Photograph © Toby York, 2011
Sermon for a Solemn Requiem for the Revd Prebendary Gerard Irvine (1920-2011). Preached on Saturday 1st October 2011 at St Matthew’s Westminster
‘You are here to kneel where prayer has been valid.’
Little Gidding I. 45-46, by T. S. Eliot
You will not be surprised, I’m sure, if I tell you that this sermon has been for me the source of, not inconsiderable, anguish. And that anguish is still there today, in spite of the sense of pride and privilege that I feel in the knowledge that Gerard himself, albeit posthumously, has requested that I preach it.
Sermon for the 20th of August, 2011, 9th Sunday after Trinity.
Readings: Isaiah 51. 1-6, Romans 12.1-8, Matthew 16.13-20.
Who do you say that I am? Now you don’t have to answer that question, in fact I’m a bit fearful of what you might say. When I started thinking about this sermon a couple of weeks ago, that question rolled round in my mind time and again. As we’ve just heard, Jesus asked this to his disciples-“Who do you say that I am?” It seems a bit of an odd question to ask to friends, people you’ve spent any length of time with, as Jesus did to his disciples.
Tonight I will send a postcard to my university teacher in Systematic Theology at Halle University in Germany. I might choose a postcard showing Rublev’s so called icon of the Trinity, just because I was advised by a priest not to mention this all too famous icon this morning because everyone mentions it on Trinity Sunday. I will write this postcard because I remember him telling us, send me a postcard whenever you really preach a sermon on the Trinity, and today I am doing just that. For my professor the Trinity was just a hybrid concept, a theological construct. He couldn’t see how the doctrine of the Trinity could connect with any experience of the Christian faith.
Isaiah 9: 1-4 1 Cor 1: 10-18 Matt 4: 120-23
To the surprise of many, a religious film (or rather, a film with a clear religious topic) won one of the top awards at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. It was a surprise because the common wisdom is that religion not only doesn’t get an audience (the primary function of film-making) but worse, it stands a high chance of courting the kind of controversy that kills rather than builds attendance. Set that film in the limited confines of a monastery populated with 7 celibate and mainly elderly men and little opportunity for car chases, love interest or condemnatory behaviour – I’d love to have seen the faces when the producers first tried to pitch that one! Nevertheless – it got made. And the result is the beautifully-filmed and emotionally-charged “Of Gods And Men”.
Luke 18. 9-14
Well, it’s very good to be with you this morning – and I’d like to thank Fr. Philip and Fr. Peter for inviting me.
For those of you who don’t know, I was here at St. Matthew’s between October 2004 until August 2005, working as a pastoral assistant – and like so many pa’s, before or since, spending a year here was a way of taking those few vital steps along that road to full time ministry.
So here I am, 6 years later suited and booted – a Priest in the Church of England.
You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep and you can tell even more about them by looking at those they call friends – just look at people’s Facebook pages!
That’s why the Pharisees in today’s Gospel were so scandalised by what they saw. Not only did they find that Jesus had called Matthew from the seat of custom, from his tax desk, to follow him, but then Jesus accepts an invitation from this new disciple to dine at his house along with Matthew’s friends – a whole bunch of tax collectors and sinners.
Are there any who are devout lovers of God?
Let them enjoy this beautiful bright festival!
Are there any who are grateful servants?
Let them rejoice and enter into the joy of their Lord!
We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you,
because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.
One of the most startling things about the Gospel according to St John is its attention to small details. John gives by far the most accurate descriptions of time and place in any of the four canonical accounts of the life and death of Jesus. Much of our speculative chronology for his life is derived from John’s obsession with recording the passing of the Jewish fasts and festivals, and Jesus’ strict observance of them. And he frequently includes in his narrative those close observations which the other three Evangelists are unaware of, or choose to omit.
'Union with Christ, then, belongs to those who have undergone all that the saviour has undergone…he who seeks to be united with him must therefore share with him in his flesh, partake of deification, and share in His death and resurrection.' St Nicholas Kabasilas, The Life in Christ [1]
It is a well-known fact that Anglo-catholics love parties. Many of us make all sorts of weird and wonderful commitments for Lent, no doubt inspired by sound Tractarian piety, sacrificing those things on which we gorge ourselves when nobody is looking, or indeed when they are, setting aside some of the luxuries of this life, to focus on
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