20/2/22
News from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Katsushika Hokusai, The Great Wave off Kanagawa, c.1830
Woodblock print on paper, MoMA, New York
Dates for your diary
Sun 20 Feb - services in all churches
9.30am St James'
St Margaret's - cancelled
11am St John's
11am Venerable Bede
Sun 27 Feb - 'Carnival' experimental service
11am at Venerable Bede
Wed 2 Mar - Ash Wednesday
10.30am at Venerable Bede
Sun 6 Mar - Altar server training/taster session
Directly after the morning service
Wed 9 Mar - Living in Love & Faith, evening Lent course
7pm at St James
Fri 11 Mar - Living in Love & Faith, morning Lent course
11am at St Margaret
Sun 27 Mar - Mothering Sunday celebration service
11am at Venerable Bede
Sun 10 Apr - Palm Sunday (Holy week begins)
11am at Venerable Bede
Thurs 14 Apr - Maundy Thursday
7.30pm at St John's
Fri 15 Apr - Good Friday
2pm at St Margaret's
Sat 16 Apr - The Easter vigil
8.30pm at St James'
Sun 1 May - Hub service moves to St James
11am at St James'
News
3 churches this Sunday - 20th Feb
Join us in each of the local churches this Sunday. Unfortunately, we have had to cancel the service at St Margaret's as a window suffered storm damage. All other services are still on!
9.30am at St James'
St Margaret's - cancelled
11am at St John's
11am at Venerable Bede
Carnival! Next Sunday, 27th Feb
The last days before Lent have been the time for Carnivals/Mardi Gras/Pancake day and all sorts of other great traditions!
So join us next Sunday for a last hurrah before Lent with a Carnival themed service! 11am at the Venerable Bede
Ash Wednesday - 2nd March
Join us for Holy Communion with ashing at the Venerable Bede at 10.30am.
Ash Wednesday is the beginning of Lent, traditionally people are marked with the sign of the cross in ash - an ancient sign of penitence and the forgiveness freely given to all by Christ on the cross.
Living in Love and Faith - Lent course 2022
How do questions about identity, sexuality, relationships and marriage fit within the bigger picture of the good news of Jesus Christ? What does it mean to live in love and faith together as a Church?
During Lent we will follow the Church of England's Living in Love and Faith course. Two groups will will get together weekly to discuss the big questions of our times around sexuality and gender and how the church can truly welcome everyone with all their differences.
5 weekly sessions
Group 1: Wednesdays, 7pm at St James (beginning 9th March)
Group 2: Fridays, 11am at St Margaret's (beginning Friday 11th March)
Watch the introductory video below:
New rota for reading, intercessions, and camera
Those who help with readings/intercessions/camera can now view the rota up until Easter here >
Or you can view and print the PDF here >
If you would like to join the team for readings and intercessions just speak with one of the clergy.
Altar Server training/taster session
We hope to have return soon to having servers in Sunday services. This is a great way to help us all in worship.
We will hold a taster session on Sunday 6th March after the morning service. Please join whether you have been a server in our services before, if you are interested in learning, or are just curious.
Ask Chris if you have any questions!
Worship Texts
The Collect
Almighty God,
you have created the heavens and the earth
and made us in your own image:
teach us to discern your hand in all your works
and your likeness in all your children;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who with you and the Holy Spirit reigns supreme over all things,
now and for ever.
Amen.
First Reading
Genesis 2.4b–9,15–25 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’ Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, ‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.’ Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
Gospel
Luke 8.22–25 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, ‘Let us go across to the other side of the lake.’ So they put out, and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A gale swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. They went to him and woke him up, shouting, ‘Master, Master, we are perishing!’ And he woke up and rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. He said to them, ‘Where is your faith?’ They were afraid and amazed, and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?’
Sermon
Revd Chris
Wrappers, gloves, face masks, takeaway boxes, plant pots, watering cans, other people’s wheelie bins… More alien objects were blown into my garden this week as storms Dudley and Eunice announced their arrivals. We are already onto our sixth named storm of the season, showing that turbulent weather patterns are becoming the norm for our world. And I am sure preachers up and down the country will have been joyfully noticing how topical this Sunday’s reading is.
