19/11/23
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Services this week
Sun 19 Nov
9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
9.45am - St Margaret's Holy Communion
11am - Hub service at Ven Bede (Parish Eucharist).
Thurs 23 Nov
10.30am - Holy Communion at Ven Bede.
Dates for your diary
Mon 18th Dec
St James Christmas event (time tbd)
Wed 20th Dec
6.30pm, St John’s Carols
Christmas Eve, Sun 24 Dec
9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
11am - Ven Bede hub service
4pm - St Margaret’s crib service
11.30pm - Midnight Mass at St James
Christmas Day, Mon 25 Dec
10am - Ven Bede
News
Coffee, cake and craft women's group - Wed 22 Nov 10am-11am
On the 4th Wednesday of the month at the Venerable Bede Church, 10am-11am. Come and join us, spend time with other women, share a coffee and cake and try a Bible related craft.
This is followed by Morning Prayer, to which all are welcome.
For more info email benwellMU@gmail.com or speak with Leahan Garratt or one of the clergy.
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.
Bible study with translation - Tuesdays at 4.30pm
Bible study with Farsi translation has restarted on Tuesdays at 4.30pm at St James.
All are welcome whatever language you speak!
Each session finishes by 6pm. Speak to Revd Chris if you'd like more information.
Sunday Worship
Sunday 19th November 2023
2nd Sunday before Advent
Red
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
Maria Hawthorn
Herbert Agbeko
Ellis Nelson
Pauline Nelson
Michell Wilson
Peter Wilson
Alan Taylor
Maureen Tayor
Irene Foskett
Lorraine Atkinson
Lynn Mosby
Diana Humphrey
Esther Kolie
David Veitch
Baptism
Kingdavid Dafei
Victory Montalbano
Wedding banns
Amanda Yeowart and Dave Watlow
Rest in peace
Faith Omorogbe
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
by Lydia Padfield, Ordinand.
If the parable we’ve just heard from Matthew’s Gospel makes you feel uncomfortable, you’re not alone. At first glance, this can looks like a story of those who have wealth being celebrated for acquiring more, and those who have less being punished for simply taking care of what they have.
Jesus paints the picture vividly. A master, before going on a long journey, gives three of his slaves – or some translations say servants – a sum of money. The first slave is given the most, and makes a profit through trade. The second is given less, but also makes a profit through trade. The third slave, however, is given the least, and decides to bury it in the ground. When the master returns, he rewards the first two slaves, and punishes the third by taking away what he has. This story, so we read earlier in the chapter, is like waiting for the kingdom of heaven – we are the slaves, waiting for Jesus, our master, to return. As verse 29 reads, ‘For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.’
There is good reason to feel uncomfortable about this. This parable has been used to justify all manner of economic practices that give to those who have much and take away from those who have little. And, clearly, it almost goes without saying, this approach flies in the face of Jesus’ teaching elsewhere. We can think of his stark warnings against acquiring wealth and status, that nobody can serve God and money. We can think too of his description of the kingdom of God. In a world which priorities the rich and powerful, Jesus instead announces that it is the meek and the poor who are blessed. One theologian goes so far as to suggest that: ‘No parable has been more misused than Jesus’s parable of the talents.’
This is not in the end a story about money. It’s not about having wealth and acquiring more. It is instead a story about waiting for Jesus to return. It’s a story about realising, while we wait, that we have been given precious gifts from God. And it’s a story about using these gifts freely and generously.
And so, the parable begins with the giving of a gift. We hear that the master, who is departing on a journey, makes the decision to entrust his property to his slaves. Obviously this context is different from ours, but by any standard this is an unusual thing to do – to just give your possessions away, to trust them to other people and leave them to it. And this was not a small amount of property. Jesus describes in detail the scale of the gifts being given. One talent alone was worth more than fifteen years’ worth of wages. Five talents was worth more than seventy-five years’ worth of wages. This is an enormous amount of money to simply give away.
I don’t know what you’d do with a gift like this. Maybe you’ve already thought of what you’d do if you won the lottery. I assume that one way or another you’d want to put it to good use. You could do a lot with it for the people and things you care about. And the first two slaves do put the gift to good use. They use it, and they use it freely. Then, when the master returns, they are rewarded for the way they have used it. I think it’s important to say that they are not rewarded because they have lots of success. Although one of them has made an extra two talents and the other has made an extra five, both receive the same reward. They are rewarded not because of their achievements but instead because they have taken the gift and put it to good use.
The third slave, however, wants to keep the money safe, and so he buries it. Now I’m quite a cautious person, so I can empathise with this instinct. My grandmother recently gave me a casserole dish which had been a wedding present to her and my grandfather in the 1950s. I’m so afraid I might break it that I barely ever use it. But I know really that she gave it to me for me to use. Keeping it in the cupboard defeats the point of the present entirely. And the same is true in this parable, except that Jesus is talking here about a much more life-changing gift than a casserole dish. By burying it, the third slave fails to grasp the point of what he has been given.
As I said earlier, this parable is not in the end about money. It’s instead about waiting for Jesus to return, and it’s about the gifts he has left us with: the gift of life; the gift of salvation; the gift of being called not only followers, but children of God; the gifts of love, compassion and mercy; the gifts of strength and courage for each day; and many other gifts beside. Each of us, in different ways, has received many gifts from God.
And we can bury these gifts, we can try to keep them safe by hiding them away. We can be motivated by fear: fear of losing what we have been given, and fear of punishment. Or, we can use what we have been given freely. We can give generously of our care, attention, energy, time, and our other resources. And when we do, we are not acting out of fear, but out of love: love for our neighbour, and love for God the generous gift-giver. We can trust, too, that in God’s economy what we give away is never lost, and might even increase.
And if we use these gifts freely, so Jesus tells us, God will reward us. Not because of our success, but because we knew we had received gifts, and we put them to good use.
Amen.
Collect
Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil
and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life:
grant that we, having this hope,
may purify ourselves even as he is pure;
that when he shall appear in power and great glory
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom;
where he is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
or
Heavenly Lord,
you long for the world’s salvation:
stir us from apathy,
restrain us from excess
and revive in us new hope
that all creation will one day be healed
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Readings
1 Thessalonians 5.1–11
5Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. 2For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3When they say, ‘There is peace and security’, then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! 4But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; 5for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. 6So then, let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; 7for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. 8But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. 11Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.
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 25.14–30 14 ‘For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. 17In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. 18But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, “Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.” 21His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” 22And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, “Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.” 23His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” 24Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” 26But his master replied, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? 27Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. 28So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 30As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
This is the Gospel of the Lord. All: Praise to you, O Christ.
Post Communion
Gracious Lord,
in this holy sacrament
you give substance to our hope:
bring us at the last
to that fullness of life for which we long;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.