Sunday Faces

by Barry Pollard

(Based on John 12:1-8; Ps 126; Phil 3:4b-14)

When Keri and I visit different places we often take in a local church service if we are around on a Sunday. As you walk up to the entrance of a church you can usually get a strong inkling of how the service will go. The people who greet you are the first clue. Smiles and conversation go a long way towards making a genuine welcome. People around, talking animatedly about the Lord and what He is doing in their lives, is another clue. Finding ‘Sunday faces’ instead is also a clue.

You know what I mean by this, eh? A Sunday face is one we put on. It is not our natural one. It signals we are taking on a different demeanour for a period of time. It is not a lasting state of mind or behaviour.

The Lenten period is rooted in Jesus’s forty-day fast in the desert before his public ministry. It is a period of spiritual preparation for the celebration of Easter, which culminates in celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. During Lent we are encouraged to reflect on our lives, repent of our sins, and strengthen our faith, spending more time in prayer seeking God’s guidance. We are also encouraged to abstain from certain foods or pleasures as a sign of penance and self-discipline. All of which is worthy and good, if it is carried out with a view to lasting transformation.

But in my experience Lent can cause Sunday faces.

When we put on our Sunday face and give up chocolate for a month, are we really likely to achieve lasting transformation? I’m pretty sure we won’t. Assuming a gloomy weight over Lent doesn’t change much! Are our hearts changed or just our faces? When Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness,” he didn’t want us to be walking around carrying extra burdens!

Delving into our readings for today, then, my first impression of this collection was that they could result in Sunday faces if we are not careful. So, invoking preacher’s privilege, I am going to be very selective in what I refer to today. My wish is not to add to any weights, imagined or otherwise, that you may be feeling this morning. On the contrary, I would like to shine a beam of lightness!

I’m a firm believer in humour and laughter being great medicine! They can be a binding agent, bringing us, friends and strangers, together in a shared experience.
Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting our worship be replaced with comedy. But I feel a lightness of heart is called for, to help change our perceptions, to see blessings instead of burdens.

Sometimes we laugh, not because something is funny – though it might be – but because of the sheer joy of living. I remember doing that. Do you?
Keri has found YouTube on the smart TV and we get little bursts of things like “100 Adorable Kittens”, “100 Funny Kittens”, “The 20 Happiest Babies in the Universe”, and the like. A recent clip featured those happy babies and brought back a flood of memories when the smallest of ordinary inputs could elicit endless giggling from my pre-language children! You know the sort of thing: a “Boo” as you pop up beside the highchair bringing about almost falling-on-the-floor laughter! That is the “sheer joy of living” I’m talking about today. That unbridled happy reaction to a stimulus. It seems natural in the young. Maybe not so much when you have a few years under the belt, or over the belt in my case.

The joy of living is wrapped up in love and relationship, and we should give thanks for that gift of living, and loving, for being in community, for having a place to worship; in fact, for all that impacts our lives. Laughter and gratitude would to be an ideal combo for us to take away this week!

Now, let’s get Scriptural: I’d like to start with our Philippians reading.
Initially, I was focussed on what I thought was another one of Paul’s boasting sessions. You know the sort of thing – suffered more whippings than anyone, survived multiple shipwrecks, and so on. Closer attention of course made me realise that Paul was actually laying out how his life had been turned around by the intervention of Jesus.
Paul’s letter to the faithful is an encouragement to similar transformation. In it he explains what he was (the Jew, the Pharisee, the Christian hunter), what changed him (Jesus), and what he is now (a fervent follower of Christ). The key to his transformation was faith, faith in Jesus the redeeming Christ.
[I came across a clever acronym for faith yesterday – Forsaking All I Trust Him. Worth remembering.]

Paul’s Damascus experience, the direct interruption of his life by Jesus (instant blindness, a heavenly experience, a Christ encounter), put him on a very different path to the one he was travelling. Suddenly his life and knowledge were being used for Jesus, rather than against him. He understood what now lay ahead for him. He was refocussed!  “I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us,” he said. As Christ-followers you and I are included in that race too. Let us be reminded that we need to keep our focus on the prize by keeping our focus on Jesus.

Next up, think about the Gospel reading. The first three verses take us back to Bethany and the friends of Jesus: Lazarus, Martha and Mary.

