7/11/21
News from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Peter Doig, Red boat (imaginary boys), 2004
Oil and metallic paint on canvas
Dates for your diary
Thurs 11th Nov
Armistice Day Act of Remembrance
11am - St James
Sunday 14th Nov
Remembrance Sunday
Services in all 4 churches
9.30am St James (act of remembrance on 11th)
10am St Margaret's
10.30am Venerable Bede
11am St John's
Sunday 21st Nov
10.30am, Confirmation service
Venerable Bede, NE4 8AP
Sunday 28th Nov
Advent Sunday
News
Remembrance 2021
You are invited to join us for an Act of Remembrance in each of our churches this coming week. We remember those who gave their lives in the First World War and all other wars, and we pray for an end to all conflicts.
Armistice Day - Thursday 11th November
11am - Act of Remembrance at the war memorial.
Remembrance Sunday -14th November
10am - Holy Communion
11am - Act of Remembrance with Scotswood Village Residents association
10.30am - Holy Communion with Act of Remembrance
11am - Act of Remembrance followed by Holy Communion
Confirmations
Sunday 21st Nov, 10.30am, Venerable Bede
Confirmation is the next big step in faith, it's the chance to say ‘Yes’ to the promises we made at baptism, and declare our faith in Christ publicly.
To find out more about confirmation have a look here >
Bishop Mark Bryant, former Bishop of Jarrow, will be joining us for the service of baptism and confirmation.
Update on Covid-19 and worship during winter
We want to keep you informed of our plans for the short term. We always try to reach a consensus that takes everyone into account and we want to be completely transparent about how we make these decisions.
We imagine keeping our policies throughout the winter until Easter 2022. But clergy and the PCC will constantly review and discuss the best way to balance worship and activities with safety when cases are on the rise again. You may be interested in finding out about some of our current policies here:
Policy on mask-wearing
Although it is not mandatory to wear a mask, we strongly encourage you to wear a mask if you can. Remember, masks protect those around you, not yourself.
Singing
Singing and music are absolutely vital to our worship and we know it is greatly missed, but we also recognise that singing is one of the riskiest group activities for spreading the virus.
We are therefore keeping singing to our monthly experimental services so that those who are vulnerable are not excluded from joining us every week. On Sundays when we are in all 4 churches, each church will set its own policy depending on capacity and safety.
After-service refreshments
We have moved to the Venerable Bede for most Sundays, but the church is not currently set up with hot water or space for tables to provide teas and coffees easily and safely. We also do not want anyone to feel pressurised into partaking in a risky activity. So we are opening our churches as much as we can throughout the week (e.g. lunch break) so people have a choice about attending these activities or not without missing worship.
Worship Texts
Collect prayer
Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son was revealed
to destroy the works of the devil
and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life:
grant that we, having this hope,
may purify ourselves even as he is pure;
that when he shall appear in power and great glory
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom;
where he is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Jonah 3.1–5,10 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’ So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
Gospel
Mark 1.14–20 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God,and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And Jesus said to them, ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ And immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.
Sermon
The Revd Dominic Coad
This morning’s Gospel reading features some famous words from Jesus that I have always found rather strange. What does Jesus mean when he says he will make Simon and Andrew ‘fish for people’? You might think the answer is obvious: that they are going to recruit new members for God’s kingdom, that they will save souls. But this is a funny way of describing that isn’t it? After all, fish do not benefit from being caught. The fishing businesses from which Jesus calls the four fishermen were not run with the welfare of the fish in mind.
So, in preparing this sermon, I looked into the phrase more deeply. I learned that, elsewhere in scripture, the metaphor of catching fish is about judgment. In Jeremiah, the prophet pronounces God’s judgment on those who have not followed God’s ways: ‘I am now sending for many fisherman, says the Lord and they shall catch them… and I will doubly repay their iniquity and their sins.’ (Jer 16.16) In Amos God declares that those who oppress the poor and crush the needy will be taken away with fish hooks (Am 4.2) and Ezekiel is told by God to prophesy against Pharoah that God will put hooks in his jaws and draw him out of the Nile (Ez 29.4). These are not pleasant occurrences; they are graphic images of judgment against the rich and the powerful.
Jesus himself uses the fishing metaphor again, in Matthew 13.47, saying the kingdom of heaven is like a net thrown into the sea to catch fish of every kind, the fish are then separated with the good placed in baskets and the bad throne away. This image might remind you of a similar one in Matthew 25, the sorting of the sheep and the goats, in which God rejects those who have failed to serve the poor and needy, and defend the oppressed.
