10/10/21
News from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
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Giotto, St Francis Giving his Mantle to a Poor Man, 1295
Fresco, Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi
Dates for your diary
Sunday 10th Oct
10.30am, Team service moves to Venerable Bede
Saturday 16th Oct
1-3pm, Pendower Good Neighbour Project - AGM & Harvest celebration
12-14 Sunnybank Avenue, NE15 6SD
Sunday 24th Oct
4 churches 4 services
All churches will have a service, times TBC!
Sunday 31st Oct
10.30am, All Saints Sunday (Experimental Service)
Venerable Bede, NE4 8AP
Tuesday 2nd Nov
All Souls' - day of prayer at St James
Sunday 21st Nov
10.30am, Confirmation service
Venerable Bede, NE4 8AP
News
Sunday service now at Venerable Bede!
Location: West Road, NE4 8AP
Don't forget that this Sunday we move to the Venerable Bede for Sunday team services.
As the heating system needs replacing at St James we will continue being semi-nomadic and hold team services at the Venerable Bede during the colder months.
Confirmations
Sunday 21st Nov, 10.30am, Venerable Bede
Confirmation is the next big step in faith, it's the chance to say ‘Yes’ to the promises we made at baptism, and declare our faith in Christ publicly.
To find out more about confirmation have a look here >
Bishop Mark Bryant, former Bishop of Jarrow, will be joining us for the service of baptism and confirmation.
If you would like to be confirmed (or baptised!) then come join our group over the coming weeks for confirmation preparation, either on Sunday after the service, or Tuesday at St James at 4.30pm.
Thank you for your Harvest donations!
Last Sunday we had our Harvest Festival and collected food donations for the Community Pantry at Cornerstone. Thank you for your incredible gifts!
If you weren't able to attend the service and would like to make a cash donation then please contact Cornerstone here >
Pendower Good Neighbour Project - AGM & Harvest celebration
Saturday 16th Oct, 1-3pm
Beginning with the Annual General Meeting at 1pm (booking is essential for that bit!) our friends at Pendower will continue with their Harvest celebration at 1.30pm with delicious free food in the garden, crafts, and a raffle!
12-14 Sunnybank Avenue, NE15 6SD
Covid-19 update
No doubt you will have heard that covid restrictions are being relaxed. As case rates are still high in our area you won't see too much change just yet! But we do have plans to reintroduce activities.
Most importantly - please get your vaccine if you haven't yet! And stay at home if you develop covid symptoms. Find vaccine times and locations here >
Cornerstone Community Cafe open!
Wednesdays & Thursdays 10am - 2pm
62 Armstrong Road, NE4 7TU
Delicious affordable meals
Outdoor Seating
Dog Friendly
Kids Corner
Computer and Internet Access
Computer help
Food pantry and emergency foodbank
and a great pre-loved shop!
Worship Texts
Collect prayer
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.
Amen.
Reading
Hebrews 4.12–16
Indeed, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.
Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Gospel
Mark 10.17–31
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honour your father and mother.” ’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, ‘How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’ And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, ‘Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’ They were greatly astounded and said to one another, ‘Then who can be saved?’ Jesus looked at them and said, ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’
Peter began to say to him, ‘Look, we have left everything and followed you.’ Jesus said, ‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.’
Sermon
In the Gospel today a man asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus of course tells him to keep the commandments, which he has done: don’t murder, don’t steal… you know the basics. There is only one more thing he can do then, to give up all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus. “When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.”
I wonder, how does this passage make you feel? Do you feel you could happily go sell everything on ebay and give away the money? I certainly don’t feel excited about the idea of giving up those things that make my life easier - money for heating and food, a home and furniture to make life comfortable, devices to stop me getting bored.
It always amazes me that the people who are the quickest to give to others are often those who have the least or have suffered more. Many of those who volunteer at the Foodbank, Cornerstone, and elsewhere, those who give the most, are often those who have had to receive support themselves. For those who know what it is like to have little, it feels less of a stretch to share what you have, to have empathy for those going through the same. For those who have had little, wealth and privilege are fleeting, so why hold onto them? Pain and suffering and denial are never so far away, it’s just a reality of your life.