You know the original Mary-Martha story in Luke Chapter 10, the story used to highlight different styles of service. In the first Mary-Martha story, Jesus visits the home of Mary and Martha and while Martha toils to prepare the meal for Jesus and his disciples, Mary sits at his feet taking in his teaching. As Martha complains to Jesus about the lack of help she is receiving from her sister, Jesus responds, “There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her.”

That theme is echoed in today’s reading – Martha is again preparing and serving the meal and Mary is attending to (serving) Jesus, anointing his feet with an expensive perfume and wiping those feet dry with her hair. As a result, not the fragrance of the meal cooking filled the house but the fragrance of the perfume, the symbol of the value that Mary placed on Jesus, the “one thing worth being concerned about”.

Here is another lesson for us today. If our focus remains on Jesus, the aroma in the atmosphere around us will be a wonderful and attractive fragrance! You may have come across that aroma, noticing the atmosphere when in the company of certain people? I think many of us felt it in the presence of [the late] Bishop Bruce. He never focussed on our shortcomings, only the potential he saw in us, in my experience. Such a sweet smell!

Mary took time to listen to Jesus, but Martha didn’t because she was busy ‘serving’. We too can get so busy ‘serving’ the Lord that we are in danger of losing our sensitivity to his voice and become preoccupied with secondary things.

My recent devotional readings have been about ‘conversion’. If I could explain from my readings, it has been said that there are two kinds of conversion. One is accompanied by a violent sense of sin, and the other by a feeling of incompleteness, a struggle after a larger life and a desire for spiritual illumination. Conversion involves three steps. Repentance is conversion viewed from its starting point, the turning from the former life. Faith indicates the objective point of conversion, the turning to God. The third is the new birth — commonly referred to as being ‘born again’, born into God’s family. The first and the second bring about the third. If we are Heaven-bound, we must be converted.

“Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away, then times of refreshment will come.” (Acts 3:19-20)

And what a great way to segue into thoughts about our Psalm today … The Israelites have returned from exile. And just so you know and can follow my train of thought, whenever I come across Israel in the Scriptures I substitute myself.

The first three verses are joy filled:

“When the Lord brought back his exiles to Jerusalem, it was like a dream! We were filled with laughter, and we sang for joy.
And the other nations said, ‘What amazing things the Lord has done for them.’
Yes, the Lord has done amazing things for us!
What joy!”

The Israelites had repented of their sins and turned back to God. Their sins were wiped away, and a time of refreshment had come! They were home. They were laughing and singing! These three verses amplify the unbridled joy of liberation. That sheer joy of living I was talking about.

Then the last three verses take into account the reality of coming to terms with a new daily life.

“Restore our fortunes, Lord, as streams renew the desert.
Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy.
They weep as they go to plant their seed, but they sing as they return with the harvest.”

The celebration party was over but the way ahead held promise and so the sense of joy was not entirely lost. They may be planting in tears but, through the Lord, reaping in joyous song. The verses acknowledge that there is still the risk of loss, not knowing whether your efforts will bring a return, but they also offer great hope. They were free, could look forward to better futures, reconciled with God. These verses remind us too that, although we are still in the midst of struggle, living in a very uncertain world these days, we still have great hope – in the Lord.

As I conclude I would like to share a song that was recommended as a possible prayer based on Psalm 126. Not being a radio listener these days I have no recollection of ever hearing it but I think it suits my mood this morning: The song is Cover Me in Sunshine by Pink. I have provided the words for it [here] and the Psalm [above] for those who would like to examine the theological merits at a deeper level.
Have a listen and reflect …

I said earlier that laughter and gratitude would to be an ideal combo for us this week. Joy and thanksgiving! So as we leave here today, to go back to the affairs of our daily lives, be mindful of the way Jesus has encouraged us to keep our focus on him, putting away our Sunday faces and enjoying the resurrected life we shall be celebrating in a fortnight.

Paul’s and Jesus’s Teaching Compared

by Rev Megan Means

(Based on Luke 13:31-35; Phil 3:17-4:1)

Lately I have been delving into Paul and I have been considering … are Paul and Jesus teaching the same?
Next to Jesus, Paul was the most important person in early Christianity. Why? Because he wrote letters that have been kept and saved. He and Jesus were first century Jews, raised in Jewish households, in the Jewish context; both were deeply concerned about the Jewish Bible and the true worship of the Jewish God of Israel.

