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Dear all,
Paul and I, wanting to give thanks for our vaccinations in a way that would benefit those in the developing world, came upon this initiative launched by Christian Aid and Gloucester Diocese.  Have a look at it on the address below

https://www.christianaid.org.uk/give/ways-donate/give-thanks-your-coronavirus-vaccine

See what you all think
Mary

You can read it here.

You might be interested to know that Archdeacon Hilary will be leading the Morning Service on all 38 BBC Local Radio stations on next Sunday. The Service will start at 8.00am and will be on BBC Radio Gloucestershire 104.7 .

Dear All,

Something a little different this morning, a ‘Miniature Morning Prayer’ which I put together for a couple of folk who were struggling to find time for quiet worship and needed something they could use anytime and anywhere. Hoping that you can do the same. After this are the readings for Lent 3 and some thoughts on them.

Hoping to be back actually worshipping together in the not too distant future.

With love, every blessing

and prayers as always

Mary Tucker

A Miniature Morning Prayer

This is the day that the Lord has made,

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Let’s sing together,

O God our help in ages past,
our hope for years to come,
be Thou our guard while troubles last
and our eternal home.

Together we confess our sins and are forgiven

Have mercy on us and redeem us, O Lord
for our merits are your mercies
and in your judgement is our salvation

Happy the one whose transgression is forgiven and whose sin is covered,
. . . You surround me with songs of deliverance.

Thank you.

Amen.

Let us pray in the words of St Benedict,

Gracious and Holy Father,
give us wisdom to perceive you, 
diligence to seek you,
patience to wait for you,
eyes to behold you,
a heart to meditate on you
and a life to proclaim you,
through the power of the Spirit
of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen

Psalm 121

¹ I lift up my eyes to the hills—
    from where will my help come?
² My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.

³ He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
⁴ He who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.

⁵ The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
⁶ The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.

⁷ The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
⁸ The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time on and forevermore.

A reassuring poem based on Psalm 121

I lift up mine eyes to the quiet hills,
And my heart to the Father’s Throne;
In all my ways, to the end of days,
The Lord will preserve his own.

And a few words from St Anselm

Jesus, like a mother you gather your people to you, you are gentle with us as a mother with her children.  Despair turns to hope through your sweet goodness, through your sweet goodness, through your gentleness we find comfort in fear.  Your warmth gives life to the dead, your touch makes sinners righteous.  Lord Jesus in your mercy heal us, in your love and tenderness remake us, in your compassion bring grace and forgiveness and for the beauty of heaven may your love prepare us.

Final words and a blessing

The Lord bless us and keep us,
the Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious to us,
the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us and give us peace
And the blessing of God Almighty,
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit,
be with us this day,
with those we love and those we pray for.
Amen

Let us go in peace to love and serve the Lord,
in the name of Christ
Amen

Readings for the Third Sunday in Lent

Exodus 20:1-17

Then God spoke all these words:

² I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; ³ you shall have no other gods beforeme.

⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, ⁶ but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation^[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

⁷ You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.

⁸ Remember the Sabbath day, and keep it holy. ⁹ Six days you shall labour and do all your work. ¹⁰ But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. ¹¹ For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.

¹² Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

¹³ You shall not murder.

¹⁴ You shall not commit adultery.

¹⁵ You shall not steal.

¹⁶ You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

¹⁷ You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

¹⁸ For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. ¹⁹ For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
    and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
²⁰ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? ²¹ For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. ²² For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, ²³ but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, ²⁴ but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. ²⁵ For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

Thoughts on the Readings

My advice to student teachers as they approach the classroom for the first time is don’t try and teach any reading, any writing or any ‘rithmatic until you’ve got the rules set.

Unless the children know what the expectations are, unless they’ve signed up to them, agreed to them, in fact if possible helped to draft them out, there’s no point in starting to try and teach them anything.

