18/6/23
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Services this week
Sun 18 June
9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
9.45am - St Margaret's Holy Communion
11am - Hub service at St James (Parish Eucharist)
Thurs 22 June
10.30am - Holy Communion, Ven Bede
News
St John the Baptist patronal festival - Sun 25 June, 9.30am
On Sunday 25th June at 9.30amat St John's Benwell village (NE15 6NW), we will be celebrating the feast of the birth of John the baptist. And join us after the service for a celebration brunch!
Feast of Peter & Paul - Dominic's 10 year anniversary of ordination
Join us every Thursday at 10.30 am for our service of Holy Communion at the Venerable Bede, NE4 8AP.
On 29th June it will be the feast of St Peter and Paul, a traditional time for ordinations, and Dominic will preside and preach in celebration of being ordained for 10 years!
Prayer list
We will soon be refreshing the intercessions prayer list, if there are names you would like to remain on the list or names to be added, please send the name to Kath McIntyre at the church email address church@benwellscotswood.com
before Sunday 25th July.
We will keep each name on the list for 4 Sundays unless you indicate that the person needs to remain on it long-term. Prayers can be requested for anyone who you feel needs it, they don't just have to be those who are ill.
Friends of Denton Dene relaunch event
12-2pm, Sun 25 June
Join the friends of Denton Dene for their free relaunch event!
Family activities, scavenger hunt, meet a roman soldier, and find out more and care about our beautiful green space!
Free soft drink in exchange for litter picking!
Meet at the Bobby Robson Lounge, Blue Star Football Club, NE15 7HB
Facebook: @FriendsOfDentonDene
Items for the notices.
If you would like to announce something in the newsletter or the church service, please send the item in advance to Kath McIntyre at the church email address church@benwellscotswood.com
Please include details and no more than 2-3 short sentences about the item. If you have a preferred image please also include it in the email.
Worship texts
2nd Sunday after Trinity - green
Collect
Lord, you have taught us
that all our doings without love are nothing worth:
send your Holy Spirit
and pour into our hearts that most excellent gift of love,
the true bond of peace and of all virtues,
without which whoever lives is counted dead before you.
Grant this for your only Son Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
or
Faithful Creator,
whose mercy never fails:
deepen our faithfulness to you
and to your living Word,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
Exodus 19.2–8a 2They had journeyed from Rephidim, entered the wilderness of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness; Israel camped there in front of the mountain. 3Then Moses went up to God; the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the Israelites: 4You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed, the whole earth is mine, 6but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the Israelites.’ 7 So Moses came, summoned the elders of the people, and set before them all these words that the Lord had commanded him. 8The people all answered as one: ‘Everything that the Lord has spoken we will do.’ Moses reported the words of the people to the Lord.
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 9.35—10.8 35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness. 36When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; 38therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’ 10Then Jesus* summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease and every sickness. 2These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon, also known as Peter, and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; 3Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax-collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus;* 4Simon the Cananaean, and Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed him. The Mission of the Twelve 5 These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: ‘Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7As you go, proclaim the good news, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”* 8Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers,* cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment.
This is the Gospel of the Lord. All: Praise to you, O Christ.
Sermon
Revd David
Text: The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore, ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’
Half full half empty? Depends how you look at it. The Harvest is plentiful- Is it? It is not always how we see things. When we look at our church life, we don’t always start with a sense of abundance, of plenty. The media is happy to run with the idea of a church in terminal decline, I read an article this week all about how church numbers had declined significantly since the pandemic all true no doubt but not the whole story. We are often inclined to start with a sense of scarcity; not enough, not enough people in church, not enough priests, not enough money. The second part of the saying ‘the labourers are few’ is where we are tempted to begin sadly when we do that, it is often as far as we get.
