BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//achurchnearyou.com//eventfeed//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-TIMEZONE:UTC
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Family Communion
DTSTART:20250810T090000Z
DTEND:20250810T101500Z
DTSTAMP:20260418T221354Z
UID:12167692025-08-10 09:00:00+00:00achurchnearyou
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:Family Communion for the eighth Sunday after Trinity: celebran
 t the Revd Tola Badejo.\n\nFirst reading: Isaiah 1. 1\, 10-20\nGospel: Luk
 e 12. 32 – 40\n\nIsaiah's words from the Old Testament are profoundly ch
 allenging. Essentially\, no ritual or religious activity is acceptable to 
 God unless it is an expression of heartfelt commitment to God and to human
 ity: 'cease to do evil\; learn to do good\; seek justice\; rescue the oppr
 essed\; defend the orphan\; plead for the widow'. Most of the actions Isai
 ah demands are public rather than private\, requiring right action as well
  as right belief\, and he calls for the defence of the least powerful in s
 ociety\, those who are most unlikely to be able to repay generosity in a m
 aterial way. \n\nIn the Gospel Jesus uses a strange metaphor\, comparing h
 is coming to a burglary. His point is that we never know when we shall be 
 required to respond to him\; our readiness cannot be confined to an hour o
 n Sunday morning\, or to other times when we are not doing anything else. 
 Nor do we know how his call will come: it could be in the form of a trying
  neighbour\, a person we have good reason to dislike\, or an unpleasantly 
 tedious duty. In the engraving above\, by the 17th-century Dutch artist Ja
 n Luyken\, the dutiful servant has stayed at the door while his fellows ar
 e relaxing at the table in the background\; the issue is not that they are
   doing anything inherently wrong\, but that they have forgotten their com
 mitment to look out for their master.
GEO:0.037423;51.469833
LOCATION:Kidbrooke\, St Nicholas
URL:https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/671/service-and-events/events/12
 16769/
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR