27/06/21
News from the Benwell & Scotswood Team
Louise Bourgeois, 10am is when you come to me, (No. 11, set 6)
2006, watercolour on music paper, MoMA, New York
News
Worship in all our churches next Sunday, 4th July
9.45am - Venerable Bede
9.45am - St James
11.15am - St John's
11.15am - St Margaret's
As we continue our experiments with worship in Benwell and Scotswood on the first Sunday of the month. In July we will have a Sunday service in all four of our churches for the first time in over a year! We will try out a new pattern of service times to make it possible for our clergy to sustain worship in all our buildings without calling in outside help.
Reading and intercessions
Would you like to help us lead Sunday worship? Even if you haven't read in a service or led the prayers before, or if you are not sure but might be interested, then just let us know! We can do training and have a practice run with you so you can give it a go before committing. Speak with Chris or any of the clergy.
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!
Bible study with Farsi translation
Tuesdays at 4.30pm
St James' Benwell
Every week we meet to read and discuss the Bible. We have a translator for our Persian members, but anyone is welcome to come whatever language you speak!
Covid-19 guidance:
Please remember: Hands, Face, Space.
We still need to sanitise our hands on entering the church, wear a face covering, and stay 2 metres apart.
We are now allowed to meet inside the church after the service, in socially distanced groups of 6 or less, or two households. As long as the weather is good, we will continue to go outside after the service, but this means we can shelter from the rain if necessary!
Please remember face coverings still must be worn (unless you are medically exempt or while doing a reading in the service).
Prayers
Collect
O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide
we may so pass through things temporal
that we lose not our hold on things eternal;
grant this, heavenly Father,
for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Amen
Post Communion
Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope:
teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
Intercessions
Wedding Banns
Lisa Wilkin & Gareth Bewick (final reading, wedding at Cresswell in August)
Billy Wilson & Donna Fowler (first reading)
The sick and suffering:
Joan Finley
James, Christina, and baby Xavier
Ali Zareie and his family
The Riches Family
Jill Sorley
Joyce Phillips
George Snowden
Claire Mozaffari
Eric Harling
Herbert Agbeko
Anastasia Miklewright
Edward Fraser
All those who are Struggling at home or in hospital with Covid 19
Rest In Peace :
Andrew Wood
Steven White
John Finley
All who lost their lives from Covid 19
Readings
2 Corinthians 8.7–15
Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich. And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something— now finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means. For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has—not according to what one does not have. I do not mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance. As it is written, ‘The one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little.’
Mark 5.21–43 When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered round him; and he was by the lake. Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’ Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ He looked all round to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’
While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, ‘Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?’ But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, ‘Do not fear, only believe.’ He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. When he had entered, he said to them, ‘Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.’ And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha cum’, which means, ‘Little girl, get up!’ And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.
Sermon
The Revd Dominic Coad, Team Vicar.
Our gospel reading this morning tells the story of a very brave woman. We don’t know her name but Mark tells us she had been suffering from bleeding for 12 years, that is she was suffering from some kind disorder of uterine bleeding. Desperate for a solution, she pushes her way through the busy crowd and touches Jesus’ cloak. Immediately she knows she is well, ‘she felt in her body that she was healed’, Mark tells us.
This is a brave course of action for this lady to take. As a poor woman in a highly patriarchal society she was already of low status. Moreover, her bleeding condition left her on the very margins of society. The purity laws in Leviticus state that a woman is to be considered unclean during her period and anyone who touches her is unclean until evening. A woman whose bleeding continues beyond her usual period was also to be considered unclean until her bleeding stopped and anyone who touched her considered unclean.
We can only imagine the extreme social isolation this woman must have experienced. We can also imagine the courage it must have taken to push her way through the crowd, reach out and touch Jesus’ cloak, all things she was not allowed to do under purity law.
We are fortunate that many of the strict social regulations which existed in Jesus’ time, and similar ones that have characterised Britain’s past, don’t exist in our culture today. But this doesn’t mean we don’t still have work to do to create a more equal society. In particular, we have our own problems around menstruation.
Last year, a survey by the charity Plan International, discovered that lockdown had left women and girls around the world struggling to manage their periods, unable to afford period products and without access to clean water. In the UK specifically, 3 in 10 girls are struggling to afford or access products. We know this is true locally as both our Foodbank and our Youth Project are regularly giving away period products to those who can’t acquire them themselves.
These issues, though worsened by the pandemic, are not new and are the symptom of a deeper problem. Just as in Jesus’ culture, we have problems with a sense of taboo and shame around periods and bleeding. According to the Girl Guides, half of girls in the UK have missed a day of school due to their period and made up an excuse, too embarrassed to explain what is happening.
If healthy periods can still be a problem for women and girls today, we can only imagine how hard it must have been for the woman in Mark’s story who has had uncontrolled bleeding for 12 years. We get a sense of her desperation when Mark tells us that she had ‘endured much under many physicians and spent all the money she had.’
This is a tragic and disturbing situation: a woman in pain and shunned by society, spending all her money on painful and exploitative treatments that achieve nothing. We can well imagine how exhausted she must have felt, how beaten down, in pain and afraid. When Jesus asks who has touched him she comes before him, Mark tells us, in fear and trembling.
With all of this context its hopefully a little easier to see how radical Jesus’ response is. When this moment occurs, Jesus is on his way to Jairus’ house responding to a request to heal his daughter who is close to death. This mission is both urgent and in response to someone of high social status, since Jairus is a leader of the synagogue. Yet when Jesus feels power go out of him he stops to find out what has happened.
His disciples think he is wasting his time: ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?”’ No doubt, they are keen for him to quickly get to the house of the important synagogue leader. But Jesus continues to ask the crowd who touched him and the woman emerges and tells him the whole truth.
At this moment Jesus could have reprimanded her for touching him in her unclean state but he doesn’t do this, instead he calls her daughter. Immediately Jesus is breaking down the barriers that had kept this woman in isolation. Her disease had seen her shunned from society but now Jesus calls her daughter, a member of the family of Israel. Next Jesus tells her that her faith has made her well. In doing so he is publicly affirming the action she took in reaching out to him and confirming that she is indeed healed.
After 12 years of pain, poverty and exclusion, this woman’s status is restored to her in an instant. She had suffered much physically and now she is well. She has also suffered much in her shunning from society and now this too is ended. As we often see in the stories of Jesus’ miracles, physical, emotional and social healing are inextricably linked. Jesus’ is always interested in healing the whole person and, through them, bringing healing to the whole of society.
Jesus’ healing miracles are, of course, a demonstration of his divine power but if we really want to learn all that they have to teach us, we need to understand what they tell us about our society. They tell us that true healing is not only a matter of fixing bodily ailments but of fixing society. They tell us that the judgments we make about people’s bodies can cause pain as just as surely as physical ailment can. They tell us that body-shame destroys lives.
As disciples of Christ we are called to love others and to love ourselves, body and soul. Let’s work to make what Christ said to this woman, true for all of us too: ‘daughter, your faith has made you well.’