Aliveness John 6: 24-35

When I phoned Lee to set up a time to visit there was no-one home and I had to leave a message on her answerphone. It turned out that she was outside gardening. At 84 Lee was not someone to sit inside on a warm day watching TV but was keen to be active and to keep on living. I had known her over ten years and I had discovered she was someone who lived life. If the day had been colder she probably would have been inside baking or out in her car distributing some baking to someone in need. But don’t make the mistake of thinking Lee was more of a Martha that a Mary in the biblical sense. Like Martha she liked to keep busy, but like Mary she paused to sit at the teacher’s feet. She regularly as she put it prayed as she took a little walk around the neighbourhood each morning. On Sunday she would always be at church greeting others and doing what she could to make newcomers welcome. She went out of her way to notice people who might be alone or new and instead of sitting in the same seat every Sunday moved around to wherever she could connect with strangers or those she thought might appreciate a listening ear. After worship she loved to chew the fat over some point in the sermon that had caught her attention. She was no saint, just plainspoken and happy to be herself, warm, and accepting – a faith honed out of real life experience.

When I did finally catch up with Lee she reminded me that it had been 18 months since her husband of 56 years had passed away. There was a moment of stillness and a tear, but her face lit up again as she reencountered how they had gone on their honeymoon as two innocent young people in a borrowed car and a few pounds in their pocket. There was another tear as she talked about her first night alone after all those years, and it was evident that she had a very deep sense of the loss. Tears are part of life she said as she moved on to update me on news of her family.

When I asked Lee about her new journey, she recounted a story that revealed much on her attitude and outlook. It seems a friend had questioned her about going to the movies not long after her husband had died, implying that Lee was not grieving appropriately. Lee reminded the woman that it was her husband that had died and not her and that she was getting on with living. I remember she flashed me a smile and a wink as she shared her response. She went on to say that did feel bereft, but that she had made her mind up to live each day with purpose and resolve. She volunteered that at the heart of this resolve was her faith and her belief that God had special things for her to do. I asked her about that and she explained that her way of looking at things was pretty simple. God had made her the way she was and had a purpose for her life. “I love being generous and I love encouraging others,” she said. “These things give me a real buzz. I believe we all have a ministry and when I’m in touch with my ministry I really come alive. It’s exciting.” I thought the Apostle Paul might find some big words to describe what she was saying like Living in Christ or Living in the Spirit, but Lee’s simple way of seeing things made sense to me.

I found Lee’s faith infectious. Though she glimpsed in the rear view mirror she did not dwell in the past. She had made the decision to fully live out her life with gusto, engagement, and that childlike attitude that so appealed to Jesus the willingness to learn something new. She seemed to have discovered her calling and her path of contributing to the greater good. Being alive for her has something to do with serving. When I stood to leave she told me to wait a moment and scurried off to the kitchen. She returned bearing some biscuits that she had made that very morning. Graceful, generous to the end. There was something about Lee that many people noticed. She was alive, she was gracious and generous, and there was a deep joy even with the tears. There was authenticity. She was who she was without smoke and mirrors and she was happy to be who she was. She didn’t find fault in others although she could let you know when something wasn’t right. She accepted all sorts of people as they were and encouraged them. Young people could be a pain, but she took time to try and understand and appreciate what their lives might be like. She had a heart for the struggling, and if she were alive today she would have purchased Fairtrade bananas, and she just might have joined the bike brigade to do her bit for climate change.

Jesus talked often about something he called eternal life. He claims the crowds were searching for the food of eternal life. The gospel writer, John, makes it clear that he believes if you follow Jesus you’ll find this life. I think Lee had discovered the truth of what Jesus was on about. She had discovered a quality of life that was much more than just existing. I think it had much to do with believing she was in God’s hands, and God had something new to teach her each day. Fear was not something she seemed to worry about… fear of others, fear of death. She seemed to have a deep trust in God that all would be well. She was not alone. She was living with purpose and meaning. She had great patterns and rituals in her life that sustained her and encouraged life. She had friends she could talk with and at 84 she still saw life as an adventure. She was willing to risk herself, to step out and give things a go. She was not stuck in a rut but was still walking along the road, discovering, learning, growing. Life was good.

