The Welland-Fosse Benefice: Prayers and Notices.

 Sunday 13 June 2021:  Trinity II

 

• Please remember in your prayers those who are sick: Ray Bailey, Sylvia Martin, Derek and Margaret Barker, Suzzie Clements, Judith Piggott, Jane Williams, John and Tricia Williams. Pray too for the departed.
• Pray too for those PCC’s preparing for their Annual Meetings and also those who are making plans for the future with a new team.
• Zoom Morning Prayer continues on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 8.30 am with Compline on Thursday at 6pm
• Next Sunday we are in church at 9.30 am in South Luffenham and at 11 am in Barrowden, with Zoom.

 

SOUTH LUFFENHAM:
Sunday 13th June 9.30am Morning Worship (AR).
Sunday 27th June 9.30am Communion by Extension (AR).
‘Still Time’ (a time for silent prayer) in South Luffenham Church on Fridays from 10.30-11am. All are welcome to pop in for a few moments of stillness. 
The library is back in the Village Hall on Fridays 11am -12 noon.

MEDITATION: Winners and Losers

 

This coming week will see the start of the long-delayed European Cup.  I can almost hear some yawning at the thought, but others will be fixed to their football screens which will raise the spirits of many in the country in this challenging climate.

 

But there will be winners and losers. Powerful athletes will be reduced to tears in defeat whilst others will enjoy the victory parade.  Does it always have to be that way? Are we shackled to a binary world where some are winners whilst others have to be losers? 

 

Some would have it no other way.  I well remember a cabinet minister pouring scorn on the Church’s General Synod for sitting in concentric circles to seek agreement rather than antiphonally, like the House of Commons, where it is a direct fight to the bitter end.

 

We can read off many patterns of living from the pages of The Bible, but the overall message is one of value for each living thing.  ‘God saw everything that he had made and it was very good’. (Genesis 1.31). Jesus said that he had come that we have not just life but life in abundance. (John 10.10). The scriptures certainly recognize life as triumph mingled with tragedy and it comes to a climax with the picture of Jesus on the cross – a tragedy out of which fullness of life for all emerges.

 

History continues to emerge, and it seems that it is a case of two steps forward and one step back. The Church makes its own halting contribution but sometimes with its own interests at heart.  One of my favourite hymns suggests that ‘we make His love too narrow’. I certainly accuse myself of that whilst Jesus tells us to love our enemies.

 

We can all look beyond self-interest. It is not easy. And The Church must look to where the Spirit of God is stirring beyond its own borders as together we strive to build the Kingdom of God with the Fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, goodness, gentleness, self-control.

 

That is an exciting vision which looks beyond our own narrow interests.  After all, without an opposition, our great teams would have no game at all.  There is value in those who challenge us and they should not be rubbished just because they wear a different strip.

 

The big question is, ‘In what do we put our trust’? Victory is often fleeting. What can sustain us in the long term?

I write this on the day when The Duke of Edinburgh would have been 100. The Queen sets us a remarkable example in her attitude to losing ‘her strength and stay’. Through her grief we can see that she is focussed on a greater victory: ‘that all will be well and all manner of things shall be well’.

 

See wellandfosse.org for much more information, including contact details for

The Very Rev Christopher Armstrong and the churchwardens