Pastoral Letter in time of Covid Δ 2021, 19 Sept Trinity 16

 

St Barnabas Anglican Church,  Warrington, New Zealand

Pastoral Letter in time of Covid Δ

2021,  19 Sept    Trinity 16

Blessings and prayers for Hilary, Rosalie, Carolyn, Claire, Kieran and Casey and the greater Ireland family.

 

Readings:

Proverbs 31:10-31

Ps 1

James 3:13-4:3, 7-8a

Mark 9:30-37

³⁰ They went on from there and passed through Galilee.  He did not want anyone to know it; ³¹ for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”  ³² But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.  ³³ Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?”  ³⁴ But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.  ³⁵ He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them,  “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”  ³⁶ Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷ “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

 

 

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

 

Grace and peace to you from God.

 

I’m blurring the boundaries between Sundays, or perhaps connecting them up.

Please try this little prayer from the very beginning of the Anglican church.

 

THE COLLECT for Trinity 16, by Thomas Cranmer,  1549

Lord, we beseech thee, let thy continual pity cleanse and defend fend thy congregation; and, because it cannot continue in safety without thy succour, preserve it evermore by thy help and goodness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

This prayer was changed a bit by the editors of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

Archbishop Cranmer rendered ecclesiam as "congregation."  The 1662 revisers substituted "Church" because of how the Puritans had used the former term.  "Church" is also used in the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637.  I only mention that because it didn’t stop Jenny Geddes from throwing something at her minister.  Might have been her prayer book; might have been her seat.  Not the sort of thing we want in St Barnabas anyway.

 

In the collect Cranmer understands the Church as enduringly fragile:  "... it cannot continue in safety without thy succour."  So he prays that the congregation of Christ would be cleansed, defended, and preserved.  So maybe I was a bit rash in saying Christ must be daft trusting us to keep the good news going.  We’re not on our own.  Nothing survives without God’s help.

 

A hard point for us is the link between God's pity and God's cleansing.  People sometimes say, "I don't want your pity."  It hurts our pride.  "Pity" here, in the Collect, refers to God's compassion, passion, His disposition and temperament of mercy that is continual, unchanging.  This compassion has the strength to cleanse.  We can liken it to that power of tender empathy for us in our need that is able to reduce us to tears.  The empathy of another who truly loves me moves me.  Christ's pity on the Syrophoenician woman, the man born blind, pathetic Zacchaeus, Mary Magdalene, Bartimaeus at Jericho, you and me:  This can touch us our lives.  The emotional encounter of being loved in our real state, as our real selves, cleanses us.

 

Let His continual pity cleanse and defend us evermore.

 

 

I’m always getting caught out by my clerical colleagues who remember saints’ days, whereas I’m hard put to remember the saints, never mind their anniversaries.  This week has just been full of ones I know.  On Friday, I’m sure you remembered Hildegarde of Bingen a polymath and eccentric nun who is, perhaps kindly, remembered as a mystic.  We played some of her music to celebrate.  Thursday was Ninian.  Ninian, c. 432, was the first Christian missionary who is known to have reached the place now called Scotland.  History from that time is confused, but some people belief St Patrick, a 3^rd generation Christian, went in the opposite direction quite soon after.  My connection with Ninian is that my primary teacher took us to his church.  Now, I don’t mean a church dedicated to him, I mean the church he built, called ‘candida casa’ because it was whitewashed.  It’s much smaller than St Barnabas

 

Going back to my childhood raises in my mind these complicated issues of identity.  I was listening to an academic on the radio before lockdown.  She was complaining vigorously about government forms that, in their efforts to collect statistics, have ‘Pacific Islander’ as an ethnicity.  “Nobody,” she said, “is a Pacific Islander.  You’re a Tongan, perhaps a Samoan, or Fijian, and so on.”  Your identification is with your island home, not someone else’s catalogue of races.  Although generally unsympathetic with academics’ imagined complaints I understood and sympathized.  Entirely selfish of course,  I too was never, in real life, described as I am on NZ forms.  I might on occasion relax enough to describe myself as ‘British’, but never as European.  But what or where is my identity?  And why is it sliding away?  Is it in my childhood?  And disappearing because I’m growing old?  Is it in Scotland?  And fading because I am here?  In Britain this weekend, they will celebrate the Battle of Britain: the first block to the Nazi ambition of a world dictatorship.  The RAF Fighter Command stopped them from invading Britain.  The details these days are packed into quotes from Winston Churchill as he rallied the nation, to work together.

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

“This was their finest hour.”

 

But before then, before the battle started, he sought to define what it was all about.  Did he appeal to national identity? To democracy?  To international law? To good and evil? 

What he said was “… the Battle of France is over; the Battle of Britain is about to begin.  Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation.”

 

There is my identity.  There is my cultural heritage.  The ideas, the ideals that shape our society, our relationships with the state and with society are defined by the heritage of our Christian civilisation.

 

There is even more than that.  I have been made in God’s image.  The more I claim my identity as my property, the more I push myself from God, and the more lost I am.

 

 

Jeremy

 

Rev Dr JJ Nicoll,                                            0274 361 481

Priest-in-Charge

St Barnabas, Warrington, NZ

 

 

Collect:

Holy God,

in your economy 

the last will be first and the first will be last;

help us to step aside,

and grant us such humility that we may recognise and welcome all your children

with open hands, warm hearts and generous minds, 

with your hospitality and grace. 

Through Jesus Christ our Liberator,

who is alive and reigns with you, 

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.  Amen.

 

Psalm 1

¹ Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked,

or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;

² but their delight is in the law of the Lord,

 and on his law they meditate day and night.

³ They are like trees planted by streams of water,

which yield their fruit in its season,

and their leaves do not wither.

In all that they do, they prosper.

⁴ The wicked are not so,

but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

⁶ for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish.

Glory to the Father and to the Son;

And to the Holy Spirit;

as it was in the beginning is now

And shall be forever.  Amen

 

The Comfortable Words.

Hear the words of comfort our Saviour Christ says to all who truly turn to him:

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden,

and I will give you rest.                                                                      Matthew 11.28

 

God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son,

that whoever believes in him should not perish

but have eternal life.                                                                           John 3.16

 

Hear what Saint Paul says:

This saying is true, and worthy of full acceptance,

that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.                      1 Timothy 1.15

 

Hear what Saint John says:

If anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father,

Jesus Christ the righteous;

and he is the propitiation for our sins.                                               1 John 2.1,2

 

Confession

Father eternal, giver of light and grace,

we have sinned against you and against our neighbour,

in what we have thought,

in what we have said and done,

through ignorance, through weakness,

through our own deliberate fault.

We have wounded your love

and marred your image in us.

We are sorry and ashamed

and repent of all our sins.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,

who died for us,

forgive us all that is past

and lead us out from darkness

to walk as children of light.                Amen.

 

 

Absolution

May almighty God have mercy on us,

forgive us our sins,

and bring us to everlasting life.                      Amen