In my younger days I used to think eternal life was all about going to heaven when I died. That’s what religion was about. I didn’t read the gospels closely enough. I do believe we return into God when we die, but Jesus was quite adamant that eternal life begins now. When he talks of eternal life he’s talking about a quality of life that begins now. I saw much of that in my friend Lee. She had a quality of aliveness that I think would have made Jesus smile and say, you are on to it.

I think we all have a deep desire in our beings to be more alive. We want to be less fearful. Who cares about what others think. Wouldn’t it be good to be 100% authentic, and to know deep joy. Wouldn’t it be good to be so in touch with our gifts that we didn’t need to compete with others but could be great encouragers of others. Wouldn’t it be great to feel we were using our gifts whatever they might be in service of God to help build a new earth? To know we were part of God’s plan to see less lonely people, less violence, and more peace in the world.

Our faith isn’t about insurance policies for when we die nor is it about appeasing an angry God. It’s about discovering an aliveness in our lives now. It’s about overcoming the fears that shrink and imprison us. It’s about trusting God and living with a sense of adventure and authenticity. It’s about learning to live with generosity and compassion for all God’s creatures. It’s about serving and learning to be courageous, with a grateful heart.
Sadly many people look at Christians and seem to think religion is something that shrinks, starves, imposes, cages, and freezes aliveness rather than fostering it. I felt a great sadness when I read of a recent survey of young people that found Christian young people were more inclined to judge others and to be less generous to people in need. Teaching our children about Jesus shouldn’t make them more judgmental and less generous.
Sadly many people think to be a Christian means you have to believe all sorts of things about Jesus. Jesus is God’s son, Jesus paid the price of our sin, Jesus will give you a ticket to heaven. Our gospel proclaims we need to believe in Jesus. Christianity is not primarily about what we think in our heads, but is about a way of life. The word belief actually comes from two words ‘by’ and ‘live’ or if we put them the other way round ‘live by’. True belief shows in our actions. Frankly I don’t think it greatly matters whether you believe the virgin birth actually happened, or whether Jesus actually walked on water. I’m much more interested in how Jesus impacts your life and how he brings eternal life and aliveness into your daily walk. Self-acceptance, overcoming fear, upholding the power of love and compassion in the way we live.

I believe God is doing new things in our time. One of those is that God is calling us as a Christian community to be beacons of aliveness. I’ve used the example of Lee, but in case you are wondering I see plenty of signs of aliveness amongst us.
I am the bread of life said Jesus. I have come to give people aliveness. What is this bread, what is at the heart of this life do you think? How does Jesus bring aliveness into your life? I invite you to talk with neighbours briefly about some of the things you have discovered about this aliveness Jesus was talking about?

Dugald Wilson 5 August 2018

Global Warming… Luke 14:7-14

It is a very simple message about humility and hospitality. Jesus noticed that people liked to sit in places of honour. They liked to sit at the top table at weddings and enjoy the good life. They liked to receive the best treatment. Traveling first class can be fun but it’s also addictive. It’s very easy to think this is normal and forget that for most it isn’t normal. Jesus said be careful, be humble.
He then talks of who you might invite into your own home for dinner. Is it just your friends and people who are just like you? Is it people who are already part of your circle of friends and family? Jesus talks of another way when he says make sure you invite the others, the poor, the ones you don’t normally mix with, the ones that don’t really matter. And he says when you do this, when you invite the people from outside the fence to your table you’ll be blessed.. You’ll learn something.
Now I suspect there is plenty here to challenge in the way we live our day to day lives. Humility and hospitality are key elements of a Christian life. Our celebration of communion where we all gather around around a table no matter who we are is a constant message and reminder of how it is in the kingdom of God. All are equal, and it doesn’t matter if you are Donald Trump or Joesephine Bloggs you are welcome. We are all interconnected as part of Gods creation.

I wonder what that might have to say to us as we address one of the most pressing issues in our world – climate change. However we might want to look at it, we are part of the small group that sit around the top table and there is plenty of evidence we are very good at thumbing our nose at everyone else in the world. They don’t matter. Who cares if the people of Tuvalu no longer have a home because the ocean has risen. I think it’s now an established reality that the world is heating up and that human activity is “extremely likely” to blame. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide are now at levels “unprecedented in at least the last 800,000 years.” Sea levels are expected to rise and the oceans have acidified as they have absorbed increased levels of carbon dioxide. We can expect more mosquitoes, more extreme weather events, and a shrinking of land mass as oceans rise.

