15/10/23
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Services this week
Sun 15 Oct
9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
9.45am - St Margaret's Evening prayer
11am - Hub service at Ven Bede (Parish Eucharist)
Thurs 19 Oct
10.30am - Ven Bede Holy Communion
Dates for your diary
Sun 29 Oct
11am - All Saints' Sunday team service at Ven Bede (Parish Eucharist).
Thurs 2 Nov
10.30am - All Souls' service, thanksgiving for the departed at Ven Bede.
News
Welcome to Lydia!
Lydia Padfield who is training for ordination at Cranmer Hall in Durham and will be on placement with us for the next few months!
She'll be spending time with us on Sundays, occasionally preaching and leading services and will join us at various other activities throughout the week. Do make her feel welcome!
All Saints team service - Sun 29 Oct
We will be celebrating All Saints' Sunday on Sunday 29th October at the Venerable Bede at 11am.
This will be a team service so will be the only service in the team that day!
Children's table helpers needed
We are in need of more volunteers to help with children's work, especially to help with the kids table at the hub service on Sundays.
We have some fantastic kids in our community and we want them to have the best experience of church possible. Could you be the person to help with this?
Please speak to one of the clergy or churchwardens if you're interested.
(Please note any volunteering with children and vulnerable adults requires us to follow a safer recruitment procedure including carrying out a DBS check)
Exploring Faith group
INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT OUR FAITH?
KNOW SOMEBODY WHO YOU MIGHT INVITE?
We will be starting a group later this month. Watch this space for more info, but contact the clergy if you or someone you know would like to join!
All Souls' commemoration of the departed
On All Souls' day we will hold a eucharist of Commemoration for the departed will be at 10.30am on Thurs 2nd November
This will be at the Venerable Bede, West Road, NE4 8AP During the service names of the departed will be read aloud and prayed for.
To add a name to the list of the departed, please send us an email to church@benwellscotswood.com a list will also be available at church on Sunday. You are invited to a special service to remember those we have lost, to pray for them, and light a candle in honour of them.
Sunday Worship
Sunday 15th October 2023
19th Sunday after Trinity
Proper 23
Green
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
Maria Hawthorn
George Snowdon
Herbert Agbeko
Ellis Nelson
Pauline Nelson
Michell Wilson
Peter Wilson
Alan Taylor
Maureen Tayor
Irene Foskett
Lorraine Atkinson
Esther Kolie
Daniel Galbraith
Hook family
Rest in peace
Nick Hook
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 David
Are you a party person or a party pooper? Most of us like to party though maybe as we get older, we don’t have quite the energy we had when young.
There is a sad belief that Christians are kill joys, party poopers, quite literally miserable sinners who don’t want people to enjoy themselves. Sadly, sometimes there can be truth in the stereotype.
Anyone who had that view and then read the gospels would be surprised by how often Jesus is at parties and how often he is talking about them. He even gets criticised for hanging out with the party people ‘he is a glutton and a drunkard a friend of sinners. ’
Party time a feast, feasting – is a basic human activity.
Enjoyment, relaxation, getting together, fun are part of God’s purpose for humanity. More than that, God’s ultimate goal for us, as the first reading reminded us, is endless Joy. One big party
The LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear... He will swallow up death in victory… it shall be said this is the Lord we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. Isa 25
Today’s second reading from Matthew’s gospel is one of the party stories. The kingdom of God is like a party, but this time there is a twist. The invitations are sent out, come, and have fun at my expense, you might think the reaction would be right, let’s get there as soon as possible, but no, no one wants to come. ‘Too busy’, ‘Can’t be bothered’, ‘Got better things to do’.
If God invites us to His Party, how do we respond? Well, I am busy but maybe more important do we really believe what he says , it’s a party? I want to give you something?!
CS Lewis, the man who wrote the Narnia children’s fantasy books, also wrote a book ‘Surprised by Joy’. In it he tells how he spent long time resisting listening to God, thinking it would only mean another duty something he didn’t want to do, only when he gave in, did he find the opposite, not a task, but a deep sense of peace, joy, and blessing. God has good things for us, he is not a hard task master, but generous, giving and forgiving.
‘You are my beloved with you I am well pleased’.
These are the words to Jesus at His baptism. Today we have three children being baptised and the word to each of them is the same ‘you are my beloved’. ‘I have called you by name you are mine’. The same words are for each one of us They are words of invitation and promise.
I know today’s story can sound a bit scary, burning a city, punishing a guest without a wedding garment, but we need to begin and end with the heart of the gospel, God calls us to good things.
So, what about those scary bits? Well suppose you had the ‘golden ticket’, a winning lottery number, whatever, and just lost it. Carelessly, just chucked it away. No good thinking, ‘I’ll sort it out later’, the opportunity has gone, the prize is lost. Some things need to be cherished and looked after, received with thanksgiving, and valued for what they are. Otherwise, we lose them and end up hurting ourselves.
God’s gracious invitation our beloved-ness our call is gift, grace, all real, the other side of the coin is that responding to that loving call must be taken seriously, has to be lived, and shouldn’t be taken for granted.
Of course, it doesn’t mean we must already be perfect people, the shiniest of suits the most glamorous of gowns, it is a work in progress.
Our wedding garment the way we respond to the invite, is not the finished product – not yet what one writer calls my true self- that is still under construction, we can think of it rather as the process of believing and then continuing, persevering, seeking, serving, striving, by which that self is enabled to come into being. (Bp Frank Griswold Seeking Life p80)
May we be ready to hear God’s gracious invitation, to show up for the party, not grudgingly, but suitably dressed, with open and willing hearts, and so be enabled to grow into the joy he has prepared for us. Amen
Collect
O God, forasmuch as without you
we are not able to please you;
mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit
may in all things direct and rule our hearts;
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.
or
Faithful Lord,
whose steadfast love never ceases
and whose mercies never come to an end:
grant us the grace to trust you
and to receive the gifts of your love,
new every morning,
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Isaiah 25.1–9
Praise for Deliverance from Oppression 25O Lord, you are my God; I will exalt you, I will praise your name; for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure. 2 For you have made the city a heap, the fortified city a ruin; the palace of aliens is a city no more, it will never be rebuilt. 3 Therefore strong peoples will glorify you; cities of ruthless nations will fear you. 4 For you have been a refuge to the poor, a refuge to the needy in their distress, a shelter from the rainstorm and a shade from the heat. When the blast of the ruthless was like a winter rainstorm, 5 the noise of aliens like heat in a dry place, you subdued the heat with the shade of clouds; the song of the ruthless was stilled. 6 On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-matured wines, of rich food filled with marrow, of well-matured wines strained clear. 7 And he will destroy on this mountain the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations; 8 he will swallow up death for ever. Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces, and the disgrace of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. 9 It will be said on that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
This is the word of the Lord. All: Thanks be to God.
Gospel Reading
Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew. All: Glory to you, O Lord.
Matthew 22.1–14
22Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.” 5But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6while the rest seized his slaves, maltreated them, and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.” 10Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 ‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?” And he was speechless. 13Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 14For many are called, but few are chosen.’
This is the Gospel of the Lord. All: Praise to you, O Christ.
Post Communion
Holy and blessed God,
you have fed us with the body and blood of your Son
and filled us with your Holy Spirit:
may we honour you,
not only with our lips
but in lives dedicated to the service of Jesus Christ our Lord.