All Saints Margaret Street.

We have a busy week ahead of us at All Saints with our Festival celebrations. There will be glorious moments as well as more poignant ones as we remember departed loved ones on All Souls Day.   We hope that if you cannot be with us in the flesh, you will be in the Spirit and remembering us, and our preachers in your prayers.

Before the Festival, we have an ordinary Sunday.  Fr. John will be back from his holiday. Fr. Julian will be at St. Augustine’s, Kilburn and  I will be in Oxford to preach in two places with which All Saints has links: In the morning, St. Mary Magdalene’s Church for their Dedication Festival;  In the evening at Keble College. Amid the Cotswold stone of Oxford, Keble’s brick is unmistakeably Butterfield:   All Saints on a grand scale.

At Morning Prayer today we heard Timothy being urged to “attend to the public reading of scripture, to preaching, to teaching.” (1 Timothy 4. 13) That seems a good prelude to Sunday’s activities and to the Collect: “Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: help us so to hear them, to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them that, through patience, and the comfort of your holy word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the hope of everlasting life which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

The academic institution in which the clergy of All Saints preach most often is the Annunciation’s parish school: Hampden Gurney.  At the weekly school mass, sermons often involve a dialogue between priest and children. I might ask them about the gospel which has been read. Who were the characters? What were they doing? How does it tie up with life at home or in school? Sometimes the answers come thick and fast; at others some coaxing is needed. 

I wonder what would happen if I were to try this approach with the students on Sunday evening. Would they think that they had come to a tutorial when they were expecting a lecture?   

In Sunday’s Gospel, (Mark 10.46-52) Jesus asks blind Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” If we were a group of students reading through Mark’s Gospel with our tutor, then we might be asked, “When have you heard Jesus ask this question before?” And if we have been paying attention and have good memories, if we have read, marked, learned and inwardly digested, then we would respond, “last week.” 

Jesus put the same question to James and John in last Sunday’s Gospel when they came to ask for the best places in the kingdom.  Mark contrasts their self-centred misunderstanding of Jesus and his kingdom, with the faith of Bartimaeus. Trusting in Jesus, he asks for physical sight and is given spiritual vision as well. The one who had been stuck  forever by the roadside of life now follows Jesus on “the way” that leads to Jerusalem and to the cross. This story concludes a long section in which Jesus has been teaching his slow-witted disciples about the self-giving nature of his own life and ministry which is to the pattern of theirs, and of ours, as his disciples.

Yours in Christ,   Fr. Alan Moses

 

Christopher was for many years a devoted servant of All Saints and of the Church in London. Here at All Saints, he was at various times, server, sub-deacon, churchwarden, archivist. In the diocese he served on Bishop’s Council, was lay chair of the Deanery Synod and Warden of Readers.

He died peacefully on18th October. His funeral will take place on Monday 29^th October at Mortlake Crematorium. There will be requiem mass for him here at All Saints on Saturday 1^st December.