What children need, and what children in the end discover they like though they may not realise it at the time, is to know just where the boundaries are. Thus far and no further. This is OK, this is not. And then they need to know that it will be stuck to, stuck to consistently for everyone by everyone. Once you’ve got that then you can move on to 2 + 2 makes 4 and ‘a’ is for apple or, if you’re more ambitious, e = mc squared!

And if we’re honest this doesn’t just apply to children. We certainly haven’t been short of rules and regulations this last 12 months but, even in this ‘unprecedented’ year, with rules far stricter than any that have been in place since the second world war and some stricter than that, if we’re honest, despite everything and however uncomfortable and restrictive they’ve been, I think we have been glad that the rules have been made and we have (I hope) adhered to them.

So we find God in our Old Testament lesson today doing just the same sort of thing. Before moving on to greater things with his fledgling nation the Israelites, they sit down together and map out the boundaries.

Or rather, Moses goes up the mountain, gets the list of rules, brings them down and everybody nods in agreement. The covenant is set. This is how we’ll deal together. You do this and I’ll be able to lead you and love you, guide you and bring you to greatness and fulfilment, God tells them. And the Israelites nod sagely in agreement and all seems well.

And these rules are still here for us and though a lot is written in the New Testament about things that take us beyond this law, nowhere does it say that this list is to be abandoned. I love the King James Bible of Jesus’ words on the subject, “Not one jot or tittle shall be changed!”

So the Ten Commandments still stand and we too nod sagely in agreement and our covenant with God stands firm. Or does it?

Are our nods of assent motivated by a feeling that really we nowadays in this civilised world have very little to worry about? But perhaps we should examine this list of do’s and don’ts with particular reference to the ‘jots and tittles’, the implications for us here and now.

Lets take them in reverse. Are we quite sure they don’t apply to us?

Coveting. Well, though I live opposite a farm there are no oxen or donkeys and I enjoy looking at but don’t particularly wish I own the cattle and other livestock. However the old farmhouse – well that’s lovely! Why can’t I have a home like that?

And when we come to coveting our neighbour’s wife or husband come to that . . . (which links of course with commandment number 7 – the adultery one) we are sadly in the real world a world from which none of us are immune. Whether the adultery is in the heart or in reality this is the stuff of daily life I’m afraid and it is dangerous to take anything for granted.

Let’s move on. Lying. We do it, I’m sorry but we do. They just slip out, “It’s only a slight spin on the truth, I’m just not telling everything, it’s a white lie and it’s for the other person’s good” we protest to ourselves. We do it even though we are told quite specifically not to and we need to give this serious thought.

And stealing? We may not have the lead off the church roof but the pack of paper from work? The undeclared photocopying or printing on the office equipment? Perhaps we haven’t but have we been tempted?

Murder. Surely we’re safe in this one. Except . . . which of us is not capable if the situation arose? I don’t know. We may think we wouldn’t, couldn’t but are there circumstances . . .?

And what about the times we perhaps get away with it, driving above the speed or drink drive limit or just not caring enough to make the effort to support the charities that save lives or to buy the goods that sustain rather than destroy communities.

Maybe I push it too far but is withholding the stuff of life, fair sharing of food, clean water the equivalent of murder? It would be if it was a person in our direct care. Is it different just because these people are far away? And at the moment of course the business of breaking COVID restrictions! It all needs to be considered before we settle too comfortably into our self righteousness.

Next, keeping Sunday special. I’m not pretending this is easy especially at the moment when we can’t be in church, and I’m not pretending it doesn’t apply to me just as much as to you but how much more then do we need to make the effort. I hide my ‘to do’ list and try to take the rest God is offering – it’s different for each of us but somehow we all need to be even stricter with ourselves in a time when it’s often hard to remember what day it is as the sameness of lock-down imprisons us.

And swearing, taking the Lord’s name in vain, if we’re honest do we? Ever? And if we do what message does it give to the world about our commitment? Our covenant with our loving God?

