Dear People of God
Grace and Peace to you all
Do you ever have those times when you feel that the world is spinning out of control? You might remember the name of a show (film?) of yesteryear “Stop the world, I want to get off!”. There is simply too much happening: the cost of living keeps outpacing our incomes, there are wars and rumours of wars, nationally and locally we can never agree on a way forward and division seems even more entrenched in our society. If you feel that way, then welcome to the clan!
I know that I’ve said it before but I will repeat it over and over again. We are called to be people of prayer, and be careful what you pray for! Prayer changes things: the one who prays might just be the first change. If you want to pray for peace, be a person of peace; if you want to pray for healing, be a healer if you want to pray for racial harmony, look for someone of a different race and seek to share together your perspectives on matters, because you might just find that we have much more in common than you expected. I know that politics is a great divider of people, bet we also have a tendency to target the person and not the policies: refrain from personal abuse and focus instead on engaging another person in what they believe and why and do not be side-tracked by the unedifying display of what passes for “political debate” in the parliaments of this land.( I, as much as anyone else, are guilty of sins I this latter category!)
Bishop Sonia will be with us today at Parish Council as the search begins to discover who you are and where you might be heading as a parish. I’m on a journey of discovery too, as I consider my next steps after leaving this parish.
Diarise the Christmas Market at Thornton on 2 December, and the Ecumenical Carol Service at St Paul’s on 10 December.
The Giving Trees are in place in the churches for the Samaritans appeal and the lists of appropriate gifts are on the notice boards in the churches (and were also, I remind you, in last week’s mailout.)
The Lord be with you
Fr George
PROPERS for the Day
Sentence
God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other. (1 Thessalonians 5:9,11)
Collect
Everliving God, before the earth was formed, and even after it shall cease to be, you are God. Break into our short span of life and show us those things that are eternal, that we may serve your purpose in all that we do; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in unity with the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
Readings
Judges 4:1-10 Deborah and Barak
Psalm 123 Assurance of God’s protection
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 The coming of the Lord
Matthew 25:14-30 The Parable of the Talents
Sermon (Fr George)
In the Name of God. Amen
You’d be familiar with the saying “familiarity breeds contempt”, right? I think that this might well apply to some of the parables of Jesus. They become part of the language: think of “fatted calf”, “lost sheep”, “good Samaritan” and more. The risk is that by overfamiliarity with the subject we fail to go deeper into the matter that Jesus was discussing. It’s a teaching technique that invites us to examine, re-examine, and then go back to it time and time again to find new and deeper meanings. Take a common expression such as “I love you” …. How many depths of meaning can you find in that?
In a teaching ministry of no longer than one or three years, depending on which chronology you follow, the Synoptic Gospels or John, Jesus packed a lifetime of meaning into his preaching.
Some of the characteristics of his teaching, common to general Middle Eastern teaching of the time, include exaggeration, circular stories (where it returns to a point where it began but with a difference), and metaphor. Last week we heard the story of the wise and foolish bridesmaids: this week we hear one of the versions of the parable of the talents. It starts with the man going on a journey and allocating certain resources: it concludes with the man returning from the journey and calling for an accounting from the servants, or probably slaves, and making a judgement on the outcomes. The exaggeration element comes into this one with the value of the assets: a talent was the equivalent of more than fifteen years wages for a labourer, so even the one talent was pretty valuable. The judgement is also an exaggeration. The point would not have been lost on the hearers who might themselves go away and turn the apparent meaning over and over in their minds, coming up with new depths each time.
Let’s consider one level of meaning for our purposes here.
We are not all created with the same talents, in the modern sense of the world. We have different skills and different levels of skill, which we can develop by application, learning and opportunity. Some people will make good teachers but disastrous engineers; some will be good machine operators but dreadful farmers….. and so it goes. But our society needs a wide array of talents and applications to function effectively. Consider a person with absolutely no farming ability or interest who acquires a very fertile piece of land and, when a community is critically short of food, refuses to either farm the land or lease it to someone who will, and thereby manages to deepen the crisis of his community. Exaggeration? Certainly, but any more exaggerated than the method Jesus uses?
A community depends on each person using their skills and interests, which is another way of describing talents, for the benefit of the whole. Certainly they get a reward for themselves in doing so, but so does the whole community. The same is true of the community of faith to which we also belong. St Paul lists a number of gifts of the Spirit: some are teachers, some are givers of hospitality, some are preachers, some have the gift of eloquence and other can interpret that eloquence for the common hearer, and so it goes. And each gift, or talent, depends on the recipient making use of it and developing it. In this manner the community of faith grows in faith for the benefit of all, including those who might presently be outside that community and are brought in by the teaching, hospitality and the multitude of gifts or talents that community manifests.
