Weekly for 19 February 2023 (Transfiguration: Last Sunday before Lent)

Dear People of God

Grace and Peace to you all

Those of us who are old enough to remember the “old” liturgical calendar will recall that he three Sundays prior to Lent were known as Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima Sundays: translated as approximately seventy, sixty and fifty days before Easter. It all means that Lent is upon us, beginning next Wednesday. Transfiguration used to be observed on 6 August but for some reason it is transferred to Quinquagesima Sunday. Maybe because 6 August is also Hiroshima Day when the explosion of brilliance was one if destruction.

ASH WEDNESDAY SERVICES

Eucharist and Imposition of Ashes Thornton 8am, Beresfield 6pm.

Two looming events:

Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday) Tarro Uniting Church will be hosting Pancake Day on Tuesday at 6:30pm. Will you let Gail know as soon as possible if you intend to be there, so that she can advise numbers for catering purposes.

World Day of Prayer: The host this year is Tarro Uniting Church, Friday 3 March at 10:30am. We have been requested to provide two readers: if you are attending and would like to read please advise Gail by next Sunday, as well as advising attendance intention for catering purposes.

Copies of the ABM Lenten study are now to hand. It is called “The Imaginary Doorway: Stories and Studies from the Gospel of Inclusion”. Rather than go analytically through one of the Gospel it looks at the people whose lives were turned around by the radical inclusiveness of Jesus. The author (Fr Stephen Daughtry writes ”when Scripture is read in church, no two people hear the same story. Each of us imagines scripture to life, through our lived experiences. Each of us hears and sees – and remembers – a different story” He encourages each one of us to reflect on our own experience as we revisit the people whose encounters he asks us to imagine.

There will be one study group with the established Monday afternoon group. If you would like to be a part of a second group (and I‘d encourage it) let me know by as soon as possible.

MARKET DAY

The regular Market Day is set down for Thornton on 2 March. There are flyers available so please take one or more for shop windows n your neighbourhood. There are also smaller notices available for letter box distribution

Volunteers are needed for setting up, putting away and site marshalling. Too much of the burden falls on the regular few and the burden become onerous. There will be a follow-up meeting at 2pm on Saturday 11 March to review the whole program and to decide whether we can continue it or not. It’s an important link to our community and we can and must capitalise on its evangelistic opportunity.

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 11 am on Sunday 11 March. Get those Annual Reports done now!

DISASTER RELIEF

There are a number of appeals current as Emergency Relief Agencies struggle to assist in the many disasters, both natural and man-made, that beset the world at present: the continuing conflict between Palestine and Israel the continuing invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the civil war in Syria, and the recent earthquake in Turkiye and Syria….. We risk “compassion fatigue” but I commend the many worthy charities to you: Act for Peace (the National Council of Churches agency), Caritas, Red Cross, United Nations Childrens’ Emergency Fund ……

Above all, pray for the people affected by war and disaster, remembering that prayer changes the one who prays.

MISSION BEYOND THE BORDERS

ABM A is the national church mission agency (Anglican Board of Mission, Australia). Their Lent and Good Friday Appeal envelopes are at the entrance to our churches. (The Good Friday Appeal in our church goes straight to the Diocese of Jerusalem, which operates schools and hospitals on both sides of the border, ministering to people without discrimination), In addition there is a booklet giving information on some of the major engagements of ABM in overseas mission as well as some of the significant projects at home. You may wish to support one or more of these projects.

VISITING CLERGY

Next Sunday I will be exchanging churches with The Revd Val McDonald, who is Locum at Morpeth. Val and I have known one another for many years, when we were both involved at St John’s Raymond Terrace. Since we have a joint expression of interest in the partial funding for a Youth Worker between us, Morpeth and Raymond Terrace we thought that it would make sense to change places from time to time so that we have a better understanding of the dynamics of each place in order that the Youth Worker placement might be most effective. Please make her welcome (I know that you will).

Lord be with you

Fr George

gmainprize@bigpond.com 0410 586 119

PROPERS for Transfiguration

Sentence

Suddenly a bright cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud a voice said “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased; listen to him”

Collect

O God, in the transfiguration of your Son you confirmed the mysteries of the faith by the witness of Moses and Elijah, and in the voice from the cloud you foreshadowed our adoption as your children: make us, with Christ, the heirs of your glory, and bring us to enjoy its fullness; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

Readings

Exodus 24:12-18 Moses goes to encounter God on Sinai

Psalm 2 Serve the Lord with awe

2 Peter 1:16-21 We were eyewitnesses of his majesty

Matthew 17:1-9 The transfiguration of Jesus

SERMON (Fr George)

In the Name of God, Amen

In the Christian experience, Transfiguration has to be THE “mountain top experience”. We have two such experiences in the readings for this morning in the story of Moses going to Sinai to encounter God and to be given the Commandments. While Moses received the Ten Commandments, in the record of Jesus transfiguration we hear one commandment, namely “LISTEN TO HIM”. Mary, the Blessed Mother, echoes the same commandment at the wedding in Cana, when she indicates her son and says “Do what he tells you”.

We speak of “mountain top experiences” when we want to describe some event which has had a significant effect on our lives. Like the apostles, we want to keep the experience going but inevitably we have to go back to the routine round of our life. Like the hymn says “Tis good Lord to be here, but we may not remain: but since you bid us leave the mount, come with us to the plain”. We can be changed by the encounter, or we can treat it as a pleasant experience and go on with the daily business.

The apostles were certainly “gob-smacked” by the experience, so much so that they “babbled”, and who wouldn’t? I mean, what can you say when you encounter Christ in glory? “Wow, that’s certainly a clean garment you are wearing? What did you use?” Just consider some of the nonsense which you have spouted at moments like that, or were you totally lost for words. What did you feel when you held your child for the first time? I’ll bet that none of you thought “oh dear, all those dirty nappies to come!”. More likely that you were overwhelmed by the wonder of it all. One of the photos that I treasure is one of my elder daughter holding her first child very soon after she was born: the look on her face is priceless as she contemplates this miracle of life she had just produced. Mind you, I was pretty gobsmacked too when the baby was handed to me! The birth of subsequent children is no less wondrous!

This week take some time to sit quietly and consider the moments in your life when God has seemed very close and perhaps you have had a new insight into the Divine. I recall a time in North Queensland when we were on the Atherton Tableland and climbed a hill overlooking an extensive plain. I stood in a wind cave where there were ancient carvings on the wall, looked out over the plain and was deeply moved by the realisation that God was never not in this land, and that countless generations had stood here and worshipped. Call God what you will, God is God. Over the years deep experiences have moulded the way in which I see God, and I don’t consider myself to be an especially “spiritual” person. It’s there for all of us.

God is forever God, and in Jesus Christ God reveals Godself to us and says “listen to him”. You can come to the Communion today expecting a routine experience, or you can come and expect to encounter the Word made Flesh in ever deepening ways. As we said the other week when we thought about the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, look for God in the most unexpected places; look for God and God will find you.

Amen

INTERCESSIONS

Let us pray for the preservation of the earth

For grace seriously to lay to heart the perils we face due to our inaction on climate change; for the right use of natural resources of earth, air and sea; for a deepening sense of your lordship of all Creation and our role as stewards of your bounty

We give thanks for the beauty and abundance of the earth. Give us and all peoples grace to live in harmony with your creation, wisdom and generosity in our use of its bounty.