Weekly Email – Lent 3
All Saints Weekly Email: Lent 3
Dear Friends,
Sunday’s first reading from Exodus describes the giving of the ten commandments to Moses. This code, at the core of God’s relationship with his people as the Exodus story unfolds, despite its archaisms (idols, oxen and asses etc), remains a foundational document for us. Some of our Anglican ancestors even placed the commandments on either side of the altar, replacing statues and paintings with text in an unconsciously ironic new form of potential idolatry. The scriptures, being a conversation between God and his people, can’t be reduced to an object, as they seem to be when sworn on in a courtroom or waved about in public by Donald Trump.
Jesus himself points to the lively fluidity of the divine / human conversation. Asked about the ‘greatest commandment’ he deftly summarises: love of God and love of our neighbour as ourselves. Some Jewish scholars have debated the irreducible core of the commandments and concluded that ‘I am the Lord your God’, or even just ‘I am’ is sufficient.
If we read the commandments thoughtfully, discarding fundamentalist literalism, we can have our own conversation with them. We quickly understand that we are exhorted to the acknowledgement of God as the one God and to taking seriously what that means: facing reality and seeking truth, practising humility, creating space for rest and seeking to quiet our busyness, respecting age, prioritising honesty and fidelity, refusing to kill and steal. Jesus’ anger in clearing the Temple is sometimes seen as a response to the loss of these priorities (though, as I’ll be saying on Sunday, that is probably not the main point of his intervention).
God has given the Commandments, the Law, the Prophets and Jesus his Son, that we might know and enter upon the Way, the Truth and the Life. That, even more clearly than our Lord’s summary, reveals our faith to be an organic and dynamic process, a new sort of covenant which is not a written code, ‘for the letter kills but the Spirit gives life’ (2 Corinthians 3.6). This is about real life, life with the quality of eternity, rather than a box-ticking exercise. When we are called to account for how we have spent our lives, whom and how much we have loved and how we affected the world, we won’t be able to plead ignorance.
May this Sunday’s Eucharist further our growth in the family of God, who gives us not just a written code, but also, in the sacramental life of Christ’s Body, the courage and strength to live out what lies behind God’s conversation with us in a world which needs that dialogue more than ever.
With best wishes
Fr Michael
Links for Sunday
Click on the following links for Sung Mass on SUNDAY at 11am:
Propers for Third Sunday of Lent
YouTube link for live stream
LENT APPEAL 2021
Proceeds from this year’s Lent Appeal will be divided between:
American Church Soup Kitchen in Tottenham Court Road
towards the costs of their mental health worker.
Anglican Communion Fund
supporting communities throughout the Anglican Communion often in the poorest and most dangerous parts of the world.
Bishop of London’s Lent appeal
focussing on Youth Violence – supporting three charities working in different ways with young people.
How to donate
Please give generously by vising our donation page.
Or you can send a cheque to the Parish Office, made payable to: “Parochial Church All Saints (Lent Appeal)”. If you qualify for Gift Aid, please write ‘Gift Aid’ on the back of the cheque.
Lent Boxes will not be issued this year.
Prayer list
Prisoners and captives:
Nazanin Zhagari-Ratcliffe, Ismaeil Maghrebinejad, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Mussie Eyob, Maira Shabhaz
The sick:
David Fettke, Joan Cooper, Vallery Tchukov, Sara Vice, Katherine Lee, Nicky Yeo, Lorna Smith, Beth Klausing, Hilary Porter, Bruce Ross-Smith, Benjamin Woolf, James Shrimpton, Tony Rodger, Rachel Pereira, Fr Michael Gudgeon, Chris and Carole Radley, Fr Harry Hodgetts, Rosemary Orr, Andrew Rodger, Martin Berka, Barbara Schiefer, Sybil Priestnall, John Mather, Joan Anna SLG, Tim Little, Elizabeth Dennis, Phil Gibbs, Poppy Harris, Sam Ellis, Sheila Wood, Jennifer Spreckley, Sue Yesnick, Stewart Lyon, Bishop Joe Aldred, Jack de Gruiter, Beverley Ward
Those known to us recently departed:
Miles Nelson, Victor Sharp, Beatrice Ansah
Anniversaries of death:
7th – Phyllis Wickner, Brigid Beattie-Moriarty
8th – George Gorse, Hope Harris, John Cook
9th – Arthur Smallwood
10th – Alice Styan, Dorothy Gregory, Dennis Cooper Pr
11th – Charles Mills, Rosie Bullock, Peter Harding Pr, Clark Vaugham
12th – William Allen Whitworth Pr (third vicar of All Saints), Emily Woodard, Peter Brealey, Rosemary Lloyd, Barry Blacklock
13th – Elizabeth Middlemist-Downer
Supporting All Saints
Parish Giving Scheme
Thank you to all who give in various ways to support the work of All Saints. Our preferred option for giving is the Parish Giving Scheme.
There are two options for joining the scheme. You can phone 0333 002 1271 and give the parish code: 230623075. Or you can request a form from the parish office.
The Parish Giving Scheme allows contributions to be anonymous and deals with GiftAid, which saves our office a lot of time. The previous online registration facility for the scheme is no longer available. To read about how the scheme works, click here.
Donations for general church purposes
To give by BACS please use the following details, advising the Administrator to collect Gift Aid:
PCC All Saints (Charity no. 1132895)
Sort Code 60-09-15
A/C 04559452
Parish Legacy Policy
We are always delighted to hear from anyone who wants to support us with a donation. Our PCC Legacy Policy encourages people to leave bequests specifically to one of our two related charities to be used for purposes of lasting value (rather than day to day costs):
All Saints Choir & Music Trust (Charity # 802994)
or The All Saints Foundation (Charity # 273390).