Here is a video recording of Bishop Mary Irwin-Gibson's sermon at St. Philip's Church on the occasion of our Patronage Feast on May 1, 2016. This is part of St. Philip's 125th anniversary celebrations.
Check out our forthcoming event, an evening of classical music on Friday, May 27th by the trio Manker and Friends. Click here for more information.
Sermon by Rev. J.B. Pratt 5th Sunday of Easter (April 24, 2016): Forgiveness and Reflections on Marriage (Text)
It’s
easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission.
We’ve
all heard that said before. And it can be especially true in the
church, where we are supposed to be all about forgiveness, and where
we often can move and make decisions at a glacial pace.
Our
first lesson this morning [Acts
11:1-18]
is all about asking forgiveness for breaking the rules. The early
church was a Jewish movement, and the apostles saw themselves as Jews
first, Christians second. They observed the Jewish law, including
the kosher requirements; they attended synagogues and worshipped at
the Temple. Non-Jews who wished to become Christians had to first
convert to Judaism, study Torah and be circumcised, then they could
be baptized as Christians.
Peter
is out visiting the small group of Christians in Joppa, and while
there, messengers come to him asking him to come with them to the
house of a Roman centurion, Cornelius. Peter had just had a dream in
which God told him to go with these strangers, so he goes along.
When he gets to Cornelius’ house, he does not hesitate to go
inside. Strike one. For an observant Jew to enter the house of a
Gentile is to make himself ritually unclean. Then Cornelius invites
Peter to join them at dinner. Strike two. Whatever Cornelius was
serving, it certainly wasn’t kosher. And then, as Peter is talking
to them and telling them about Jesus, he perceives the Holy Spirit
coming upon them, and right then and there takes water and baptizes
them. Strike three. They have not first converted to Judaism and
been circumcised.
We
all know how quickly tongues can wag in the church, and before Peter
gets back to Jerusalem, word of his sins has already arrived there
and made the rounds. The apostles and elders summon him to account
for his actions, and to take his punishment. So Peter goes before
them to explain his side of the story. He recounts everything that
happened, and emphasizes how he saw the Holy Spirit come upon
Cornelius and his household, just as the Spirit had come upon the
apostles. “Who was I that I could hinder God?” he says. And
after hearing his explanation, the other apostles understand that God
was indeed at work, and forgive Peter. Thus began the expansion of
Christian evangelism to non-Jews.
For
us as Anglican Christians, for whom sacramental theology is very
important, we need to pay particular attention to this incident. Our
sacraments are important to us. We say in the catechism that
sacraments are “outward and visible signs of an inward spiritual
grace”. Sacraments are not magic acts which confer God’s grace
or blessing, but a recognition that God is already at work in our
lives, and the sacrament is a symbol to acknowledge that.
For
example, baptism is not some magic ticket into heaven. We have,
quite rightly, done away with the old mentality that a baby who died
before being baptized could not be buried in consecrated ground. We
are all children of God because we have been created in the image of
God, not because we have been sprinkled with or dipped in water. The
sacrament of baptism is our way of recognizing and celebrating that
God’s grace is given to us, and to mark our response to this gift
of grace through our baptismal promises.
Likewise,
marriage does not suddenly make two people a couple nor form a strong
bond between them. The first marriage I officiated was between a
couple who had been together for seven or eight years and had a
six-year-old child. They did their marriage preparation in another
parish, and I was newly appointed, so I didn’t know their story
until afterwards. Their relationship had been going through some
hard times, and they thought (or at least the bride thought) that if
they tied the knot, that would keep them together. Six months after
the wedding they separated. Marriage doesn’t create love and
commitment between the couple; it recognizes a loving relationship
that already exists and in which God’s grace is present, and
celebrates it with the whole community.
My
ordination did not magically confer on me the ability to transform
bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. Instead, it was
the culmination of a long process of discernment, of coming to the
understanding that God had given me gifts and grace for leadership in
God’s church. The laying on of hands was the Church’s
recognition of those gifts and that grace, and of giving me the
authority to exercise them.
