Deeping St James Parish Church Magazine
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Silent Night?
Jesus is, of course, special. That almost goes without saying, but we have to be so careful about how we interpret that, because what the Christmas celebration is all about at its heart is that Jesus is also profoundly ordinary! He is both God and human, and in his humanity he was born into a world with all its problems, joys and sorrows, and born into a very ordinary family at a very inconvenient time.
Was the birthnight silent? It depends upon where you want to put your emphasis! For me, I very much doubt it: the whole point about what God was doing in Mary is that she was to give birth, as a human mother to a human baby who would grow up to be a man with no advantages over anyone else. She will made the same sounds any other young mother giving birth for the first time without anaesthetic, and he will have cried like any other baby drawing his first breath and wanting his first feed. It seems to me that to claim that his divine perfection would require the Little Lord Jesus no crying to make would be to say that crying babies are somehow a wrong - which they are plainly not: it is what babies naturally do to express their needs.
By the time the shepherds arrive all is well, the manger commandeered as a makeshift cradle, the baby wrapped in cloths, the night, becoming morning, settling down.
We might want to place the stress on the uniqueness of Christ's birth and see it as different from our own: painless for mother and child, mother understanding all his needs before he cries - but I would want to argue that this does not seem to have been the way with other parts of Jesus' life as know it, most notably his excruciating manner of death. There was nothing painless about the flogging and the crucifixion and for Mary watching no hope, either, as she watched her firstborn suffer, as so many ordinary parents have done and still do in so many places across this sinful world. Christmas night is the beginning of the painful, noisy story that leads to Easter night when all suffering is conquered and Christ rises victorious, our saviour and King. Let neither night be silent as we sing the praises of God who has given us so much in Christ - our singing, our bell-ringing and our exuberance should surely reflect the amazing gift of eternal life to us who know we do not deserve it, bought at the great expense of the life of Christ.
Merry Christmas!
Readings for December
To see your reading in advance without having to mark your bible pages, you can select and copy your reference and paste it into oremus Bible Browser (or type in your reference) and print out the reading. The translation used in church is the New Revised Standard Version, which is the default version on oremus.
(Readings from the beginning of Advent are from Year A of the Revised Common Lectionary)
2nd December, 1st Sunday of Advent:
- Morning: Isaiah 2: 1-5; Romans 13: 11-end (08:00 only); Matthew 24: 36-44
- 18:00: Lessons and Carols for Advent
9th December, 2nd Sunday of Advent:
- Morning: Isaiah 11: 1-10; Romans 15: 4-13; Matthew 3:1-12
- 18:00: 1 Kings 18: 17-39; John 1: 19-28
16th December, 3rd Sunday of Advent:
- Morning: Isaiah 35; James 5: 7-10; Matthew 11: 2-11
23rd December, 4th Sunday of Advent:
- Morning: Isaiah 7: 10-16; Romans 1: 1-7; Matthew 1: 18-end
- 18:00: Nine Lessons and Carols for Christmas
24th December, Christmas Night:
- 23:30: Isaiah 52: 7-10; Hebrews 1: 1-4; John 1; 1-14
25th December, Christmas Day:
- Morning: Isaiah 62: 6-end (08:00 only); Titus 3: 4-7; Luke 2: 1-20
30th December, 1st Sunday of Christmas:
- Morning: Isaiah 63: 7-9; Hebrews 2: 10-end; Matthew 2: 13-end
Home Groups
- The Bible Study Group meets on Fridays at 10:00 at the Vicarage
- House Group: Every Wednesday, 7.30 pm at 45 Crowson Way - Everyone welcome
Notices
Deadline for January Issue
If you would like to contribute an article for the next issue of Priory News, please note that is must be with Dave Merchant by 14th December at the latest. It helps enormously if items are sent as plain electronic text by email to david_merchant@hotmail.com since this makes them much quicker and simpler to handle, but pencil and paper will do, thanks!
Christmas Tree Festival
The Church Social Committee with help from members of the Deepings Flower Club are staging a Festival of Christmas Trees in Church during the festive season. If any organisation, group or family would like to supply and decorate a tree would they please contact any member of the committee for details.
St Thomas's Day Charity
Each winter the trustees of the Deeping St James United Charities make a benefit available to the older widows in the parish from the St Thomas's Day Charity, so called because benefactions are made on 21st December, the date on which St Thomas used to be celebrated, just in time to help with the Christmas expenses or heating cost.
If you are a widow over 60 years of age and have lived in the parish of Deeping St. James for the last three years you are entitled to a grant from the St Thomas's Day Charity. Forms are available from the Post Office or the Priory Church from November, as well as the Institute office and other sources around the parish, or the form can be downloaded as a PDF from www.dsjunitedcharities.org.uk and returned to the Institute.
MISSION MATTERS
You may, by now, have learned that the Craft Fair raised nearly £400.
The Mission Committee would like to thank everyone for their support and also a special `thank you` to those who baked and donated cakes
The reponse to our appeal for food and clothing for the homeless has been very encouraging - again thanks to all.
