Parish Up-dates & Events To Come

After a busy September, there's a slight lull this week before we celebrate our Harvest Festival on Sunday (3rd October), complete with Parish Lunch. At the 10a.m. Sung Eucharist you can bring Harvest Produce to support the work of the People's Kitchen in Newcastle - and money offerings will support USPG's Harvest Appeal.

And the following week (Sunday 10th October) there's a special Victorian Evensong, designed to be as authentically near to what you might have got in 1850, when St. Cuthhbert's Church was consecrated! It's an initiative by Joyful Noise, a local West Gallery group, and they are running a workshop for all who'd like to participate in the choir or as instrumentalists. Evensong will be at 6p.m. - free to all. The workshop costs £5 - from 1.30 for 2p.m. To register for the workshop, contact Win Stokes - winATclarence8.fsnet.co.uk or Chris Gardner - cgardner303ATbtinternet.com (you need to adjust these addresses by susbstituting @ for AT, of course, to make them work).

Full details of what we're planning for October can be found in our new issue of the Parish Magazine. Give it a click and then use the tools to navigate around - you can read it in Full Screen if it helps. Here's this month's "View from the Vicarage."


Note to self…

Rather hastily during September I found myself writing this note:

Having grown up in Hartlepool, I’m now in my 30th year of ordained ministry - all of it served in our Diocese. Living on the edge of the Diocese (Vicar of Benfieldside), I’m concerned with communication and perception; and to counter the temptation to isolationism. I’ve served as an Area Dean and for 15 years or so on the Diocesan Panel working with potential ordination candidates. I work in a tradition which is sacramental and inclusive; hopefully out-going, prayerfully-attuned and theologically-focussed. Single parent of two sons - and I enjoy walking, my mountain bike, poetry and cinema.

It’s the nearest I’ve ever got to writing an election manifesto, though technically it was a “Biographical Note” which I submitted to the Diocese. The occasion was a bye-election to represent the clergy of Durham Archdeaconry on Bishop’s Council. Having been prompted to stand, I decided that at last this was my moment - and readied myself, not exactly for battle, but knowing that there was expected to be another candidate. In the event, though I know at least one other priest was proposed, no other nomination papers were submitted. So there was no election, I was duly declared a member of the Council, and no one got to read the “Biographical Note.” Until I thought to print it here.

And why? Having thought what I could say about myself - as required - in less than 100 words, I realise I still need to live up to it. I’ve not gone on to the Council just to fill a place - and we don’t at present have a Diocesan Bishop to impress. I mean what I say about the importance of the sacramental tradition and prayer and getting things right theologically. When politicians describe something as theological they imply that it’s nit-picking small print and quite unimportant. When I say it, it means it’s about God - so at the very heart of everything.

Similarly I hope you get the drift that I think “vocation” is important - the sense of personal calling. That’s not just about testing vocations to the priesthood. It’s about encouraging people to discern just where God wants them to be - whoever they are, whatever the abilities they think they possess. And inclusiveness is important because God calls to all - each of us has a place in his divine purpose. But do we recognise it? A critical moment for me was the move from saying “someone ought to do something about this” to recognising that that “someone” was me. How about you?

Martin Jackson

Back to Blogging

I'm sorry about the lack of activity in recent weeks on this Blog. First it was a matter of a couple of weeks' holiday. Then back to a very busy September in the parish. I'm afraid I failed to get pictures for our parish's Art Exhibition, which ran alongside the Northumbria Historic Churches Trust Steeplechase - but it was very successful. I did get pictures from last weekend's wedding of Ian Gray and Julie Shotton - a wonderful occasion, though the brightness of the day wasn't helpful to photographers who prefer a bit less contrast. And the church was marvellous to behold - hours of work on the part of flower arrangers paid off supremely, though my camera battery failed just as I took my first shots in church.

Our Reader, Rosie Junemann, continues to preach thought-provoking sermons, and to get them scripted and onto a usable computer file. While I was away in August she addressed issues of how we regard Sabbath and Sunday. And yesterday she contrasted headlines from The Times with those from St. Luke's Gospel which address issues of Wealth, Poverty and Justice. Click your way through!

I've been preaching - but at present you can only catch me "live."

But here are a couple of pictures from my holiday - in a church at Riviere, by the Banks of the Vienne, just outside Chinon. From the outside it was so unassuming that we drove past it. Inside... amazing paintings and triple-tiered architecture. There are more holiday pictures here. Happy viewing - if you want!

Assent, Assumption and Incarnation

I didn't expect to be quoting the Church of England's Declaration of Assent from the Worship and Doctrine Measure when I preached for yesterday's Solemnity of (the Assumption of) the Blessed Virgin Mary - but I did, going on to ask how we are to bring "the grace and truth of Christ to this generation." Mary is a model for us in this. The part she plays is one with the Mystery of the Incarnation, God entering our world in human flesh. The whole sermon is here. Part of it is printed below...

Meanwhile here's a link to the September issue of our Parish Magazine - and another link to some items from our churchwarden (the one with the carrots in the last post), which missed the bus when we moved the magazine deadline forward. As ever the linked pages open in funny places or need you to tweak the scroll button on the sidebar to make them appear - or is it only me that has this problem?


From the homily...

How do we bring the grace and truth of Christ to the people who live around us in the here and now? How do we proclaim afresh this faith to each generation?

