Dear friends,

Don't forget that you are loved beyond measure!

Welcome to this week’s update, and I do hope that this message finds you well?

I’ve had another busy week with a couple of days out of action for ‘new incumbents training’ down at Wydale Hall. All useful but now I’m playing catch up!

Please find below a copy of the sermon I preached at Grosmont this morning along with the readings we had. Thanks to Alan Palmer for being our lay Eucharistic assistant, Jim Muir for playing for us this morning, John Harrison for being our super efficient sidesperson, Sarah Mainwaring-Parr for leading some beautiful intercessions for us, and of course many extra thanks to Paul Lofthouse and Ann Cornforth for the wonderful scones, sausage rolls and refreshments! We had a wonderful time. If you’d like to help with any of these roles (that make our services such special times) please get in touch.

As we now have a lot of services and events on the calendar, instead of listing all those here, as previously, I’m now providing a link to our website, which includes all the details.

The report from the ‘Where next? Charting the future’ community forum has been delayed a little, but should be with you next week.

A request please! We need to give the kitchen in St Matthew’s, Grosmont, a big deep clean. We have a few volunteers but if you would like to help with this please reply to this email. Your help would be much appreciated.

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 still 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

Today’s Readings - 20th after Trinity

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace.
We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of people we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place where your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead - Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

Matthew 22:15-22

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap [Jesus] in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Today’s Sermon

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.

Some of us joined together on Saturday afternoon, a couple of weeks ago, for the first meeting of our new Benefice Forum. You will be able to see the notes from our discussion on our website soon. Please do have a look. We spent some time imagining what the ‘perfect church’ might look like in this place in 2030. We also looked at what might hold us back; what might continue to get in the way of achieving our dreams; what new opposition we might face. One person at our meeting said that they thought our church had lost its spiritual heart, but that the spiritual side was beginning to re-emerge again. I wonder if you would agree with that?

Another comment at the end of our meeting was that we need to strive, as a church in this place, to avoid losing “our focus on our Christian faith and the spiritual side of what we’re about.”

“We mustn’t just be about community activities,” that person also said. Would you agree with that?

Well, I’ve been pondering two ‘realms’ - if you like - realms referred to in those comments, with this week’s Gospel reading in mind. There’s the ‘spiritual realm’ – our connection to God. And then there’s the ‘physical realm’ – our connection to the world, to our community.

In today's Gospel reading the Pharisees have set out deliberately to set a trap for Jesus. They ask him if it’s right to pay taxes to Caesar. But it’s the Pharisees who actually end up falling into a trap. I think that trap is about attempting to divide

the ‘physical realm’ from the ‘spiritual realm;’ the world from God.

On the face of it, Jesus is asked an impossible question.

If Jesus says that paying taxes to the Romans is permissible, the Pharisees will denounce him as spiritually unworthy. They’ll make out that Jesus doesn’t respect the higher authority of God.

But, on the other hand, if Jesus says that paying taxes isn’t permissible, his enemies will hope that the Roman occupiers intervene and arrest Jesus for inciting a revolution.

Jesus' reply to the question is more than an intellectually clever response, it’s quite a profound comment on the relationship between the physical realm and the spiritual realm; between the world and God; between the sacred and the secular. Jesus says, "Give... to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."

Jesus urges us to pay proper attention to the secular; the material; the physical, and also to pay proper attention to the sacred and spiritual in their turn. But, crucially, Jesus doesn’t suggest that we should attempt to divide the two. We shouldn’t live either entirely in the physical, or completely in the spiritual domain, like a hermit. No, instead Jesus warns us that as human beings, with bodies and souls, we cannot afford to disregard either realm. We reside individually in the physical and the spiritual in the same space and at the same time: both are interlinked; both make us whole. They are both sides of the same coin. But the temptation to compartmentalise our lives into physical or spiritual aspects is strong.

For some of us, maybe outside our experiences of church, we exist in a purely physical realm? We might earn money doing a secular job and we might carry out various tasks without really needing to think about God. We might mistakenly imagine that God isn’t interested in the aspects of our lives outside church, or in the day-to-day business of living out our lives. But Jesus reminds us that God is interested in all the things we do. We are loved beyond measure by God. God asks us to deal wisely and thoughtfully with the physical and the spiritual aspects of our lives. God wants us to pray and worship and do good things, but he also cares about how and where we spend our money and how we go about earning that money.

We need the wisdom and grace of Jesus if we’re going to escape from the trap of compartmentalising our lives into sacred and secular. We need to recognise that we are loved beyond measure. When moral or ethical dilemmas interrupt the physical compartments, we call ‘work’ or ‘home,’ we need a lot of courage to avoid turning a "blind eye" or opting for a quiet life. While we’re engaged in seemingly secular activities, spiritual values, those of love, mercy, peace and justice still apply. Our duty to God and to God's law is the most important thing.

We need to be ready to find the sacred in the apparently secular and to allow our spiritual values to influence our lives in the physical world: in our community. Maybe by striving to integrate the two, we can live lives that are enriched. As individual human beings, with bodies and souls, we cannot afford to disregard either realm. And collectively, as the church, we reside in those physical and spiritual realms at the same time.

As our spiritual side re-emerges, can we chart a path forward for our church that integrates the spiritual and physical realms in all the work we do?

Would that be the perfect church we strive to be?

Is that the path towards enriching each of our lives and the lives of all the people we come into contact with in this place?

Would that enable all the people we interact with to know that they are loved beyond measure?

I’ll leave you to ponder those questions.

Some of you might not know, but I’ve been emailing copies of my sermons for a few weeks now. If you’d like a copy of this one, just let me know.

You might find it useful.

You might not!

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.