So, it is good to be reminded that the place Jesus starts from is not scarcity but the abundance of the harvest. I have just come back from holiday in Italy, seeing friends in Piedmont, an area called the Langhe which is wonderful scenery, rich in natural resources, hazelnuts (it is the home of Nutella), truffles -which can fetch thousands of pounds an ounce , and, of course grapes, it is the home of Barolo ‘the wine of kings and king of wines’ at up to £500 a bottle it ought to be. Even though it was not quite harvesting season while we were there, there was a real sense of prosperity and abundance and with it a sense of wellbeing and optimism.
But, before going any further, we need to recognise that when Jesus says the harvest is plentiful this is not exactly what he is talking about. Just before he talks of the harvest, the gospel says, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. ‘Harassed and helpless’. The harvest Jesus discerns is not about material wealth, nor is it a harvest already reaped and gathered in. He is not talking about results, He is talking about need, and about potential. He sees the needs of the people harassed and helpless and has compassion –but he sees potential too, this is grain ripe and ready for harvest. Ripe and ready to be transformed into the harvest of God’s kingdom.
When we look around today can we see people who are harassed and helpless? Maybe that describes how you feel, maybe it’s someone you know well, a neighbour who is struggling, maybe one of the many who come to the food bank seeking help, the one patiently queuing for hours, or the other kicking off frustrated because they can’t get what they want, or maybe it is another person, one who always seems to be coping so well but inside feels broken. He had compassion for them, the harvest is plentiful, never mind the nuts and truffles and grapes here is the stuff of God’s Kingdom.
So the harvest is plentiful. There is no shortage of crop, to see it we just need to look around, to look around in the right way, not with indifference, anxiety, or hostility but with Jesus’s eyes, eyes lit up with compassion and seeing potential.
But there is a problem, there is scarcity, not of the crop, but of the workers. I mentioned my trip to Italy, many of those who do the harvesting there are not local people but have moved in from other communities, from Macedonia or Romania for example, without them that prosperity could not exist. The labourers are few, I am not an economist, but it seems in a modern economy that is a problem that can be easily solved; open the doors to new workers, pay them, train them, problem solved, which is not to say new problems don’t also arise as assimilation and change take place.
And for the plentiful harvest that we are to look at with compassion? The labourers are few. Don’t we know it, less clergy across the Deanery and Diocese, Dominic going soon and going to be priest for 12 churches, a reminder it is not just a Northeast problem. We struggle just to keep things going as they are. So you can’t be serious about looking to take on more, the infinite needs of the harassed and helpless, better just to hunker down and look after our own little patch. That is not Jesus’s answer. He doesn’t see it as a hopeless task, although he knows the way to deal with it is not to charge around trying to do everything and all at once. ‘Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.’ So simple, someone is needed to do the work, who can possibly help? ‘The Lord of the Harvest’. Ask, ask God, and he will provide. Ask God, turn to him in prayer that is the first step. Our reading continued with part of the answer to that prayer, the call of the twelve and their being sent out.
Jesus is supremely confident prayers are answered and encourages us to have the same faith. It is Father’s Day today elsewhere he reminds us how if earthly fathers can be relied on to answer requests how much more the heavenly Father.
“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
Trust God, prayer will be answered, but in God’s way which is not always ours. Fish and eggs, but there are many kinds of fish and many kinds of eggs and many kinds of labourers too. When we ask Him to send, we should be grateful for whoever is sent, and we should also be ready to go. AMEN.
Intercessions
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.
Prayers for others:
Daniel Galbraith
Maria Hawthorn
Madeleine and her daughters
Michelle Madison
Lorraine Atkinson
Lyndsey Richardson
Elizabeth Taylor
Alison Campbell
John Taylor
Irene Foskett
John Nicholson
Alan Robson
Michelle Wilson
George Snowden
Claire Mozaffari
Herbert Agbeko
Rest in Peace
Ian
Post Communion
Loving Father,
we thank you for feeding us at the supper of your Son:
sustain us with your Spirit,
that we may serve you here on earth
until our joy is complete in heaven,
and we share in the eternal banquet
with Jesus Christ our Lord.