Writing from the Rectory

August 2024

I was delighted to work with a team from our local churches to create and then preside and preach at a service of thanksgiving in St Peter’s Church, the first for some time. This happened at 6pm on Sunday 30 June and was a great success. We had a full church, with extra chairs needing to be fetched and a total, we believe, of 180 people attending. The service drew in people including members from many different churches in Sudbury and the nearby area. The congregational singing was stirring, led on the organ by Roger Green who, as many of you know, has contributed greatly to the work of the Friends of St Peter’s, and we enjoyed worship music in a different style led by one of the local congregations.

There was great joy in the opportunity to worship together once again in St Peter’s, and the same event has already been agreed for next year.

Having representatives from so many different churches was a reminder that there is more that unites us than divides us. We each have preferences for worship based on our upbringing, personality and experience, but unite around Jesus who came not to answer our questions but to be the answer to life’s deepest mysteries. The service preceded the general election and so I took the opportunity to speak of the need for us all to be accountable to a higher moral authority than simply our own thoughts or feelings. We desire justice and integrity because we are made in the image of God who is justice and integrity.

Dorothy Sayers wrote detective fiction which arose from her deep Christian faith and moral conviction that truth exists. A detective has to sift through false and true evidence until finally arriving at the only explanation that fits the reality. ‘Whodunnit? The butler with candlestick in the library’. Jesus dares to claim to be the truth, the way and the life. His miracles, teaching and resurrection provide us with our butler, candlestick and library. We have evidence and a solution to the mystery of life itself. He was also radically inclusive and invites the marginalised and all who are heavy laden by life’s burdens to come to him for relief, refreshment, freedom and peace.

My prayer for us all is that we use our hearts, souls and minds to remain open to the God who came and dwelt among us; not to condemn the world but that we should have everlasting life.

Bless you all and enjoy the summer break, Rev’d Andrew