6/10/24
Your weekly update from the Benwell & Scotswood Team.
Click below to read this week's information and latest news.
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Services this week
Sunday 9.30am - St John's Holy Communion
9.45am - St Margaret's Holy Communion
11am - Hub service (Parish Eucharist) at St James'
Tuesday
9.30am Morning prayer at St Margaret's
4.30pm Bible study at St James
Wednesday
4.30pm Evening Prayer at St John's
Thursday
10.30am Venerable Bede - Holy Communion
Dates for your diary
Mon 14th October
7pm - PCC meeting with Bishop Mark
News
The Parish Giving Scheme
Watch our generous giving video:
The Parish Giving Scheme makes it easy to give to us securely and safely online.
You can set up a regular gift or donate as a one-off. Just click below
PGS makes it easier for you to give, and it also makes it easier for our volunteers!
This is why:
Encouraging regular giving
It is still possible to give one off donations. But PGS makes it easy to give a regular amount, which helps us to plan and ensure that our activities can keep running.
Gift Aid made easy
An additional 25% can be added to every gift from UK taxpayers. That means for every £1 you give we can receive £1.25!
Because PGS process Gift Aid on behalf of the church, it maximises every gift to be put towards serving our community, free from time-consuming administration.
Increase your gift with inflation
One of the biggest problems faced by local churches is that of ‘static giving’. If giving levels had kept track with inflation since the year 2000, they would have increased by more than 50%!
A unique feature of PGS is the option for you, as a giver, to commit in principle to increase your gift annually in line with inflation. This is voluntary and you can change this commitment at any time.
Harvest - Thank you!
Thank you to all who brought food and financial donations to our Harvest service at St Margaret's last week! There were a huge amount of food donations, and we raised £95 to be split between Cornerstone and the Foodbank. We then shared a wonderful lunch together.
Also the following day, we had our Macmillan Coffee afternoon to raise money for the Macmillan cancer charity, we raised £66!
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.
Sunday Worship
Trinity 19
Green
Readings
Hebrews 1.1–4; 2.5–12
1Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, 4having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
2.5Now God did not subject the coming world, about which we are speaking, to angels. 6But someone has testified somewhere,‘What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them?7 You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honour,8 subjecting all things under their feet.’Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, 9but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honour because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
10 It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters,12saying,‘I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters, in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.’
Mark 10.2–16
2 Some Pharisees came, and to test Jesus they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’ 3He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ 4They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’ 5But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you. 6But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.” 7“For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,8and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’
10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. 11He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’
13 People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. 14But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 15Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.’ 16And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
Emily Watson and family
Lawrence Okonkwo
John Nicholson
Malcolm Smith
Paulette Thompson
John Peterson
Maria Hawthorn
Herbert Agbeko
Ellis & Pauline Nelson
Michelle Wilson
Peter Wilson
Alan & Maureen Taylor
Irene Foskett
Pat Law
Moe and Mary
Hilary Dixon
Lynn Mosby
Irene Scaife
Baby Alice Rose, Jodie and family
Christina Wilson
Diane Humphrey
Rest in peace
The Revd Captain Katie Watson
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
The Revd Anne Marr
Scripture can be a delight and a joy.
Jesus was a man who understood children. It is such a joy to imagine Jesus with children. The strong, fatherly and Godly man telling timeless stories; a wise man in whose hands any child is safe. Bibles published for children always include a picture of Jesus with children around him.
Today is International Grandparents Day.
Grandparents are not mentioned in our scripture readings - but the people who brought children to Jesus are mentioned – and these no doubt would include both parents and grandchildren. So we can rejoice and give thanks for grandparents everywhere today.
Scripture can be a delight and a joy. Yet it can also be challenging. Jesus understood children, and he also understood men and women, and the need for children to know stable family life, as today’s gospel shows.
As well as Jesus talking to children, Jesus answers questions from lawyers about marriage and divorce. What does Jesus really mean us to understand? What was Jesus saying to the people of his time?
