THE CHURCH OF SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST
MESSENGER
May / June 2010
And the best is Love
Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost
Love is kind, and suffers long
Love is meek, and thinks no wrong,
Love than death itself more strong;
Therefore, give us Love.
A
t the 10.00 a.m. service a few Sundays ago, Deacon Allan Marjerison
preached on the subject of Love. As is
often the case with Allan’s homilies, it
was a sermon which touched a number
of people in the congregation. With a
customary twinkle in his eye, he began
by saying that he had been accused of
having a one-track mind. While being
coy about his accuser, he conceded that
it was nevertheless fair comment since
it was based on his belief in love as the
heart, soul and total of the gospel.
“It’s not my fault. It’s the fault of this Bible.
No matter where I open it, I am likely to
find love!”
One Sunday later, as the
parish prepared for a Service of Confirmation, one
of the hymns was the one
which shares this page.
Now, how did Allan miss
that one while choosing
those he wanted for his
service!
As Allan said, “we don’t normally think
of the Old Testament as a gospel of love,
but instead as one of strict adherence to
the law, with severe penalties for transgressions.” Nevertheless, Love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart and with all thy
soul became the principal confession
of faith of the Jewish people, and was
identified by Jesus as the greatest commandment.
And that’s not all. As we continue reading, over and over love comes up! We are
asked to love our enemies – the fruit of
the spirit is love – one who loves abides in
God – God is love – love is the fulfillment
of the law – and a new commandment,
love one another as I have loved you.
According to Allan, in his Bible at least,
there are sixty-seven references to love,
including the above and others. They appear in Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Psalms,
Jeremiah, Matthew, John, Romans,
Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, Thessalonians, Hebrews, James,
Peter, and Revelation.
Prophecy will fade away,
Melting in the light of day,
Love will ever with us stay;
Therefore, give us Love.
Faith will vanish into sight;
Hope be emptied in delight;
Love in heaven will shine more bright;
Therefore, give us Love.
So, if Allan is single-minded, what is he
going to do? “I can’t get away from it! But
I don’t want to get away from it, no more
than I want to get away from God, who is
love.” That, as he says, is his defense.
“Love implies a covenant, and fidelity.
Love is not just a word – it is a statement,
a commitment, a promise.”
I
n certain religions, a covenant is a formal
alliance or agreement, made by God,
with that religious community or with
humanity in general. This sort of covenant
is an important concept in Judaism and
Christianity, derived in the first instance
from the biblical covenant tradition. An
example of a covenant relationship in
Judaism and Christianity is that between
Abram and God, in which God made
a covenant with Abram that He would
bless Abram’s descendants making them
more numerous than the stars. Christianity asserts that God made an additional
covenant through Jesus Christ, called the
‘new covenant’, in which Jesus’ sacrifice
on the cross would atone for the sins of
all who put their faith in him.
However, as a concept, a covenant (beyond its legal implications these days!)
could be difficult for us to comprehend.
This may be why Allan chose to focus on
the idea of love as a primary aspect of
our relationship God. Even the “first and
greatest commandment” is not always
easy for us to grasp in the give and take
of daily life.
(continued on p. 3)
Faith and Hope and Love we see
Joining hand in hand agree;
But the greatest of the three,
And the best, is Love.
The writer of this hymn,
of which only some
verses are quoted
above, was Christopher
Wordsworth. Christopher Wordsworth was a
bishop of the Church of
England, born in 1807
at Lambeth, England,
his father, also Christopher Wordsworth,
being rector of the parish. Entering Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1826, he won
numerous university honors after which
he served as fellow, lecturer, and public
orator in the college.
In 1836 he became Headmaster of Harrow School and was appointed a canon
of Westminster in 1844, which office he
continued to fill during the nineteen years
of his residence in Berkshire as the rector of a quiet country parish, living four
months of each year in London, as was
made necessary by his canonry. He was
appointed Bishop of Lincoln in 1869,
resigning only a few months before his
death in 1885.
Christopher Wordsworth was a nephew
of the poet William Wordsworth. Among
his many works, a volume of hymns, titled
The Holy Year : 1862, is perhaps of most
interest here. It contains hymns not only
for every season of the Church’s year, but
for every phase of that season, as indicated in the Book of Common Prayer.
(continued on p. 2)
(Wordsworth, continued)
Like the Wesleys, Bishop Wordsworth
looked upon hymns as a valuable means
of stamping permanently upon the memory the great doctrines of the Christian
Church, holding it to be the first duty of a
hymn writer to teach sound doctrine. Of
Bishop Wordsworth’s one hundred and
twenty-seven hymns, about fifty are in
common use.
From: Hymn Writers of the Church,
Christian Classics Ethereal Library,
http://www.ccel.org/
In memoriam
Alfred Emerson Arnold
January 1, 1934 – May 11, 2010
We mourn the passing of Buck Arnold.