The answer is to take seriously the world we live in, to explore the issues which confront us day by day. But I’m afraid that here the Church often falls down on the job. The temptation is to make the Church a sort of refuge from all the problems we face, a bubble that surrounds us for an hour or so on a Sunday morning before it pops and we have to go back to things just as we left them outside. Or on the other hand we can come along to church and find that real issues of justice, peace, freedom, poverty, corruption and human well-being are ignored for a rather more small-minded concentration on the sexuality of the clergy and whether women can become bishops. Meanwhile the world looks on, wondering what we think we’re about - if it bothers to wonder at all…

What we need to remember is that Christian faith is not about insulation from all that troubles us - it’s about transformation. It doesn’t mean ignoring the world we live in. It requires that again and again we recognise just how seriously God takes this world. The fundamental difference from any other religion that Christianity proclaims is that God gets mixed up in this world. God comes to us in Jesus. The Son of God is born into this world in real human flesh. God doesn’t say he will simply save us from this world. What God does shows that he will save us in this world. It’s there in today’s Second Reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians:

When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law…

St. Paul tells us very little about the actual life of Jesus. But here in just a few words, he shows us the fundamental shift that needs to be recognised in God’s dealings with the world. At the heart of the Gospel is the Incarnation - God comes into this world the way any of us do. All that God is, we can find in Christ. But in Christ we find also humanity in its fullness. And God does this not just by his own action. He works through what is human. His Son is born into the world because of Mary. This woman, Mary, hears the message of God through the angel - and she gives her “Yes” to God. She will bear God’s Son in her womb.

We need to recognise the part Mary plays, her response to the call of God, if we are going to be able to play our part - to make our response to the call God makes to us. She bears Christ in her womb - will we bear him in our hearts?...

There's more both before and after this section...

Travel - and where you want to be

They say that the summer is the "silly season" for newspapers and television. So also for blogs... The carrots brought along to St. Cuthbert's yesterday morning by churchwarden, Linda Short, were a major talking point. Absolutely no genetic engineering here.

It was good also to be able to welcome former Curate, Nick Watson, and his family. And Rosie Junemann our Reader preached, taking her cue from the travels of Abram / Abraham.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est

Andrei Rublev's icon of the Trinity was modelled on an earlier icon depicting the Hospitality of Abraham. The hospitality shown to three mysterious strangers by Abraham was the theme running through today's Old Testament Reading, the Gospel showed us the hospitality given to Jesus in the home of Martha and Mary, and the New Testament Reading from Colossians referred to Christ as the image (literally icon) of the invisible God.

So I found myself preaching what was really a meditation on the dual call to action and contemplation. Where love and charity dwell, there God is to be found. The icon itself invites the observer into an encounter with the divine - how do we respond? Click the link for what I said - if you find the document doesn't appear, tweak the side button and then play with the tools to size the page as you wish.

Good Samaritan at St. Cuthbert's

What I omitted to say in my last post and in my sermon last Sunday is that the Good Samaritan is depicted in the central window behind the High Altar in St. Cuthbert's - here it is! Above it is Christ depicted as the Good Shepherd. We'll keep that for another time...

St. Benedict and the Good Samaritan

Rules for the Lectionary mean that today's Feast of St. Benedict has to give way to Sunday observance - not a bad thing when today's Gospel is that of the Good Samaritan.

We managed to bring both into our celebration of the liturgy. I was struck by Benedict's desire to provide a Rule for the sake of orderliness, but with the affirmation that it's a "school for beginners" rather than a straitjacket. And there's the likely problem for the Priest and Levite of the parable missing the point because of rules - and the lawyer doing what he can to fit them to his purpose. Benedict's purpose is to lead people to "eternal life" and it's St. Luke's Gospel which makes the inheritance of eternal life the point of the lawyer's approach to Jesus - unlike the Gospels of Matthew and Mark who have Jesus' questioner simply ask "which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

This is an extract from my sermon, the whole of which you can find by clicking here:

The thing to know about the Rule of St. Benedict is that it was written as a result of his desire to bring orderliness into the way his brother monks lived, at a time when so many thought they could do whatever they pleased. Benedict wanted to establish what he called “A school for the Lord’s service” - and his purpose was so that those entering into it would find their way to “blessings in eternal life.”

That’s something that we must not miss in today’s Gospel reading. Of all the Gospel writers, only St. Luke tells the story of the Good Samaritan. The story has an introduction which Matthew and Mark also record, but with a twist. In Matthew and Mark’s accounts, Jesus is asked, what is the greatest of the commandments? - and it’s Jesus who sums it up: love God with all your heart, your soul, your mind and your strength - and your neighbour as yourself. But it’s a bit different in Luke. Luke tells us that Jesus was approached by a lawyer who wanted to know what to do in order to inherit eternal life. And Jesus simply turns the question round: what does the religious law tell you? And the lawyer gets the answer right:

‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’

In the Prayer Book we call these words the Summary of the Law. It’s everything that’s necessary reduced to just these few words about love - do this and that’s the way to find eternal life. That’s the aim of St. Benedict when he wrote his Rule. It’s the whole point of the Scriptures - to get us into God’s kingdom, to share with him in eternal life...

In preparing to preach I noticed that the priest - the first person not to stop and help the wounded man - is very definitely going down the road, so he must be travelling away from the Temple and Jerusalem. I didn't have time to go into this. But, aware of the argument that the priest and the Levite don't stop because they fear becoming ritually unclean, I'd like at some point to explore why the Gospel seems to be so definite that they are going away from the place where they need to be "clean" - and still they don't stop...

Would we?