risen and Glorified Soul, He (is) in us, and we (are) in Him. Christ is risen from the dead. Sin is finished, death is finished, Satan is finished, if only we shall discover our need for Him even now. Our lives are hid with Christ in God. (Col. iii. 3)

And how does He allow us to continue to be hid with Christ in God? Jesus says I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. (St. John vi. 51) As He reveals and manifests the truth of His Glorified Flesh on this Easter Sunday, we remember that Christ gives Himself to us as the Bread of Life. Christ’s life is to do the will of the Father. When we eat His Body and drink His Blood, we believe that we shall begin to partake of that Bread of Life that gives us the power to overcome sin, death, and Satan. Through this Sacrament we come into Communion with Jesus. The Real Presence that He shared with the Apostles on this Day of Resurrection, He shares with us also. When we eat His Body and drink His Blood, we begin to possess eternal life. (1 Cor. xi. 26) Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. (St. John vi. 54-57) 

When we eat His Body and drink His Blood, we can reckon [ourselves] to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans vi. 11) Being alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord means that our affections, our desires, and our passions our set on receiving that food and drink that can save us, who deserve none of it.  Being fed, we can ask the Father to give us His Heavenly Love that forever moves Jesus Christ the Son to free us from all sin and death through the Holy Spirit. Being fed, we can know that Jesus indwells our hearts and souls and is ready at hand to help us in every time of need. The love of God in the Heart of Jesus Christ leads captivity captive (Ephesians iv. 8). We are no longer to live in bondage to sin, death, and Satan. And mark my words, sin has always and ever been present in this world Our lives are hid with Christ in God because He has overcome them, has set us free, and holds us in His heart in Heaven, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for us! (Hebrews vii. 25) forever praying for our deliverance from our sins. He does so from the core of our hearts and souls, who knows our needs before we ask. (St. Matthew vi. 8)

On this Day of our New Life, as creatures Resurrected from the Dead, let us begin to live freely and thankfully. On this day may true joy fill our hearts. Let us, therefore, thank and praise our Saviour Jesus Christ this morning for dying for us and for rising for us, and for assuring us that our lives are Hid in Him with God. Let us close by ending with the song of the poet:

MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day, 
Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin; 
And, having harrow’d hell, didst bring away 
Captivity thence captive us to win: 
This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin; 
And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye
Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin, 
May live forever in felicity! 

And that Thy love we weighing worthily, 
May likewise love Thee for the same againe; 
And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy, 
With love may one another entertayne! 
   So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought, 
   –Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

Edmund Spenser “Easter Sonnet”.

Amen.

©wjsmartin

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Easter

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May 1, 2022

by the Revd Fr. William Martin

This is thankworthy, that if a man for conscience endure grief,

Suffering wrongfully.

(1 St. Peter ii. 19)

You might think it strange that our Epistle reading for The Second Sunday after Easter taken from St. Peter’s First Epistle should speak of suffering. After all, we are in Eastertide. We meditated upon suffering at length on Good Friday. Surely now we are meant to focus more on the joy, the surging relief and rising happiness that come to us when we meditate upon Christ’s victory over suffering, sin, and death. Is not this what Eastertide is all about? Yes. But dear old Pope Gregory the Great, who is mostly responsible for our Church Lectionary, wanted us to remember that our Resurrected life in Christ is a treasured gift to be received and perfected in willing hearts through constant battle. As joyously focused on Christ’s Resurrection as we should be, the Church Fathers knew only too well that the prudent and cautious pilgrim who seeks to enter God’s Kingdom must fight a daily battle of dying and rising.

         So what we are being taught is that suffering is a necessary component in the process of our sanctification and redemption. Last week’s readings taught us that Christ’s Peace comes to us to infuse the forgiveness of sins and the New Life. Today we learn that the assurance of its rule in our lives demands a kind of spiritual suffering that tends to be threatened by the devices and desires of our own hearts. And what better Apostle have we than St. Peter himself, to teach us about the taming of premature zeal as we embrace the reality of the Risen Christ. He writes: For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. (1 St. Peter ii. 19,20) Peter believes and knows what Christ has done for us already. But Peter too knows that his own character had to suffer the consequences of a faith that had not been tried by fire. Peter had to die to his own sin, his own betrayal of Christ, and himself before Christ could rise in him. Peter knew too that for as long as he lived, he would be called to suffer for his newfound faith as a follower of Jesus. The union of Christ’s Suffering, Death, and Resurrection had to become for him the pattern of Jesus’ New Life. The Peace and Forgiveness of Sins, which Christ had established would become his own prized possession only by way of dying and rising. For I have given you an example, that ye should do [to one another] as I have done to you. (St. John xiii. 15)

         For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. (Ibid, 15) The message is clear. By embracing the forgiveness of sins, Christians are called to suffer and die as the forgiveness of sins would become the Risen Truth implanted in their hearts. Christ is the forgiveness of sins that rises in man’s heart only by way of suffering for the Truth. This is the well doing of Jesus Christ that rises up only in hearts that are dying to the old man and becoming the new. God’s goodness overcomes evil, His mercy tempers judgment, His generosity destroys selfishness, and His forgiveness breathes love and hope into new lives. That the reception of this reality will be difficult, St. Peter is quick to confess. He writes his Epistle to a community which is struggling to allow Christ’s Resurrected goodness to overcome all evil that stubbornly resists it in the human heart. St. Peter knows only too well that Christians are engaged in spiritual warfare. But what he wants to emphasize is the battle going on in men’s souls is the temptation not to forgive. The visitation of evil upon men from the outside is of secondary importance to him. For it is only when men begin to suffer and struggle as the forgiveness of sins is born in them that they can be said, truly, to be Risen with Christ.

