The Point of Impact

November 22, 2020 Andrew Kryzak

If you have been thinking to yourself over the past few weeks that the Sunday-morning readings have taken a decidedly dark and foreboding turn, then I have good news for you: You’re not crazy. You’re not imagining it.

Two weeks ago, we heard the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, half of whom ran out of lamp oil, and as a result found themselves – unhappily – shut out of the wedding banquet. Last week, it was bad news for the servant who buried his talent in the ground and failed to earn a profit for his master: he was thrown into the outer darkness. And this week? The sheep are separated from the goats, and the goats sent into the eternal fire, as our Lord judges the nations at the end of all things.

Beati

November 1, 2020 Andrew Kryzak

This passage from the Gospel of Matthew, which we have just heard, is commonly known as the Beatitudes. In the Latin version of the Bible, each of these blessings begins with the word beati, which means “happy” or “rich” or indeed “blessed.” Hence we get the Beatitudes, this series of our Lord’s proclamations of what it is that makes a person happy or rich or blessed.

All of this is background, so that we might be on the same page and I can ask you a question:

The Vanguard

August 29, 2020 Andrew Kryzak

Capital from the Song of Songs, Winchester Bible

Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

One of the things that might surprise us about the Bible is that, in a book otherwise really rather preoccupied with conflict and strife, almost nowhere do we hear anything of the “battle of the sexes,” or anything like it. Instead, we have many hearty recommendations of what the Prayer Book calls the “holy estate” of matrimony, and a lot of lovely writing on the subject.

The Whole Creation Groans

July 19, 2020 Andrew Kryzak

Last week, my oldest friend sent me a news item of interest: A humpback whale was attacked by a great white shark off the coast of South Africa. Some of you may have seen this story in passing. Humpback whales are nearly three times as large as a great white, so while the movie Jaws may frighten us and give nightmares to generations of children, the humpback whales are not impressed. And yet in this case, the shark severed a vein near the whale’s tail, waited a half an hour while the whale lost blood and energy, and then drowned it. As the marine biologist who witnessed the event described it: “The shark was very strategic about it, there was no hesitation; it was as if she knew exactly how to go about it.”

What do you do during the week?

June 10, 2020 Andrew Kryzak

One of the questions I am asked, as a clergyman, most often by any number of my well-meaning but non-church-going friends is this: “What do you do during the week?” We know all about Sunday morning services, but what about the rest of the time? I assume that my reverend and right reverend colleagues here tonight have been asked the same question, at one point or another. Come to think of it, it is a question asked not only by well-meaning pagans, but by well-meaning churchgoers as well, churchgoers whose engagement with the life of the Christian faith beings at 9 o’clock on Sunday mornings and is finished at the stroke of 10:15, just in time for brunch and/or sports.

But it is not a bad question. What DO we do during the week?