Before Paul became a storied Christian missionary to the gentiles, church founder, and a theologian, he was recorded as an arch-enemy of the Christian church. We have a record in Acts 9 that Paul was converted into faith in Christ after a visionary experience, a revelation that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Scholars think this happened about 31-32CE. After his conversion to following Jesus, Paul played an immediate significant role in the history of Christianity, while remaining a faithful Jew. He did not think Christianity as a different religion but the correct understanding of the ancient faith of Israel. Paul did not meet up with Peter, James or John, the disciples that actually met and knew Jesus first hand, until three years into his ministry, so Paul did not learn the Gospel from them.

In our New Testament, half of the books claim to be written by Paul, although we are now down to seven books that scholars agree are undisputedly his: Romans, 1&2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon. However, realistically, only seven letters from at least thirty years ministry do not really provide a full picture of who the real Paul was or why only his letters were saved. If we are looking to understand Paul’s set of conclusions, it is mostly in Romans, and that is because Paul’s other letters were written chiefly to address specific problems that had arisen in his churches. His letters are like hearing only one side of a phone conversation. Sometimes we can piece together what the other side is talking about, and sometimes we are right, sometimes we jump to conclusions, and sometimes we may get it totally wrong.

Paul was flogged, beaten and put in prison. We tend not to focus or want to remember or accept how rugged the Roman empire was and how hard ordinary life really was. Paul’s teachings and conclusions on God’s plan regarding Jesus radically affected the beliefs of the Anointeds’ followers, later to be known as Christians.

Paul and Jesus did have in common a basic apocalyptic view of the world – the understanding that the world was mortally afflicted with evil forces opposed to God; and many Jews were convinced that God was soon to bring an end to this wicked age by sending a cosmic judge from heaven to destroy all that was evil and bring salvation for those who were his ‘faithful’. According to this view, there was to be a cataclysmic break between these ages, when God would destroy the forces of evil to bring in his Kingdom.  At that time there would be a judgment of all beings, both living and dead.  And this judgment was imminent. Therefore, Jesus and Paul wanted everyone to gain salvation immediately.

Paul moved Christianity forward theologically after Jesus’s death, into believing directly that the death and resurrection of Jesus was the way to salvation. Paul understood three main points: Jesus was a divine man whose death brought salvation; the Jewish Law was not now as important for a person’s standing before God, especially if you were a gentile; and the relationship between Jews and gentiles was that they were both equal before God. Jesus’s message was that God would forgive the sins of his errant children (Jewish) if they would simply repent and turn their lives around.

Both Jesus and Paul believed in caring for their neighbour. The Jewish religion of Jesus’s time and context had begun to promote caring for others, caring for neighbours, but this was radical teaching. The Roman and Greek civilisations did not practise this. Jesus’s ethics revolutionised moral thinking in western civilisation, and instigated an ethical ‘common sense’ approach which has come down to us today.
If the town next door had a flood or earthquake, a disaster, etc, no one went or helped or offered aid, in the original context. What we do now has grown from this challenge of two thousand years ago. Jesus helped instigate and influence the care for others that was beginning to occur in the Jewish setting and this set the way forward to bring about what we call today ‘social services’, from the original care for orphans, the poor, and widows, in the first century.

Jesus’s message, in a nutshell, to gain salvation with God was to repent, be forgiven and turn your lives around – now. Paul’s message to gain salvation was to believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus. God needed someone to pay with blood, and that is what Jesus did. And both Jesus and Paul believed that God had already begun to intervene in history, to overthrow the current cosmic forces of evil.

Paul wrote the letter of Philippians from prison, from an unknown location.
The letter is to the Christians, formerly pagans, in the city of Philippi (in Greece). They had been taught to worship the one true God of Israel and to expect the imminent return of his son, Jesus. Paul’s letter to them thanks them for their financial support, he shares in the joys that they were doing well, and urges them to maintain unity.
In today’s reading Paul, with tears, concedes to the knowledge that some followers are failing to fully embrace the good news of the cross of Christ. He says that some are living as enemies of the cross and are doing this openly in their midst. In other words they are only following Christ partially, and living as if Jesus’s suffering, death and resurrection had no instructional value in their lives. Paul strives to encourage them to all live in united relationships with one another and be of the same mindset as Jesus had had.
It’s also worth noting that Paul’s letters seem to be always arguing with people in the church who have different views to him! As today in some places, everyone was trying to work out the way forward from Jesus’s death and resurrection, both logically and with continuity.

