OUR CHURCHES
Our churches can only be opened under strict condition in accordance with guidance from the government and the Diocese of Leeds. For details about what can be done regarding funerals, emergency baptisms etc scroll down to March 21 on the News/Events page. See that page also for information about when there are services at our churches, which ones are open each week for times of prayer, and some excerpts from the latest Penhill Beacon and how to receive a full copy.
Revd Tom Ringland: Service for Sunday August 2
This Sunday we continue our explorations in Matthew’s Gospel, as Jesus feeds the multitude in the wilderness.
In Genesis, the story of Abraham’s family develops as his grandson, Jacob, is given a new name …
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity
In today’s Psalm we read the following promise:-
The Lord is near to those who call upon him, to all who call upon him faithfully.
Psalm 145:19
Introduction
[opening sentences from the blue booklet: ‘Prayers during the coronavirus outbreak’, available from Christine Gard or Tom]
Opening Prayer
Eternal God, source of all blessing,
help us to worship you
with all our heart and mind and strength;
for you alone are God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
for ever and ever.
Amen.
Hymn ( music )
1 Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us
o’er the world’s tempestuous sea;
guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us –
for we have no help but Thee,
yet possessing every blessing
if our God our Father be.
2 Saviour, breathe forgiveness o’er us:
all our weakness Thou dost know:
Thou didst tread this earth before us,
Thou didst feel its keenest woe;
lone and dreary, faint and weary,
through the desert Thou didst go.
3 Spirit of our God, descending,
fill our hearts with heavenly joy,
love with every passion blending,
pleasure that can never cloy:
thus provided, pardoned, guided,
nothing can our peace destroy.
James Edmeston (1791–1867)
Invitation to Confession
Jesus says,
‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.’
So let us turn away from our sin and turn to Christ,
confessing our sins in penitence and faith.
Confession
Almighty God, our heavenly Father,
we have sinned against you
and against our neighbour
in thought and word and deed,
through negligence, through weakness,
through our own deliberate fault.
We are truly sorry
and repent of all our sins.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
who died for us,
forgive us all that is past
and grant that we may serve you in newness of life
to the glory of your name.
Amen.
Absolution
Almighty God,
who forgives all who truly repent,
have mercy upon you,
pardon and deliver you from all your sins,
confirm and strengthen you in all goodness,
and keep you in life eternal;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Readings
The Psalm for the day is Psalm 145:8-9,and 15-end
Genesis 32:22-31
Jacob Wrestles at Peniel
22 The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. 24 Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day is breaking.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go, unless you bless me.” 27 So he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then the man[b] said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,[c] for you have striven with God and with humans,[d] and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel,[e] saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
Matthew 14:13-21
Feeding the Five Thousand
13 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. 14 When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15 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.” 16 Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17 They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18 And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19 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. 20 And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21 And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Sermon – Hilary Disney
click here to see picture.
This morning we turn to one of the best known of Jesus’ miracles, the feeding of the 5,000. It’s a familiar story – so what more is there to learn? However often we read it, there’s always something new to notice.
A few years ago, I spotted an amazing painting of this event. Did any of you visit the Methodist Modern Art Collection at Tennants in Leyburn? Among the beautiful and sometimes challenging images, was Eularia Clarke’s painting “the Five thousand”, drawn from her trips to Canvey island, in the 1960s – Eastenders on a day trip to the “Blackpool of Essex”. The image shows the crowd of five thousand feeding, not on fish and bread, but fish and chips, blessed by a half-obscured priest, representing Jesus. The people are what would have been called in the 60’s “common”, with men in braces and women with headscarves. It emphasises Jesus immersing Himself in humanity. It also echoes the Eucharist.
We realise that the multitudes, rushing on foot to reach Jesus at the solitary place, would have been quite a rabble. Not the scholars and teachers of the law from the synagogue, but desperate villagers, with their sick or walking wounded the ones crippled from birth or who’d lost hope of a cure.
I invite us to pause for a moment and consider where we are in that scene - are we among the disciples – eager to help Jesus, but not sure how?....or one of the villagers, looking for His healing touch?....., or desperate for Him to notice our loved one who is sick?
Meanwhile, Jesus Himself is in a moment of pain and loss. Herod’s recent murder of John the Baptist casts over Him the long shadow of deadly opposition to His mission.