The context of any conversation is vital to understanding what is meant.
We can be certain that Jesus broke with ‘convention’. He challenged the traditions which favoured the powerful.
We can be certain that Jesus spoke about the social structures of his day. He criticised the law-makers of the day for interpreting God’s Law in ways which resulted in injustice and selfishness.
We can be certain that Jesus had his critics – the law-makers were constantly asking him trick questions to get him to incriminate himself.
In Jesus day, divorce was a hotly debated issue amongst the Jewish law-makers. Jesus is asked, ‘Should a man be allowed to divorce his wife and take another wife?’
Let’s look at the circumstances carefully.
Marriages were usually financial contracts agreed between the fathers of their children long before marriage.
A man could have more than one wife – a woman could have only one husband.
Women were considered to be ‘chattels’. A woman was effectively ‘owned’ by her husband, reliant on him for everything, and obedient to his every wish. She had no rights other than those bestowed by her husband – and he could withdraw these rights as he wished.
Moses had allowed a man to divorce his wife for ‘adultery’. This law was later interpreted so that a man could divorce his wife for ‘indecency’. This could cover any number of situations such as… he fell out of favour with her… she had become unattractive… she was impolite… or she failed to cook him the food he wanted… or because he found another woman he liked better – in fact for any reason he chose.
There is more…
A man was allowed to divorce his wife. She had no say in the matter. A woman could only divorce her husband if he agreed, whatever the circumstances.
If a woman was divorced, she was unlikely to find another husband. A divorced woman was considered to be indecent and untouchable. Without a husband she had no means of earning a living or supporting herself in society. She was effectively outcast.
Perhaps we can see the unfair balance of justice in the society in which Jesus lived?
Sadly there are still some countries in the world where women have no rights – where wives are the property of their husbands and expected to be obedient to his will at all times. Alarmingly, abuse of women by men both in and outside marriage is still widely reported today.
Jesus saw the injustice in all these situations.
He wanted to remind people that in God’s eyes men and women are equally beloved and treasured, just as a loving parent treasures every child equally: … and that God expects men and women to respect and care for each other – as equal partners in the tasks of living.
Jesus showed this in his dealing with women, breaking with convention many times.
· He spoke to a foreign woman at the well, which was strictly forbidden – and set her heart alive with wonder.
· He saved a woman from being stoned to death by suggesting that whoever had committed no sin should throw the first stone. They all turned away.
· He healed a woman who was bleeding and therefore untouchable, because she dared to touch his robe.
Women knew his kindness and his empathy and followed him. It was a prostitute who anointed his feet with expensive oil.
When challenged on the issue of marriage, Jesus was quite clear: it should be an equal and loving partnership. Marriage, as God intends it, should be the safest of places in which a family can grow and flourish in God’s kingdom. If it is not, it will soon break down and, as Jesus implies, will cause significant suffering.
Jesus still speaks to us today about right relationships. Christian organisations, like Mothers’ Union, speak Jesus words across the world, campaigning against gender abuse, supporting family life and working to give women equal value in society.
It is interesting that today we hear words from the ‘Letter to the Hebrews.’ No-one knows who wrote this letter. It may have been written by Priscilla, the wife of Aquila. They were both teachers and opened their home as a place for worship and learning. Their relationship was a marriage of equality, such as Jesus advocated.
The writer of the letter to the Hebrews affirms to us that Jesus calls us equally as ‘brothers and sisters’ – men and women, children, parents, grandparents – all of us to be heirs with him in God’s kingdom of justice and mercy.
And Jesus said, ‘No-one can enter God’s kingdom unless they come as a child’. Even grandparents need to come to God as children do - in faith and trust to a loving parent. This is the message which Jesus wants us to understand.
Scripture can be a delight and a joy.
Thanks be to God, for children, for grandparents and for right relationships.
Amen.