JULY 2007
SERVICES
| 1st Trinity 4 | 22nd Trinity 7/ St Mary Magdalene |
|---|---|
| 8.00 am Holy Communion | 8.00 am Holy Communion |
| 11.00 am Odyssey | 11.00 am Mattins & Sermon |
| Preacher: Canon Paul Oestricher | Preacher: Revd Dr Malcolm Guite |
| 5.00 pm Meditative Eucharist | 5.00 pm Meditative Eucharist |
| Preacher: Revd Dr Fraser Watts | Preacher: Ms Margaret Elliot |
| 8th Trinity 5 | 29th Trinity 8 |
| 8.00 am Holy Communion | 8.00 am Holy Communion |
| 11.00 am Mattins & Sermon | 11.00 am Mattins & Sermon |
| Preacher: Revd Dr Fraser Watts | Preacher: Very Revd Chris Whittall |
| 5.00 pm Meditative Eucharist | 5.00 pm Meditative Eucharist |
| Preacher: Revd Dr Malcolm Guite | Preacher: Revd Dr Fraser Watts |
| 15th Trinity 6 | Fridays |
| 8.00 am Holy Communion | 10.30 am Holy Communion |
| 11.00 am Mattins & Sermon | 5.30 pm Meditation |
| Preacher: Canon Alan Cole | |
| 5.00 pm Meditative Eucharist | |
| Preacher: Mr Steven Mastin |
11.00 am READINGS
| Theme | Old Testament/Epistle | New Testament/Gospel |
|---|---|---|
| 8th Blindness & Sight | A Finn Isaiah 42. 5-9 & 14-20 | C Martin John 5. 1-18 |
| 15th Trinity 6 | J Dent Romans 6. 3-11 | Chaplain Matthew 5. 20-26 |
| 22th Mary Magdalene | C Walker Zephaniah 3.14-end | P Marshall 2 Corinth 5. 14-end |
| 29th Trinity 8 | M Lee Deuteronomy 30. 1-10 | E Edwards 1 Peter 3. 8-18 |
Readers for August: 5th: A Stacey & J Billett |
Odyssey: The preacher at Odyssey this month (July 1st, 11.00 am) will be Canon Paul Oestreicher, Founding Chair of Amnesty International and former Director of International Ministry at Coventry Cathedral. For many years, he has been a powerful advocate of Christian non-aggression and reconciliation, and will preach on ‘Our Choice of Weapons’.
Housegroup: The final meeting of the housegroup on the Sayings of Jesus will be on June 25th. It meets at 8.00 pm at St Mark’s Vicarage.
Goth Eucharists: Goth Eucharists will continue fortnightly throughout the summer (Tuesdays at 8.45 pm). On July 3rd, Fraser will conclude a series on Male and Female, with a sermon on ‘God: Beyond Father or Mother’. On July 17th, the preacher will be the Revd Ravi Holi, Curate of St Luke’s, Battersea.
Holistic Spirituality Group: There will be meetings at 3.30 pm on Sundays June 24th, July 8th and July 22nd. The current focus is on prayer and spiritual practice.
Mattins Preacher: The Very Revd Chris Whittall, who will preach at Mattins on July 29th, is Dean of Rockhampton Cathedral in Australia, and Acting Dean of Queens’ College in Cambridge for the Easter and Michaelmas terms this year.
Healing: There will be laying on of hands for healing at the 5.00 pm Eucharist on July 8th (not July 15th as announced on the term card).
Ordinations:Please remember Adrian Whitehall, to be ordained priest in Sheffield Cathedral on 25th June, serving in Todwick and Harthill; also Andrew Hammond, to be ordained Deacon in St Paul’s Cathedral, London, on 30th June, to serve in St John’s Wood.
Chaplain's Letter
The Christian life involves a journey inward and a journey outward, and a balance needs to be kept between the two. There is a time for the deepening of spirituality, so that we draw or ever more deeply on the ‘wells of salvation’. Alongside that, there is a journey outwards to serve in the world, and to work to make it a better place. Too much emphasis on spirituality alone can become self-indulgent, but too much activity in the world, with no depth of spirituality to draw on, can become hollow and ineffective
Every church needs to hold the balance between these two poles, and I hope we normally do that reasonably well at St Edward’s. If we have a danger, it is probably that we don’t give enough emphasis to service in the world; so I am pleased that the next two Odyssey sermons will focus on world issues. This month, Paul Oestreicher will talk about the challenge of building peace and reconciliation in our war-torn world. Next month, Charles Elliott will talk about the challenge of world poverty. Of course, they are often closely linked, as threats to security often arise out of poverty and deprivation.
We live in a time in which terrorism presents a new threat to security, and there is widespread concern about how best to respond to the challenge that it presents. I have been encouraged to discover through recent contact with the Defense Academy that there is a growing awareness among senior members of the armed forces that military solutions to terrorism are unlikely to be effective on their own. Religion, though it can so often be focus of division in the world, also has enormously rich resources to contribute to building peace and reconciliation. Unhealthy forms of religion often give rise to terrorism; but religion also has the resources to combat terrorism in ways that go deeper than military action.
As a teenager, I flirted briefly with Christian pacifism, though for most of my life I have reluctantly accepted that military action is sometimes unavoidable. However, my Christian faith leads me to say that it should only be used as a last resort and when faced with the most severe threat. The current military action in Iraq doesn’t seem to meet those criteria. The Christian faith helps to equip us for a ministry of reconciliation that should always be the first response to threats to security. It gives us a reason to believe in reconciliation. As St Paul argues, since God has gone to such great lengths to reconcile the world to himself, we should also go to great lengths to be reconciled to one another. A passionate belief in reconciliation can make Christians, as Jesus said, the ‘salt of the earth’.
Because religions can become deformed and fuel division in the world, people of different faith traditions need to work together to build peace. There is a peace-loving strand in all the major world religions, even those that sometimes give rise to war and terrorism. It is particularly important for as all be aware that Islam is a broad movement that encompasses many different approaches, including those that emphasise peace and spirituality.
I have been delighted recently to get to know Sheikh Musa Admani, one of the most enlightened and impressive of Muslim spiritual leaders in the England. Part of his vision is for Muslim Clerics who have a broader education and a better understanding of Western society, and I have been involved in helping to develop a training programme for them through the University of Cambridge. I like to think that this is the kind of initiative that is likely to build reconciliation. Of course, the timescale is slow, but positive results can be achieved. The way in which reconciliation has gradually been fostered in Northern Ireland, since the worst of the troubles, is an encouraging demonstration of what is possible. The Christian project is to wage peace wherever possible, using the weapons of reconciliation that God has given us.
Fraser Watts
Clergy: Revd. Dr. Fraser Watts (19, Grantchester Road, CB3 9ED; 359223, fnw1001@cam.ac.uk); Revd Dr Malcolm Guite (694249, mg320@cam.ac.uk); Canon Alan Cole (892286, alan73@waitrose.com). Churchwardens: Dr. Elizabeth Edwards (313570, elizedwards@waitrose.com); Mr Steven Mastin (361041, stephenjamesmastin@yahoo.com).Treasurer: Mr Geoffrey Barnes; (717757, Geoff.Barnes@cambridgeshire.gov.uk). Reader: Mr. Peter Marshall (564471). Church phone: 362004