But even as He sets foot on the beach, Jesus knows His plan to spend time with the Father alone is being derailed. His desire to WITHDRAW submits to His irresistible impulse to plunge into this sea of humanity stretching along the shore.
And - as on so many other occasions, “HE HAD COMPASSION FOR THEM”.
Compassion: a word whose impact may be dulled by our daily use; but its stronger root meaning here is: “HE SUFFERED WITH them”. He FELT their pain.
As we imagine the crowd, this is not the scene of a pre-Raphaelite blonde Jesus, calmly walking among an obediently reverent crowd, but pushing his way through a clamouring hubbub of need, where voices cry out: “me next”, “come see my sick child” – “look over here, Rabbi!”.
Jesus among the crowds is a “touchy-feely” healer, silencing the shouts of the demoniacs, touching the unclean and leper, physically connected – literally, “feeling” their pain, healing and teaching, going on late into the day. So when the disciples start worrying about a lot of people fainting for lack of food, and go to Him with their predicament, we know it’s not from a lack of compassion that Jesus gives them disciples His strange reply.
We will come to that in a moment.
To understand more fully, we can recap earlier events: As Jesus’s apprentices, the Twelve had witnessed His Master-classes in Divine power, countless healings, and hours of teaching on the kingdom of God. They had even tasted that power themselves, in Matthew 10, sent out on their own, with His authority and power. The Twelve apprentice preachers, healers and exorcists had come back with report that, YES, they had been able to heal and to cast out demons IN HIS NAME. So now perhaps it is less surprising that, when they come to Jesus with a problem HE sees as having a supernatural solution – He calls upon THEM to do something about it. Returning to Eularia Clarke’s painting “the Five thousand”. Its message is that Jesus gets involved in and makes holy and wholesome the stuff of our lives and of all people’s lives - those He came to seek - where it’s not all neat and tidy, but where His compassion, and then His power is released.
When they present the problem to Jesus, His strange reply is: “YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT” - a challenge to them - “Why don’t YOU do it? Why not take things to the next level, after your experiences of being able to heal – Remember? When I sent you out four chapters ago?” .
Would they pick up on the idea that, as disciples, he expected them to look and learn, practice and demonstrate?
And we can see their exasperated and incredulous response - something like the Galilean version of John McEnroe’s “YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!”. And we know the rest of the story.
We could just leave it at that - a familiar Bible account of Jesus’ supernatural powers. But as we notice more, we realise that the call to action is also to us; to our responses to His challenge. First – if we are among the crowd, how are we recognising the compassion of God towards us in our own need? Or do we seek to muddle through on our own? If we identify with the disciples, how much are we modelling the COMPASSION of God the Father, displayed by Jesus so graphically? And in either case, how much do we recognise the possibilities for the power of God working IN us and FOR us and THROUGH US?
Whoever we may identify with in this scene, we encounter in the person of Jesus the release of God’s power. As those needing His compassion and healing, we can learn to open ourselves up to receive the nourishment that only He can give. As His followers, we can respond to need in others by mirroring the compassion of God. We can bring Him ourselves, just as we are. And as we do, His power is released from whatever we bring Him as our offering, however small.
In the Gospel, we carry the Only Hope for people in our neighbourhood that are hurt, in need and, at times, desperate. When God prompts us by His Spirit, we realise we are holding in our hands the fishes of the means to help. We are the ones carrying within us the loaves of the Love of God, shared with us, to then share with others. We too are His apprentices. But like the disciples, we can feel unsure what to do in the face of a need that we’ve never faced before or which makes us feel weak or out of our depth.
Notice what Jesus does… He doesn’t demote His failed apprentices to the substitute bench and just wade in and do it all Himself. He takes of what they are able to bring - the few fish and loaves (which, incidentally, they have brought to show how impossible it is to feed the crowd)… and He says “bring them to me I can work with this… Will YOU work with me?”
That is the whole difference in God’s approach to our uncertainties about receiving His healing, and finding and using the gifts He has already put in us. He says “OK, if you can’t manage THAT, can you manage THIS?”
Jesus looks to Heaven, draws down Divine power and then says “you do the giving out of Gods’ gifts”.
So too, God involves us in His mission - a mission heightened in these difficult times. We have His fish and His loaves of Compassion and Love, in a measure way beyond our own. And where we have a limited view – he says “Take heart; Alongside ME you can do just as powerful things as I – just look up, receive and obey”.
