Dear friends
The links to our worship this week, and other news and resources for reflection are below.
Best wishes
Revd Canon Anne Le Bas
September 27
Online
Morning Worship Morning service sheet Hymn words (both services)
Evensong Evensong service sheet
In Church
Please note – face coverings must be worn in church unless you are medically exempt.
10 am Holy Communion
4pm Outdoor Church in the churchyard
6.30pm Evensong
Wednesday 9.15 am Morning Prayer
Friday 10.30 am Friday Group on Zoom and in person- ask for details
Sunday Oct 4 Harvest
10 am Holy Communion
4pm Outdoor Church in the churchyard
6.30pm Evensong
On Zoom this week email sealpandp@gmail.com for links
Zoffee – Zoom chat at 11.15 am every Sunday
This Sunday's link
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89882759451?pwd=SmRhdWk2TzhmTWhhNGp4UmlIazh0UT09
Meeting ID: 898 8275 9451
Passcode: 048355
You can also join the meeting from a landline or mobile by phoning
0203 901 7895 United Kingdom and entering the meeting ID and passcode above when prompted.
Wednesday Zoom Church 11 am. An informal service including Bible reading, prayer and a short talk.
Zoom Children’s Choir Wednesday 5pm & Thursday 5pm Note new time for the Thursday group
Zoom Adult choir Wednesday 7.15 pm contact philiplebas@gmail.com for the link.
Trinity 16
Today’s Gospel passage (Matthew 21. 23-32) is set during the last week of Jesus’ life. He has ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey, in a conscious echo of the Old Testament prophecy looking forward to the coming of the Messiah in Zechariah 9.9, “Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey.” He makes his way to the Temple, driving out the money changers and those who sold animals for sacrifice there. He is causing a huge stir, which the authorities worry is the precursor to an uprising against Rome, which will bring a backlash on them on. The Temple authorities come to him, wanting to know what authority he has to do this. Who does he think he is?
I explore Jesus’ answer in the sermon today.
The picture above, by James Tissot (1836-1902) is actually of Jesus being confronted by a group of Pharisees, who weren’t part of the official Temple authority structure, but the dynamics of the encounter would have been similar. They are offended that this carpenter, without any standing in the religious hierarchy, is taking it on himself to teach and preach. For those gathered around him, though, the words he speaks make sense and bring life.
Tissot was a prolific painter of Biblical scenes in his later life, following what seems to have been a profound spiritual experience. He was the son of a draper’s merchant from Nantes in France, and for the first part of his career mainly painted scenes from the everyday life around him and portraits of society figures. He was particularly known for the precision with which he painted the elaborate 19th century clothing his subjects wore – possibly being the child of a draper meant he had an eye for these details! He carried the same precision into his Biblical studies, however, and tried to make them as authentic as he could. He travelled to the Holy Land, and took great interest in the archeological digs which were taking place at the time, setting his pictures in the landscapes he saw around him. They are marked by a profound sense of empathy for those in them, capturing the significant moments in the life of Jesus and the reactions of those around him, both positive and negative.
In this episode, and in the picture above, the central question is who this man, Jesus, really is?
• How would you answer that question? What does Jesus mean to you?
You can find some more of Tissot’s pictures, and information about him, at the links below:
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/james_tissot
http://www.jesuswalk.com/luke/tissot-artwork-new-testament.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tissot
All Age resources
Come along and join us at our Outdoor Church at 4pm on Sunday in the churchyard for a story and prayers for all ages. No facemasks required! What story will we hear this week…?
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HYMN OF THE WEEK - Glorious things of Thee are spoken
This hymn, which is sung in today’s podcasts by the choir of St Martin in the Fields, was written by John Newton (1725-1807), who also wrote Amazing Grace, for a collection of hymns which he put together in his parish of Olney, working alongside William Cowper (whose hymn, Sometimes a Light Surprises, was featured in this newsletter on Aug 16).
Newton was Rector of Olney at this point, but his life had been a roller-coaster of experiences, and he was probably as astonished as everyone else to find himself living the life of a Christian minister. His mother had been very devout, but she had died when he was just seven, and by the age of eleven, he had joined his father at sea, and was eventually pressed into the Royal navy; when he tried to desert he was flogged. He joined a slave ship, but was apparently so unpopular with the crew that he was abandoned in Sierra Leone in the company of a slave trader, who sold him to a high born woman of the Sherbro tribe in Sierra Leone who treated him as a slave. When he managed to free himself, however, despite this experience, he went back into the slave trade himself, captaining a slave ship. Eventually, however, he had a religious conversion, partly prompted by a desperate prayer when his ship was threatened with disaster in a storm, and eventually gave up his former life, gradually shedding his old beliefs and becoming an ardent abolitionist, supporting William Wilberforce in his struggle against slavery. There is another link to a figure featured previously in this newsletter, since one of the books which Newton said had been most formative in shaping his spiritual life was The Imitation of Christ” by Thomas a Kempis, whom I wrote about last week.
Glorious things of thee are spoken, is inspired by words from Psalm 87, a psalm of rejoicing in the city of Jerusalem. “On the holy mount stands the city he has founded; the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God” . Newton isn’t thinking of the literal city of Jerusalem, however, but the heavenly Jerusalem, the Kingdom of God, which we are all invited to be citizens of, both now and in the world to come, living according to its rules and patterns, learning to love one another in an new, equal community. Perhaps the words of the last verse of the hymn reflect Newton’s own struggles as his life changed, and he had to give up the financial rewards of the life of a slaver. His conclusion though is that “let the world deride or pity,/I will glory in thy name;/fading is the worldling's pleasure,/all his boasted pomp and show;/solid joys and lasting treasure/none but Zion's children know.”
The tune traditionally associated with this hymn is called Austria, originally composed by Joseph Haydn for a patriotic anthem to the Austrian emperor Francis II, but it was re-purposed as a hymn tune set to many different words. Later it was used as the tune for the German National Anthem, and because of the painful associations of the anthem during the Nazi era, it understandably rapidly fell out of favour in Great Britain. The BBC, wanting to continue to use Newton’s hymn in broadcasts during WW2, needed a new tune to use for it, so one of the producers of Religious Broadcasting, Reverend Cyril Vincent Taylor wrote a new tune in 1942 while he was stationed in North Somerset. His tune is called Abbots Leigh, after the village where he was living, and is now commonly sung to these words (and to other hymns in the same metre). It’s a tune with great sweeps in its melody – a joy to sing, but perhaps sometimes a challenge too!
In the version below it is sung at the wedding of the Queen’s granddaughter, Princess Eugenie to Jack Brooksbank in 2018 in St George's Chapel, Windsor.
1 Glorious things of thee are spoken,
Zion, city of our God;
he whose word cannot be broken
formed thee for his own abode;
on the Rock of Ages founded,
what can shake thy sure repose?
With salvation's walls surrounded,
thou may'st smile at all thy foes.
2 See the streams of living waters,
springing from eternal love,
well supply thy sons and daughters,
and all fear of want remove;
who can faint while such a river
ever flows their thirst t'assuage?
Grace, which like the Lord, the giver,
never fails from age to age.
3 Round each habitation hov'ring,
see the cloud and fire appear
for a glory and a cov'ring,
showing that the Lord is near;
thus deriving from their banner
light by night and shade by day,
safe they feed upon the manna
which he gives them when they pray.
4 Saviour, if of Zion's city
I, thro' grace, a member am,
let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in thy name;
fading is the worldling's pleasure,
all his boasted pomp and show;
solid joys and lasting treasure
none but Zion's children know.
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