The Messenger

Merstham Parish September 2021 Lectionary Gospel readings for September Farewell to Ben Ben’s last service at St Katharine will be on Sunday 19 September Sundayon 19 will be at St Katharine last service Ben’s Merstham & Gatton Team Ministry The MessengerMessengerthe Parish magazine for Merstham September 2021 Merstham Parish The Parish of Merstham Merstham Parish has as its parish church St Katharine’s (an ‘ancient’ parish church); it is part of the Merstham & Gatton Team Ministry. The other parishes in the Team are South Merstham (All Saints church) and Gatton (St Andrew’s church). St Katharine’s is at the foot of Church Hill, just off the A23 to the north of the village (RH1 3BJ). Mission Statement We aim to be a compassionate, caring and welcoming Church, which is faithful in prayer and worship, in our search for God’s Kingdom, and in our service to our neighbour. We are here to serve you . Baptism Confirmation Marriage Funerals Home blessing Home communion Confessions Anointing and Last Rites Please contact any of the clergy (details inside back cover) if you wish to discuss one of the above. There is no fee for any of the above apart from the Marriage and Fu- neral services, for which statutory charges apply. Kindly note that Rector Mark and Vicar Ben both take Friday as a day off. Weekday services start again on Monday 9 August Monday 9.15 a.m. Morning Prayer All Saints Tuesday 9.15 a.m. Morning Prayer St Katharine Thursday 9.15 a.m. Morning Prayer All Saints 2 Merstham Parish Merstham & Gatton Team Ministry The MessengerMessengerthe Parish magazine for Merstham Dear Friends, It is good news that St Katharine’s is So the parallel project is to dream now, after several years’ travail and delay, dreams and forge vision into the growing able to proceed with plans for building a and building of the life of our small extension on the north side of the community of faith, as we allow God to church. We had draft plans for this on continue to shape and transform us to be display three or so years ago, and now that living house of inclusion and they are being able to be refined we shall acceptance, of compassion and faith, of soon set out and display some more discipleship and prayer for ourselves – plans with adjustments made since those for all who we invite, for all who enter first ideas. Look out for new and these doors, and for all who pass on the updated information in the next few byways of life. weeks as the PCC forms a group to keep So how do we begin to envisage that an eye and report on the building phase lively life to fill the space of the enhanced of the project. building of the near future? We should This project allows some basic think beyond what might seem possible, facilities at the church itself that we hope share our ideas, have creative will enable further activities and life conversations – it is amazing what together. Over the last two years the becomes possible with the commitment current Victorian vestries have been of time, prayer, resources and failing fast. practicalities – and everybody offering a To make sense and give a reason for little can make an enormous cumulative all this, there is an associated building difference. The new building, although project for us all to wholeheartedly take modest in itself, offers much in ways that part in, beyond the brick and stone and we may be joyfully present in the glass of invitation and welcome. And presence of Christ together in the that project is the building up of the spiritual house of St Katharine, ministry and mission of all that we are as Merstham, devotional and other-wise. a community of believers here, and of It is true that as a community we are our life-giving work of transformation entering a new phase of being. During and faith. Peter, encouraging the early the long days of lockdown we learnt disciples in this work, wrote ‘like living other ways of being, and now as we say stones let yourselves be built into a our fond Godspeeds to Ben and his spiritual house’ (1 Peter 2). family for their new work after their September 2021 3 Merstham Parish sojourn with us here, we look ahead to a worship and were preparing to return different and in part unknown future. and rebuild the Temple and their When God’s people in the past had community life the prophet Isaiah spoke been distanced from their place of God’s heart to them: ‘Listen to me, you that pursue righteousness, you that seek the LORD. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.’ Isaiah 51 As those called to be living stones today, Temple for which he already has the part of our calling is to do just that – to plans, and for which he laid the look to the rock from which we were foundations many years ago, and on hewn: that is, to spend time in which many living stones had played remembering why we have been called in their creative and generous part. So a Christ and into the life of his chief part of our commitment is simply resurrection, to deepen our making ourselves available for that understanding of our faith and life in continuing work. God, and to seek him in prayer and reflection together. During opportunities to be open during As we do He will gather us, uniquely the various lockdowns part of our post- shaped living stones that we are, and he communion prayer had the following will creatively build us into the living words: Take us out to live as changed people, because we have shared the Living Bread and cannot remain the same. ask much of us, expect much from us, enable much by us, encourage many through us. So Lord, may we live to your glory, both as inhabitants of earth and citizens of the kingdom of God. Amen. Let us take these words to heart with us faith and love, to see what God does as into the next while, which will be He continues to take us, his living exciting and daunting, familiar and stones, in developing his living Temple unknown, and practical and spiritual at here for the sake of his precious and the same time – and together let us tread beloved world. its journey with joy and intrigue, with In Christ, Mark 4 Merstham Parish Gospel readings for September The Rector After our summer break in the great Mark’s gospel is as much about ‘Living Bread’ chapter of John’s the identity of Jesus as it is about Gospel we return to some of the discipleship. And in September’s teaching and healing episodes in this readings there is much about their year’s Gospel of Mark. This gospel behaviour and reactions to events and moves on at speed and it is helpful to Jesus’ teaching that suggests that they look around at what happens before often to struggle and understand in and after these readings, which are what they see and hear. There is not often continuous. much for us to learn from. 1. Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734) ‘Christ and the woman of Canaan’. Ricci was a late Baroque painter based in Venice and he painted several Biblical events. In this painting Ricci dramatically lines out a diagonal through Christ’s hands, the Canaanite’s hands to the dog (the focus of her play on words), as she feistily challenges Jesus about who might receive God’s grace and attention. Interestingly among his other Biblical paintings Ricci also painted the Samaritan woman at the well – another lively and life-giving encounter with a woman, and an outsider. 2. Harry Fenn (1837-1911) ‘Caesarea Philippi (Banias)’. A British-born America watercolour artist and illustrator, Fenn undertook a tour of Palestine in the 1870s in order to illustrate a serialised volume called Picturesque Palestine, Sinai and Egypt (1881-1884). 3. Carl Bloch (1834-1890) ‘Suffer the children’. Bloch was a C19th Danish artist, much influenced by the work of Rembrandt. He was commissioned to paint 23 pictures of the life of Christ for the royal chapel at Frederiksberg Palace (1865-1879), many of which became popular illustrations in books. His ‘Samson at the treadmill’ presents a dramatic image of Samson’s punishment. Generally in Hellenistic society there was quite a callous and dismissive attitude towards children – Jesus’ invitation to welcome and bless them was difficult for his disciples to understand in their cultural context. But we must remember that this was not the point in Mark’s gospel here, when it was simply the case of Jesus working into the prevailing cultural understanding taking the ‘least’ around him and telling the disciples that that is how they should become in attitude and heart. 4. Ruth Palmer ‘Stumbling Stones’. Palmer is a contemporary Scottish-born artist, now based in Calgary, Canada. Many of her works have Christian/Biblical reference (have a look at ‘Intercessory Prayer’). The journey and mystery of faith – walking through the ‘cloud of unknowing’ – is hazardous enough, and to deliberately put hazards in the way is deeply offensive to God, who draws us all through the oft-dense wondering with his love and invitation. Palmer captures well a contrast between the fluidity of the mystery and wonder with the dangers presented by the solidity of the stumbling block in the pathway.

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