I see varying responses. The United Sates seems to be backing right off. They have a president who is more interested in saving coal miners jobs than taking a lead in addressing climate change. We may go tut tut, but I wonder whether as individuals we are pretty good at saying someone else’s problem. So what if hurricane wipe out life on some Pacific island or sea level rise destroys millions of homes in Bangladesh. So long as we are OK all is OK. Those others don’t really belong at our table. As a nation it’s easy for us to say we are just a very small contributor to the greenhouse gases that seem to be at the heart of the problem. But when you bring it down to the personal level there are only ten nations in the world that emit more greenhouses gasses than we do – per person. When it comes to pumping out carbon in various forms we punch well above our weight. The global average of carbon dioxide equivalent per person is something like four metric tonnes per year, but we manage just under 20 metric tonnes per person – five times the global average. Of course a key issue for us is cows – we have a lot of cows out there belching out methane, which is actually a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The only good news is that it doesn’t last as long in the atmosphere. To put it bluntly we sit at the top table in terms of lifestyle and we need to open our eyes and make some real changes to our lifestyles. We need to invite others to our table and understand we are part of a global issue that affects us all.

So where are the problem areas? Well we know for us kiwis the cows are an issue as they produce lots of methane and we also put lots of nitrogen onto the land. The methane is a short term greenhouse gas, but unfortunately it’s much nastier than CO2. We are going to have to find ways to reduce these emissions. The obvious answer is reduce the numbers of cows. But dairying is carrying our economy. It’s not easy. We have good people working on resolving this. It’s easy to point the finger elsewhere and say others need to change.

What about us? City folk. One of the big issues for us is that we consume lots of stuff, and just about every product or service we use causes CO2 emissions in its manufacture or in the transport to get it to us. Ensuring we consume less and live more simply is possibly one of the biggest things each of us could do. Buy products that last and don’t have to be replaced regularly. We often don’t need to replace our perfectly good cell phone or TV so why do we? Buy products without packaging. Sharing more stuff with others would really help. A group like us could start a stuff to be shared resource bank. Literally all the stuff we have is killing us and will certainly kill the planet if everyone has what we have. Cutting down consumption of stuff and living more simply is fundamental to a future planet that resembles the good creation God longs for.

Another major contributor of our CO2 emissions is our love affair with cars. We have more cars per head of population than just about anyone else in the world and we love to use them all the time. We could be walking or cycling more and incidentally enjoying better health, but no, even if it is a short trip to the shops we use the car. We have a great public transport system in Christchurch but often buses trundle around half empty. Far too many of us have never used a bus. Land transport, cars buses, trucks, including the trucks and other vehicles carting around all the stuff we really don’t need, accounts for about 40% of our CO2 emissions and it’s growing rapidly.

We also love to travel by air and we need to remember that one return flight to a European city produces about ten metric tonnes of CO2 per passenger, or two and a half times the global annual average in one hit. Travel is good as it reconnects us with family and opens our eyes to other cultures and peoples, but we really need to be careful about how often we use planes. Planes also bring in all sorts of food from around the world. How good it is to have Italian kiwifruit out of our season, but remember those imported food items are adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

We are it seems very definitely at the top table gobbling up the best food and living as we wish while the earth it seems is heading towards death and destruction for many. Climate change will affect all of us but it will be the poor who suffer most. It’s time we invited others to our table and looked beyond our narrow self interest.

The Bible has a term that describes what is required, and it’s the term repent! Repent means changing direction and that is never easy. It requires work and effort. But currently the way we live is the equivalent of taking our place at the top table and saying to hell with everyone else. Jesus would simply call it sinful, and invites us to head down a different road.
I don’t for one minute suggest it will be easy. There isn’t any immediate threat that we can see will threaten us in the next five minutes so why get worried. There is no elephant standing on our toe so why do anything? We find it hard dealing with issues that aren’t immediate and don’t have immediate effect. Like the frog being heated in hot water it’s easy to put off jumping out of the pot until of course it’s too late. Toss in an element of uncertainty because we actually don’t know precisely what will happen as greenhouse gas concentrations increase, and it becomes incredibly easy to put our head in the sand and hope that it won’t be so bad for our grandchildren as the scientists tell us.