Paul is also standing in the tradition of Jesus, who (in the Gospel reading) longs to shield people “as a hen gathers her brood”. Paul too, in his letters, comes across “as a hen overseeing her brood”.

Jesus and Paul were passionate teachers. Was their teaching the same or different? Are they reconcilable? Jesus’s teaching was first and all it involved was to repent, to return and accept forgiveness to gain salvation with God. Then Paul developed the theology and understanding, after Jesus died, that to gain salvation one must believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus because Christianity now required an atoning sacrifice.

Both believed in apocalyptic thinking, and that a new ‘good’ kingdom of God was imminent.
It has now been two thousand years and Jesus has not returned with God’s army “to judge the living and the dead”. And many of us today probably do not subscribe to apocalyptic thinking?

Which brings me to my ultimate question of, how did Paul and others consider their development of theology to be the right way forward? As, really, it seems to indicate that what Jesus taught was not enough.

Therefore, did Jesus and Paul advocate the same religion?

Perhaps the religion of Jesus became the religion about Jesus?
And that, folks, is a brief insight into where I am at in my world of understanding Jesus and Paul through an historical lens.

As was His Custom

by Barry Pollard

(Based on Luke 4:14-21; Ps 19; 1 Cor 12:12-31)

“The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple,” said the Psalmist in today’s reading.

I would like to start today’s reflection with a shout out to the Aussies! Today is Australia Day. Politics aside, it is a day that, I think, we should all celebrate here in New Zealand. After all, many of us have a great fondness for the Big Country and its inhabitants, so much so that we frequently visit and some of us have lived and worked there and even married one of their citizens!
And, unless you didn’t know it, the Aussies’ affection for us is reciprocal and can be reflected in the fact that even now the Constitution of Australia still allows space for NZ to become an additional member state, should we choose.

Now, perhaps you are unwilling to celebrate, still harbouring some resentment about the infamous underarm bowling incident of 1981. If that is the case, it may be worthwhile starting our reflection with today’s Corinthians reading. I’ll paraphrase verses 12 and 13 to highlight what I mean:
Paul wrote, and we heard: The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we have all been baptised into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same Spirit.

My version for Australia Day:
The world is made up of many countries, but the many countries make up one whole world. So it is with our Antipodean neighbours. Some of us are Kiwis, some are Aussies, some original inhabitants, and some immigrants. But we have all been joined into one body, Australasia, and we all share the same trans-Tasman spirit.

Apostle Paul would have us see each other as brothers and sisters, interrelated and responsible for each other, unable to function effectively alone. All of us called to contribute our talents, abilities and resources for the good of each other. And what better example from the past do we have than the ANZAC experience. Think about it and focus once again on “the bonds of love” that link us all, Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia, in good times and bad.

“The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple,” said the Psalmist in today’s reading.

There endeth the first lesson!

Let’s now think about today’s Gospel reading:
When I was preparing for the Combined Service at Pepe Reserve at the end of December, I was focussed on our growth during 2025. In relation to Luke’s Gospel account in Chapter 2, of the boy Jesus speaking with the teachers in the temple, I made a statement that Jesus’s family were faithful in the ordinary; keeping to tradition, ceremony and protocol. This example, I believe, is an essential element in establishing any foundation for growth. Our lesson is to not dismiss the things of our faith as ritualistic, tethering or unimportant. Partaking of them regularly helps us to refocus and refresh. An obvious example for me would be Communion. I can’t tell you the number of times I have come to church with less than 100% willingness and attention, partaken of the bread and wine and felt an uplifting spiritual and physical change!

Why do you think that happens? Why do we benefit from what we do week after week?

One commentator on this week’s reading offered this:
“There is power in ritual; there is presence in repeated action, in habits that build up. We often talk about habits as bad things, things we need to curtail or quit. But there can be good habits too, holy habits, we might call them. Certainly, attending gathered weekly worship is one of those habits to celebrate.

“We might give some attention to the why of worship this week as we understand that Jesus attended prayers in the synagogue as a habit.
Why do we gather for worship when we can worship on our own?
When we do gather, why do we pray prayers of confession?
Why do we pray prayers of intercession?
Why do we sing?
Why is there preaching and reading of Scripture?

“All these things that we have done out of habit are good things, but they should not be unthinking things. We need to remember why we do what we do.

