26/1/25
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team.
Click below for the latest news and events in the parish and texts for Sunday worship.
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Dates for your Diary
2 Feb
11am - Candlemas Team service at Ven Bede (no other services this day)
Services this week
Sunday 12 Jan - Baptism of Christ
9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
11am - Hub service (Parish Eucharist) at Ven Bede
News
Candlemas
11am, Sunday 2nd February 2025
at Venerable Bede Church, West Road, NE4 8AP
A service of celebration of all who have been christened in Benwell & Scotswood Team Parish.
(The parish includes 4 churches: St James' Benwell, St John's Benwell Village, St Margaret's Scotswood, and Venerable Bede West Road.)
You are invited
Those who have been baptised (christened) in our churches are invited every year to this special celebratory service along with their loved ones and Godparents.
Some useful info
This family-friendly service will last less than an hour.
There will be some light refreshments after.
If you still have your baptism candle then bring it with you to light them during the service (don’t worry if not, there will be some spare candles!)
There is no need to RSVP but if you would like to contact us for any reason: church@benwellscotswod.com or 07968 162067
p.s. Do you have photos of baptisms in our churches? However long ago or recent, we would love to show them in the service!
What is Candlemas?
Traditionally this festival 40 days after Christmas (or the nearest Sunday) was when candles were blessed to be used throughout the year- hence 'candlemas'!
It is when we read the story of how Mary and Joseph took the baby Jesus' to the temple in Jerusalem 40 days after his birth and gave thanks to God.
Embrace - Gaza appeal
Conflict across the Middle East is unfolding with relentless intensity, devastating the lives of millions. Even as they live through these dark times, Embrace’s partners in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon are working tirelessly to bring the light of Christ amidst the suffering.
As Christmas approaches, please give what you can to help our partners keep the light of Christ shining amid the darkness.
You can click below to donate online. If you would rather donate by phone, please call 01494 897950.
Sunday Worship
Epiphany 2
Gold/White
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
John Nicholson
Malcolm Smith
John Peterson
Maria Hawthorn
Herbert Agbeko
Pauline Nelson
Michelle & Peter Wilson
Alan & Maureen Taylor
Irene Foskett
Pat Law
Moe and Mary
Christina Wilson
Diane Humphrey
Pavel
Rest in peace:
Ellis Nelson
Betty Collins
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.
1 Corinthians 12.12–31a
12 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. 13For 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.
14 Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15If 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. 16And 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. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? 18But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many members, yet one body. 21The 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.’ 22On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and 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; 24whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, 25that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. 26If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28And 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. 29Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31But strive for the greater gifts.
Luke 4.14–21
14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 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, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:18 ‘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,19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’20And 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. 21Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’
Sermon
The Venerable Rachel Wood, Archdeacon of Northumberland
As we celebrate the third Sunday of the Epiphany Season, our readings encourage us to reflect again on what we know about Jesus through the Gospels. We have already had the story of the visit of the Kings to the stable, Jesus’ baptism, and last week, his first miracle of water into wine. This week we hear more from Jesus himself as he begins his ministry of teaching.
We hear first of all, that his teaching has been going down well. Then he goes to Nazareth and reads the extract from Isaiah. It is not surprising that this statement by Jesus in the synagogue has been called the Nazareth Manifesto. It sounds very much like a leader’s statement of intent. It is a powerful summary of the values of God’s Kingdom that Jesus has come to make real - good news for those who only hear rejection, healing for those who are suffering, freedom and liberation for those kept bound at the edges and out of sight.
Jesus reads from the book of the prophet Isaiah and this points to how we are invited to understand Jesus in this week’s reading. The theologian John Calvin gave us three key ways of seeing Jesus. He took these ideas from the Old Testament. So, Jesus is a King, like King David, a priest, like Aaron who sacrificed on behalf of God’s people for their sins, and a prophet like Moses. Jesus builds on these Old Testament figures and offers a new way of seeing both them and God. In today’s Gospel reading we are being shown Jesus in prophet mode. But what does it mean to say Jesus was a prophet?
Calvin thought that Jesus’s role as a prophet was to make God’s will for salvation known. In his reading from Isaiah Jesus is describing what God’s salvation looks like. Salvation looks like freedom, wholeness, joy, justice and peace. Jesus shows us that this is what God wants for us, his people. These words are inspiring. It is difficult to believe that anyone would disagree with them. And yet, having had his teaching well-received up to this point, just after this reading Jesus is nearly driven off a cliff to his death by those who have listened to him in the synagogue.
I went to see the film A Complete Unknown, about Bob Dylan, last weekend. I really recommend seeing it and particularly when thinking about the effect of not saying and doing what people want and expect of you. You will know about Bob Dylan’s switch from acoustic folk to electric guitars in the summer of 1965. The film shows how, in the early 60s, Dylan was welcomed with open arms by the folk music community in the United States and heralded as a saviour. Dylan had other ideas and wanted to expand his understanding of music and song writing. He played electric guitar with a rock band at the Newport Folk Festival and the crowd were furious. The film dramatises them shouting, booing, throwing things, clearly feeling betrayed by their idol. I’m not suggesting Bob Dylan was a prophet, but the crowd’s reaction in the film reminded me of the reaction to Jesus of the congregation in the synagogue. Jesus as prophet is someone who is an unexpected, uncomfortable and unpopular presence.
As followers of Jesus, we too are called to be prophets. We too are called to speak and live out the values of the Nazareth Manifesto – freedom, wholeness, joy, justice, peace. After the events in the Nazareth Synagogue Jesus demonstrated what he’d been talking about through his healings of physically blind people and in the way he showed people what had been previously hidden about the generous and boundary-crossing love of God. He challenged those with wealth to practice Jubilee – the year of the Lord’s Favour – to forgive debts and share our wealth.
The problem for the synagogue congregation was not the statements about the values of God’s Kingdom, but that Jesus went further and said that all are included in this vision, not just those inside one tradition. Many of us would be able to sign up to Jesus’s manifesto until it asks us to consider giving up something we ourselves hold dear. Many of us are comfortable with the idea of being a prophet and speaking out for justice and peace, unless it means we ourselves might need to face the pain of rejection from those we would want to call friends. Being a prophet sounds great until the challenge is turned towards us – when someone highlights our lack of generosity, the times when we retreat into our own tribes and traditions, when we feel more comfortable complaining and moaning about ‘those’ people over there who we like to feel better than.
In a week of divisive and polarising speeches from the new President of the United States, the temptation to think, ‘well at least I’m not like them’ can be strong! Our reading from Corinthians is very clear-sighted about the temptation to use our differences to isolate ourselves and not instead use our diversity to become a better, richer whole - many parts but still one body.
In case we are tempted to despair though, as well as Jesus as Prophet, we mustn’t forget Jesus as friend. The Jesus who challenges those who oppress, belittle and reject, also comforts, heals and forgives. Jesus knows our hopes for God’s Kingdom and he knows when we fail to live up to those hopes. The freedom, joy, justice and peace of God in Jesus is offered to each one of us too. We are each prophets, part of proclaiming and living out God’s Kingdom in our prayer, our worship, our words and actions. We are each friends of Jesus, loved, accepted and forgiven, drawn closer into God so that God’s reign of justice and peace might be made more real in this world each day.
Amen.