Dear friends,
Welcome to this week’s update, and I hope this message finds you well?
I’ve had a busy week with our first Sharing and Breathing spaces, a memorial service for the late Simon Foster in Egton and a visit to Castleton Church on Sunday to preach and preside at Holy Communion.
The time we spent remembering Simon Foster was a very special one that I will remember for a long time, I’m sure. It was a privilege to have been involved in the service. The family can be assured of my ongoing prayers as they start to chart a life without Simon being physically with them, but, of course, with the love of God supporting them: a love that Simon shared and shined so brightly.
Please find below a copy of the sermon I preached at Castleton along with links to the readings we had. I was talking about supporting communities across the the Whitby Deanery, so it should certainly be relevant to our work and ministry in Middle ESK Moor!
We now have a lot of services and events on the calendar, so instead of listing all those here, as previously, I’ll provide a link to our website, which includes all the details.
We’ve drafted up the report following the ‘Where next? Charting the future’ community forum we had a week last Saturday. We’re just checking and proof reading and hope to release the notes soon.
If there’s anyone you think would find this update useful please ask them to subscribe via this link: http://eepurl.com/izDueg. And I do hope that you are finding these weekly updates useful? Please let me know via: [email protected].
With prayers and all good wishes,
Anthony
Church Services, Events and Meetings Coming Up
All details are on our website, please visit: middleESKmoor.org
Last Sunday’s Readings - 19th after Trinity
Please follow these links:
Last Sunday’s Sermon at Castleton
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts together be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock, and redeemer. Amen.
A question for us to ponder today:
“How good are we at supporting those in need across our Deanery?”
Throwing a big party can be a tricky and stressful business can’t it; especially a dinner party. How many people should you invite? And then there’s the risk that no one turns up. Then, you send out your invites and, much to your annoyance, there's that one reluctant guest. You know, the one who makes excuses? That annoying person:
the one who says, "I've got to stay in and wash my hair," or “sorry, I can’t come, I just can't find a babysitter.” And there's the gate-crasher who doesn't belong. Dinner parties can be very stressful indeed!
Today's Gospel reading speaks of God's kingdom as being like a party, but the giving of that party must have been so very stressful. The people who were invited just wouldn’t come. Some of them wouldn't take it seriously. They went off to do their own thing. I’m sure you wouldn’t say, "Sorry, Reverend Anthony, I can't come to your dinner party. I have to go to the supermarket!" Or, maybe you would!
Others in our Gospel story seem to have been so insulted at the thought of being invited to the party that they beat up and even murdered those who came to fetch them. Imagine that horrendous thought! So, what on earth was it about this party that made it so unappealing?
I think hospitality was at the heart of Jesus’ message, and a welcoming feast for all was one of Jesus' favourite ways of speaking about the kingdom of God. But there are a few disturbing features to his particular description of the kingdom today. This picture of the kingdom of God, at first glance, doesn’t feel like the wonderful place we think it might be. Jesus really stresses God's anger at being rejected; the host in the story is absolutely furious with those who wouldn’t come to the party. And, as for the man who does come but wears the wrong clothes? Well, he’s cast out into the darkness.
So what are we to make of this picture? Well, I think what’s happening here is that Jesus is warning us against being too complacent. Yes, God truly does offer us a place in his kingdom, promising to fulfil every one of our needs, to wipe away our tears and remove our guilt and our shame, as Isaiah said. But God deals with us as adults, not children. God isn’t a magician or a fairy godmother who waves a magic wand to make everything work out the way we might want it to. God invites us to not just take our place at his banquet, but to actively prepare that banquet with him. God invites us to continue the work of building up his kingdom in our own lives and in the world in which we live.
God wants us to participate in building the kingdom.
You might have come across St Augustine of Hippo? He was a prominent Christian theologian and philosopher who lived in the 4th Century and wrote lots of wise words about how to interpret Jesus’ parables. Augustine suggests that the reason the man in our Gospel passage is ejected from the banquet is because the garment he lacks is the most essential garment to have in the kingdom of heaven: love.
