23/1/22
News from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
Jump to: Engage >
Herbert Bayer, photomontage from the cover of “Herbert Bayer: Visual Communication, Architecture, Painting,” 1967
Dates for your diary
Sun 23 Jan - services in all churches
9.30am St James
10am St Margaret's
11am St John's
11am Venerable Bede
Thurs 27th Jan - open PCC meeting
7.30pm on Zoom
Sun 30 Jan - Candlemas
11 am - Celebration service at Venerable Bede for baptism families
Sun 20 Feb - services in all churches
Times TBC
Sun 27 Feb - 'Carnival' experimental service
11 am - Venerable Bede
Wed 2 Mar - Ash Wednesday
Services TBC
News
Candlemas - Christening celebration
Sun 30 Jan, 11am
At Venerable Bede Church West Road, NE4 8AP
Were you, your children, or another loved one, baptised (christened) at one of our churches*? Or have you acted as godparent for someone?
We are holding a service of celebration for all who have been baptised in Benwell & Scotswood Team Parish and you are invited!
Change of service time to 11am from this Sunday
From Sunday 23rd the time of our 'hub' service at the Venerable Bede will begin half an hour later at 11am.
We hope this will make it easier to hold worship in all our churches on Sundays and reach more people in our community.
This will last until Easter when we will review whether the new timings have been successful.
Services in all four churches this Sunday
This Sunday (23rd) we will also have services in all our churches at the times below. We look forward to seeing you there!
9.30am St James
10am St Margaret's
11am St John's
11am Venerable Bede
Open PCC meeting Thurs 27th, 7.30pm on Zoom
This Thursday at 7.30pm we have an open PCC meeting with Archdeacon Rachel Wood and Diocesan Director for Mission Rob Sainer-Haig.
We will be discussing the proposals for mission ministry in the parish and changes to David and Chris' roles to enable this. DCC members and other interested parties are very welcome to join.
The meeting will happen on Zoom, please email church@benwellscotswood.com for the link if you have not received it already.
Worship Texts
The Collect
Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen.
Reading
1 Corinthians 12.12–31a For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
Gospel
Luke 4.14–21 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’
Sermon
Revd Chris
You may have heard someone say “a church isn’t the building, it’s the people”, which of course true in a sense, a church building is only made sacred by its use. But Paul’s letter to the Corinthians takes a different approach:
“all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”
A church, it seems, is neither a building, nor people, but one person- a body, the body of Christ. We are not tied together in a 3-legged race, or when children in cartoons stand on each other’s shoulders and put on a hat and coat and pretend to be a grown up. Rather we are inseparably, inextricably, entirely, one with each other. It sounds distinctly uncomfortable, being so close: my bones are your bones, my muscles and sinews twitch with yours, my vision is your vision, when my heart beats it is your heart beating. My sicknesses are your sicknesses, my pain is your pain, and my excrement is your excrement.
But do I really notice when another part is suffering or when another is flourishing and strong? If you think about your own physical body, I often don’t understand what it does. How many of us know what’s happens in our guts, or in our brains even? How many of us know what happens in our cells, why we get sick, why our body responds in different unexpected ways to substances, why sometimes it needs cleaning, care, or surgery. Our own body is a mystery to us. Yet, all of it is ‘me’.
Paul’s vision of us being one body as a church is not a homogenous sanitised view of a body without mystery and awkwardness. No, we belong to each other, we are each other, not because we are the same, but because we are diverse. He says:
If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be?
There can be no body without diversity. And thank goodness. What the body requires is integrity. Each and every bit of it is what it is and does what it does. Arteries must pump blood, and nerves must sense and react.
Usually we frame Paul’s passage as a challenge to jealousy. We assume Paul is challenging those who worry they are not as good or talented as others: “don’t worry - everyone wants to be an eye, but bum cheeks are important too”. Or he is challenging resentment “a finger shouldn’t resent a toe for having nails too. Or hands resent the teeth for holding onto something because your hands are full”. Rather, he says:
"the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect… If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it."
The problem is not jealousy, but lack of compassion. I think it is a much more common problem that those of us who think we are more acceptable, expect or demand the other parts to be more like us. Paul is not challenging us to avoid jealousy or to value our own gifts, but he is challenging us to truly value others as different, to have compassion for them.
Paul also reminds us that our calling to compassion, be part of this church body begins not with training, not with employment, not with the right education, or the right circumstances, not with ordination, but with baptism. In baptism we are called to care for and honour all parts of the body. We all receive the same baptism and we become part of the body of Christ, each bit equal and diverse, each bit called to live with integrity.
Most importantly, we must remember the body of Christ is not free of suffering. The body of Christ is shamed and mocked, the body of Christ bled, and it was broken by those who did not understand who he is. Christ is the embodiment of true compassion.
There are those in the church who expect certain types of bodily behaviour, who expect Christians to be respectable and have certain ‘successful’ lifestyles. But Jesus was misunderstood and he did not look like or do what was conventionally expected by his peers. We know that some bodies need medication or surgery, that some need transplanting or grafting. If someone needs to live as a different gender to their birth sex, or if they need to crutches and wheelchairs to get it going, then that is simply what it takes for that person to live with integrity, for their body to be theirs. It is our duty to have compassion, not to police what they do.
Rather than judging others for not doing what we understand or expect, the body of Christ simply needs to be doing the job that Jesus declares in the Gospel reading:
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
It is unequivocal, Christ says his job is healing, reconciliation, care, and justice for the poor and oppressed. To be baptised into the body of Christ- to live with integrity, to be human- is to have compassion. Imagine if the church body could stand in front of the world and as one body we could honestly say ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’
Intercessions
To add names to the prayer list please email church@benwellscotswood.com
Prayers for others:
Dominic, Frances, James, and Isaac
Donna Krol
George Irving
Alistair
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
Karen Petrie
Other intentions
Christian unity
Those preparing for baptism
Post Communion prayer
Almighty Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Amen.