So
our sacraments are not so much a conferral of God’s grace, as they
are a recognition of how God’s grace and the Holy Spirit are
already active in the lives of people. We need to be very careful
about what rules and procedures we erect around the sacraments. Yes,
rules are necessary. But we need to be very careful that our rules –
human rules – do not hinder God.
Take
one example. Those of you who are long-time Anglicans are familiar
with the old rule that you had to be confirmed before you could
receive Holy Communion. This had been the rule in the Anglican
Church since the 13th
century. Since the 1970s, the Anglican churches have been moving
away from this rule, and back to the practice of the ancient church
and of most other churches, Orthodox, Catholic and many Protestants,
that baptism is the only prerequisite to admission to communion.
In
recent years, the discussion has shifted, and now the question is
whether baptism is really necessary before one may come to the table,
or whether communion should be open to all. If someone who feels
moved to come forward to receive, who are we to decide whether the
Holy Spirit is working within them? Who are we to hinder God? At
St Philip’s, we print in our bulletin and announce at the
invitation to communion that all who are baptized are welcome. But
recently, at diocesan celebrations, our bishop has been inviting all
who are so moved to come for communion.
Marriage
is another sacrament where our rules are, and need to be, under
constant re-examination. A generation ago, the discussion was
whether divorced persons could be remarried in the church; the rules
said no. Now, most of us wonder what the fuss was; certainly we have
all seen loving relationships the second time around among those
whose first try at marriage did not work out. The discussion has
moved on to same-sex couples. Personally, I have seen in same-sex
couples love, a commitment to one another, and care for each other
and the community equal to that of opposite-sex couples. As a
church, we need to be asking questions about such relationships. Do
we see in them a reflection of God’s love and an example for
others? Do we see the Holy Spirit working in them? Do we see
evidence of God’s grace in the couple’s lives? And if so, who
are we to hinder God?
Sermon by Rev. J.B. Pratt for the 19th Sunday after Pentecost, October 4, 2015 (Text)
A little over a week ago, the Anglican Church of Canada’s commission on marriage canon released its report on a proposed amendment to remove gender references from the canon. I commend the report to your reading, as it gives much food for thought. In one of those twists that the lectionary is often famous for, today it gives us for our Gospel reading one of Jesus’ few comments concerning marriage. Mark 10:2-16.
The
passage is one of the recommended readings for weddings, and the line
“what God has joined together, let no one put asunder” is familar
to most of us. We tend to take it as Jesus’ definitive word on the
subject of marriage.
But
is it? Context is everything, and we need to look at the context.
As the introduction (omitted from the reading today), Mark tells us
that Jesus and his disciples have crossed the Jordan River, into what
is today Jordan, then a part of the territory of King Herod Antipas.
Just a bit earlier, Mark tells us of the death of John Baptist, whom
Herod had arrested and then beheaded, because John had been
denouncing Herod for having divorced his wife and married his
divorced sister-in-law.
The
Pharisees, who get particularly bad rap in Mark, try to trick Jesus.
Their question, “Is it lawful to divorce?” seems
straightforward. But, if Jesus says no, then they can denounce him
to Herod, and he might suffer the same fate as John. If Jesus says
yes, then in the people’s eyes he’s not as good as John, and the
crowds might drift away.
Jesus
doesn’t take the bait. He makes them answer their own question:
“What did Moses command you?” What does the Torah, the Law, say
about the question? They answer, "Moses allowed a man to write
a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her." (Deut.
24)
Under the Law, a man could divorce his wife for almost any reason,
just by giving her a certificate of dismissal and sending her on her
way.
But
then Jesus leaves them with something to think about. He pushes them
beyond the text of the law. The law exists, he says, not because it
is God’s law and definitive purpose for humankind, but because of
the hardness of the human heart. It can be less cruel to give a
woman her freedom than to force her to stay in a marriage where she
is not wanted.
So
what is God’s purpose for marriage? According to Jesus, it is two
individuals becoming one flesh, becoming a single entity. He
suggests that the Pharisees are just as hard-hearted as Herod, since
they focus on the law, and not the purpose behind it. The are
following the letter of the Law, but their hearts are far from God.