For those who have much, it takes more of an effort to imagine going without. When Jesus tells us “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!’” it is true because the more you have to sacrifice, the greater the distance between you and those less fortunate. If you have never suffered the pain of having something taken away, it feels so much more of a shock when it happens. We need to recognise our privileges, not to make ourselves feel guilty, but to know what may stand in the way of us showing love to our neighbour and God.
For example, those of us who have been here for a long time, you may wonder why we have to sit through a Farsi translation of the sermon, we’ve never had to do that before, it’s boring to sit through something we don’t understand, it feels alienating and something not for me at all. But let’s flip things around and try and imagine it from the other point of view. Our Farsi speakers here will have a completely different understanding of the Gospel passage, when Jesus says: “‘Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age” They have a completely different understanding to us of this because they have actually lived this. Our Iranian friends have had to leave everything they have, not just their homes and businesses and possessions, but their families, their wives and husbands, their parents and their children and flee to a place they know nothing about. They have known friends and family who have simply disappeared, who have been arrested, tortured and murdered by their own government, and in many cases you been tortured themselves. This is what they have had to suffer just so they can worship God, to follow Jesus they have had to sacrifice everything. For those of us from here, we need to recognise that we are privileged, for us to worship God, all we have had to do is walk up the road and wait a little longer to put the dinner on, so the least we can do is endure a tiny bit of the service in Farsi. And what we gain in return is a greater privilege - we are privileged to know our Farsi family, because you already know more than we ever could of God and have so much to teach us.
Of course it’s much more complex, all of us are rich in some ways and poor in others. All of us have things we can give, and all of us need to receive help at times. The important thing to remember is that when Jesus tells us that we must sacrifice our wealth, it is not because he wants our money, it’s because he wants you! What Jesus offers us is not the burden of suffering and denial, but the freedom of knowing that we are good enough as we are, that we are valuable to God as we are. It may seem impossible to imagine that we would ever be good enough for God, but as Jesus says: ‘For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.’
However, messed up and unequal our world is, there is hope, because with God all things are possible. God has given us the power. For example, when we see that our world is dying, when many suffer drought, famine, and animals are going extinct as a direct result of our lifestyles in richer countries like ours, it all seems too big a mess to fix. But we need to recognise that making sacrifices in our lives will help those we cannot see on the other side of the world. We need to move to renewable energy and eat less meat and dairy, we need to drive less, we need to spend some effort sorting out the recycling. It may seem pointless when you don’t directly see the benefits yourself and life is just a little bit more difficult than before, but all of us making these changes will make a difference for the billions who are suffering.
There is much wealth in this world, and there is much suffering. There is much fear, but also much hope. The big question for all of us, is what do you need to follow God? What do you really need to make a difference in this world? The answer is: just you. However much we rely on our ‘stuff’ now in the end all that will be left is you and God anyway. Any wealth we have only stands in the way of us and God, so if we are prepared to let it go then we gain everything - we are given eternal life with God, eternal hope and joy. For the first will be last, and the last will be first.
Intercessions
Prayers for others:
Moira Taylor
Mehri Karami
Edith Hutchinson
Regine Hemminger
Grace Thomson
Peter Wilson
Liz Holliman
Joan Finley
James, Christina, and baby Xavier
Anastasia Miklewright
Ali Zareie and his family
The Riches Family
Jill Sorley
Joyce Phillips
George Snowden
Claire Mozaffari
Herbert Agbeko
Edward Fraser
All those who are struggling at home or in hospital with Covid-19
Rest In Peace:
John MacIntyre
Eric Harling
Nosa Samuel
Peter Schofield
Trevor Fitzpatrick
All who lost their lives from Covid 19
Other intentions:
COP26 and the protection and restoration of our planet
Post Communion prayer
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.
Amen.