19/12/21
News from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Ben Wildflower, Magnificat, 2016
Woodcut print on paper
Dates for your diary
Sun 19 Dec
Services in the other churches:
St Margaret's - 10am
Ven Bede - 10.30am
St Johns - 11am
(no service at St James)
Tues 21 Dec, 3.30pm
St James Outdoor Christmas event
Joint event with Food Bank, Heritage & Environment Group, and other community partners
24 Dec - Christmas Eve
2-3.30pm - St Margaret Messy Christmas
3.30pm - St Margaret Crib service
24 Dec - Christmas Eve, 11.30pm
Midnight Mass at Venerable Bede
25 Dec - Christmas Day, 10.30am
Holy communion at Venerable Bede
Sun 26 Dec - Boxing Day/St Stephen's Day, 10.30am
Holy Communion at Venerable Bede
News
Advent & Christmas programme
St James Outdoor Christmas Event
Tuesday 21st December, 3.30pm
Location: St James Benwell, NE15 6RS (in the churchyard)
Join us at our big festive extravaganza! This community event is organised jointly with the West End Foodbank, the Heritage & Environment Group, and other local organisations. There will be lights around the churchyard, mulled wine, mince pies, a band will lead us in singing your favourite Christmas carols, we will have a creative re-telling of the nativity story and more. Just remember to wrap up warm!
St Margaret's Messy Christmas Eve and Crib service
24th December
2-3.30pm - Messy Christmas
3.30pm - Crib service
Location: St Margaret Scotswood, NE15 6AR
An afternoon for the whole family making Christmas crafts and decorations.
At 3.30pm we tell the story of Jesus' birth and build our nativity scene with a crib service.
Midnight Mass
24th December, 11.30pm
Location: Venerable Bede West Road, NE4 8AP
Join us for one of the most beautiful services of the year. By candlelight, just before midnight on Christmas Eve, we gather to celebrate the coming Jesus Christ with Holy Communion. You are welcome even if you have never been before.
Christmas Day
25th December, 10.30am
Location: Venerable Bede West Road, NE4 8AP
Join us on Christmas morning to celebrate the coming of Jesus with Holy Communion. You are welcome even if you have never been before.
St Stephen's Day
Sunday 26th December (Boxing Day) 10.30am
Location: Venerable Bede West Road, NE4 8AP
Join us on the feast of Stephen for Sunday Holy Communion.
Don't forget - services in other churches this Sun 19 Dec
Morning services will be held at:
St Margaret's - 10am
Ven Bede - 10.30am
St Johns - 11am
(No service at St James! Please join us at the outdoor carol service on 21st)
Have a rubbish Christmas! Last chance to help out
Local artist Artep Avordno and Revd Chris are making a big nativity scene made out of rubbish collected from the local area! We wanted to show that looking after the environment and the local area is a good thing. But also, after two years of having 'rubbish' Christmasses, we liked the idea of turning something rubbish into something good! It will be unveiled on Tuesday at the outdoor community carols.
If you would like to help make it then the last chance is St James on Monday 20th from 10.30am to 4pm
Congratulations to Dominic and Frances!
Congratulations to Revd Dominic and Frances Coad on the birth of their new baby boy! Born on Tuesday 7th Dec, weighing 7lb 12.
Donations and assistance for Christmas flowers
Donations for flowers for Christmas would be greatly appreciated. Help with flower arranging is also welcomed on 23rd of Dec. Please speak to Elspeth Kirkwood.
If anyone else was planning to help with flowers already then Elspeth is very happy to co-ordinate.
Worship Texts
The Advent wreath
4th Sunday, Mary:
Lord Jesus, light of the world,
blessed is Gabriel, who brought good news;
blessed is Mary, your mother and ours.
Bless your Church preparing for Christmas;
and bless us your children, who long for your coming.
Amen.
The Collect
God our redeemer,
who prepared the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of your Son:
grant that, as she looked for his coming as our saviour,
so we may be ready to greet him
when he comes again as our judge;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
Micah 5.2–5a But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace. If the Assyrians come into our land and tread upon our soil, we will raise against them seven shepherds and eight installed as rulers.