Please keep up the good work as it is getting colder!
Parish Greetings
This year we have been asked to revive our Christmas card board. This will enable us to send good wishes to everyone at church and also welcome the many visitors who join us at Christmas. I hope you'll support this so we can have a full, festive board.
Bet Washbrooke
What do you call a bunch of grandmasters of chess bragging about their games in a hotel lobby?
Chess nuts boasting in an open foyer
Christmas Stockings
According to legend, a kindly nobleman grew despondent over the death of his beloved wife and foolishly squandered his fortune. This left his three young daughters without dowries and thus facing a life of spinsterhood.
The generous St. Nicholas, hearing of the girls' plight, set forth to help. Wishing to remain anonymous, he rode his white horse by the nobleman's house and threw three small pouches of gold coins down the chimney where they were fortuitously captured by the stockings the young women had hung by the fireplace to dry.
A Warm Welcome this Advent and Christmas
After many trials and false hopes we finally had the gas connected and the new heating system started for Sunday 18th November, so, barring disasters, we expect to have our warmest winter ever at the Priory Church of St James! The new system is set to keep the building several degrees above freezing all the time and to rise to a comfortable temperature in time for services. For regular services it calculates for itself how long it will take to get to that temperature, depending upon the weather outside, so it should always be warm enough.
I'd like to thank everyone who played a part in badgering E.On, our gas supplier, when they were delaying the installation of the meter, and churchwarden John Worthington who turned up to meet Dunphy's electrical engineer who came along to correct the slight fault which delayed the proper starting of the system by a couple of days. Most of all we remember our departed sister Hilda Jackson whose generous bequest made this project possible.
The heating will help to preserve the fabric of the building and make it a much more acceptable venue for concerts and other events in winter as well making it more comfortable (especially for the young and the old) for worship. So now you can invite all your friends, no matter how frail, at any time of year! We do not want to waste gas or threaten the tuning of the organ by heating the building to too high a temperature, so winter clothes will still be a good idea, but you will feel pleasantly warm and will be able to unbutton, or even remove, your coat!
Please bear with us for a couple of weeks while we experiment with settings to get the temperature to the best level, and do please pass on what you think of the temperature so that we have a good spread of comments.
Thank you.
Mark Warrick
News From The Tower
The "Tower Shower" held their annual tower clean up session on Saturday 16 November when the ringing chamber and belfry had a thorough clean up and maintenance carried out on the bells. Thanks to all who took part, and a special big "THANK YOU" to Jo who laid on an excellent lunch afterwards.
We had pleasure in ringing the bells on Tuesday evening to celebrate the Diamond Wedding Anniversary of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh.
It is quite pleasant entering the ringing chamber on a cold and frosty morning now that the new heating has been laid on in the tower. Previously we relied on electric fan heaters, which were not as good as the new system.
"We would like to wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year"
Getting serious about relationships?
Whether we are in our 20s and 30s or 70s and 80s (or somewhere in between!) God wants us in relationships with others. It is through our relationships that he blesses us. This includes relationships with our families, our church, our community, and of course a close intimate relationship with one other person. Sometimes this last one is the hardest to achieve. But why is this?
Its easy to think 'God wants to bless me so I'll sit back and let him' but sadly blessings don't often come that way. Have you heard the phrase 'God helps those who helps themselves'? It's so often true! Finding someone to have an intimate committed relationship with is the same. We have to work at it — whatever our age! In fact we have to work as if it all depended on us, while praying as if it all depended on God.
Since 1999, God has been using the organisation friendsfirst to help all types of single Christians meet other Christians for friendship and relationships. With the emphasis on friendship, the organisation provides a great way of meeting new people, who are all Christian and who are also investing seriously in themselves and their future. If you think it's time you made a difference in your life, or helped God to answer your prayers, then you should contact Katharine Gray, or Julia the membership manager at friendsfirst on 0121 427 1286 for more details. friendsfirst is-a UK and Ireland wide organisation, providing a very personalised, confidential and successful service. You can also find out more about their service from their information-only website www.friendslst.co.uk or write for a brochure to PO Box 8377, Birmingham, B17 9TE.
God has a promising future for you (Jeremiah 29:11) — will you go out and get it?
News from Explorers, Climbers and Scramblers
Explorers, Climbers and Scramblers have been very busy decorating and filling shoe boxes with presents for Operation Christmas Child. They are sent to children who are not as well off as we are, and we are very grateful to the Mission Committee for organising this project.
The children are preparing for Christmas by making decorations for the trees which they will be entering in the Christmas Tree Festival. They are also practising songs for the annual Christmas Event. Do come and join us on Sunday 23rd December at 11.30am in the Church Hall when we shall be presenting 'The Grumpy Shepherd'. Mulled wine and mince pies will be served.
