Morning Service for Advent 3 2022
In the wonderful story of Alice And Wonderland one of the characters is a lock. The Lock is very restless and can not be still for a single moment. It is obviously hunting for something as it looks behind every rock and tree. As Alice watches the lock, her curiosity is aroused and she asks, “What is the matter?” The lock replies, “I am looking for something to unlock me.”
Morning Service for Advent 2 2022
I have a favourite analogy, it comes to me often when trying to fit conflicting ideas and imperfectly understood concepts into my oh so small brain. It copes particularly well with paradox – that favourite standby of theologians when they try to tell you that black is both black and white.
Morning Service for Advent Sunday 2022
Advent is all about waiting. But there is more than one sort of waiting – there is the kind of waiting when you know something’s going to happen and you know when it’s going to happen. Like Christmas, we all know when it is so we know how long we have to wait.
Quiz night
The quiz will be held on Saturday 26th November at 7 pm. in Otterbourne Village Hall. Fish and chip supper included.
For tickets, contact wardens@chobenefice.co.uk,
Otterbourne Christmas Fair
The Christmas Fair will be held on Saturday 26th November between 12 noon -3.15 pm at the Otterbourne Village Hall.
Come to buy some unique Christmas gifts, hand-made with care. Light lunch and lots of tea and cake will be available as well as Father Christmas in his grotto.
Morning Service for 3rd before Advent 2022
The whole account to me is a cautionary tale to those tempted to take scripture literally, outside of context, authorship, or common sense. It is a lesson many Christian preachers would do well to revisit! The very preaching of Jesus went beyond his own people’s understanding of the nature of God which they found in their scriptures, to a point which shocked and disturbed them – especially the religious professionals.
We should be prepared for the same shock and disturbance when new science and new understanding of how human beings function lead us to question old certainties and old judgements of right and wrong – clean and unclean (to use an old term but a notion still embedded in our reactions). The question of why Church of England clergy, unlike those of the Methodist church and the Church of Scotland, are still prevented by law from marrying same-sex couples is for me just such an issue of new science and new understanding challenging old certainties and old judgements.
Morning Service for All Saints’ Sunday 2022
So today we think about sanctity. We celebrate the heroes of the faith who have ‘made it’, who have run the race and won the prize; who have lived lives of sanctity and holiness, who have inspired others by their acts of self-forgetful generosity, or who have refused to recant their confession of Christ, even though it meant torture and death. These men and women have allowed their faith in God and his Christ to turn their human priorities and instincts upside down.
Morning Service for Trinity 18 2022
At first sight this parable from Luke’s gospel is rather uninteresting, being merely an exhortation to be continuous and persistent in prayer – wise teaching for sure, but it is odd that the parable seems to compare God to an unjust judge. However, Luke wraps it in a context irresistibly focussed on the need to pray. As he does so often, he feels bounden to help his reader and put the parable within an interpretive framework, in other words, he has to try and explain it. But if the parable is cut from this surround then perhaps, left to itself, it may say something wholly different, and perhaps more interesting.
Magazine letter October 2022
I write this on Friday 16th September, I give the date because our thoughts this week, a week of mourning for our late Queen Elizabeth II, can’t help but be dominated by Her Majesty’s death and the response to it.
Coffee Morning
Coffee Morning – St Matthew’s, Otterbourne, 10am Monday 10th October
Morning Service for Trinity 17 2022
It’s all about response. How do you respond? So much of our life is deciding our reaction to something. We aren’t in a position to dictate, we can only respond to someone else’s move.
Harvest
2nd October Songs of Praise for Harvest
6pm St Matthew’s, Otterbourne
Morning Service for Harvest 2022
Some of the Jews of Jesus’ day meditated upon the account in the Torah of the children of Israel’s escape from Egypt and their wanderings in the desert until they reached the promised land. They saw in it the roots of possible deliverance from the problems of their own time. Their saviour, God’s anointed one, would be a new Moses who would lead them to a new promised age, where their oppressors would perish and the world would acknowledge their God as the Lord of all the earth.
Morning Service for Trinity 15 2022
Today Jeremiah demonstrates the well known phrase, ‘putting your money where your mouth is’. We are very familiar with Jeremiah’s prophecies of doom and disaster, we’ve been hearing them for weeks now, but we are apt to overlook his more hopeful and encouraging pronouncements.
Today we heard a dramatic example of Jeremiah’s faith. Even with the enemy laying siege to the city, and Jeremiah himself imprisoned, even then he shows his faith in the future of his nation by buying his cousin’s field – keeping it in the family, as was his moral duty.
Morning Service for Trinity 14 2022
We are all possessors, not owners. It has troubled faithful Christians since the time of Christ how to account for that which through inheritance, good fortune, or the sweat of their brow they have managed to gather together. This parable says use it generously, for the real treasure to be had is to come. It also says that in the forgiving of debt, life disabling, fear promoting debt, there is reward – be generous and generosity will be shown to you – not pie in the sky, but now among our neighbours and fellow men and women.
The Funeral of H M Queen Elizabeth
We shall be screening this service in Compton Church from 10.30am Monday 19th September.
Special Evening Service
There will be an evening choral service beginning at 6pm Sunday 18th September at St Matthew’s, Otterbourne to give thanks for the life of Queen Elizabeth II and pray for His Majesty King Charles III.
Everyone is most welcome.
HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELIZABETH II
We are all deeply saddened by news of the death of Her Majesty the Queen. For seventy years she has dedicated her life to the service of her country, the Commonwealth and the church.
At the churches of our benefice we recognise the sadness and loss that many in our community will be feeling at this sad time.
Should you feel the need for prayer, or just quiet reflection, the churches will be open every day as usual. Please feel free to use this place of peace and tranquillity.
Our Sunday services will continue to be held at the usual times and all are welcome to attend, there will, of course, be prayers for the late Queen and our new King. We will have a special service on Sunday at 6 pm – see notice opposite.
Anyone wishing to sign a book of condolence may do so at Winchester Cathedral.
God Save The King
Morning Service for Trinity 13 2022
So we heard Jeremiah again this morning, being Jeremiah – utterly depressing and doom laden. He sees all creation unravelling before him because of the disobedience of Israel. YHWH has lost patience, creation is turned back and chaos is allowed to return. The world becomes unglued and it is all caused by Israel’s disobedience – it has all been for nothing. But amidst the doom and the destruction, even yet, Jeremiah hears ‘yet I will not make a full end’ – here is Jeremiah’s slight ground for hope, the door of doom is held, ajar, but only just.
Magazine letter for September 2022
This Sunday (as I write) I have the enormous privilege of baptising my eighth grandchild, Norah. We inevitably ask ourselves what world she has she been born into, and what faith will she be taught to help her to cope with such a world.
It’s very physical this Christianity thing. Sometimes I like to pretend it’s all rather esoteric, and spiritual. But then I realise that Christianity is all about incarnation, about God alongside us… in this world and with this world – a part of this world. Christianity is not about ethics, it’s not about being good boys and girls, keeping to the rules, avoid doing bad things and you’ll be a good person, and God will think you’re just great. Jesus did not die on a cross to tell us that.