I believe Jesus Christ came to heal and save the world, and as a faithful disciple I need to change my lifestyle. I believe Jesus cares so much about this sacred world that he would sacrifice even his life to save it, so where is the sacrifice in riding my bike or the bus more often. I believe Jesus meant what he said invite others to sit down and share our table and our life with them. Picture the people of every low lying country, listen to the cries of species going extinct as temperature rises. Hear the weeping of the planet, and the weeping of God..

I know I can’t solve the issue by myself, but I do believe we can be light and salt. We can work together to reduce the amount of carbon we are putting into the atmosphere. We can do things like choosing to live simply, sharing what we have – couldn’t someone with skills amongst us start a sharing pool of tools and other items, buying things that last. Reduce, recycle, reuse. Be someone who leads the way with an electric vehicle. I’m blessed to be fit enough to bike. I know I could use the bus more. Reduce our trips by air. , ensuring the power we use is generated by renewable means. Simply doing what everyone else does isn’t enough – we are called to be a light. We are called to be salt. God has given us responsibility to care for the earth. Conversation, encouragement, creative thinking, courageous action.
Let’s stop sitting around the top table with our heads in the sand. The first step is simple…. We have a coffee or cup of tea after worship. Have a conversation. Share something you already do that helps turn this beast around. Celebrate that. Then see if you can agree on something you can do together that will help honour the call to be salt and light.

Dugald Wilson

Healing is a strange and mysterious business. I wonder if you have ever stopped to reflect on the healing power that resides in each of us. Cut your finger and what happens?
First up there’s blood gushing and that’s not good so your body sends messages to close down the blood supply – a little like turning off the water when the pipe bursts around home. It also sends in special proteins in the blood like fibrin and platelets to create clots and scabs to encapsulate the wound and give a protective covering. This happens within seconds but the repair work at the site will take much longer. There is usually an inflammatory response with a team of cells (including macrophages and neutrophils) sent in to clean up the site and get rid of baddies. Your body can then start rebuilding damaged tissue. New blood vessels are made that can help more blood reach the wound, and special cells start adding substances in preparation for rebuilding cells. It’s putting in the plumbing and the framing in the repair of a house as the wound is built over.
In the final stage of wound healing, a lot of remodeling occurs. Special proteins that were needed for early stages of healing are replaced with tools used for remodeling. A tissue called collagen is important for strength, durability, and scarring of your new skin. There are the final touches put on the house to make sure everything is in the right place. The electrician is involved as nerve endings that were damaged in the injury need to be rebuilt. After all the work is done, you have a completed repair!
The amazing thing I think is that all this just happens. This healing power is built in. It’s alive within each of us.

I think that healing power is of God.

I think we can encourage that power with medical knowledge, with love, with prayer.

I think that power is at work within each of us but it is also all through the universe.

We read the story of the haemorrhaging woman and I bet the question on most minds is ‘how Jesus did that?’ How did he fix her, and what was this faith stuff. We would do well to remember Jesus’ original hearers weren’t so interested in the ‘how’ question because miraculous healings like this were part of their world. People came to Jesus expecting healing. I suspect it is only the dramatic healings that were remembered and there were many other much less dramatic instances of what we might call ‘small steps along the way of healing.’ Some healing might have involved the strength to face what was, or maybe a growth in understanding with no physical changes. Healing is not just physical quick fix. Whatever in Jesus’ world healing happened when the gods smiled on you. Our world view is quite different and we need to be careful getting hooked on miraculous happenings that catch our eye.

Healing is about fixing something that is broken, but what is it that is broken. With Jesus it was usually something bigger than just the individual involved. In our story this morning we should take note that it was a woman involved. What in God’s name possessed her to touch a man and a rabbi. It was a big no no. I know when I greet my sister in law in Malaysia I never touch her. Men and women lead basically separate lives unless you are married. You eat in different spaces. Men touch men and women touch women in public. That was true for Jesus’ world. This woman was literally risking a public stoning in her actions. The original witnesses to this healing had plenty of raised eyebrows.

What courage she had to break the norm. Jesus talks about her faith, but what does that faith look like? Courage to say this issue can be fixed, courage to reach out and do something, courage to trust God might be at work in Jesus. This woman is a wonderful example of faith. She is a great encouragement for every time we sit back and say nothing can be done, or nothing makes a difference. Climate change is much bigger than me… God is small….. we are powerless. Think about this woman and have courage to do something!

