Weekly Bulletin for St Mary's and the Villages

Collect for the Last Sunday after Trinity and Bible Sunday

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 for ever hold fast  the hope of everlasting life,
which you have given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ, 

who is alive and reigns….

Additional Collect

Merciful God, teach us to be faithful in change and uncertainty,
that trusting in your word and obeying your will
we may enter the unfailing joy of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Today: The Last Sunday after Trinity / Bible Sunday
Principal Readings 

Last Sunday after Trinity 

Leviticus 19.1-2, 15-18 Psalm 1 1 Thessalonians 2.1-8 Matthew 22.34-end 

Bible Sunday: 

Nehemiah 8.1-4a [5-6] 8-12 Psalm 119.9-16 Colossians 3.12-17 Matthew 24.30-35  

8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist 

3.00 Civic Service
6.00 All Souls' Tide Memorial Service

Villages

11.00 Eucharist at Worlaby

Monday

9.30-11.30 Toddler Time (St Mary's Hall)

Tuesday

2-4 Bereavement Group (St Mary's Hall)
Wednesday

9.30 Eucharist (St Mary's)

Thursday

10.30 Funeral (St Nicholas')
2-4 Sewing Bee (St Mary's Hall)

7.30 Ladies’ Singing Group (St Mary's Hall)
Friday
12.30 Funeral (St Mary's)
7.00 Choir Practice (St Mary's Hall)
Saturday 10-12 Coffee Morning (St Mary's Hall)

Next Sunday: 

All Saints Day
Principal Readings:

Revelation 7.9-end; Psalm 34.1-10; 1 John 3.1-3; Matthew 5.1-12  

Barton

8.00 Said Eucharist
9.30 Parish Eucharist 

6.00 All Souls' Tide Requiem Eucharist

Villages

11.00 Eucharist at Bonby

Reflection: Just lie back and think of St Paul

Picture an elite group of men determined to tread the path of orthodoxy, following obediently in the footsteps of a powerful, even arrogant leader. Dissenting voices are heard with suspicion, rejected out of hand or ridiculed, inconvenient evidence is ignored. Careers are ruined as those who disagree with the party line are sidelined, and if ever they’re vindicated it’s usually too late.

Of which questionable organisation do I speak? The C of E? The Mediæval Papacy? The White House? Nope, it’s the Geological Society of Great Britain  it’s the middle of the nineteenth century and the argument was about making sense of the rocks of Wales. 

It’s not just religion which is resistant to inconvenient challenges Even science can fall into the trap (geology tried to sideline the Dorset fossil-pioneer Mary Anning and took fifty years to admit that, over ages, the continents drift). It just seems to be something we humans do.

This brings us neatly to Bible Sunday and the Biblical rabbit-holes which Christians have gone down, especially since the Reformation. About 300 years ago, an idea started to take root that The Bible is God’s Infallible Rule and Guide for every situation we may ever encounter, from Atomic Weapons to Zoology. ‘All Scripture is inspired by God’ said Paul (allegedly), so we’d best just learn to roll over on our backs in front of it.

Or should we? Is that really what ‘reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting’ means – just parroting it back?

I mentioned last week John Barton’s ‘History of the Bible,’ and one of the things he makes clear is that – traditionally – Christians never used to read their Bibles like this. It may come as a surprise, but we decided what the Bible would look like, our ancestors in the faith didn’t suddenly wake up one morning and find an Authorised Version on their pillow.  

There’s a refreshing honesty about early Christian use of the stories of Jesus and the first Christians. For one thing, we felt it was no big deal to accept there were inconsistencies, even flat contradictions in what we read. Nor was it a crime to alter the words we’d received to work them into an understandable whole – a chap called Tatian smoothed out the differences between the four Gospels to produce a single continuous story; centuries, later in Syrian Churches, his book was still the go-to version of the Good News read in worship.

There was a confidence that God was speaking through these (and other) writings, but it was down to us to discern what it was he might be saying. Imaginative reflection on what a text might mean was routine– the great Augustine of Hippo was good at it. Barbaric, or cruel verses and stories  had their face value meanings rejected – Christians didn’t say ‘The Bible says vengeance is OK,’ or even ‘Harbour grudges’ but ‘This can’t possibly be right’.

Let’s look at the end of Ps 137 – ‘By the Rivers of Babylon’
‘O daughter Babylon, you devastator!  
Happy shall they be who pay you back  what you have done to us!
Happy shall they be who take your little ones  and dash them against the rock!’

