St Mark's Parish News
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St Mark’s Parish News 4 October - Ordinary 27- Trinity 17 Available by email - sign up at www.stmarkschurch.com Join us at St Mark’s Church Sunday Services We welcome you to our Sunday services at 9.30am and 11.00am. Please book in by email [email protected] or call the Vicarage 01234 309175 / 07973113861 Our Sunday services are broadcast on YouTube Please note no need to dress up only participants are recorded, not communicants! Check out our videos www.youtube.com/stmarksbedford Midweek Zoom Service St Mark’s Church Worshipping together every Wednesday Morning Worship at 10.00am on Zoom Click here at 10.00am or Telephone 0131 4601196 Meeting No 88151161300 # Passcode required = 2512 Facebook Keep in touch with what is happening at St Mark’s Church with regular updates during the week. Visit us on Facebook www.facebook.com/stmarksbedford Praying Together on Sunday at Noon Humankind has been brought into life by God. Today we think about God as Lord of Creation and we pray: 1. For each person inhabiting our world with us with all the needs, emotions and experiences that we share 2. On this Saint Francis day, we pray for greater reverence for God’s creation in the way that we use and manage resources and wildlife 3. For all who will give birth today as we welcome in new life 4. For those who, during the current pandemic, are unable to step outside and enjoy the fruits of creation 5. For us to look afresh each day at God’s wonderful gift of our created world Inspired by the work of Susan Sayers Mike and Janet Warren Join us for Harvest We are delighted that the Bishop of St Albans will be joining us for our Harvest services this year. Please book into the services today at 9.30am and 11.00am as usual Gifts will be received for the Bedford Foodbank and these can be brought on the day or left in the foyer during the week. The Bishop’s Annual Harvest Mission Appeal My appeal this year will help many people in Nepal. In 2015, Nepal suffered immense loss and devastation in two major earthquakes; thousands of lives were impacted, 9,000 people died, communities made homeless, infrastructures collapsed, and livelihoods completely lost. In more recent years, however, the Nepalese people are growing to appreciate the value of beekeeping. Bees help to maintain the fragile biodiversity, as pollinators, to enhance crop production and a good income can be generated from sales of honey. It has been estimated that the country of Nepal can sustain 125,000 beehives; presently, there are around 26,000, showing there is significant opportunity. If you would like to contribute to supporting this important initiative, please put a donation into one of the special envelopes available this morning marked ‘Bishop of St Albans Harvest Appeal’ and put into the offertory plate or leave in the St Mark’s church office. Cheques should be made payable to: The PCC of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St Mark’s Bedford. You can also make a bank transfer to PCC of the Ecclesiastical Parish of St Mark Bedford Main Account CAF Bank. Sortcode 40-52-40 Account Number 00029842 Mighty Creator, Loving Heavenly Father, Thank you for the wonder and beauty of your world and for your extraordinary love, poured out for all people. We ask you to equip and strengthen the Nepalese communities that were impacted by the brutal earthquakes of 2015, to re-build their lives with hope and purpose. We pray that they would know your generous provision and your guiding presence with them. Bless the beekeeping initiatives, may they flourish and, through them, we pray that lives would be enriched and communities transformed. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen Ordinary 27 Opening Verse from Scripture I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord Philippians Chapter 3 Minister In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit All Amen Minister The Lord be with you All And also with you All Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name; through Christ our Lord. Amen. Confession All Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we have sinned against you and against our Moses receiving the Ten Commandments neighbour, in thought and word and deed, 6th century mosaic, St Catherine's Monastery through negligence, through weakness, Sinai, Egypt through our own deliberate fault. We are truly sorry and repent of all our sins. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, who died for us, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may serve you in newness of life to the glory of your name. Amen. (The minister will declare the words of forgiveness) Collect Prayer for the Day Before we read we pray Gracious God, you call us to fullness of life: deliver us from unbelief and banish our anxieties with the liberating love of Jesus Christ our Lord. First Reading Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20 Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour. When all the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking, they were afraid and trembled and stood at a distance, and said to Moses, ‘You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.’ Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of him upon you so that you do not sin.’ (This is the word of the Lord All Thanks be to God) Second Reading Philippians 3:4b-14 Though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (This is the word of the Lord All Thanks be to God) Gospel Reading - Matthew 21:33-46 (Please stand) Reader: Hear the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Matthew All Glory to you, O Lord ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Vineyards with Their Watch Towers Again he sent other slaves, more than the 1886 and 1889 first; and they treated them in the same way. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, Artist - Tissot, James Jacques Joseph, 1836-1902 “They will respect my son.” But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.