The calming of the storm is one of Jesus’ more famous miracles. But what are we to make of such miracles? Could there be a rational explanation for the event? Is it merely a symbolic story or did Jesus really have the supernatural ability to control the weather?
Obviously, I don’t know. We have the story, and that’s all we will ever have, and it is only with faith that we can say one way or another whether we believe it happened. But I believe that Jesus is God, and I believe God created the world and can command what it does.
These questions run deep though, because when we start asking about how God intervenes in the world, we begin to wonder why God does not stop more natural disasters, why he does not stop the suffering. Is it because we are being punished by God for a lack of faith? If we were just to believe and pray harder, then maybe no one would die in storms, or famine, or fire…
One thing I know for sure, all of us have experienced, and will experience, suffering no matter how good we are. None of us are perfect, we all have the potential to be 100% sinner and 100% saint, sometimes we do good things and bad things happen to us, and sometimes we do bad things and good things happen to us. There is no reason to it. None of us have the answer to the question of why God lets suffering happen, but what I believe is that God has put a heck of a lot more effort into creating us, loving us, saving and redeeming us, than he has into punishing us.
In our first reading from Genesis, we heard about God creating the world, which I don’t believe is historically or scientifically what happened. But at the heart of this creation, God takes simple dust and dirt, forms it, moulds it, and breathes life into it to make a person, a person who God does not want to be alone. So the man searches for a helper and names all the animals as he looks. Eventually God plucks a rib out of him, and God forms another person from it.
What we learn from the Genesis passage instead is that God intentionally made life spring forth in the world, gave it meaning, cared for it, loved it. It shows us that God wants us to be alive, cares about our existence, and importantly, God does not want us to be alone.
Just as an aside, this passage does not in any way suggest the inferiority of women, if anything it makes clear that all humans are made of the same substance and are equal. If anything it suggests that God realised men would be so useless and couldn’t survive alone, so made a better version.
Of course, the perfect image of harmonious creation is not the world we live in now. The weather does not care what we think, the sea does not care how strong a boat is, the sun does not care whether we are too hot or cold. Something evidently went wrong, some would argue that humans bringing sin into the world is what has disrupted existence, that somehow our human actions threw off God’s perfect creation, turning it into a stormy world of suffering. I don’t know if that is the case or not, I think maybe it’s more likely that the world always has been a neutral meaningless cycle of life and death, creation and destruction, but in making us, God brought meaning and love into existence. And God intended us to care for and love this creation. Something which we evidently haven’t been doing when we see our actions are destroying the world in climate change.
Either way, we know we live in an imperfect world. Storms rage around us and we are scared and panic and wonder what Jesus is doing. But all along Jesus is there with us, asleep, peaceful. What we are being told is that God has stepped into the same world as us when he didn’t have to, experiences what we experience, is with us in our suffering and fear even when he has nothing to fear himself.
Suffering is part of the reality of our world, but God is declaring he does not want us to be alone in it, that God loved you enough to create you in the first place, and wants to see you come through the storms. Jesus suffered for us to bring an end to suffering, and died for us to bring an end to death, the storms will happen to us whether we are good or bad, but Jesus is in the same boat and asks us to have faith that ultimately all of us matter and will always be safe with him.
Intercessions
To add names to the prayer list please email church@benwellscotswood.com
Prayers for others:
Joyce Cuthbertson
Donna Krol
George Irving
Alistair
John Nicholson
Alan Robson
Peter Wilson
Michelle Wilson
Esmaeel
Liz Holliman
Joan Finley
James, Christina, Anastasia, and Xavier
Ali Zareie and family
The Riches Family
Jill Sorley
Joyce Phillips
George Snowden
Claire Mozaffari
Herbert Agbeko
All those who are struggling at home or in hospital with Covid-19
Rest in peace
Colin Bell
Hamid
Ray Beswick
Post Communion prayer
God our creator,
by your gift
the tree of life was set at the heart of the earthly paradise,
and the bread of life at the heart of your Church:
may we who have been nourished at your table on earth
be transformed by the glory of the Saviour’s cross
and enjoy the delights of eternity;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.