Pew Sheet, Sunday, 2nd March 2025, Sunday next before Lent
I would like to start off today by thanking Alan and Daphne for stepping into the breach for me last Sunday while my mother was so ill in hospital. As I write she is stable, but still very unwell with septicaemia which has exacerbated her pre-existing COPD and renal problems but thank you all for your prayers!
Sitting at the bedside of an acutely ill loved one is never easy; but is made far more difficult when the cracks in the system are becoming more and more apparent. Eight hours in the back of an ambulance in the hospital grounds and twelve more on a trolley in an A&E corridor are not the best way to start the healing process, but the care and kindness of the staff was exemplary, most of it given by non-white, non-UK doctors and nurses, who are clearly operating in a system which is creaking at the seams. We have much to pray for it seems, and not just for ourselves, but for the most vulnerable in our society, of whom the weak, the infirm, and the elderly are so great a part.
It is hard to pray, let alone see God in such circumstances, and yet God is very much there, and present in the faces of those who reflect God’s glory ‘as in a mirror’, as Paul reminds us in our Epistle reading this week. I am sure that the Filipina and Filipino nurses, the African and Caribbean nurses, and yes, even the Muslim doctors who cared, and continue to care for my mum with such care and devotion are doing just that: reflecting the glory of God as in a mirror: and it is a mirror which we too must hold up to our faces from time to time, not least as we prepare this week for the season of Lent, which invites us to make a careful, humble, and contrite self-examination of our lives, our motivations, our actions, and our inactions as like Moses, we prepare to meet our transcendent, luminescent, risen Lord on Easter Day.
When I was a child, Lent was not a season to be enjoyed, but to be endured, with a morbid obsession with individual weaknesses and failures. So much so in fact, that the words of Psalm 22:6 which say, ‘I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone [and] despised by the people’ seemed to be the only desired outcome of our Lenten preparation. I well remember one priest daring us to incur God’s wrath by wiping the ashes from our forehead before leaving school should they give rise to immature jibes and enmity from other children attending the non-Catholic school nearby. It was all about guilt, not love. Love had to wait until Easter morning, but even then, only if we were good enough!
Paul reminds his readers however, that it is not in our own strength that we are revealed as the Lord’s, but God’s. It is God who will transform us from one degree of glory into another so that we too can reflect God’s glory to others, and we too can shine God’s light into a world where there is so much pain and heartache no matter where we look. It is the Spirit who achieves this once we have examined ourselves and renounced the ways of the world, of the flesh, of our own egos, and commend ourselves to God in good conscience not with an abject sense of misery or unhealthy abasement, but with true humility, joy, and gratitude; knowing that it is God alone who removes the veil from our faces and shows us the true freedom we have as sons and daughters of the living God. Lent is often a time when we focus so much on giving something up, that we fail to see that our Lenten task is to take something on. We need to take on the full likeness of God – our heavenly Father – day-by-day, not in our own strength or through our own efforts, but by God’s grace. It is a time for looking up, as well as looking down, and for looking outwards, as well as for deep introspection. For it is only then, that we can see, and hear, and listen, to the transcendent Jesus on that mountain top, and be illuminated by his radiant light.
Rather than giving something up this year (though you may of course do so!), I am going to ask you all to do something extra this Lent. We will not be following a specific course in groups as we did before, but I would like as many of you as are willing, to take one of the Lent booklets I have obtained, and devote just 10 to 15 minutes each day going through the daily reflections starting today. Set aside just a few minutes from today until Easter morning to read, think, and pray through the reflections, and if you would like to, complete the little prayer diary and exercises so that you can share what you have experienced in your quiet time of prayer and reflection with others. Don’t take the book unless you really want to give it a try (there is no compulsion!) but I would like to think that as many of us go through the devotions together (though apart), we might learn more of the glorious freedom which knowing God’s will for our lives can impart!
Collect
Holy God, you know the disorder of our sinful lives. Set straight our crooked hearts and bend our wills to love your goodness and your glory. In Jesus Christ our Lord.
Exodus 34:29-end
Moses came down from Mount Sinai. As he came down from the mountain with the two tablets of the covenant in his hand, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. When Aaron and all the
Israelites saw Moses, the skin of his face was shining, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses spoke with them. Afterward all the Israelites came near, and he gave them in commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him on Mount Sinai. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face, but whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take the veil off until he came out, and when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, the Israelites would see the face of Moses, that the skin of his face was shining, and Moses would put the veil on his face again until he went in to speak with him.
2 Corinthians 3:12-4:2
Since, then, we have such a hope, we act with complete frankness, not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory thatwas being set aside. But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, the same veil is still there; it is not unveiled since in Christ it is set aside. Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds, but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.
Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. We have renounced the shameful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.
Luke 9:28-36
Now about eight days after these sayings Jesustook with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking about his exodus, which he was about to fulfil in Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed
down with sleep, but as they awoke, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us set up three tents: one for you, one for Moses,
and one for Elijah,” not realising what he was saying. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent, and in those days, told no one any of the things they had seen.
Post Communion Prayer
Holy God, We see your glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
May we who are partakers at his table reflect his life in word and deed,
That all the world may know his power to change and save.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.
This Week’s Events
Monday
Bell Ringing, 7.30pm in St Laurence. Contact Jan on 07835 461361.
Shrove Tuesday
Zoom In Morning Prayer, 9am. Meeting ID: 539 3978774 password: TuaR0T or contact Sue on suedavies27@gmail.com (The 0 in R0T is a zero not an ‘O’)
Evening House Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687 for more information.
Ash Wednesday
Morning Coffee, 10.00-11.45am in the St Laurence Room.
Said Communion with Imposition of Ashes, 12.00 noon St Laurence.
Said Communion with Imposition of Ashes, 2.30pm St James.
Thursday
Daytime House Group, contact Jo on 07803 942 687 for more details.
Friday (Perpetua, Felicity and their Companions, Martyrs at Carthage, 203)
Junior Choir at 6.30 pm followed by full Choir Practice at 7.30pm. Contact Derry on choir@winslowbenefice.org.uk if you would like to join in this term.
Advance Notice:
Lent lunches will take place in the St Laurence Room on the 11th, 19th and 26th of March, and the 2nd April. Contact Liz Van de Poll if able to help with catering.
Great Horwood School Needs You!
We have found a new Foundation Governor for Winslow School but have been told by the head of Great Horwood CofE School that they are also in dire need new Foundation Governors there as well. You do not have to live in the parish, so if you can help, please do speak to Steve.