How might we be judged?
Amen.
Intercessions
Let us pray for the world which we are set
That as we pray “your will be done” we may truly become doers of your will and not hearers only. As we pray for all of your world, give us an awareness of the peace which Christ came to bring, not only in our hearts and in our homes, but in our communities, our nations and in the world at large. Remember for good the people of Palestine and Israel, Ukraine and Russia, and all places of enmity, strife and disaffection. Enable us, by your Spirit, truly to live as people of reconciliation and justice: with the First People of this land; and with communities of different ethnicity or religious allegiance.
(keep a silence)
Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
Let us pray for the Kingdom which Christ came to build
For mutual love and co-operation between different traditions of divided Christianity: for the World Council of Churches and for our national and local ecumenical endeavours; for our Carol Service in this community.
For the Anglican Communion throughout the world: for Justin, Archbishop of Canterbury; for the Scottish Episcopal Church; for our sister Diocese of Guadalcanal; in this land for the Church Missionary Society and, at a time when we remember James Noble, the first Indigenous Clergyman, that we may strive to understand and learn from the spirituality of the people who have sought you for thousands of years; in this diocese for Peter our Diocesan and the regional bishops Sonia and Charlie; the ministry of Anglican Care and the staff and residents of its facilities; for the Clergy of this Diocese living in retirement.
(keep a silence)
Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
Let us pray for this parish and ecumenical community
That we may work to discover those things that we may do together in service and mission; for our fellow-Christians in the Tarro Baptist Church; for your leading as we consider our future direction as an Anglican community; that you will raise up a faithful shepherd and pastor of your flock in this place; for our clergy George and Gail and their families; for enquirers and seekers in the faith; for the forthcoming Christmas Fair and for the Fundraisers;
(keep a silence)
Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
Let us pray for all those for whom prayer has been sought and those whose need is known to us
Those who will seek the Sacrament of Unction at the services today
(keep a silence)
Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
Let us give thanks for the community in which we are set extending space and time, those we know as saints and heroes of the faith and for that vast multitude whose hope was in the Word made Flesh whose names are known to us and those whose names are known to God alone
Mary the Blessed Mother, Paul and Michael our Patrons, James Noble, the mystics and restorers of Religious Life in the Anglican Community; and Warwick Giles, May Wightman, Neville Young, and Etty Harding, whose years mind falls at this time, and those whom we have loved and see no more
(keep a silence)
Lord, in your mercy hear our prayer.
Holy God, you have promised to hear us grant that what we ask in faith me may, by your grace, receive, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
COMMEMORATIONS of the week
25 James Noble (1941) was a talented stockman who lived for a time in Scone where he came under the influence of the Anglican parish, and he was baptised and confirmed. His subsequent career involved lay ministry across Northern and Western Queensland where he and his wife sere significantly engaged in cross-cultural ministry. He was eventually made Deacon in St George’s Cathedral, Perth in 1935, becoming the first Indigenous clergyman in the Anglican Church in Australia. Declining health led to the ultimate return to Yarrabah, in North Queensland, where he died after a fall in 1941. Several people from Yarrabah, including Arthur Malcolm, the first Indigenous Bishop, found their priestly vocation through his ministry. It is to the shame of the Australian Church that it took so long before indigenous people became part of the ordained ministry of this church.
The Diocesan auditing procedure for safe ministry practice now requires us to reproduce this statement on our regular bulletins and mailouts.
SAFE MINISTRY IN THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF NEWCASTLE
As a parish we have taken steps to keep our environment safe. Clergy and volunteers are subject to strict requirements such as Working With Children Checks and Safe Ministry training. We are committed to being a safe place where survivors of abuse experience care and support.
A link to our Parish Safe Ministry Policy is being placed on our Parish Website.
FAITHFUNESS IN SERVICE IN THE ANGLICAN DIOCESE OF NEWCASTLE
This is code for personal behaviour and practice of pastoral ministry b clergy and church workers. A copy of this code can be found at https://newcastleanglican.org.au/wp-content/uploads2020/08/faithfuness-in-service-anglican-diocese-of-newcastle-july-2020.pdf
The Anglican Diocese of Newcastle takes allegations of misconduct and abuse seriously. If you would like to speak to someone, please phone 1800 774 945 or contact the through: https://www.newcastleanglican.org.au/governance/safe-ministryprofeessional-standards/
Newcastle Anglicans expresses a profound regret that children were harmed while participating in activities associated with the Diocese. It offers its apology to every survivor. More information can be found at: https:///www.newcastleanglican.org.au/governance/safe-ministry/redress/
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