8/12/24
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team.
Click below to read this week's information and latest news.
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Services this week
Sunday 9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
11am - Hub service (Parish Eucharist) at Ven Bede
4pm - St Margaret's evening prayer
Tuesday
4.30pm Bible Study with Farsi translation at St James
News
Advent and Christmas 2024
Christmas Dinner
Monday 16 December
12pm, St James Benwell, NE15 6RS A traditional Christmas dinner for anyone who would like to come. Free (donations encouraged), please speak to Chris Foskett to book your place.
Carols from St John's
16 December
6.30pm, St John's Benwell Village, NE15 7PL
A traditional service with all the Christmas carols you could want to hear. Come along to St John's for a warm welcome on this festive occasion.
Christmas Charity Auction
Thursday 19 December
6-8pm, St James Benwell, NE15 6RS
This year we will have a big charity auction to raise money for the church to keep us open and caring for our community. There will be plenty of lots, big and small for all budgets. Grab a bargain and join the fun!
All are welcome whether your bidding or not. There will also be mulled wine, festive snacks and some carol singing as well.
Crib service
24 December (Christmas Eve)
4pm, St Margaret Scotswood, NE15 6AR
Join us at a service that is fun for all the family. We tell the story of Jesus’ birth, place the figures in the nativity scene and sing some of your favourite Christmas carols.
Midnight Mass
24 December
11.30pm, Venerable Bede, NE4 8AP
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 whether you have been before or not.
Christmas Day Service
25 December
10am, Venerable Bede, NE4 8AP
Join us on Christmas morning to celebrate the birth of Jesus with Holy Communion. You are welcome even if you have never been before.
Ven Bede Thursday service on pause until new year
Due to extra services and events coming up during the Advent season, we have decided to pause our Thursday morning service at the Venerable Bede until the new year.
Embrace - Gaza appeal
The people of Gaza are living through an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Israel’s response has led to indiscriminate civilian suffering, with residents forced to move from place to place in search of safety. Food and medical supplies have all but run out; water, electricity, and fuel have been cut off.
The people of Gaza were already on their knees with 80% of residents reliant on humanitarian aid to survive. Please, can you make a donation into help in their hour of need?
You can donate online, by clicking below, or by calling 01494 897950. Your gift will support Embrace’s Christian partners in the immediate aftermath of this humanitarian crisis and to help to heal the wounds it’s caused across Israel – Palestine.
Sunday Worship
Advent Sunday
Purple
Readings
Malachi 3.1–4
3See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. 2But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?
For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; 3he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.4Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
Luke 3.1–6
3In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, 2during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. 3He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, 4as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah,‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness:“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
John Nicholson
Malcolm Smith
John Peterson
Maria Hawthorn
Herbert Agbeko
Ellis & Pauline Nelson
Michelle & Peter Wilson
Alan & Maureen Taylor
Irene Foskett
Pat Law
Moe and Mary
Christina Wilson
Diane Humphrey
Rest in Peace
Craig Skillen
Lawrence Okonkwo
Lynn Mosby
Other
Those affected by the tragedy at Violet Close
If you would like to add someone to the prayer list please email church@benwellscotswood.com
The name will stay on the list for 1 month unless requested to be long-term.
Sermon
Revd Chris
The main character of Advent is John the Baptist. Before Mary and Joseph step onto the scene, the angel Gabriel announces another miraculous child- John will be born to Zechariah and Elizabeth, despite their old age. At John’s birth, his father Zechariah prophecies about his own son:
7 And you, child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, ♦
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way ,...
9 In the tender compassion of our God ♦
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
10 To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, ♦
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
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John stands in a long tradition of prophets, in whose honour we lit our Advent candle today. He is the last of the prophets of the Old Covenant between God and the Jewish people, and he heralds the beginning of the new Covenant of Christ for the whole world.
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But what is a prophet? Well, they are not fortune tellers, predicting your future. Rather they are truth-tellers, those who see things as they really are, and as they should be, those who challenge their communities to see the world as it is and imagine a better one. In general they are nuisances, nagging, irritable, unpopular people who tell us what we do not want to hear.
*
Prophets are on the edges, they speak to us from the wilderness, they speak to society from the outside. Their place is wilderness, because it is the place of testing and revelation. The wilderness does not care what your job is, what language you speak, how much money you have, who loves you, and who hates you. The wilderness is hostile and bleak, it is a place of survival and, because of that, it is the place where all barriers are broken down. It is the place where you are left with nothing but yourself and God.
*
It is in the wilderness that John cries out:
“Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.5 Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low,and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth;6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” ’
When society veers off course, the prophets propose building a new road, bringing the mountains low, raising up valleys, and making the rough ways smooth. The barriers between God and humanity are broken down, the suffering of God’s people is heard, and justice is proclaimed.
*
This week I have not been able to avoid thinking about the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior priest of our church. For a while, I wondered whether I should say anything about this, the machinations at the very top of a big old institution like the Church of England can seem very distant to us. But I think there is a matter of justice that needs to be addressed that does affect us directly.
I won’t go into the details, but essentially a report revealed that the Archbishop failed to make an effort to stop the horrific abuse by someone operating church youth camps, that man went on to set up more youth camps in southern Africa and hurt many many more children.
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Our own bishop of Newcastle, Helen-Ann Hartley, is the only diocesan bishop to have spoken out and call for the resignation of the Archbishop. I was unsure at first what I felt about calling for his resignation, as I also believe that we are all imperfect sinners, even archbishops, and a culture of blame and guilt is not always helpful.
However, that was until the Archbishop’s final speech to the House of Lords, where he joked about not being personally responsible, when he joked about how his poor secretary needed pity for having done much planning for the next year that would now not happen. Yet he did not express any concern for the survivors of abuse. And several fellow bishops laughed along.
This week we are reminded that yes, God is a God of forgiveness, but God is also a God of justice, who hears the cries of those who are hurting.
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Too often we say that the church is meant to be the voice of the voiceless, to advocate for others who cannot advocate for themselves. And of course that is true, as a community we should listen and respond. But the church should be the place where the voiceless can find our voice, not be spoken on behalf of; where those of us who are forgotten find that we are known and matter to God. That is the Good News of Christ, that is how God’s kingdom will be built and transform this world, the mountains will be brought low, and the valleys lifted up.
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The prophets are not me or the bishop, it’s hard for the church to prophesy to itself from the inside. The prophets are the survivors of abuse, they are the people crying in the wilderness, they are rejected and unpopular, because the institution does not want to face an uncomfortable truth.
If you are someone who has been affected by any of these issues, then this is your church, do express your hurt, and do demand a better world. I promise that I, and all the team of safeguarding officers, will listen to you. We can’t pretend there are no barriers but we can, and will, help you move those mountains and raise up those valleys.
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Amen.