Worship is central to the spiritual life of Holy Trinity Parish. Our church provides a beautiful worship space in which we celebrate, offer prayers and live out our faith within a community of believers. This parish has a rich liturgical tradition and each of our worship services has its own characteristics.
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LIVE STREAM OF 10.45AM SUNDAY SERVICE CAN BE ACCESSED BY CLICKING ON THIS LINK.
Sunday before Advent, Christ the King, 22nd November 2020
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2nd Sunday before Advent – 15th November 2020
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2nd Sunday before Advent 15th Nov 2020
The Sermon Proper 28 2020 A
The parable of the talents is one we know too well. It is a good story, with an apparently simple moral, and so we have had it hammered into us from an early age. But getting at the good stuff in it is hard to do, when we think we know what it is all about already. Getting the story to work on us, rather than just roll off us, takes a bit of time and contemplation.
Contemplation is where we take time to look at something. We just sit in silence with the reading. To stay with a reading or with a question, allows it to work on us at a level deeper than the level of words and ideas. We can read a short passage a couple of times to ourselves, and then go back to whatever phrases seem to us to be important, and just stay with them, without discussing them with ourselves, or talking to ourselves about them. That way the meaning, the essential something contained in the readings can seep into us. We can come away from reading the bible with the deep core of the text in our hearts. We can come away with a message which is relevant to our lives and situations, not just something I cook up to fill in my 10 minutes, but something for us, of us and from God.
The reason the Bible, the Gospels are important is not because they are full of wee stories, and good advice, but because they can be a way to allow God into our lives. That doesn’t happen when you just read the thing and then walk away. You have to work with it a bit. We should to do this ourselves with the Sunday readings, at the very least. I’m emailing the services to you now, and you can read them before hand, or afterwards, and contemplate them. Allow phrases and words to tell you what they mean. That way you will find your faith, your relationship with God grow and mature, into something new. When I was wee, they told you to read the bible by the square yard. But they didn’t tell you how. No wonder many of us gave it up very early on. But there are ways to read it, which are fulfilling, and helpful.
These readings today are scary ones about the end time, the second coming. We prepare for the coming of Christ into the world at Christmas, that’s why this theme comes up. —Shape up or ship out. And we have all heard this before, we know all about it, we have read the stories, heard the bad sermons. How much effect do they have? Answer that for yourselves. Did a cold hand of fear clutch your heart when you heard these readings today? Do you feel inspired to jump up when the service is over and go out and change the course of your life, even before I start haranguing you from your computer screen? The answer is most likely no. But why not? Don’t you believe this stuff? If you don’t believe it, what does that mean? And if you do believe it, why doesn’t it put the fear of God into you as they say? What’s going on? Where did the urgency in our faith go to, why did it go away? If there is no urgency, if all this second coming talk is just talk, when are you ever going to do something about your faith? On your deathbed? Right after you win the Lotto? When is it going to happen? Please excuse the personal questions.
You see, we have painted ourselves into a corner, theologically speaking. We tell people that God loves them, and that if they turn to him at any stage, and say they are sorry, and repent, then they will be forgiven and everything will be hunky dory. But at the same time, there’s all this stuff about changing now, and there’s no time, and the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and you know neither the hour nor the minute. And there’s a lot of tension between these two things. One says relax, God loves you. And the other says, quick, hurry up before Jesus comes back and finds out. They tend to cancel each other out, because there always seems to be another tomorrow to get sorted out in, and there’s no rush, is there? There hasn’t been for 2, 000 years, anyway.
Except. We only get one chance, one go. And it goes past very quickly. And while I believe the idea that God will forgive us when we turn to him, I also believe that how we live our lives is important. Both those things are in tension, again. There is a Jewish story about an old and very religious rabbi who went up to his maker and said I did not spend my time in riotous living, or with women, and I did not drink, and I only ate bread and water, and I stayed in my house with the curtains pulled so that I could keep my mind on you and on the scriptures, and I never went out. I spent my whole life that way. And the Lord said, what about the wonders I provided for you; good food and wine, love and companionship, sunsets and trees and animals and feelings, what about wind and rain and snow? Why did you reject my gifts to you? And the rabbi could not answer.
Now, I am not telling anyone to throw the head up and go on the tear. And that story is not against religion. But how we live our lives is important to God. And we can go through them in a fantasy, not even present most of the time, dreaming, wishing we were somewhere else, somebody else, and with somebody else. While we’re doing that, the life we have is drifting past. We never really lived it, we might as well not have been here for all the good we took of it. There is an urgency in our lives. They have a best before date on them. While talk of the second coming might not gee you up any, take notice of the urgency at least. Every day you live is a day less for you to live in. Every week you don’t spend in relationship to your God is something good you have missed. All this God stuff is not because we don’t want to go to Hell. Being in relationship with God and Christ is good crack. It’s pleasant, helpful, useful. If it is hard work there’s more to it than that. It is a good way, the best way, the only way to live your life. Don’t forget Christ’s words at the end of the parable. Like a good old fashioned government budget. To those who have, more will be given, from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken from them.
Remembrance Sunday – 8th November 2020
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All Saints – Sunday 1st November 2020
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Trinity 20, Proper 25, 25th October 2020
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Harvest Thanksgiving – 18th October 2020
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Trinity 18, Proper 23, 11th Oct., 2020
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Sunday 11th October Service Sheet
Trinity 17, Proper 22, 4th Oct., 2020
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Baptisms, Weddings and Funerals
The Clergy are more than happy to discuss these services with anybody, please contact him for more information
Other Services throughout the year
Throughout the year Holy Trinity observes the major feast days of the church. During Advent we host the Community Carol Service and Carol services for our Parish School (GKNS). At Easter there is an Annual Ecumenical ‘SonRise’ service on Killiney Hill. At Pentecost we share an Open-Air service with our neighbours in St Matthias’ Parish, Ballybrack. All of these services have different themes and liturgies reflecting the rich beauty of worship in our Anglican tradition.
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