Nearly there now. We’re up at Commandment number two and I doubt that many of us have constructed golden calf in the garden as a Corona Virus project. Neither have we fallen down regularly before some man made shrine we protest, except that I worship regularly at the alter of my bank balance, and I give high priority to the watching of my favourite TV show or listening to the cricket (the biggest idol of all for me). There are innumerable things which, if I am honest, I regularly put, or am tempted to put, before my commitment to God so that I hardly dare come to Commandment number one – ‘You shall have no other God than me’ – and as Jesus put it so succinctly, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your strength.”

If like me you are now feeling pretty depressed take heart for Paul in our New Testament reading, brings us the good news. God does not abandon us. True, not one jot of tittle of the law departs but the wisdom which it seems to represent is overtaken by the foolishness of love. By the apparently foolishness notion that an all-powerful God, looking down on those who like us have repeatedly failed to keep within the boundaries negotiated, the rules agreed, the covenant set; that this all powerful God would come himself and that his death and resurrection would bring us wisdom wiser than any we could aspire to, a strength beyond our strength to love us despite our inability to put him first; that he would support us as we strive to become more and more worthy of the foolish, all encompassing, forgiving love of the same God who set out the boundaries for Moses on Mount Sinai all those millennia ago.

Westbury on Severn Benefice invites you to Sunday Afternoon Worship

Time: Sunday 7^th March 2021 at 3pm

Join Zoom Meeting

Meeting ID: 863 607 8760

Passcode: 3Ru57A

Stilman Davis has offered this piece.

Here is today’s offering

Worshipping Together – Last Sunday before Lent

Dear All,

Welcome once more to our ‘kitchen table communion service’. It is a joy still to be able to share with you in this, even though we are still parted, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. Despite the obvious need for lock down and our matching decision to keep each other safe by staying apart for now, so many of you have already received your vaccinations and the wonderful work of so many scientists and medics means that during the next few months more and more people will be safe.

Today is the last Sunday before Lent (hard to believe as that may be) and, as we prepare for that extended time of penitent pondering and preparation, today we remind ourselves of the transformative power of the God we worship

So until next time, be it in a church building or on the pages of this website

Keep separate, keep safe, keep hoping, keep smiling (even behind your mask) and keep faith for we are never separated from the love of God or from the prayers of each other.

Mary Tucker

A ‘Kitchen Table Communion’ to say at home (adapted from the worship of the Iona Community)

Gathering Prayer

Creator of the cosmos,
Of eternity and time:
Be with us in this time.
Saviour of the world,
Healer of the nations:
Be with us in this place.
Breath of all that lives,
Of people near and far:
Stir within our lives.
Creator, Son, Spirit
God of here and now:
Be present in our worship
That we may find new ways
Of being present in your world.

(Hymn/Song – Sing something you enjoy!!)

Bible Readings

2 Corinthians 4:3-6

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.  The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.  For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.  For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Mark 9:2-9

The Transfiguration

After six days Jesus took Peter, James and John with him and led them up a high mountain, where they were all alone. There he was transfigured before them.  His clothes became dazzling white, whiter than anyone in the world could bleach them.  And there appeared before them Elijah and Moses, who were talking with Jesus.Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”  (He did not know what to say, they were so frightened.)Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!”Suddenly, when they looked around, they no longer saw anyone with them except Jesus. As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Some Thoughts on the Readings

Veils and shining faces.

It sounds like a description of a wedding. And it’s true, at all the best marriage celebrations there is something shining, something that gets past the nerves and trembling, the tears and the emotion, in the eyes of those who are pledging themselves to one another. Something shines out

It’s said about smiles too. You can tell if a smile is real, genuine. It’s not about the grin, it’s something that shines, yes that really shines. It’s something in the eyes that tells you it is real. And that’s why it works even from behind a mask!

They say it also about women who are expecting a baby. Pregnancy, we are told, has a real glow, something of the joy that the mother to be is feeling shines out.