Buck was active in many aspects of the
church and will be missed in the parish
and by all who knew him.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
The clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober colouring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality;
Another race hath been, and other palms
are won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
William Wordsworth
eh
April “words”, a rebuttal
In the April MESSENGER, two short
articles appeared, one quite serious, the
other, humorous. Both were responses to
Rector’s Warden Brent Cowan’s published
thoughts on same-sex blessings.
T
he MESSENGER truly serves a useful purpose in the parish, acting as a
forum to invite dialogue, generating more
interest in what’s going on in this parish,
our community, and the Anglican Church
at large. In particular it seems that both
Allan Marjerison and Mark Levesley are,
like me, using these pages to contribute
to our common quest for God’s truth
with respect to the issue of same sex
marriage.
Allan dissects a couple of points I made
in my two MESSENGER articles. He
disagrees with my interpretation of what
I had held to be a rhetorical tactic used
by Peter Hannen regarding extending the
concept of church blessing from battleships to same-sex unions. Well, Deacon
Hannen certainly could have had another
aim in mind, but diminishing the importance of church blessing so as to make
its extension to same-sex union seem
relatively unimportant was what I thought
and still think was his intention. However,
it doesn’t really make any difference one
way or the other because the issue at
hand is not the relevance of blessing
battleships or pets.
The first issue is whether a same-sex
union could or perhaps even should be
blessed by the church. I have gone on the
record with the view that I see no reason to
object if - and this is an important if - this
change in church doctrine can be shown
to be an extension of the church’s past
positions on the matter and not simply
someone’s better idea. Now here is where
Mark Levesley seems to be weighing in.
By quoting from a letter sent to the radio
call-in host, Laura Schlesinger he points
out the absurdity of looking at one or two
paragraphs of the Bible to justify one or
another moral position. I agree with him
one hundred percent.
But so does church doctrine which is
drawn from the much larger view of the
whole body of the Bible together with
the whole of Church history. Doctrine, if
it is to have any legitimacy as such, must
move along in a continuous line. The end
of that line may be very different from its
origin but each and every point along it
must be connected. The alternative is
the establishment of a new religion as
happened in the Protestant Reforma-
tion where the ‘protesters’ believed that
important aspects of Church Doctrine as
carried forward by the Vatican were, in
fact, a discontinuous departure from the
original ideals of Christianity.
The second issue comes into play if
and only if one accepts that the union
of same sex couples can be recognized
and blessed by the Church. For the sake
of argument, let us assume that Church
doctrine is redirected to wholeheartedly
embrace the blessing of same-sex union.
The next matter that would arise is the
status of these blessings. Quoting from
1 John 4:8, Allan points out that “God
is love and where there is love, there is
God, and where there is God, no blessing
is out of place.” As I have already said in
the pages of the MESSENGER and in the
Anglican Journal, there is no disagreement here from me. But not every blessing
is raised to the level of sacrament as is
Holy Matrimony.
Allan disagrees with my reasoning on why
Holy Matrimony is uniquely attributable
to the union of a man and a woman. I argued that a human being, to be complete
is a man and a woman together. Allan
argues that if this is so, there are a huge
number of incomplete people out there.
There very clearly are. In fact we are all
incomplete – married or single straight
or gay. Completion is only achievable
by seeking to approach God and is only
realized once there. With the exception
of one well-known citizen of Nazareth, I
doubt any of us actually arrive until after
our life is spent.
But one thing I notice that is common to
this discussion on same-sex union is that
the advocates of the blessing of same sex
union generally don’t try, as I have tried,
to offer a body of reasons to move people
over. Instead they generally argue against
those who are against the blessings of
same sex union. Allan and perhaps Mark
fall into this camp. Allan attempts to pick
apart aspects of my reasoning without
offering much to support his own. I would
ask Allan to rise to the challenge. I am
certainly willing to be moved in the direction in which he is very clearly pulling. In
fact I am part way there. With the one
caveat, I have no problem with blessing
same sex unions. But I have given my
reasons why I believe that Holy Matrimony
is a sacrament uniquely recognizing the
physical and spiritual union of a man and
a woman. I ask Allan to explain why the
blessing of the union of two men or two
women should also be recognized as a
sacrament.
Brent Cowan
(Love, continued from p. 1)
Confirmation and Choral Evensong
O
n one of the hottest Wednesday evenings in recent memory, Bishop Barry
Clarke was the Celebrant at the Confirmation of ten young people from Saint
John the Baptist. About one hundred and thirty people were in the congregation
– parents, family and friends of the confirmants – together with parishioners. The
service was also an occasion to participate in Evensong, a quite rare opportunity
for our congregation. Music included contemporary settings of the Magnificat and
Nunc Dimittis, in addition to familiar hymns. Bishop Barry spoke of the need to
work at learning what it means to be a Christian, likening it to becoming expert at
sport or playing a musical instrument. It should be noted that, in addition to their
individual athletic interests, each candidate was a student of one musical instrument or another, a fact which may appeal to Barbara at some future date!