And now some thoughts from St Teresa of Avila:-
Christ has no body on earth but ours,
No hands and feet but ours,
Ours are the eyes through which HE looks compassion on this world
Ours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Ours are the hands through which He blesses our world
We are His Body Christ has no body now on earth but ours. Amen
Confession of Faith
Do you believe and trust in God the Father,
source of all being and life,
the one for whom we exist?
All We believe and trust in him.
Do you believe and trust in God the Son,
who took our human nature,
died for us and rose again?
All We believe and trust in him.
Do you believe and trust in God the Holy Spirit,
who gives life to the people of God
and makes Christ known in the world?
All We believe and trust in him.
This is the faith of the Church.
All This is our faith.
We believe and trust in one God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Amen.
Prayers of Intercession
led by Jayne Foster at 9.30 and at 10.30 by Anne Day, Anne's Zoom connection was lost and so her prayers of intercession are here:
Lord, today as we gather each in our homes to meet with our God in worship; let us pray to him now,
The Response to
Lord, You are the Bread of Life: is ‘Feed us now and evermore’
Lord, You are the Bread of Life: Feed us now and evermore
Lord. You are the bread of heaven, giving life to the world. You fill our emptiness with your goodness. You come to our weakness with your strength. Help us to turn to you in our spiritual hunger and thirst.
Come, refresh, renew and restore us.
Lord, You are the Bread of Life: Feed us now and evermore
Lord, we pray that your church may hunger and thirst after righteousness. Bless those who bring us the Bread of Life and we pray for all who seek to provide our Spiritual needs. We pray for Tom and Penny, for Ian, Gillian and Hilary. We pray for our Mission Partners, for the Newnhams with MAF, for Caring for Life and St Georges’ Crypt in Leeds; for Mary's Meals and for Bungokho Rural Development in Uganda.
Lord, You are the Bread of Life: Feed us now and evermore
Lord, we pray for those who are leading and guiding our nation at this time, shaping national policies. Guide all in authority with integrity and wisdom; that they may make right decisions: We pray for our Queen and for the Royal Family.
We pray for doctors, nurses and medical researchers, that through their skill and insights, many will be restored to health and a Covid Vaccine may be found.
Lord, You are the Bread of Life: Feed us now and evermore
We remember before you the starving people in the world, those who suffer from famine, poverty or war. Let the harvests of the world be neither hoarded nor squandered. We give thanks for those who have fed and cared for us. We pray for the farmers in the Dale as they look after their animals and work in the fields to make silage and hay. Lord, You are the Bread of Life: Feed us now and evermore
Lord, we pray for the isolated and housebound in our local communities; that we may be alert to their needs, and look out for them in their vulnerability: we pray for our homes, families and friends; for our schools and colleges and for a safe return in September.
Lord, may all come to you for renewal, refreshment and hope .
Lord, You are the Bread of Life: Feed us now and evermore
Lord, we remember those we have loved and see no more in this world.
We commend ourselves, and all for whom we have prayed, to your mercy and protection.
Merciful Father, accept these prayers for the sake of your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
also see ‘Prayers for use during the coronavirus outbreak’
Remember the free C of E phone line “Daily Hope” ...0800 804 8044.
Collect for the 8th Sunday after Trinity
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 Lord’s Prayer
[see the blue booklet]
Hymn (music )
1 I am the bread of life;
he who comes to Me shall not hunger;
he who believes in Me shall not thirst.
No-one can come to Me unless the Father draw him.
And I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up,
and I will raise him up
on the last day.
2 The bread that I will give
is My flesh for the life of the world;
and he who eats of this bread,
he shall live for ever, he shall live for ever.
And I will raise . . .
3 Unless you eat
of the flesh of the Son of Man
and drink of His blood,
and drink of His blood, you shall not have life within you.
And I will raise . . .
4 I am the Resurrection,
I am the Life;
he who believes in Me,
even if he die, he shall live for ever.
And I will raise . . .
5 Yes, Lord, we believe
that You are the Christ,
the Son of God,
who has come into the world.
And I will raise . . .
S Suzanne Toolan
© 1971 GIA Publications Inc
Conclusion
[From the blue booklet]
Blessing
The God of all grace,
who called you to his eternal glory in Christ Jesus,
establish, strengthen and settle you in the faith;
and the blessing …