Both of the readings set for this morning are about shining faces, glowing countenances. Both also have something about veils, something that, for better or worse, shields us or others from the shining. Or perhaps something that gets in the way, blocks the glow.

In the Gospel reading the chosen disciples accompany Jesus who has taken them up the mountain to pray. Both the disciples and Jesus hear God’s words, hear confirmation, God’s words of affirmation that he is God’s Son, that his words are words to which all people should listen.

And Jesus is transformed by this encounter with the Living God. He actually glows. His glory shines out.

The disciples, huddled on the mountainside near Jerusalem are fearful, awestruck. The cloud rescues them, veils their sight that they may not be overwhelmed by the might and glory of close contact with God. But in some ways their sight was already veiled, veiled by their fear, their lack of faith and trust, their misunderstanding, as so often is ours.

So Paul, writing to the Christians of Corinth, and of course to us, draws the comparison with this encounter and our reactions to it. Of course we are awestruck and sometimes a little fearful of our Almighty God and Father, and so we should be if we come into his presence too easily, thoughtlessly and without due reverence, as a little prayer for use before Bible Reading puts it. And yet too often, I think, like the disciples, we veil our own sight from the ultimate power and overwhelming love that is God’s through inappropriate fear, lack of faith and trust or misunderstanding.

Awesome is an overused word but in this context it is absolutely the right one. So Paul tells us our minds are to be open to this glory not hardened like those separated from God through sin and fear. We are the unveiled ones who can and do (sometimes) reflect the light of Jesus, not through any might or merit of our own but because the veil, the need to be separated from God because of our sin, was destroyed, was torn from top to bottom like the curtain in the temple as Jesus fulfilled his destiny for us at Calvary.

Instead of a veil, Paul goes on later to compare us to the disciples who did not remain fearful and untrusting. We too can be transformed like them, he tells us, transfigured by the flames of Pentecost, by Jesus’ Spirit mirrored in us and changing us ‘from glory to glory’, as we are transformed by his love and power into the shining ones we were always intended to be.

And we have a responsibility, a responsibility to shine. We may not glow like a light bulb or fluoresce like a high viz. jacket, but it is expected of us, it is part of the ministry of those of us whose sight of God is no longer veiled, of those of us who call ourselves Christians to shine forth in the world.

Our behaviour, our talk, our faces and, yes, even our masked smiles should show forth the glory of the God we serve. And it is not too much to ask because in prayer and in partnership with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we are being transformed from glory to glory in his power.

I am fond of saying that though I can see that God is making some progress in his slow transformation of me into the image of the one I will one day be, I have,as yet, only made it from glory to gl . . . ! But that is no excuse. We must not lose heart or think ourselves unworthy of the ministry each of us is given. In the power of God and of Jesus our Saviour we will go forth from here today and those we meet in the coming week, mask to mask, on the phone or via the wonders of technology, may not be dazzled but should at least be aware of the light of God’s love glowing through all we are and say and do.

So go forth in the peace of Christ, to love and serve and to shine for the Lord.

Prayers

We continue our prayers now as we pray to the Lord for courage as we walk, together but apart, along the road of life.

In this difficult time, give your Church the courage to give up her preoccupation with herself and to give time to your mission in the world.

Lord, help us to recognise you in our lives, give us strength and hear our prayer.

May the blood and water flowing from the side of Jesus bring forgiveness to your people and help us to face the cost of proclaiming salvation as we work together and apart in your damaged world.

Lord, help us to recognise you in our lives, give us strength and hear our prayer.

Give your world the courage to give up war, bitterness and hatred, and to seek peace and healing for each other.

Lord, help us to recognise you in our lives, give us strength and hear our prayer.

May the shoulders of the risen Jesus, once scourged by soldiers, bear the burden of our times.

Lord, help us to recognise you in our lives, give us strength and hear our prayer.