Congratulations to:
Stephanie Cowan
Adrianne De Castris
Andreas Deslauriers
Charles Lowe
Emma Lowe
Heather Polson
Daniel Pye
Danielle Richard
Jackson Thouret
Ben Vonniessen
Some may say that love, even as a covenant between individuals, has become
tarnished in our lifetimes. Even its meaning is open to debate in the mishmash
of relationships which characterize contemporary lifestyles. Deacon Marjerison
maintains that “God is love. Our Lord is
the incarnation of love.” If we have doubts
about the meaning of these phrases as
they apply on a personal level, where
does that leave us spiritually?
In the May issue of the Montreal Anglican,
Mary Gordon’s book, Reading Jesus: A
Writer’s Encounter with the Gospels was
reviewed (William Converse). Quoted
excerpts suggest that uncertainty, even
doubt, leave her with, at best, “an uneasy
faith.”
“I am uneasy calling myself a person of
faith, if faith is seen as a synonym for
certainty, or even an unwavering trust in
what I know. I cannot recognize in myself
an essential stability that quickly rights
itself after the occasional brief faltering
or stumble. Many days, there seems no
possibility that there is any kind of reality corresponding to or behind the word
‘God.’ I know that I have often been
mistaken, often proven wrong, including
and especially about matters that I would
once have called ‘articles of faith,’ matters that I once believed I had to believe
under pain of damnation, an eternity in a
hell I took to be literal and real. I am ready,
therefore, at any time to learn that almost
everything and anything I know is wrong,
or at least in need of radical revision. And
yet I could never say of myself, ‘I am not
a person of faith,’ because I know that I
am different from people who do not have
a religious imagination. I am drawn to a
sense of ultimate meaningfulness, even
though I can only apprehend it dimly: a
figure in a mist, a shape on the horizon.
That shape, that figure, embodies itself in
a person, Jesus, whom I came to know
through the words of the Gospel.”
So, returning to the solution suggested by
Allan, “we are to use our minds, our Godgiven intelligence and power of reasoning,
to understand what God requires of us
and how we are to do it.” Not exactly an
easy challenge but worth the effort!
Gracious God, so fill our hearts, minds
and bodies with your boundless love, that
it may shine forth in our lives, to your
glory, forever more. Amen.
David L. Paterson, Editor
Confirmation candidates, May 26th, 2010
with thanks to Deacon Allan Marjerison
(Allan’s sermon in its entirety can be found in the
Features page of the St. J. the B. Web Site)
We are lumberjacks and we’re okay
We sleep all night and we rake all day;
On Sunday, we’re at Mattins, and on weekdays hack away.
Spring clean-up
We cut down trees, we eat our lunch, we go to the lavat’ry
On Wednesdays we go shopping
And have buttered scones for tea!
With apologies to Monty Python
. . . but some can’t see the woods for the trees!
Rearranged STERTLE
DORMITORY when rearranged reads
DIRTY ROOM
DESPERATION when rearranged reads
A ROPE ENDS IT
ELECTION RESULTS when rearranged
reads LIES – LET’S RECOUNT
A DECIMAL POINT when rearranged
reads I’M A DOT IN PLACE
MICHAEL IGNATIEFF when rearranged
reads FAILING TEAM CHIEF
Submitted by Harry G.
Short back and sides
For those who don’t know me, my name
is Robbie and I am 10 years old. I know a
lot of people were thinking “Why does this
“boy” have such long hair?”. If you were
one of these people, I will explain.
It all started after my eldest cousin, Adam
Brown, grew, cut and donated his hair to
people who have no hair due to cancer. I
decided, “He’s my older cousin. If he did
it, I wanna do it, too!” and I grew my hair
for 2 years. Even though I was teased at
school, I kept growing my hair to reach
my goal!
Bravo!
On Saturday, May 22nd, 2010, I finally
got it cut. My friend Dylan was there to
give me support. And that’s what I did
and why I did it!
Robbie De Castris
Q : [email protected]
On Thursday, June 3rd, members of the choir and their spouses celebrated the approaching summer hiatus with a potluck supper after the regular weekly rehearsal.
The final introit of the season proclaimed Hallelujah! seventeen times – sixty-eight if
you count all four parts – and ended with Amen, a sentiment shared, no doubt, by
Barbara and all choir members as summer intervenes.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ when rearranged
reads CC BUGLE SNORERS
Editor : [email protected]
Choir wind-up