Sunday 30th July – The Eighth Sunday after Trinity
This Sunday we are introduced to the characters Leah and Rachel, depicted above in an illustration by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Because of the limitations on what it is possible to read in church Sunday by Sunday, we won’t get to hear their full story, which, as well as being interesting in its own right, sets the scene for the story of Joseph and his brothers. This is another one of those stories that subverts political rhetoric about “biblical family values”: Jacob falls in love with Rachel, and agrees to work for her father (and Jacob’s uncle) Laban for seven years to be allowed to marry her. When the day comes, Laban switches Rachel for Leah, and Jacob wakes in the morning to discover that he has been in bed with (from his perspective) the wrong sister. When Jacob protests, Laban agrees to let him be married to both sisters, if Jacob agrees to work for Laban for another seven years. A number of the themes we have already noticed in Genesis come out again in this story, not least the theme of reversal. Jacob, the trickster, is in turn tricked by Laban. Rachel, the younger daughter, is preferred over her elder sister, and yet in this story there is a kind of double-reversal, and, unlike the story of Jacob and Esau, the conventional order is restored, and Leah is married first.
This Sunday:
8am Holy Communion (BCP) (St Mary’s)
9.30am Sung Holy Communion and Junior Church (St Mary’s)
11.15am Sung Matins (BCP) (St Nicholas, Remenham)
4pm Evening Prayer (BCP) (St Mary’s)
This week:
Tuesday 1st Holy Eucharist, offered for the Henley Churches Debt Centre 7.30pm (St Mary’s)
Wednesday 2nd
Thursday 3rd Holy Eucharist 10am (St Mary’s), followed by coffee in the Chantry House
Friday 4th Holy Eucharist 12noon (St Mary’s) Wedding rehearsal 4pm (St Nicholas Remeham)
Saturday 5th Wedding 12noon (St Nicholas Remenham)
Morning Prayer will be said at 9am Tuesday to Friday at St Mary’s
Sunday August 6th ~ The Ninth Sunday after Trinity
8am Holy Communion (BCP) (St Mary’s)
9.30am Sung Eucharist (St Mary’s)
11.15am Sung Matins (BCP) with hymns (St Nicholas Remenham)
4.00pm Said Evening Prayer (BCP) (St Mary’s)