Once
Jesus is behind closed doors with the disciples, he goes more in
depth, talking about divorce as adultery. He redefines adultery: in
the Law, adultery was a crime against property rights, the rights of
a man to sole and exclusive possession of his wife. But Jesus
instead focuses on it as a breaking of a sacred covenant. If
marriage is a sacred union of two persons into one, any breaking of
that union is a violation of that covenant.
So,
as the Commission says of this passage, “Jesus is therefore not
stating a timeless doctrine of marriage, but rather giving a pastoral
(and political) response to a particular set of circumstances.”
How
do we regard marriage today? Very often, we are still caught up in
old, out-dated traditions. The most frequent question that I get at
wedding rehearsals is from the father of the bride, “When do I give
her away?”. We are all familiar with the ritual: the father walks
his daughter down the aisle; the priest asks, “Who gives this
woman?”; the father answers, “I do”; and he places her hand in
the grooms hand, symbolizing that she is no longer her father’s
property, but her husband’s. Though that has been, thankfully,
dropped from the marriage service, old habits die hard. It has taken
us 2000 years to move beyond the idea of marriage as a contract
involving property, to a partnership based on love.
Consider
the purposes of marriage, according introduction read by the priest
at the beginning of the marriage service in the 1662 Book of Common
Prayer. Marriage exists, first, for the procreation of children,
second, “for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication”, and
third, “for the mutual society, help and comfort” of the couple.
What does love have to do with it? Very little. The promise to
obey, made only by the bride, emphasized that the woman was
subservient.
In
the Book of Alternative Services, the introduction now reads, “ the
union of man and woman in heart, body and mind is intended for their
mutual comfort and help, that they may know each other with delight
and tenderness in acts of love”. The idea of a loving partnership
is at the front and centre. I think most of us would agree that the
most important element of a marriage is love.
In
preparation for General Synod in June of next year, we are being
asked, as the church, to look hard at marriage. We can’t just say
“we’ve always done it this way”, because how the church, and
society, have understood marriage has changed over the centuries. We
can’t look at scripture simplistically, taking one passage out of
context and declaring it to be Jesus’ definitive statement on the
subject. We need to look hard and honestly, at the whole of
Scripture, at our tradition, at our experience, to see how God is at
work. We need to ask the question, does a loving, committed,
covenanted relationship between two people, regardless of their
gender, reflect the love of God? Is it a sacred union, in which two
become one flesh?
May
we all be part of the discussion, listening and sharing our
reflections, and may the Spirit guide us in our deliberations.
Easter Sunday, April 20, 2014, (Video)
In this sermon, Father Jim discusses Lent and Easter Sunday. He contrasts the suffering and hardship of Good Friday with the celebration of Easter Sunday. The cross means Gods solidarity with us in suffering. Our comfortable existences sometimes cause us to ignore the meaning of the cross. As Paul says, "set your minds on things above and not things of Earth." Easter is now a commercial holiday, at this time we commonly focus on material things. However, we are called to focus on life itself, on peace, justice and on love. Living our lives each day as an Easter people.
Palm Sunday, April 13, 2014, Video
Christmas, December 22, 2013 - The Meaning of Christmas Transcends Historical Details (Video)
The Feast of All Saints, 2013, (Video)
For the Feast of All Saints, Father Jim discusses the hymn Sine Nomine which presents a vision of all the people of God offering praise around the throne. However, in our earthly existence, the trappings of wealth and power obscure the fact that, "the empires of this world will pass away." The Kingdom of God here on earth is not found in gilded palaces but among the poor, the hungry and the outcast.
The Invisible Hand of God, 2013, (Video)
Sin Punishment and Redemption, 2013, (Video)
The Value of Silence in the Wake of the Boston Marathon Bombings 2013, (Video)
In this video Rev. James Pratt delivers a sermon on the value of silence in the wake of the tragic bombings at the Boston Marathon in April, 2013.
Easter Sermon 2013 Part 2 (Video)
Easter Sermon 2013 Part 1 (Video)
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