St. Peter reminds his flock and us today that Christ Jesus was the only Person in history who endured and overcame evil through goodness because the loving forgiveness of sins was perfectly alive in His heart. St. Peter tells us that Jesus Himself, our Lord and Brother, in Himself, endured man’s sinful desire to torture and kill God. Yet in response to it, He did not sin, neither was guile found in his mouth; who, when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered he threatened not; but committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously. (1 St. Peter ii. 22,23) Christ was killed because neither Peter nor any other man could endure the forgiveness of sins. Yet He responded to it only with forgiveness of His enemies’ sins and the desire for their salvation. Because sin is dead to Him, He is the forgiveness of sins. Because God’s goodness saturated His heart, He longed to love His enemies into friendship with God. In His suffering death, Christ rendered Fallen Man’s sin powerless and meaningless. Who in His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed; For ye were as sheep, going astray, but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls. (Ibid, 24,25)  

         What the Apostles realized long ago was that the Crucified Jesus who rose up from death on Easter Day was God’s Good Shepherd. But what became clearer and clearer was that the Good Shepherd, in laying down His life for them, had actually already begun the process of seeking out His lost sheep from the hard and rough terrain of the Cross. What moved out from the Cross of His love was the forgiveness of sins that loves the sinner much more than his sin. In this morning’s Gospel parable, Jesus likens himself to both to the Good Shepherd and the door through which He will carry us back to the Father. We can become His sheep, He suggests, if we begin to perceive and accept that we were lost sheep needing to be found by Christ the Good Shepherd.  Dr. Farrer explains Jesus’ words in this way:

What does Jesus say?  A man cares naturally for his own things.  He does not have to make himself care.  The shepherd who has bought the ground and fenced the fold and tended the lambs, whose own the sheep are to keep or to sell, cares for them.  He would run some risk, rather than see them mauled; if he had only a heavy stick in his hand, he would beat off the wolf…He says that he cares for us as no one else can, because we are his.  We do not belong to any other man; we belong to him.  His dying for us in this world is the natural effect of his unique care.  It is the act of our Creator. (Weekly Paragraphs for the Holy Sacrament: Easter II)

Christ would run some risk to reveal to us that we were His lost sheep. Belonging to Christ comes only when we realize that we were lost sheep now found by the Lord who is our Shepherd and whose rod and staff comfort us. (Psalm xxiii. 4)

But we protest: All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every man to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah liii. 6) We do not deserve the care of God’s Good Shepherd for us. But though we are lost in sin and death, His forgiveness is greater. I am the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known by them. (St. John x. 11, 14) Jesus tells us not only that He loves us but that He knows us. He knows who we are and what kind of sin has enveloped us. He knows that, with St. Peter, we struggle to know Him as the Good Shepherd. His knowledge penetrates the secrets of our hearts. Thus, we believe that He desires to find, heal, and save us with the rod and the staff that comfort us. The Rod that comforts us is His Cross. The Staff that comforts us is His Resurrected love. The Rod of the Cross awakens us to our betrayal and Jesus’ care despite it all. The Staff of the Resurrection herds us into the comfort of His risen forgiveness. From His Cross Jesus the Good Shepherd finds us and comforts us with His Good Death. Jesus the Good Shepherd now desires to lift us onto His shoulders and comfort us with the Risen Life where sin, death, and Satan can harm us no more.

Because we belong to Jesus, we can reciprocate His desire for us. We can begin to know Him as the Good Shepherd, who prepares a table before us in the presence of [our] enemies; [who will] anoint [our] head with oil; [so that our] cup runneth over. (Ps. xxiii. 5) His forgiveness of our sins can lead us into death. His Resurrection demands that the forgiveness of sins overflows from our hearts to all othersSuffering the assaults of malicious men can become the occasion for overcoming evil with good.

So today, my friends, as we continue to wend our way through Easter tide, let us remember always, with St. Peter, that we have erred and strayed from [Christ’s ways]like lost sheep. Jesus insists we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. (Ps. c. 3) We belong to Him and He longs to have us forever. And so, as Cardinal Newman says,

Let us not be content with ourselves; let us not make our own hearts our home, or this world our home, or our friends our home; let us look out for a better country, that is, a heavenly. Let us look out for Him who alone can guide us to that better country; let us call heaven our home, and this life a pilgrimage; let us view ourselves, as sheep in the trackless desert, who, unless they follow the Shepherd, will be sure to lose themselves, sure to fall in with the wolf. We are safe while we keep close to Him, and under His eye; but if we suffer Satan to gain an advantage over us, woe to us!… Blessed are we who resolve—come good, come evil, come sunshine, come tempest, come honour, come dishonour—that He shall be our Lord and Master, their King and God!… and with David, that in “the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil, for He is with us, and that His rod and His staff comfort us…(The Shepherd of Our Souls) 

Amen.

©wjsmartin





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