Explorers (7 - 11), Climbers (5 - 7) and Scramblers (under 5) meet every Sunday morning (except during the Summer holiday period) at 9.50am in the Church Hall. They join older worshippers in Church for their blessing, final hymn and refreshments. New members are always welcome. Please contact Andrea (Climbers and Scramblers) on 344926 or Alison (Explorers) on 345890 for more details.
Next to Godliness?
There is an English saying that "cleanliness is next to godliness," probably coined by some desperate mother in the hope that her pious children could at least aspire to keep clean even if their sins prevented them from reaching the higher target of godliness!
Important though cleanliness is, I wonder if it really is the virtue nearest to godliness. Might there be other virtues which are closer to the ideal of godly perfection? Taking the text of the first few verses of St John's account of the Gospel (his well-known "prologue" so often read at about Christmas time) I would suggest that tidiness and good order have a better claim! St John suggests, and his idea reflects the eternal truths conveyed in the creation stories of Genesis, that in the beginning, before all things came to exist, God already was and what God was was order, Logos. The Greek word Logos which is usually translated "Word" in this passage, can just as readily mean "order", as used in "logical," and "logistics." It is in God's nature, then, to bring order out of chaos and in so doing he necessarily creates the material universe of swirling particles; the atoms, the planets, the galaxies! It is all in order and, as Genesis puts it, it is very good.
For John, it is this Order which became flesh in Jesus Christ and we see him passing through the world of his time putting things in order: wine at the party, food at the picnic, putting the demon-posessed in their right minds, healing the sick and reconciling sinners to their creator - teaching people by word and deed about the nature of their creator.
If we are his disciples, then, committed to putting the world to rights, working for the coming of his Kingdom and praying for it to come in this world as in heaven, then it seems to me that an essential part of the work we face is the putting in order of the little bit of the world that surrounds us - that may include cleaning it, of course, but at heart it is making sure that all is well, all is as it should be. We shall not achieve perfection in this world but as in all aspects of building Christ's kingdom we should aspire to perfection in detail as well as in the grand schemes - in church, in the world and in our own lives ... and at this point I must sign off because I really must get some filing done and find space on my bookshelves for some recently-acquired volumes because my study bears more resemblance to the primeval chaos than I would like!
Yours in the fellowship of the incarnate Word,
Mark
BISHOP'S LETTER
"Christmas: an adverse life event?"
A group of American psychologists concluded that Christmas is right up there when it comes to the chief causes of stress and mental breakdown in affluent societies such as ours. They call it "an adverse life event".
But perhaps it is that very affluence which is the problem – and Christmas is simply an opportunity for what another group of American psychologists has called "affluenza" to take hold.
If this is the case, then it is all the more ironic that Christmas should be seen as a catalyst for such an epidemic. After all, the key text for Christians at Christmas is St. John chapter 3 verse 16: "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son …". It is God who spent Himself for our sake, and our response is not so much to spend ourselves as to receive Him into ourselves in a festival of thankfulness and praise.
Of course, one way in which we show our gratitude for God's gift is by giving to one another, and exchanging gifts is what helps to make Christmas so special. Yet if our spending on ourselves and on others gets in the way of our appreciating what God has expended on our behalf through the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus, then it comes as little surprise that lives are adversely affected by the cancer of competitive consumerism.
As the festive season approaches, Christians will take great delight in the spirit of goodwill and generosity which characterises so many Christmas gifts and greetings – no party-poopers here, thank you very much! But let us remember, and let us not tire of reminding others, that it is God's gift which makes for a Christmas which is not only happy, but the most enriching life event of all.
My colleagues on the Bishop's Staff join with me in wishing you all a very happy Christmas, and every Blessing upon your homes and those you love in 2008.
+ John Lincoln
COOKING WITH MARGARET
ECCLEFECHAN TART
( An alternative to Christmas Pud )
INGREDIENTS.
Pastry.
- 175g (6oz) Plain flour,
- 75g (3oz) unsalted butter,
- 1 large egg, beaten,
Filling.
- 50g (2oz) unsalted butter,
- 225g (8oz) sultanas,
- 2 large eggs,
- 50g (2oz) Demerara sugar,
- 2 teaspoons white wine vinegar.
Pre heat oven to 350° F/180°C/Gas 4.
Make the pastry by rubbing together the flour and butter until it looks like fine bread-crumbs. Mix in the egg to make a stiff dough. Roll out the pastry and line an 8 inch flan tin (with removable base) with it.
To make the filling, melt the butter in a pan and add the remaining ingredients, stir well then pour the mixture into the pastry case. Bake for 35 mins until golden brown and set.
Registers for September and October 2007
Baptism: We welcome:
- 14th Oct Connor Christopher David Harrold 9 Speedwell Court
Marriage: We congratulate:
- 1st Sept Michael John Culver and Anna Machin
- 29th Sept Andrew Dix and Michelle Lorna Cunningham
Funerals: We commend to God's keeping
- 12th Oct at Peterborough Crematorium Gordon Russell (74)
- 22nd Oct Peter Gordon Wade (70)
This is only an extract from some of our magazine. Residents of Deeping St James can subscribe to the printed version.