“One reason for reflecting on practice is so that we can tell the story when we invite others to join us. Adding some depth to the practices can help us converse with those who are unfamiliar with what we do. We are working on our testimony as we examine the meaning behind the practices of our faith.

“Let our worship develop holy habits so that we, too, can gather — as is our custom.”

Today’s Gospel follows on from the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. It gives us the first insight into the Messiah’s real ministry. We are told that Jesus headed into the synagogues and town centres. Word spread, and the early reports were positive. Everyone spoke well of him. He taught something different, something new but old at the same time. He taught ancient truths in a new language, with authority. He spoke plainly, but he told the stories; he offered a simple truth but drew it in pictures that seemed familiar to everyone.

On this occasion he went into the synagogue where he had sat as a boy in Sabbath school, reciting lines and repeating answers to old questions and maybe asking questions now and again. They had gotten the news; his reputation preceded him. He was invited to teach. Called to the front, he was handed the scroll — Isaiah, the biggest one, the heaviest one. He was told to read. So he found his place and began to read. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”

Never having attended a Jewish service, I don’t know how much was expected to be read, but Jesus read only two verses, rolled up the scroll, handed it to the attendant and sat down. He wasn’t finished. Rabbis taught sitting down. They stood to read out of respect for the Word, but then sat to explain and expound and apply. The people would have been anticipating the teaching when Jesus sat down. But all they got was an eleven-word sermon: “The Scripture you’ve just heard has been fulfilled this very day!”

The Messiah’s real ministry had just been laid out for them: priorities, core values, the mission statement. Simple and laid out for all.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
    for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
    that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the Lord’s favour has come.”

Jesus was “the Lord’s favour”!

But what has it got to do with us?

By seeking after Jesus we have signed up for something bigger than many of us know. We have heard his Good News; we claim to be his followers. You, like me, may be afraid you’re not up to it, but the Good News involves us. It is about us loving as he loved, loving enough to make a difference in the world, not just in us but in the world. It is about us getting closer to Jesus, closer to being like Him.

So how do we get closer to being like Jesus? How do we get closer to loving as he does? We make it a habit. “He went as usual to the synagogue,” Luke tells us, as was his custom. It is just what he did. To quote an earlier phrase, it was a “holy habit”. And this is my point; maybe we can overcome our fears and reservations about following Jesus if what we do just becomes a holy habit. We don’t have to constantly stop and evaluate, to ask, “Is this, or that, for me?” We should follow. We should just do – as is our custom.

My commentator said earlier, “We might give some attention to the why of worship.” And this is vital. If our understanding of Scripture is clear, our understanding of how we are applying it in our lives is clear.

I mentioned Communion before. To provide more context, Chapter 2 of Acts describes how the believers formed a community (a holy Christian community, a church). Luke’s description in verse 42 says, “All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.”
There was no prescription as to how this had to be done. Instead, it was left to the believers to sort out. There was no right way or wrong way. If you read on you will find that some believers went house to house sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), meaning that daily they repeatedly partook of the bread and wine.

Keri and I have been blessed to have travelled to many towns and cities. On our trips we try to attend Sunday worship if we can. Not many of the churches we have attended have been Anglican but wherever we have been we have worshipped with like-minded Christians, broken the bread according to their traditions and experienced the same restorative joy and peace that we experience here. We have never come away from a service thinking, “They didn’t do that right”!Their tradition, their custom, is as valid as ours. And the fact that it is carried out in a similar fashion, on a regular basis, is one of those elements that is foundational to their faith. It is one of those elements that allows them, like us, to grow in other areas of faith.

Parents, consider how your babies grew. Well before they were able to make conscious decisions, they adapted their behaviour to suit their environment. As the spoon of nourishment approached the infant in the high chair, the subtle signals of catchy rhymes, smiling faces, and encouraging gestures triggered the opening of the mouth to receive the offering. Well, usually!
Those regularly experienced behaviours around feeding lead to good nourishment and growth! And those regularly experienced behaviours around faith lead to God’s good nourishment and our growth.

“The decrees of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple,” said the Psalmist in today’s reading.

This verse stood out to me when I first approached the readings for today. For the record, I admit that in most things I am simple. Despite that, I have come to understand that the decrees of the Lord are trustworthy. Because I am simple, I see the decrees as all the things that Scripture shows and teaches us. Some might see them as truths.
A few months ago I spoke on the greatest commandments, which I hope you remember as “to love God with all our heart, mind and soul; and to love our neighbours as we love ourselves”. If everything we did conformed to these decrees our world would be a very different place, don’t you think?

