08 October 2023
12:37 | 
Posted by
Dr Platts |
Our Sunday 10 am service for this, the 18th Sunday after Trinity, was a Choral Eucharist celebrated by Father Chris. The Children left us after the first hymn for their own session in the rooms and in the churchyard.
The reading from St Mathews Gospel followed the theme of the vineyard as a metaphor for the Nation of Israel, and Its relationship with God, and in his sermon Father Chris took up this idea pointing out that to grow good grapes (and make good wine!) the plants need to be fed, water and nurtured to produce high quality grapes, so we ned to tend and nurture our Christian faith to produce a good Christian way of life.
The Choir sang 'Teach me o Lord' by Thomas Attwood as the anthem.
The children re-joined us at communion and told us about the bunches of grapes they had made to represent this work in God's Vineyard.
Next week, the 15th of October which will be the third Sunday, we are having a slightly different arrangement. As usual the service in Church will be Mattins this will be taken by Father Roger. In the Church Hall Father Chris is holding a 'Crafty Mass' service for the children and their families, allowing him some more time with the youngsters than on other sundays. Come to which ever service best fulfills your spiritual needs and you will be most welcome.
On the 28th October we are planning our traditional Requiem Eucharist for All Soul's Day. The setting for this will be the Faure Requiem used liturgically. We welcome any one who would like to sing the Faure setting to a rehearsal at 3:30 and the service itself will be at 6pm. Please come and sing!
Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20
A reading from the book of Exodus.
Then God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of slavery;
you shall have no other gods before me.
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.
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.
Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy.
For six days you shall labour and do all your work.
Honour your father and your mother,
so that your days may be long in the land
that the Lord your God is giving you.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.
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.
When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning,
the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking,
they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance,
and said to Moses,
‘You speak to us, and we will listen;
but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’
Moses said to the people,
‘Do not be afraid;
for God has come only to test you
and to put the fear of him upon you
so that you do not sin.’
Philippians 3:4b-14
A reading from the letter of Paul to the Philippians.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh,
I have more:
circumcised on the eighth day,
a member of the people of Israel,
of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew born of Hebrews;
as to the law, a Pharisee;
as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
as to righteousness under the law, blameless.
Yet whatever gains I had,
these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.
More than that, I regard everything as loss
because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things,
and I regard them as rubbish,
in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him,
not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law,
but one that comes through faith in Christ,
the righteousness from God based on faith.
I want to know Christ
and the power of his resurrection
and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,
if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained this
or have already reached the goal;
but I press on to make it my own,
because Christ Jesus has made me his own.
Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own;
but this one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
I press on towards the goal
for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.
Matthew 21:33-46
Hear the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew.
Jesus said to the chief priests and the elders of the people:
‘Listen to another parable.
There was a landowner who planted a vineyard,
put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it,
and built a watch-tower.
Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country.
When the harvest time had come,
he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce.
But the tenants seized his slaves
and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.
Again he sent other slaves, more than the first;
and they treated them in the same way.
Finally he sent his son to them, saying,
“They will respect my son.”
But when the tenants saw the son,
they said to themselves,
“This is the heir;
come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.”
So they seized him,
threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.
Now when the owner of the vineyard comes,
what will he do to those tenants?’
They said to him,
‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death,
and lease the vineyard to other tenants
who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’
Jesus said to them,
‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes”?
Therefore I tell you,
the kingdom of God will be taken away from you
and given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.
The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces;
and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.’
When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables,
they realized that he was speaking about them.
They wanted to arrest him,
but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.