So, when Jesus calls his disciples to ‘fish for people,’ it seems he is not necessarily talking about saving souls but, rather, drawing on an existing biblical image about judgment of the rich and powerful. If so, then it’s an image that fits with much of his teaching, for Jesus often spoke of turning the power structures of this world upside down, pronouncing that ‘the last will be first and the first will be last’.
Now, judgment might be a worrying word for many of us – and with good reason. The idea of God’s judgment can conjure the idea of an angry God who wants to punish us for the bad things we’ve done and seems to have little sympathy for the fact that we have tried our best to live good lives.
The truth is that the church has often caused real harm in its eagerness to judge. Some of us, for example, will remember how shocking it was once considered to be for a baby to be born outside of marriage, how much shame was placed on young women who found themselves in that position. Or you may remember how it was once thought a great sin to take one’s own life, rather than the result of serious mental illness. Or you may notice today how the church still struggles to welcome people regardless of their sexuality or gender identity.
Some of us carry with us the damage done by those who have sought to pass judgment upon us, to tell us that we aren’t acceptable to God simply as we are, that we need to be different to be loved. We do not need to be different; God loves us just as we are, he is not angry with us just for doing our best to get on with life.
Yet judgment is an important part of Christ’s message. We’ll find out more about this as we enter the season of Advent, in which John the Baptist will call us to ‘prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’ and in which Mary will sing of God who has ‘brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly.’ But when Jesus talks of judgment, he is not talking about a God who is angry at our mistakes, or doesn’t like us to be different, or who cannot cope with the ordinary messiness of life. When Jesus speaks of judgment his teaching is entirely in keeping with those words of John and Mary that prefigured his coming; he is talking of a God who rejects the unjust structures that protect the power of a few whilst causing the suffering of many.
We see this truth throughout the gospels. Jesus tells us that it is harder for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, he tells stories in which leaders ignore a stranger beaten and left for dead whilst the hated Samaritan is the one to offer help, he teaches that the poor, the hungry and the peacemakers are truly blessed, he is not ashamed of being the son of an unwed mother nor of the company he keeps with sex workers and others upon whom society looks down.
So what is Jesus really saying when he calls his disciples to become fishers of people? He is calling them to work with him in drawing people into an encounter with the living God. That encounter is for us all a moment of love and forgiveness, of course it is. But it is also a moment of reckoning, a moment in which we are confronted with God’s judgment.
What Jesus makes clear time and again, however, is that God’s judgment is concerned with the unjust shape of the world. That judgment touches each of us to the extent that we are all caught up in that injustice. That is why God’s judgment is of greater concern to the rich and powerful, those who benefit most from the way the world is, because they are the most embedded in the structures of injustice and most responsible for the way things are. That is why it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
All too easily we think of sin and judgment as personal, individual matters, not as corporate ones. To understand this, we only need look at the environmental crises currently facing our planet. We have responsibility as individuals, of course, but it is only collective action that will allow us to turn things around, or to repent, to use biblical language. If this is to be achieved it is the rich and powerful who must act.
As I speak, the leaders of the nations have gathered in Glascow for the Cop26 summit to try to address the climate emergency. They have the power to change the dire situation we face yet they are not the ones who will suffer if they fail. It is poor people and ordinary people who can’t afford to protect themselves from extreme weather who will suffer, not to mention the biosphere itself which has little means to defend itself against human action.
It is no exaggeration to say the fate of the world rests in their hands. Yet even now, God is reaching out to them, fishing for them, drawing them in. Will they face this moment of judgment and repent, turn around, change forever the way the world works and in doing so empower all of us to live more responsible and just lives? Only time will tell but Advent is coming and the message of Mary and John the Baptist will ring out to us once more. Jesus is coming, God’s kingdom is arriving, and the powerful will be brought down from their thrones, the crooked ways will be made straight and all will be fished in.
Amen.
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
John Nicholson
Alan Robson
Peter Wilson
Steve Minchin
Esmaeel Haji Nozori
Liz Holliman
Joan Finley
James, Christina, Anastasia, and Xavier
Ali Zareie and his family
The Riches Family
Jill Sorley
Joyce Phillips
George Snowden
Claire Mozaffari
Herbert Agbeko
Edward Fraser
All those who are struggling at home or in hospital with Covid-19
Rest In Peace:
Mehri Karami
Moira Taylor
John MacIntyre
Jimmy McIntyre
Leonora Plane
Janet and Frank Galbraith
All who died recently
Other intentions:
COP26 and the protection and restoration of our planet
Post Communion prayer
Gracious Lord,
in this holy sacrament
you give substance to our hope:
bring us at the last
to that fullness of life for which we long;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.
Amen.