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God inserted God’s divinity into all people. The divine name dwells in us. Archbishop John Stephens made the statement during his sermon at St. Helen’s, Surrey. He was presiding and preaching at a Sunday service for the four parishes that make up the Peace Arch Deanery of the diocese. During the service, he confirmed five people from various Peace Arch parishes. 

During his sermon the archbishop reflected on moments in scripture when people had encounters with Jesus - encounters with the Divine. Jesus was walking along one day when he met Matthew, a tax collector. “An outcast, a heathen, a thief, a traitor, a lover of money, a rejector of the people of faith. He meets Matthew and simply says follow me and thieving Matthew packs up all his loose change and the bigger bills and heads off with this wandering rabbi,” he said. Matthew had everything one could ever want: money, power, a certain position in society. “I wonder what happened to him for he packed his bags and set off, giving up all that for which he had worked his entire life. I wonder why. Would you have done that?” 

“I wonder now if that holy letter of God, that holy name of God, that holy presence of God, deeply embedded in him, in his soul, in his DNA, in his truest self. I wonder if that holy letter suddenly was noticed by him on that day and he could no longer suppress it. He needed to know more about God’s connection with his life, not only as a letter in his name but as a source of all meaning and purpose and calling.”

Turning to the confirmation candidates, Archbishop Stephens said “ I wonder if they too are discovering the divine name in their own name, the divine hope in their own thinking, the divine blessing in all of the complications of this life.”

After the service, the members of the four parishes gathered in the parish hall for a potluck meal during which parishioners’ birthdays were celebrated.

VIEW PHOTOS FROM THE SERVICE HERE