Dear friends,
Welcome to my news update for this week, which includes:
- Follow up from the Joint Parishes Meeting - Please respond.- Coming up this week and later this month.
- Weddings in Middle Esk Moor - We need some help!
- Want to help with Holy Communion?
- The sermon that wasn’t preached last Sunday!
I’m taking a break from next weekend for two weeks, heading to Betws-y-Coed with the family for a much needed holiday. This newsletter will be taking a break too - the next one will hopefully be ready in the first week of September.
If there’s anything we can help you with please email [email protected] and someone will be in touch.
Looking forwards to the week ahead.
With love and blessings,
Reverend Anthony
At our first joint meeting of our four parishes on 20 July we built on all the energy we’ve created and hard work we have done over the last year to develop twelve key priorities to take forwards over the next three months. Meeting notes are available here, including the 12 key priorities, for you to download.
If you couldn’t get to the meeting but would like to get involved in one of our new teams - Pastoral Care, Ministry, Sustainability or Fundraising - please email [email protected] and we’ll put you in touch with the right person.
You’re invited to come to our next joint meeting in October. Please click on this link within the next 24 hours and add your availability for any of the possible dates shown.
Coming up this week and later this month
Sunday 11 August
9:00 am Traditional Communion in Lealholm at St James'
10:45 am Celtic Communion in Glaisdale at St Thomas’
Monday 12 August12:00 pm 'Team Transition' Event at Egton Village Hall
Tuesday 13 August6:30 pm Sharing Space - please contact us for location information.
Wednesday 14 August8:30 am Contemplative Communion in Goathland - please contact us for location information
Thursday 15 August10:30 am - 2:30 pm Vi's Community Cafe in Grosmont at St Matthew's
Sunday 18 August9:00 am Morning Worship in Lealholm at St James'
10:45 am Traditional Holy Communion in Egton at St Hilda
Thursday 22 August10:30 am - 2:30 pm Vi's Community Cafe in Grosmont at St Matthew's
Sunday 25 August9:00 am Traditional Holy Communion in Lealholm at St James'
10:45 am Traditional Holy Communion in Grosmont at St Matthew's
7:00 pm Taizé in Glaisdale at St Thomas’
Thursday 29 August10:30 am - 2:30 pm Vi's Community Cafe in Grosmont at St Matthew's
Sunday 1 September9:00 am Morning Worship in Lealholm at St James'
10:45 am Traditional Holy Communion in Goathland at St Mary's
4:00 pm Fellowship Space with Helen and Chris at The Hollin's Institute in Grosmont
Wednesday 4 September8:30 am Contemplative Communion in Goathland - please contact us for location information
5:00 pm Deanery Evening Prayer on Zoom and at St Hilda, Egton
Thursday 5 September10:30 am - 2:30 pm Vi's Community Cafe in Grosmont at St Matthew's
Saturday 7 September12:30 pm Wedding with Reverend Steve Foster in Goathland at St Mary's
1:00 pm Wedding with Reverend Anthony in Egton at St Hilda’s
We have weddings coming up on every Saturday in September, starting with the two above, plus 5 October and 7 December, and we are in need of vergers and bell ringers (for our amazing bells in Goathland and Egton). Training will be given if you can help with either role. Please email [email protected] if you can help. Many thanks.
Want to help with Holy Communion?
If you’re interested in helping to set up Holy Communion on Sunday mornings, distribute the bread and wine in church and/or take Holy Communion to people in their homes, Jackie Newton, our (almost) new Licenced Lay Minister, is helping to run a special training session for our parishes and those in Lower Esk and Robin Hood’s Bay:
at Aislaby Church (St Margaret’s)on Saturday 17 August, 10:30 to midday.
If you’re available and would like to go, please email Jackie Newton as soon as possible.
The sermon that wasn’t preached last Sunday!
This is the sermon Reverend Anthony was planning to preach last week in Lealholm and Goathland but he ended up doing something completely different instead! Anyhow, we hope the following is interesting and of use to you. The readings for last Sunday can be viewed here.
“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.
I’d like to focus on the end of our passage today: "Whoever comes to me will never be hungry."
The passage follows on from the feeding of the five thousand. There has been a concern with physical hunger. But now we see a shift in John’s Gospel. But before we think about that, perhaps some of you might have seen the film The Shawshank Redemption? Set in an American prison, it deals with themes of redemption and hope and what it means to be free. At one point in the film, the character, Red, describes what it means to be institutionalised: "These walls are funny,” he says.
“First you hate them, then you get used to them, and then you depend on them; that's institutionalised." When Red is finally released, he finds, as he feared, that freedom can be unnerving and cruel. His mind is so shaped by the years of imprisonment that it’s difficult for him to act as a free man. He even considers reoffending to get back to the relative security of institutional life. Red finds that even when his body is free, his mind is telling him that he’s still in prison.
Freedom, redemption and hope are also at the heart of Jesus’ message. But I guess it’s no less tricky for us to understand what it is to be free than it was for Red in The Shawshank Redemption. There are many things that oppress and imprison us. Perhaps the thing that represents our captivity most completely is our need for food and drink. Even if we’re not held behind bars, or made to work as slaves, we can never be free from the fact that before we do anything else, we need to make sure that we and our families have enough to eat.
So when Jesus announces himself to be the bread of life, he strikes right at the heart of that which holds us captive as human beings. Jesus declares that the bottom line of our existence is not our need for food and drink, but our need for Him. This was a daring statement to make, and, not surprisingly, it was followed by cries of protest: who on earth was this, to say such outrageous things? In the verses following our reading, we learn that even those who had supported Jesus began to drift away. John crafts his Gospel to help his readers see who Jesus is, and to put our faith in him; but doing that is never going to be an easy decision.
Through faith in Jesus we have unimaginable gifts, but they’re not always easy gifts to receive. For starters, even the most committed believers still have to feed themselves. We’re all still captive to our human needs; they still shape how we think and act. So what kind of freedom is it that we have through Jesus? Is it a spiritual freedom that exists despite our physical and mental constraints? Or is it a freedom that comes into effect only when we’re finally free of our earthly bodies after we die? Well, I think it’s both those things, but even more. A freedom that exists only in a spiritual realm does not have the completeness of the kind of freedom Jesus brings. When Jesus declares himself to be the bread of life, he’s effectively saying that his freedom operates at the heart of our everyday lives; at the heart of what it means to be human. It’s a freedom that changes how we live in the here and now, and not just one that exists on a spiritual level, or just in the hereafter.
As Christians, I guess we all know what it’s like to struggle with the contradiction of our human constraints and our spiritual freedom. It may be that we are amply provided with food and drink; but we all know what it means to have to pay bills on time. And as Red found in The Shawshank Redemption, years of captivity shape our minds. The trick is not just to live differently, but to think differently. And for Christians, the means to achieve this is to feed on the bread of life. Jesus has set us free; he has opened the prison doors. In this world we can live as if we are free, or we can live as if we are captive. Let's pray that we may find the courage to feed on Jesus, and in doing so be truly free, even in the midst of the captivity of the day-to-day constraints of our everyday lives.
Amen.”
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The Reverend Anthony Bennett
middleESKmoor.orgEnriching, Sharing, Knowing
Bible passages are from the New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England (2000-2024). material from which is included in this email, are copyright © The Archbishops’ Council.
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 A, B and C.’ Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, London, UK.