The Feast of Charles Stuart, King and Martyr

The Feast of Charles Stuart, King and Martyr
January 30th, 2019

COLLECT.

BESSED Lord, in whose sight the death of thy Saints is precious: we magnify thy Name for thine abundant grace bestowed upon thy servant, King Charles of England; by which he was enabled so cheerfully to follow the steps of his blessed Master and Saviour, in a constant meek suffering of all barbarous indignities, and at last resisting unto blood, and even then, according to the same pattern, praying for his murderers, to the same our only Mediator and Advocate, Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord. Who liveth and reigneth with thee. Amen

EPISTLE

Peter 2:13

DEARLY beloved: Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; or unto governours, as unto them that are sent by him, for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well. For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. Honour all men: Love the brotherhood: Fear God: Honour the king. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. 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. For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.

PSALM

Psalm 112. Beatus vir.

Blessed  is the man that feareth the LORD; * he hath great delight in his commandments.
His seed shall be mighty upon earth; * the generation of the faithful shall be blessed.
Riches and plenteousness shall be in his house; * and his righteousness endureth for ever.
Unto the godly there ariseth up light in the darkness; * he is merciful, loving, and righteous.
A good man is merciful, and lendeth; * and will guide his words with discretion.
  

For he shall never be moved: * and the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance.
He will not be afraid of any evil tidings; * for his heart standeth fast, and believeth in the LORD.
His heart is stablished, and will not shrink, * until he see his desire upon his enemies.
He hath dispersed abroad, and given to the poor. * and his righteousness remaineth for ever; his horn shall be exalted with honour.
The ungodly shall see it, and it shall grieve him; * he shall gnash with his teeth, and consume away; the desire of the ungodly shall perish.

GOSPEL

Matthew 21:33

AT that time: Jesus spake this parable unto the multitudes of the Jews and the chief priests: There was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country; and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. And last of all he sent unto them his son, saying: they will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves; This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, ‡ what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him: He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

                                                The Sermon

Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord;  he hath great delight in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth;  the generation of the faithful shall be blessed

-Psalm 112:1-2

           

Three-Hundred and Seventy years ago, Charles Stuart, king of both Scotland and England, ascended the scaffold at the Whitehall Banqueting Hall in London, laid his head upon the block, prepared himself for the end of his earthly pilgrimage and said to Bishop Juxton with whom he had just prayed Morning Prayer, “I die a Christian according to the profession of the Church of England as I found it left to me by my father…I have a good cause and I have a gracious God (…) I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world. Remember!”

For seven long years, he had waged a war against the Puritans, who among many things,

demanded the abolition of the Episcopate (Bishops) as well as the ordered worship and sacraments according to the Book of Common Prayer. He remained, in the face of fierce and violent opposition, a steadfast defender of the catholic and reformed faith as it had been received in the Church of England. Lancelot Andrewes, the ablest preacher of the 17^th century, described this same faith in this wise:

One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period – the centuries that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith.

It was for this faith, rooted in the earliest days of the Church, and in the consensus of both the Scriptures and in the Church Fathers, that Charles died. And it is this same faith, this Catholic Faith, that we hold as 21^st century Anglican Christians.

And while, it is true, that Charles was a flawed leader and his own lack of foresight and judgment led in part to the violence of the English Civil War and the eventual overthrow of his crown, he died a martyr, not for the institution of the monarchy, but rather for the catholicity of the Church of England and its worldwide descendent, the Anglican Communion of which we are part as members of the Episcopal Church. And as the inheritors of that same patrimony, we remember this day his faithfulness and his devotion to Christ and the faith that has been delivered to us by apostles.  

We remember, likewise that under Charles’ reign there was a veritable renaissance of Christian devotion and piety. The prose, poetry, and preaching of figures such as Lancelot Andrewes, John Cosin, Thomas Ken, and Jeremy Taylor –known to us as the Caroline Divines- adorn our Anglican Tradition with much beauty and informs our theology collectively as much as a Luther and Calvin do in other traditions. Likewise, we remember the liturgical renewal that occurred under Archbishop William Laud – a renewal that emphasized our baptismal identity and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. We remember Nicholas Ferrar’s revival of religious life at Little Gidding where a quasi-monastic community was formed, dedicated to praying Morning and Evening Prayer according to the Book of Common Prayer and living a life of simplicity, devotion, and service. Charles was a devoted patron to this community and spent time there as he was fleeing from the Puritan armies. The many religious orders of the Anglican Communion, including the Society of St. John the Evangelist, based in Massachusetts, and The Sisters of the Transfiguration, based in Ohio, have their inspiration and antecedent in the community at Little Gidding. Their witness is a continued source of encouragement for many thousands of Christians today.  It was of this same Little Gidding, that T.S. Eliot wrote these lines, some three centuries later, in his Four Quartets:

If I think of a king at nightfall,
Of three men, and more, on the scaffold
And a few who died forgotten 
In other places, here and abroad, 
And of one who died blind and quiet, 
Why should we celebrate 
These dead men more than the dying?

 

We remember Charles, who through his love and faithfulness, encouraged the flourishing of a reformed Catholicism, rooted in the ancient church, but open to the insights of the Reformation and of Renaissance humanism. We remember more than his dying but the life of faithfulness he lived. We remember his devotion and his love of the church he was sworn to defend – even to point of death.