The wedding garment is a symbol: to enter the kingdom of God, we need to repent and have a change of heart; we need to turn back towards God. But that’s not the end of the story. Augustine says that our repentance must be continuously renewed through a life of love and compassion towards others. And followers of Jesus, like us, that fail to lead a life serving others run the risk of being cast out of God's kingdom into the darkness. That’s because they’ve failed to clothe themselves with the garment of love.
This parable is a powerful reminder to us this morning that repentance and service go hand in hand.
We might say that God is love and that’s all you need. We might be tempted to use that fact to excuse any real effort on our part to bring God's love to the people we meet. If so, we’re like the man without the wedding garment: he failed to prepare and just turned up, expecting to be admitted.
But the kingdom of God isn’t like that.
We’re given free will: the ability to make choices in our lives. And those choices we make have enormous consequences. You might have come across some people that make light of the Christian faith? They might make up excuses about why they can’t come to the party. They might say that the Church is useless and makes no difference in the world. But actually, for all its faults (and there are very many faults, certainly in the Church of England!) the Church, as the means of communicating the Christian faith, is certainly not something to be made light of. Far from it.
What we possess in this place, in each other, is quite simply life changing. If the Christian faith is true, then it is, quite literally:
a matter of life and death,
a matter of critical importance,
something that certainly shouldn’t be avoided.
Other people oppose the Church and the faith for which it stands with a real loathing and hatred. These are like the people who murdered the slaves in the parable. There are people like that out there, not many, but we can expect to face opposition. It’s not all going to be straightforward. And there are other people that find themselves connected to the church, on the fringes, but not really knowing why, thinking they can be a Christian without letting it touch them. They are like the man without the wedding garment.
Well, this parable can feel like quite difficult teaching for us, can’t it? I was hoping for a more straightforward reading this morning: one that would fill us with positivity and hope: one that would feed us and inspire us as we all work to build God’s church across our Deanery.
This parable, on the face of it, doesn’t do that.
Or does it?
Is this parable teaching us a deeper truth that should be underpinning our work together? Maybe this Gospel passage is exactly the message we had to hear on this day in this place at this time. Maybe it’s no coincidence that I’ve been given this passage to preach on today? Because this Gospel passage tells us quite clearly that how we respond to God's invitation is vitally important. Alongside turning round and pointing ourselves towards God, we need to serve others as our priority.
We need to be invitational.
So, my question: “how good are we at supporting those in need across our Deanery?” Or, rather, “how good are we at inviting people into God’s kingdom?”
We do some good work. I’ve heard lots of good things about what you do in your churches up here. Let’s acknowledge that, absolutely. But what else can we do together? Can we invite more people to come and discover the faith that we’ve found?
In our parishes there are many people that feel ignored. There are many people who feel unwelcome and isolated: those struggling to tackle some really difficult challenges:
mental health issues, loneliness, isolation, hopelessness.
We’re called to invite and serve those who feel they’re ignored, to give them the confidence to be active members of our communities.
God’s love is available for everyone, but our task is to share that love by participating in the building of the kingdom of God. Let’s work together, send out the invites and welcome all those people to the party: all those that would like to be involved but haven’t had the invitation.
But as Paul says in today’s reading from his letter to the Philippians, let’s acknowledge and celebrate all the good work we already do.
Let’s keep on doing the things that we have learned and received and heard and seen in Jesus, and the God of peace will be with us.
Amen.
The Reverend Anthony Bennett
Interim Minister – the Benefice of Middle ESK Moor
middleESKmoor.org
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these two books, edited by Jane Williams, are continuing to be very helpful with planning my sermon writing:
Williams, J (2009), Ed., ‘Lost for Words, A Sermon Resource for the Anglican Three Year Cycle,’ Redemptorist Publications, Chawton, UK.
Williams, J (2011), Ed., ‘Lectionary Reflections, Years, B and C.’ Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, UK.