Homily for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity
Preached at The Church of St Bartholomew, Apostle And Martyr,
Regent Park, Toronto
6 July, 2008

Some of the congregation this morning were kind enough to ask me to make this available, and will now find out that the spoken version was probably better than the written one!

One of the advantages of not holding a permanent appointment in the Church is that one has so many more opportunities to be in different Churches and experience their customs and practices. When you're Rector of a parish you never have the same opportunities to Church-hop on a Sunday, or the need to fill in for clergy on vacation. I am glad that at last I have come to be with you here at St Bartholomew’s for the Sundays of July.
Of all the beauties of the Book of Common Prayer some of the finest are the Collects of the Day. But they are so short and said so quickly that perhaps we do not always hear them and appreciate as we might. It doesn’t have to be so, since they are appointed to be said morning and evening (at least) for the whole week, and might well be seeds of contemplation.
Now most of the Prayer Book Collects are translations of the old Latin Collects, but not slavish translations. To examine how the old Collects are given new expression in English shows not only the different genius of each language, but opens the words for deeper contemplation. Consider the original on which today’s Collect is modelled. The genius of the Latin Collects is their terse simplicity; the richer vocabulary of English alows for a greater nuance. To make the point obvious, here is a literal translation of the Collect: In fact I've tried to be so literal that it is actually a bad translation!

God of powers, everything that is best is from you, put into our breasts the love of thy name, and furnish in us the increase of religion, that you may nourish us with the things that are good, and by the zeal of faithfulness guard those that have been nourished.[1]

Or something like that; I’m not quite sure of the last clause. The new Roman Missal has by your constant care protect the good you have given us. But that’s not really the point. Now let us hear again the collect as we prayed it at the beginning of Mass:

Lord of all power and might, who art the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of thy Name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy great mercy keep us in the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

As T. S. Eliot said of Lancelot Andrewes’ sermons, the English version of the Collect squeezes the last ounce of meaning out of the Latin words. Where the Latin said that all good is, or perhaps comes of God, the English spells it out: He is the author and giver of all good things. They not only come from him but he gives them to his people; he is the author, the one who gives with authority. By considering how the revisers of the liturgy adapted the Collect. we can go more deeply into its meaning Now I can’t be all day talking about the prose style of the Prayer Book, so we will think rather hand allow it to help us to hear today’s Epistle and Gospel with profit.
In the first place, we have acknowledged that all good comes to us from God: He is the author and giver of all good things. The first good thing we pray for is the love of God’s Name, that is, of himself and his power. Look, though at how we pray this; we say, “Graft in our hearts the love of thy name.” The original verb was insere. Now it just so happens that there are two almost identical verbs inserō in Latin; one meaning "to put in, insert," and the other meaning "to implant, or graft." Insere in the original might be either, and it must have been a conscious decision of the revisers to use “graft” rather than “insert” or “fill” as the new Roman translation has it. The use of this image from gardening seems to have been suggested by the the idea of good and evil fruit in the Epistle reading. That idea of course, is found elsewhere in the Gospels, in particular in next Sunday’s gospel where our Lord declares, by their fruits ye shall know them. and in the passage where he declares that he is the vine and we are the branches. It is though our baptism that we are grafted onto him, and that love of God is grafted into our hearts. Through this grafting we are liberated from bondage to sin and enter into the new obedience of righteousness. The contrast St Paul draws between the bondage of sin and the service of Christ is probably the source of the beautiful expression “Whose service is perfect freedom,” in the second Collect at Mattins.
The Collect goes on to pray that God, the giver of all good things, will “nourish us with all goodness,” a graft will wither if it is not nourished. But today’s collect and readings also show us where we are to look for the nourishment we need for our new obedience The words of the Collect should resonate in us as we hear the Gospel account of the Good Shepherd feeding his flock of four thousand with seven loaves and a few small fishes.
There are many interesting questions about this miracle: how it relates to the other miraculous feeding, what the numbers involved might symbolize. But while these are important, the fundamental good news of this miracle is first the abundant love of God who nourishes us with all goodness, then the gracious courtesy of God, who takes the meagre offerings we have for him, and of that produces the abundance. How often is it that we see a need, and recognize our responsibility as Christ’s people, but think our resources are too poor to do any good. At such times we must remember this miracle. Christ took the few loaves and fishes and, giving thanks to God, broke and commanded his disciples to set them before the people, and all ate ande were filled. What else should we do when we look around and say, How can anyone fulfill this need here in the wilderness, but offer what we have to the Lord and then move ahead in faith. Only by doing that can new ever learn to have faith.
We have abundant reason for faith. This Lord Jesus looks on the needs of his people and is stricken to the heart. In our translation he says “I have compassion on the multitude”, and though compassion means “suffering with,” that meaning is no longer a living metaphor; by compassion we mean no little more than “caring”; but the word here translated “have compassion” means to feel in one’s abdomen, to be struck in the heart. We know that feeling. How wonderful that through the Incarnation our Lord God should condescend to feel it, too. If he feels that way for his people, we may be sure he will give the good things needed to help them.
There is much more that can be said. For instance, another link between the Epistle and Gospel comes in the idea of obedience. Obedience runs through the Gospel, where Christ’s command that the people should sit down (though it seemed a mere arbitrary command), was followed by the reward of obedience, His bounty. But it is summer time, and though there is much to be said, there is even more to be said for brevity. So to finish, it is my hope that if you do not already, you will use the Collect every day in your personal prayers, saying it slowly and carefully so that the full meaning enters your mind and heart, and the links to the Epistle and Gospel will return to mind. I hope, too, that (if it is not already your practice) you will read and ponder the Collect and readings for next Sunday as part of your preparation.

[1] Deus virtutum, Cuius est totum quod est optimum; insere pectoribus nostris amorem Tui nominis, et praesta in nobis religionis augmentum, ut quae sunt bona nutrias, ac pietatis studio quae sunt nutrita custodias. Per Dominum. A version of this is the Collect for the XXII Sunday in Ordinary Time in the current Roman Missal.