But this healing makes you also wonder about the new Jesus community founded where men and women seem to freely mix and women are treated with real respect and value. This woman was reaching out in a radical way and risking public humiliation for breaking norms and rules of acceptability. She was unclean, and she made Jesus unclean. Those rules seemed to disappear in the Jesus community although later the men managed to reinstate some. The healing going on here was something much bigger than a personal fix it job. There were deeper things going on. There was a power released through Jesus but it was more than a ‘fix the physical issue’ power. He was giving witness to a whole new way of being community where there was no longer slave and free, male and female. It’s about relationships, acceptance, love, forgiveness, gratitude, self valuing….. getting a whole lot of things in order including our relationship with God..

The healing power of God was seen in healing individuals, but inevitably there was a societal healing involved as well.

In our society healing has become very individual focused, and very physically focused. We wait for new miracles in the forms of new drugs and new surgical techniques to fix our bodies. We have faith in science, but religious faith has been side-lined. Prayer and healing – that’s for the nutty Pentecostals isn’t it? But it’s strange that scholarly research consistently tells another story. Dale Matthews, Associate Professor of Medicine of Georgetown University, says I encourage everyone in my office to exercise regularly, eat properly, quit smoking, avoid excessive alcohol use, take medicines correctly, wear seatbelts and so on. Should I also tell them to pray, read scriptures, attend worship and work in a soup kitchen? When I look at the research my answer is an emphatic YES! Harold Koenig, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University has a similar message. He points to recent studies that show that religiously active people live longer and have more robust immune systems. Mainline religion is by and large good for us. Others like Herbert Benson Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard point to the beneficial effects of prayer on healing and the importance of a relationship with God and the importance of faith communities who surround us with love and care. Religion is about connection – connection with God and connection with a faith community and by and large these connections are good for us. Prayer is about building that connection and re-orientating our lives in God. It’s not about calling down supernatural intervention, but about setting free the healing power of God that is present within and around us.

I’m interested in headlines telling us that mental health rates are sky rocketing and I can’t help thinking it has something to do with a lack of good religion, a road map to live by, and a sense that we are connected to something bigger than us. Rocketing rates of anxiety have something to do with the reality that our society has rejected religion and faith. Good religion offers a framework to live by, and offers meaning when we hit the big crunches of life like death or some other crises. It is good for us. Having a sense that we are part of something bigger is good for us. There are exceptions of course and religious communities can go horribly wrong, but by and large participating in this community of faith is good for you.

I think the evidence is overwhelming that there is a strong link between spiritual practice and health and it’s time for mainline churches and Christians to get their heads out of the sand and recognize talk of healing in our midst is not kooky or weird, but it is a core part of what we are here for. I believe there is a healing power within each of us that can be awakened, strengthened, and encouraged through prayer and the experience of love. It’s not that we should reject traditional medicine and the huge advances science has heralded in treating illness. They are also an expression of the healing power that is God. I hold on to a belief that God can be present in all treatments – drugs, diet, surgery, alternative medicines and therapies, counselling, love and acceptance, and spiritual practices. But what puzzles me is that people don’t turn to prayer and don’t ask for prayer more often. I don’t think I have a particular gift of healing but I’m happy to pray any time that the healing power of god will be set free in some way. There will be some in our congregation who have gifts of releasing God’s healing power, but I suspect they hide their gift for fear of being labelled kooky.

Calvin Presbyterian Church in Pennsylvania is typical of a mainline church with a healing ministry. They said healing was an important part of their journey as a group of Christians. They appointed a prayer minister to lead this area of their work. The person currently exercising this ministry, Diane McCluskey, is a Reiki master and massage therapist. She believes healing comes not just through spoken prayer but through other means such as massage, reflexology, and other practices. At Calvin they regularly offer a time for healing prayer and the laying on of hands. They are discovering the practice of healing and prayer is important in their life as a Christian community, and you know what – they are a growing church. People see that religion makes a difference, and that the power of God is alive in their midst.

They have found at Calvin that healing is not just about physical healing and it isn’t just a personal matter. Healing will often mean someone finding a greater wholeness in their life and will often lead to someone understanding more deeply their unique purpose in life and their part in God’s plan to heal the world. People who experience God’s healing will often be turned outward and begin to undertake some ministry to others in the community. It’s not just about a personal physical fix. They have discovered at Calvin that some people seem to particularly channel the power of God’s healing – they have a gift of healing. They have also discovered that typically healing is not a dramatic event but that it is a process that takes place over time. It often involves being healed from the damage of un-forgiveness, or a sense of rejection and unworthyness. So it may involve finding God’s forgiveness for some event in our past, or the letting go of a grudge that we have been holding for some time. Invariably it will result in the discovery of greater acceptance of ourselves and a stronger sense of wanting to serve God in serving others.