But we also remember that this patrimony for which Charles live and died, is the same patrimony that we have received as Anglicans and members of the Episcopal Church. The Apostolic Succession of bishops, preserved from the earliest ages of the Church is a sign of unity and continuity with the Apostles and Christ himself. As Episcopalians, we are blessed with a church that remains in continuity with the Early Church while being grounded in the present situation. Likewise, the tradition of the Book of Common Prayer, which is rooted in the liturgies of the earliest church and has been formed over centuries of thoughtful Christian reflection, is an inheritance, which is worth our defending. When we celebrate our liturgy according to the forms contained in our Prayer-Book, especially when using Rite I, we are worshiping in a form that would be familiar to Charles. It was so precious to him that praying Morning Prayer was among the last things he did on earth. We remember, not out of idle historical interest, but we remember because we are thankful for the tradition that forms and nourishes us as Anglican Christians. We remember Charles’ witness of fidelity to the faith that was delivered time and pray that we too might imitate his holy example by our own steadfast love and faithfulness.

 

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Epiphany, 2018 (Year B)

Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” - John 1:43-45 (NRSV)

Outside of the New Testament, there is no mention in the historical record of the town of Nazareth until about the mid 2nd century A.D. when the tiny town had already become a place of Christian pilgrimage. Some scholars have even suggested that the area of Nazareth was uninhabited during the time of Christ. Archaeological evidence, however, suggests that Nazareth has population of around 400 people during the lifetime of Jesus. Nazareth, you see, was an insignificant town in an obscure part of the Roman Empire. It was not the sort of place that people who mattered came from. It was the kind of backwater that people associate with ignorance, poverty, and, maybe even, cultural conservatism. Nazareth was what we sometimes call fly over country.  It was the kind of place that we pass on the highway and don’t think three seconds about. Nazareth was like those countries we see on the map whose names we can’t remember; or even, pronounce correctly. It was the kind of place we assume we know all about despite never having been. Nazareth was the kind place where those people lived - those poor people, those uneducated people, and those people we are thankful we’re not.

Nazareth was the inner city where we lock our doors and drive quickly through. Nazareth was the old mining town where the mining has left and meth and heroine have come in.  And Nazareth was much like the places where our present day migrants and refugees come from. Nazareth, you see,  is all those places that we’d rather shut our eyes to.

For Nathanael, and likely others, Nazareth was not a place where one would expect anything of consequence to arise. And here Philip was saying to him, “Yes, out Nazareth has come the person who the scriptures - both the books of Moses and the Prophets have promised will come. And that out of Nazareth, God will renew the face of the earth and inaugurate his Holy Kingdom on earth. And that out of small, insignificant, and provincial Nazareth, has come someone who is of universal significance. If you don’t believe me, come and see.”

What Philip was saying sounded patently absurd to Nathaniel and it likely would sound absurd to us as well.  It does not make much sense that God, who is universal, could be embodied in something so particular God, the creator of all things, has become truly human and more specifically has become a mere carpenter’s son from tiny Nazareth. How could the universal become something so particular and how could the creator of human kind become a lowly human being?

And even if God, were to do something like that, wouldn’t he have chosen to become something a little more grand than a 30 something from a po’dunk little town out by the see of Galilee? Wouldn’t he be a king or least someone at least moderately respectable. Wouldn’t God-made-man look a little more like me and less like people I pity or disdain?

By the particulars of his coming; by the fact that God’s light broke into the darkness of this world in Nazareth of Galilee in the Roman province of Judaea, we are taught a powerful lesson as to who God is and what God cares about. You see, God came to bind up the brokenhearted, to heal the sick, teach the ignorant, and give sight to the blind. He did not come to make us feel good about ourselves and to affirm the status quo. He came to organize a conspiracy, a revolution of love. He came to lift up the poor and to topple the rich and powerful.

Liberation Theology, especially the thought of Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, teaches us a powerful concept that we would do well to remember. Echoing the social teaching of the entire Bible, Gutierrez teaches that we are called to have a preferential option for the poor. I will repeat that; we are called to have a preferential option for the poor. That is, our human society, ought to be organized in such a way that the needs of the weak, vulnerable, and marginalized are prioritized ahead of everything else. If we systematically fail to care for the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized and fail to seek ways to end poverty, vulnerability, and marginalization of any kind, then our whole political and economic system has failed. If we fail to challenge injustice in our community, in our nation, and our world, then our Christianity is worthless. One of our fellow members of this St. Thomas community recently said to me, “If we fail to promote justice, the Church has no real purpose.” She was right. Being Christian is not mere hobby that we attend to on Sunday morning or during weekday devotions, it is the center of being and the bedrock of our entire worldview- moral, political, and everything else.

All of us are called to work and strive for justice. Last week, we prayed together the words of the Baptismal Covenant and I asked you on behalf of the Church, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” And we all responded, “I will, with God’s help.” With God’s help, brothers and sisters, we are called cast off our prejudices and fears. We are called to “Come and See” what this Jesus of Nazareth is up to. We are called to margins of the Empire, to serve our Lord Jesus among the weak and the vulnerable. We are called reach out rather than to enclose ourselves is walls of our own making.

I close with a few words from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, whose life and legacy we celebrate this weekend. He wrote so many years ago.

“Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.” 

(http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/pilgrimage_to_nonviolence/) 

So let us recommit ourselves to a living faith and care for those who come from Nazareth, wherever that Nazareth may be.

Amen