Sunday 2nd AugustEighth Sunday after Trinity
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Message from the Rector
I am writing this on Friday evening, still full of the joy of having taken a wedding in church for the first time since before lockdown. The weather was, of course, glorious, the necessarily small congregation was happy and the bride and groom happier still. It really did feel good. But today we also learned of the halting of some restrictions being lifted and that we will soon have to wear face coverings in church by law (that begins on Saturday August 8th). The church’s current guidance on face coverings is:
… we continue to strongly advise that face coverings should be worn by all those attending a place of worship, including ministers, worshippers, staff, volunteers, contractors and visitors, where there may be other people present; remembering that they are mainly intended to protect other people, not the wearer, from coronavirus (COVID-19) and that they are not a replacement for physical distancing and regular hand washing.
It’s tough – there’s no doubt. Personally, I find wearing a face mask awkward because when I speak my spectacles steam up! But, as the guidance points out, it’s not about us, it’s about protecting others. Which, I have to say, sounds like a Christian virtue if ever there was one. We will, I’m afraid, have to get used to it.
To those who have been worshipping online at 10.30 each Sunday morning a reminder that from this week onwards the online service will be available from 3pm, giving us the chance to record a service in church in the morning. This week Aldeburgh’s Family Service will be the chosen one and, as ever, reactions and thoughts would be most welcome.
Finally, I am afraid that some people may have received spam email purporting to come from me. If you receive an email with my name but not my usual email address (mark@thelowthers.com) please just delete it. And certainly anything from the email address onlinechurch202@gmail.com is very fishy indeed. Have nothing to do with it!
With love, as ever
Mark
First Reading
Isaiah 55.1-5
Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have
no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labour for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves
in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. See, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you.
Second Reading
Matthew 14.13-21
Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.’ Jesus said to them, ‘They need not go away; you give them something to eat.’ They replied, ‘We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.’ And he said, ‘Bring them here to me.’ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Sermon from our Rector, Revd Mark Lowther
Matthew 14: 13-21
The very opening of today’s New Testament reading begs an immediate question, doesn’t it? ‘When Jesus heard this ..’ What? What has Jesus just heard? Well the first part of the chapter tells the story of the beheading of John the Baptist. How Herodias’s daughter (who we later came to call Salome) danced for Herod at his birthday banquet, gave him so much pleasure that he said to her ‘you can have anything you like’ and, egged on by her mother, she demanded and was eventually given John’s head on a platter. It’s a shocking tale, dripping with a lurid combination of sex and violence, as anyone who has either seen Oscar Wilde’s play Salome or Richard Strauss’s opera based on it will confirm. Dance of the Seven Veils and all that. A truly decadent scene. And when Jesus heard this he withdrew to a deserted place, was followed by the crowds and fed them with a miraculous meal. The contrast with what had gone before couldn’t really be more vivid. Herod’s no doubt hugely extravagant birthday bash contrasted with this simple supper of bread and fish that had looked so meagre but yet managed to satisfy thousands. By the way, we conventionally talk of ‘the feeding of the five thousand’ but it was a lot more than that. ‘5000 men, besides women and children’ as Matthew puts it in his rather male-dominated way.
So, who gives the more satisfying meal – Herod, whose way leads to corruption and death, or Jesus who, from those unpromising ingredients, manages to satisfy the multitudes and still have so much left over. Enough to fill twelve baskets which, as many a bible-commentator has pointed out is significant because there were 12 Jewish tribes – so Jesus’s meal was enough for them, and for them all – not just a select few.
And how did he do it? How did Jesus feed thousands with five loaves and two fish? Well, he prayed. He looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves. And his father in heaven answered his prayer, the miracle happened. God fed his people, just as he had fed them with manna when they were in the wilderness all those years ago. And he fed them with bread – the bread of life – one of the very metaphors that Jesus used to describe himself in John’s gospel – ‘I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry …’
So, what is the take-home message for today – this very day – from all of this? All of the obvious things of course – God’s generosity, Jesus’s message being for all, Jesus showing that God’s way isn’t the way of the world – all good messages and important to hear. But I think today, with the church still not being able to do what it would ideally like to do, with all sorts of plans having to be changed because of the danger of the virus spreading, I’d like to go back to that moment when the miracle occurred – when the meagre offering became food for thousands. No magic spells, no shouting and screaming, no huge fuss and bother, just prayer. Just ‘looking up to heaven’, as the story has it. This is what Jesus does. He offers what he has to his Father and extraordinary things occur as a result. What we are able to offer in prayer may look pretty meagre. We may think ourselves lacking in eloquence, in beautifully constructed sentences, we may think that we can’t pray in an adequate way. But if we offer to God what we have with sincerity, God will transform it and use it in ways that can amaze us. The theologian Tom Wright says ‘It is part of genuine Christian service, as whatever level, that we look on in amazement to see what God has done with the bits and pieces we dug out of our meagre resources to offer to him’. And the place to start that offer is in prayer – simple but heartfelt prayer. And what might happen? I love the remark of former Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple who replied to his critics who regarded answered prayer as no more than coincidence, “When I pray, coincidences happen; when I don’t, they don’t.”
Amen
Collect
Almighty Lord and everlasting God, we beseech you to direct,
sanctify and govern both our hearts and bodies in the ways of
your laws and the works of your commandments;
that through your most mighty protection, both here and ever,
we may be preserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
The Week Ahead –
Next Sunday
9th August – Ninth Sunday after Trinity
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9.30am |
Thorpeness Service 2 |
The Meare, Thorpeness |
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9.30am |
Patronal Service |
Knodishall Church |
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9.45am |
Morning Praise |
Friston Church |
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11.00am |
Informal Service |
Aldringham Churchyard |
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3.00pm |
Online Service available |
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6.00pm |
Celtic Evening Service Aldeburgh Church |
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NOTICES
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Food Banks at the East of England Co-op Foodbanks provide a valuable service to those in need in our communities and have an even more vital role to play as we navigate our way through these unprecedented times. The Aldeburgh Co-op and Solar in Leiston are doing a grand job in collecting food donations, which are collected regularly and distributed. Please do keep a look out at their notices as they will be putting a list of the items most needed. |
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Songs of Praise on The Green Please bring your own chairs and tables for your picnic. Reply to Carole Edwards, caroleedwards123369@btinernet.com or |
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Food Banks at the East of England Co-op Foodbanks provide a valuable service to those in need in our communities and have an even more vital role to play as we navigate our way through these unprecedented times. The Aldeburgh Co-op and Solar in Leiston are doing a grand job in collecting food donations, which are collected regularly and distributed. Please do keep a look out at their notices as they will be putting a list of the items most needed. |
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Pilgrims Together invite you to Thorpeness Summer Services 2020 Celtic Style Worship Sunday 2nd August ALL ARE WELCOME
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