All Saints Margaret Street.

Dear Friends,

A local councillor in Oxfordshire has caused a stir by declaring that the recent flooding was God’s response to the government’s support for gay marriage. The government must look after itself, but Christians ought to be concerned about the notion of God at work here.  You might think that a God who wanted to punish the Prime Minister would flood his house, not those of people unfortunate enough to live close to the Thames. If this is how we understand God, we might expect his retribution to be more accurately directed.

In Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 4.12-23) we hear of Jesus, “teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom.”  In Matthew, the mission of Jesus and his disciples is first to the people of Israel, before it extends to the Gentiles after the resurrection. This suggests to me that as we seek to proclaim the gospel in our society and culture, to those around us, we need always to be listening to it ourselves. We need to hear the Jesus who still teaches in our synagogues.

If we need any further reminder, Monday’s Holocaust Memorial Day provides it. You might think that in a rational world one such experience would have brought the world to its senses. But the world is not as rational as we like to think. Anti-Semitism lives on, and not just among Islamists.  There has been genocide too in Rwanda and the Balkans. In both, Christians had blood on their hands. 

Anti-Semitism is only one issue on which Christians have not listened attentively enough to scripture. The United States has just marked Martin Luther King Day.  The Bible was one of the driving forces of the Civil Rights struggle, as it had been in that against slavery.  Yet we should not draw a veil across its historic and present use (or abuse) to legitimise slavery and other forms of discrimination: anti-Semitism, apartheid, misogyny, homophobia.

Our bishops are about to discuss the Pilling Report on Same Sex relationships. At the same time, churches in Uganda and Nigeria are supporting draconian legal measures against gay people; including the death penalty.  Anglican churches, which demanded that the so-called “liberal” north should abide by the Lambeth Conference’s resolution on that subject, seem rather selective in their own observance of it; ignoring its call to listen to the experience of gay people and its condemnation of irrational fear of gay people.

A member of our own General Synod has been reported in Jamaica urging that country to keep its colonial era laws against homosexuality, as a way of defending Christian marriage. These are the kind of laws that Archbishop Michael Ramsey supported the repeal of here 40 years ago. What seems absent is any understanding that such legislation not only punishes individuals but also encourages a climate of demonisation and discrimination, which all too easily turns to victimisation and violence. 

We who worship the “saving victim” who opens wide the gate of heaven, should be on the side of the victims and not of the victimisers.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Alan Moses

Prebendary Alan Moses
Vicar of All Saints Margaret Street
Area Dean of Westminster & St Marylebone

PRAYER DIARY:
Please pray for those who have asked for our prayers: Jean Brackston, Rachel Clayton, Rosie Davis, Kate Down, Ursula Edwards, Charles Forker, Joan Foster, Canon David Garlick, Denise Inge, Jill, Craig Laughton, Katherine Lee, Joshua Levy, Christine Loffty, Kerry Manuel, Andrew O’Connor, Hazel Reynolds, Stephen Short, Erica Telfer, Colin Titmus. 

For the recently departed: Maria Villaverde, Molly Money, Nicolas Luff (former Assistant Organist at All Saints’Church), Robert Tennant, Elizabeth McLellan, Tim Penrose, Aileen Cudlip, Christopher Courtauld (priest), Baby Charlotte, Isabella Fotheringham.

At the anniversary of their death (during the coming week): Noel Campion Frederic Hood (Priest), Oswold Rodgen, Walter Vale (Organist of All Saints 1907-1939), Annie Taylor, Alice Savage, Annie Benniston, Vera Martin, John Brackley, Barbara Niemyska, George Glack, Norah Lawrence, Doris Foster, Judith Pulteney, Florence Akers, Leonard Forsyth, Reginald Oxley, Jean Phillips, Sarah Hutchinson, John Rose, John Pollard.

WORSHIP AT ALL SAINTS THIS SUNDAY:

SUNDAY 26 JANUARY – Third Sunday of Epiphany – Music and Preachers:  

HIGH MASS, 11am
Fr Julian Browning 
Jugendmesse – Haydn 
Es ist das Heil uns kommen her – Brahms

Choral Evensong & Benediction, 6pm
Prebendary Alan Moses
The First Service – Morley
Tribus miraculis – Marenzio

7.15pm Organ Recital (after Benediction) – CHARLES ANDREWS
Dedicated to the memory of Nicholas Luff, former Assistant Organist. The programme includes:
Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern BWV 739 by J. S. Bach, Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern op. 65 and Jesu, meine Freude op. 87 i. Introduzione (‘Inferno’) ii. Canzone
iii. Fuga con Corale by S. Karg-Elert.
Voluntary retiring collection (£3.50 donation suggested) to support the Choir & Music at All Saints. All Saints Licensed Club/Bar open after the recital. For more organ recitals, please visit www.organrecitals.com.

NOTICES & NEWS – THIS WEEK
Sunday 26 January – Sunday Lunch is available after Mass and tickets will be on sale in the Shop in the Parish Room for £5.  

Thursday 30 January, 10.30 – 12.30, All Saints’ Parish Room – SINGING FOR THE BRAIN run by The Alzheimer’s Society. Please see leaflets on the table in Church. If anyone is interested in joining this session (4th of 12) please contact: Samerah Malik of The Alzheimer’s Society on 07891 888539.

Thursday 30 January, 2.30pm – the Funeral Mass for Nicholas Luff (former Assistant Organist of All Saints’) takes place. Preacher: The Very Revd. Nicholas Frayling, Dean of Chichester.  Little Organ Mass – Haydn and I saw a new heaven – Bainton.

Saturday 1 February 2014 – 3pm – CHORAL EVENSONG & BENEDICTION, St Cyprian’s Church, Clarence Gate, Glentworth Street, NW1 6AX. Leighton Magdalene Service and Ireland’s Greater love hath no man.  With the St Cyprian’s Singers directed by Julian Collings.

WORSHIP NEXT SUNDAY 2 FEBRUARY – The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas) – Music and Preachers:

PROCESSION & HIGH MASS, 11am
Prebendary Alan Moses
Missa super ‘Sancta Maria’ – Händl
Nunc Dimittis à 8 – Wood

Choral Evensong & Benediction, 6pm
Fr Neil Bunker 
Service in G – Stanford
When to the temple Mary went – Eccard

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY 

Sunday 2 February – THIS IS OUR FAITH – Please could Group members meet the Vicar in Church after High Mass.

ALL SAINTS RESTORATION APPEAL Lighting & Electrical Renewal Update

We are delighted to announce that we now have £161,000 (64% of required funds) for this important project.  The balance for which we still need your help is: £89,000.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed donations large and small; we are extremely grateful. We hope that works will commence after Easter in 2014.

If you have still to contribute, please make cheques payable to:
All Saints Margaret Street PCC Restoration Account and send to:
Restoration Appeal, All Saints Church Parish Office, 7 Margaret Street, London W1W 8JG. 

If you are a UK tax payer and have signed/will sign a Gift Aid declaration with us, your donation to the Appeal is increased by 25%. Please indicate that you wish your donation to be Gift Aided and ensure we have your full name (with initial/s), address and postcode.
If unsure if you have signed a Gift Aid declaration form, please pick one up from the table in church, fill in and return to: Mrs Dee Prior, Parish Administrator.

If you would like to encourage others to receive this weekly email, please forward this email on to them, or people you would like to invite to services. If you know of others who would like to receive this correspondence, or for whom you would like prayers offered at All Saints, please ask them to email the Parish Administrator Mrs Dee Prior at: astsmgtst@aol.com.

If you would like any pastoral assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the Vicar, Prebendary Alan Moses: alanmoses111@gmail.com.