Holy Communion for the Sixth Sunday of Easter; celebrant the Revd Tola Badejo. Junior Church takes place at the same time in the hall.

First reading: Acts 10. 44 – 48
Gospel: John 15. 9 - 17

The first reading today records a radical action by St Peter, in which he asks his Jewish listeners to give a reason why Gentiles - non-Jews - should not be baptised into the Christian faith. No answer is forthcoming. Through events like this, Christianity grew from a movement within Judaism to a world religion transcending ethnicity and culture. Our beautiful round window in the chancel illustrates an Old Testament foreshadowing of the same process, when the widowed Moabitess Ruth chooses to stay with her Israelite mother-in-law rather than return to her own people: 'Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God',

The Gospel takes the idea further: Christians must 'love one another', without condition. As God has shown us love, so must we pass it on, regardless of cultural and liturgical differences.