Give us the courage to give up quarrels, strife and jealousy in our families, neighbourhoods and communities.

Lord, help us to recognise you in our lives, give us strength and hear our prayer.

May the presence of the risen Jesus, his body once broken and now made whole, bring peace and direction as we live with one another. Give us the courage to give up our selfishness as we live for others, and to give time, care and comfort to the sick and those who care for them in ways that are safe for them and for us.

Lord, help us to recognise you in our lives, give us strength and hear our prayer.

May the wounded hands of Jesus bring his healing touch to all who suffer, and the light of his presence fill their hearts and homes.

Lord, help us to recognise you in our lives, give us strength and hear our prayer.

Give us the courage to give up our fear of death and to rejoice with those who have died in faith. May the feet of the risen Lord Jesus, once nailed to the cross, walk alongside the dying and bereaved in their agony, and walk with us and all your Church through death to the gate of glory.

Lord, help us to recognise you in our lives, give us strength and hear our prayer, here and in eternity. Amen.

We pray with confidence as our Saviour has taught us

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy Kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever and ever.

Amen

A Home Communion

(use some bread or a plain biscuit, some wine or juice)

What we do here in our own homes today, we do in imitation of what Christ first did.

To his followers in every age, Jesus gave an example and command rooted in the experience he shared with his disciples in an upstairs room in Jerusalem.

So now we do as Jesus did.

We take this food and drink, the produce of the earth and fruit of human labour.

In these, Jesus has promised to be present, through these, Christ can make us whole.

Eucharistic Prayer

The Lord is with us,

And with all those with whom we worship, together but apart.

We lift our hearts together.

We lift them to the Lord.

We give thanks together to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is indeed right, for you made us,

and before us, you made the world we inhabit,

and before the world, you made the eternal home

in which, through Christ, we have a place.

And so we gladly join our voices to the song of the Church,

to those from whom we are separated

on earth and in heaven:

Holy, holy, holy Lord,

God of power and might,

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

And now,

lest we believe that our praise alone fulfils your purpose,

we fall silent

and remember him who came because words were not enough.

Setting our wisdom, our will, our words aside,

emptying our hearts and bringing nothing in our hands,

we yearn for the healing, the holding, the accepting, the forgiving

which Christ alone can offer.

(we pause quietly for a moment)

Merciful God, send now, in your kindness

your Holy Spirit on this food and drink

and fill them with the fullness of Jesus.

And let that same Spirit rest on us,

converting us from the patterns of this passing world,

until we conform to the shape of him whose food we share.

Amen.

Sharing God’s Gifts

Among friends, gathered round a table,

Jesus took bread and broke it, and said,

‘This is my body, broken for you.’

Later he took a cup of wine and said,

‘This is the new relationship with God

made possible because of my death.

Take it, all of you, to remember me.’

He whom the universe could not contain is present to us in this food.

He who redeemed us and called us by name now meets us in this cup.

So we take this food and drink.

In them God comes to us so that we may come to God.

(Eat, drink, share the food and drink you have prepared and prayed over)

The Peace

(We bring to mind all those with whom we would usually share this moment,

holding them on our hearts.)

Christ who has nourished us is our peace,

strangers and friends, male and female, old and young, near and far away,

Jesus has broken down the barriers to bind us to him and to each other.

The peace of the Lord be always with you.

(and also with you)

Concluding prayer

In gratitude, in deep gratitude for this moment, this meal, we give ourselves to you. Take us out to live as changed people because we have shared the living Bread and cannot remain the same.

Ask much of us, expect much of us, enable much by us, encourage many through us.

May God’s goodness be ours.
May each of us be an oasis in the desert.
May each of us be a star in the dark.
May each of us be a staff to the weak.
May the love Christ Jesus gave fill every heart for us.
May the love Christ Jesus gave fill us for every heart.
May God’s blessing be ours.

Amen

Stilman Davis has offered this.

You can read it here.