Gospel
Luke 1.39–55 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’ And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
Sermon
Revd Chris
When I was young I was never chosen for the big roles in the school nativity play. I was usually a shepherd in a dressing gown, tea towel on my head and toy sheep under my arm. Or a star or something in the background that didn’t really move. Our nativity plays had varying degrees of Biblical accuracy - I remember clearly when I had the honour of being the back half of a buffalo, not even the front half, and was shot by my friend with an arrow and eaten at a Christmas feast. I am still yet to work out what this had to do with the Christmas message.
However, I can see now why I was never chosen to be Joseph, or a king, I was far too shy to recite lines and would rather cling to my cuddly toy sheep. Apparently my actions were also unbecoming of professional actors, I remember being told off for energetically waving to my granny in the audience instead of staying in character. However, my best friend was always Mary, in a blue dress, white headscarf and pillow shoved up her jumper. She was given this role because she was always the well-behaved one, top-of-the-class, confident and clever. I remember feeling so jealous, not that I wanted to be Mary in the play, but because I wanted to be noticed by my teachers too! I wanted to matter.
I am sure all of us can still remember that sense of injustice that children feel so strongly. Fortunately, later in life, I have been healed of the injustice of being a buffalo's bum, by learning that Mary has not always been identified with the best and brightest in the class, but those of us who have felt forgotten and ignored. The gospel reading today includes what is known as the ‘Magnificat’ one of the oldest hymns of the church, a song that the pregnant Mary sings when she visits her cousin Elizabeth, who is also pregnant with John the Baptist.
Despite both Jesus and John still being in the womb, unseen by anyone, John recognises the real presence of Christ, the Messiah, and leaps about in a way that must have been rather uncomfortable for his mother. Elizabeth recognises that Mary has been blessed by God, recognises that Christ is present. The impression that we’re meant to get from the story is one of contrast - a vulnerable young woman, a person without any power or wealth of her own, in a world of male power and domination, someone who does not matter one bit to King Herod, the Roman Empire, or anyone really, someone who would always go unnoticed. Yet she has been noticed by God, chosen by God, to be physically closer to God himself than anyone ever has been or will be again, to bear God in her own body. This contrast is shown in the song she sings:
‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Despite her lowly position in the world’s eyes, her soul ‘magnifies’ the lord - she has become the lens through which God is shown to the world, and through which the world is saved. This is not just to do with her personal self-worth, it is something that upends the whole nature of the world, as the child she carries will transform the world. And this is why the song continues:
“He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”
Because of these words, the Magnificat has been treated as a very dangerous text indeed. Normally it is set to music and sung by robed choirs everyday at evening prayer in churches and cathedrals. But at various points in history this church song has been banned, imperial Britain banned its recitation at churches in India in 1805 out of fear it would encourage their oppressed Indian subjects to rise up. In Argentina in the 1970s it was banned when it was used to call for non-violent resistance by the mothers of children who had disappeared under the military regime. And the famous German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, before he was killed by the Nazis described the Magnificat like this:
“It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings.…This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Apparently, according to the actions of these powerful states, the most dangerous thing in this world is for the lowly and downtrodden to realise that they actually matter. And that is exactly what the Magnificat does, it declared that we all matter, the words of Mary have become the song of all those who have felt overlooked, it is a song for all of us who don’t know how we fit in this world.
For all that’s great about Christmas time - for every party and present, for everyone who is having fun and is surrounded by loving friends and family, for everyone who has more food than they can eat. There is someone who is alone, someone who cannot afford to eat, someone who is scared, someone left out, misunderstood, depressed and hurt.
This song is for you, at this Christmastime the message of Jesus is what it always has been, despite how much others try to obscure it. Whatever your situation, however misunderstood or lonely you feel, however powerless, however unjustly you feel treated, then remember that God sees you, and you matter to God. The birth of Jesus Christ is how God entered into our world, in a real way, to be born as a physical person. This is how God shows he cares about our world, God shows he cares about our suffering by experiencing it, God is showing he cares about Benwell and Scotswood, God is showing he cares about you. Mary is the one who leads us all into a new world, a just world, where the powerless don’t receive charity but are chosen to bear the very presence of God and transform the world around them.
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
Dominic, Frances, James, and the new baby
Alistair
Esther Kolie
John Nicholson
Alan Robson
Peter Wilson
Esmaeel
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:
Tony Branch
Mehri Karami
Janet and Frank Galbraith
Post Communion prayer
Heavenly Father,
who chose the Blessed Virgin Mary
to be the mother of the promised saviour:
fill us your servants with your grace,
that in all things we may embrace your holy will
and with her rejoice in your salvation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.