I invite you to take the healing power more seriously.
The healing power that is of God.
The healing power we can encourage with medical skill and knowledge, with love, with prayer.
The healing power that is alive in you and through all through the universe.

Dugald Wilson 1 July 2018

Something strange is happening in our community. There’s a new festival being celebrated that isn’t imported from the northern hemisphere but is a reawakening of life in our own part of the world. Something special happens in the wonder of creation in our night sky around this time of year. There’s a cluster of stars called Matariki or the Pleiades which disappears for a month or so and then reappears in the early morning just before daybreak. These stars have just disappeared, and in early July they will reappear.

The Matariki cluster is sometimes called the Seven Sisters because usually seven are visable to the naked eye. Actually the cluster is about 400 stars and the closest is about 440 light years away. Known in many cultures because it disappears and rises again in both north and south hemisphere. The starts are known by another name in Japan– Subaru. In Greek world of Jesus the rising of the Pleiades was considered to mark the time of safe sailing in the Mediterranean. The Pleiades are among the first stars mentioned in literature, appearing in Chinese annals of about 2350 BC, and they are also mentioned in the Bible in the books of Amos and Job as part of God’s creation.

For Maori the new rising or sighting of Matariki signals the Maori New Year. Matariki translates to “Eyes of God” (mata – ariki) or ‘Little Eyes’ (mata – riki). This star cluster rises usually sometime in June (it’s late this year being early July), and usually the actual celebration is held at the first new moon after the sighting.

Matariki celebrations usually last about a month and are starting to catch on again in NZ as we look to develop our own celebrations. There is quite a push on to replace queen Birthday weekend with a Matariki New Year celebration sometime in June.

Traditionally for Maori it’s a time for whanau to gather to commemorate loved ones passed, and to celebrate the arrival of newer additions to the family. It is a time to celebrate unity, faith and hope through aroha. Because traditionally the food stores were full after harvest celebratory feasts were held as whanau and guests shared food together.

One of our Maori ministers in the PCANZ, Rev Hone Te Rire, explains the importance of Matariki…. “As youngsters my kuia, koroua, and parents remembered family reunions and re-strengthening of family ties with extended whanau. It is a time of aroha, giving of gifts, and sharing of food. In my Tuhoe whanau we use the term matemateaone, which means to strengthen our connections to our whenua, our marae and our families – close and extended – the people and places that have nurtured us.”

Nowadays there are often other festivities – flying of kites and fireworks seem to be popular. Traditionally giving of food to others and helping whanau with restorative work around their homes or working bees on the marae were other ways to celebrate Matariki. Karaoke and disco nights and gathering together in the wharekai (dining room) for a succulent kaihakari hangi.

Hone says, “The emphasis on families and whanau living together in peace and unity is reflected in Pauls letter to the Corinthians (1:10) Let there be no divisions among you. That you are perfectly united in mind and thought. The values of Jesus are reinforced in the kaupapa Maori values of whanau (family), manaaki (caring), tumanako (hope), kaitiaki (stewardship), rangatira (leadership) and aroha (love).
My parents and grandparents taught me these values through action not word alone, every time during the season of Matariki. I am now teaching my children and mokopuna the same values.” He challenges us as a body of Christ, to celebrate Matariki not only in showing support from a bicultural perspective, but also for the important values that Matariki encompasses.”

So what do we take from Matariki. I warm to the reality that it arises from the gift of creation and of human experience in our patch. It’s not imported but it’s about our night sky and the traditions of this place we all call home. Good religion honours local experience and local tradition.
I like the reality that Mataiki is not about a single star rising but a cluster… a family of stars …. Its about community and Hone gives us two wise sayings from Matariki
“Matariki ahunga nui”
(Matariki brings us together)

“Matariki – whiria te tangata”
(Matariki – weave the people together)

The heritage of Matariki being a time to remember people of our past, to reach out to one another, to celebrate family and community. In this it is a clebtration of the kingdom of God. Whanau, Manaaki (caring), and Aroha are values of God.