But when St Benedict reads this troubling verse he rejects this cruelty, and turns it from outwards, against others, to inwards, to our own spiritual journey: He says (Rule of Benedict Ch 4)

“When evil thoughts come into one's heart, dash them against Christ immediately.”  

These Christians saw themselves as part of the Spirit-guided community which had chosen its scriptures in the first place. Instead of imagining that the Spirit had cleared off the moment the apostle John popped the lid back on his biro at the end of Revelation, and didn’t return until 1611 and the King James Bible, they realised they were the inheritors of a living, Spirit-filled tradition, open to new ways of looking at what the past had given them – because God was still at work within the Church, just as much as he had been when the scriptures were written and chosen.

We can  see this at work in the writings of the New Testament: In today’s Gospel, Jesus, asked to name the two greatest commandments chooses one Commandment, and something from Leviticus – not usually seen as a treasure-trove of great teaching. And look how he plays with Psalm 110, accepting, like every Jew did, that David was the psalm-writer par excellence, but giving it a completely new twist. Jesus receives the Hebrew Scriptures, but he’s not afraid to pick and choose and re-interpret them.

And in 2 Corinthians 3.5-6 Paul writes ‘our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life’ – The Church is set up by and is under the rule of God – not the letter of Scripture, be it never so venerable. Even much-maligned St Paul encourages us in that direction.

We’ve done some daft things over the years with the Bible, using it to clobber all sorts of folks. It’s not very flattering to a community supposedly devoted to the pursuit of the Truth which is God. Recovering our awareness that the Spirit of Truth is still at work within us, rather than immediately bowing down to Scripture – or, for that matter, Hallowed Tradition, or Cold Reason – immediately makes the Faith more engaged and more exciting – and reminds us that we stand in the long line of Witnesses to God, guided by the Spirit to be light to the world.  

For our prayers

Church:

The Anglican Church in Central Africa. 

On Bible Sunday, we give thanks for all who work in the translation, study and interpretation of Holy Scripture and for the Bible Society.

World: 

Those in authority. 

Those who seek to sow division and mistrust.  

Lebanon, Gaza, Iran, Israel, Yemen and all the lands of the Middle East. 

Ukraine. Sudan. 

Our Community: 

 The civic life of our community   

Parish cycle of prayer: The town and parish councils.  

Diocesan cycle of prayer:  .Prisons - Chaplaincy team at HMP & YOI Lincoln   

Those in need.
Especially, please pray for:

All who are fleeing war, poverty or climate change. 

People living under the shadow of fear, deprivation or illness; 

the anxious, the lonely and mourners. 

Those struggling to make ends meet. The homeless. 

Those in hospital or who watch with them. 

The Departed. 

Notices.

St Mary's  All Souls Memorial Service

Please note that this is today at 6 in place of the evening Eucharist

All Souls Requiem Eucharist
Next Sunday's 6.00 service at St Mary's  will take the form of our annual Requiem.  If you’d like a loved one remembering by name, as is traditional, please drop a line to david.rowett@lincoln.anglican.org  (especially if you're in the villages) by next Saturday evening or add their names of any to be commemorated to the sheet at the back of St Mary's.

St Mary's Monthly Coffee Morning is this Saturday 10-12

A reminder that British Summer Time ends this morning at 2.00. Please remember to put your clocks back an hour, otherwise you could be hanging around outside for the best part of an hour.....  

St Mary's Weekly Envelopes and Gift Aid contact changes.

When Michelle and Dean McManus moved to the depth of Staffordshire back in June Michelle handed all the Gift Aid files and envelope information on to me(Terina otherwise known as Teri). This includes the responsibility for the new weekly envelopes (starting 1 Nov 2026). I have received the new 2026/2027 weekly giving envelopes and after looking at the files popped the boxes with peoples names on them on the table at the back of church.

A lot of you will have already collected your new envelopes, but there are a few on the table at the back of church with names on. Please have a look and collect yours. If you give by envelope and have not found a box with your name on or you wish to start to give by weekly envelopes then please let me, or the treasurer Alan Mabbott know. 

If you have changed your address or tax situation since you signed the Gift Aid form please contact me and I'll sort out updating the files. Alternatively if you have had to start paying tax, and pay an equivalent of at least 25% of your giving please consider Gift Aiding your donation. Just drop me a note/email and I'll get a form to you. This is free to you, no additional payments, just the church being able to claim back an amount from the tax man. 

I attend the 9:30 service mainly and can be contacted on email through stmarysmoney@gmail.com

Terina Hurley