The season of harvest is over it is time to give thanks to God for sustenance. As God has been generous to us so we too should be generous to each other and caring of creation….. It’s a time to celebrate our calling to stewardship – Kaitiaki.

In the midst of the darkness of winter the stars appear… like the star of Bethlehem saying the darkness will not win. The rising of the Makariki cluster brings hope that the darkness will never win. We celebrate Tumanako.

19 June 2018

Jesus was always talking about the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven. Clearly it was absolutely central in his message. But he never succinctly defines what it is, but it’s clear it’s about a new way of living. A way of finding life. The Kingdom of God is like mustard seed we hear today. It doesn’t help us much does it…. Jesus loves to talk in pictures and stories!

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. The mustard seed parable like so many of the parables has all sorts of meanings. It makes you want to say to Jesus, ‘just tell us straight’. But the point of parables is that you have to wrestle and question and work things out in your own context.

We need to get some sort of picture of mustards seeds and how they grow. The sort of mustard plant Jesus was talking about is obscure because he doesn’t use botanical names but I suspect it was the black mustard seed brassica nigra. That’s right it’s a brassica! In fact brassicas are known commonly as mustard plants. Your cabbage, cauilis, and broccoli are all mustard plants. A reason some people don’t like these plants is that they all contain a compound phenylthiocarbamide or PTC which is either bitter or tasteless to people depending on your taste buds. The good news is that brassicas and mustard plants are good for us. They have health providing properties, but I don’t think Jesus was thinking of that when he shared this parable.

The Roman author Pliny the Elder who was born in 23CE was a curious fellow. He was actually a little too curious because he died when he went to explore the erupting Mt Vesuvius in 79CE. But before this tragic end he wrote an encyclopaedic Natural History in which he tells us about the mustard plant. He tells us that with its pungent taste and fiery effect it was actually extremely good for your health. But he goes on, “It grows entirely wild, though it grows better when transplanted. But on the other hand when it has been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it as the seed when it falls germinates at once”.
It other words it grows like a whole host of weeds in my garden. It keeps popping up all over the place. The seeds s[rout in a few days and it grows easily, it grows all over the place, and it grows without our input. It happens! God is a power at work in our communities, in all sorts of places, inside and outside the fences, quietly nurturing life. God is at work as a power called life in all sorts of places including your life and mine, in our community, everywhere. Open your eyes. Like weeds popping up there are little bits of the kingdom of God happening all over the place if we have eyes to see them.
We aren’t sprouting the seeds, it’s just happening. There’s something else at work in our world and in our lives. But like mustard bushes they will grow better if we nurture and water the plants.

Jesus goes on to talk about the birds resting or nesting in the shade. The mustard plant was a shrub growing maybe just over a metre high, or maybe a couple of metres with nurturing. It’s not a great tree. But in Israel large trees are rare, any sort of significant vegetation is rare. The mustard shrub growing to over a metre was just a bushy shrub that would grow just about anywhere. In Israel it’s hot for much of the year and shade wherever you can find it is vital for life. I’ve walked out in the sun and unless you find shade life can be precarious. The common mustard shrub growing everywhere and anywhere offered life. There is I might say just a little bit of pesky humour in the parable because farmers not only didn’t want the mustard plants mixing with their crops, they didn’t want the birds either because they would raid their harvest. So not everyone welcomed the mustard plants like the birds who found in it shade and rest. They were a weed for some and a place of shade and life for others. Such is the Kingdom of God.

And for us – well we don’t literally have black mustard plants all over our gardens and community. I’m thinking cabbage trees. Attractive to birds, they seem to pop up everywhere in our garden, and everyone just loves the leaves when they fall. Cut them off at their base and they just pop right on up again because they have a long tap root. They are a tree that just happens.

The Kingdom of God is like a cabbage tree… and yes there are plenty of people who don’t like cabbage trees because they are messy. But the point…the kingdom of God is happening all around us. There are places where life is flourishing, where people find shade and food… places where God is alive. Many of these places are surprising, beyond the fences of church.

The Kingdom of God is alive in our midst. Surprising seeds of love, or life in which the power of God is present. Seeds we can nurture and water and help grow into bigger plants. Seeds that bring shade and refreshment, and life.

So I wonder where you might find a mustard plant in your journey this week? God is at work in your life, in our midst, and in the life of our wider community and world. Like a weed the kingdom is taking root and growing. Keep your eyes open, have your word of encouragement and watering can ready.

17 June 2018