God’s decrees are trustworthy. We can believe that they have been designed for our good, not for our harm. We can believe that they transform us. They will help us to grow.

If we acknowledge and trust in what God is saying to us, in Scripture and through prayer, we are showing how we are growing in wisdom. If God’s plans for us are good, and we follow them, our lives will be good. The Lord is trustworthy, and following all that he offers makes even us simple folk a little wiser!

Father of all,
Your Son brought good news to the despairing,
freedom to the oppressed
and joy to the sad.
Fill us with your Spirit,
that we may grow more like him
and glorify your name.
This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Precious Water

by Liz Young

(Based on Luke 1:39-55; Hebrews 10:5-10)

The Hebrews reading reminded the Jews that God did not welcome animal sacrifices, but had allowed Jesus, his son, to make the ultimate sacrifice for us.  The Gospel gave us Mary’s Song of Praise to God, accepting that she has been chosen to nurture the Son of God, who will stand and feed his flock in the majesty of the Name of the Lord his God, and the poor and humble may live secure now, because of Jesus.

The word peace echoes in our hearts today, as we think of the people of Ukraine, standing up to the might of Russia, the people of Taiwan and Hong Kong threatened by mainland China, and the ordinary people in Sudan and other countries in Africa threatened by renegades; and the never ending battle for power in Syria.

This month our book group read a book on ‘Humankindness’, the theme being that ordinary groups of thirty to a hundred people tend to be kind to each other: we look after each other, both everyday, and in times of natural disaster: even if the media prefers to broadcast stories of how unkind we can be to each other. So one New Year’s resolution I recommend is – give up listening to the news! Just take a local newspaper, like our Local Advertiser.
The other New Year’s resolution is to keep an eye out for lonely neighbours, or those burdened with the care of looking after a partner with dementia.
Does Tairua need a second ‘Garden Estate’, where people live in safe surroundings, with an easy walk to the shops, and neighbours who keep an eye out for each other? Does Nina at Matapaia (our local rest home) need help in achieving her dream of having a dementia unit? And, do we need to point out to the Regional Health Authority that it is inappropriate for them to fill the beds at Matapaia with out-of-towners when we’ve unmet need here?
No room in our inn for our mentally frail elderly …

I’ve been inundated this week with phone call requests from charities. At least they’ve got the message that I will not respond if they phone at dinner time. I’m fortunate that because I have a good pension from the national health system, I can often respond; but I prefer to support those charities that have clients with high expenses and a small donor base, such as Muscular Dystrophy. All charities in New Zealand have had a lower income this year, as most of us put charities in our disposable income bracket, rather than a necessary expense. Do we need to turn that around, somehow?

This Advent at St Francis we’ve been lighting candles for Hope, Peace, Joy and Love, and Christian World Service are requesting our help in providing water for those who need it. So I thought I’d lighten the mood of this sermon by relating two of our family’s water experiences: In the eighties, we had two tanks storing water collected from the roof. A total of two thousand gallons of water. I’d worked out that our local annual rainfall is 53 inches per year, and with careful household use this would last us at least three weeks of drought, so we should be okay But one January we were almost out of water. John was at sea, so he couldn’t stop me, and I ordered a fill-up from the local fire brigade … and it rained the next day.
I find it amusing that our local Council now make it obligatory to put in water tanks with new builds, having told us when we built that we didn’t need to have tanks (when they first connected up the mains water supply).
As some of you know, John and I, in 2007, returned to New Zealand from Europe, via the Panama Canal and the Galapagos Islands. The longest ocean crossing was from Galapagos to the Marquesas, three thousand nautical miles. We had two hundred litres of drinking water in our tanks. We kept clean by swimming daily, and we allowed ourselves three litres of drinking water per day, each – cooking veges in one third sea water and two thirds fresh.
We were so pleased to be able to wash our hair when we got to the Marquesas.

Another book club book we read this year was on how Israel manages its water. Did you know that our drip feed hoses were invented in Israel, and that Israel gives Jordan water, generated at their desalination plant?  I am glad that our Pat Lee has encouraged us to fund-raise for water tanks in Fiji.
On our first trip back from Panama to NZ we stopped at Penrhyn, the northernmost island of the Cooks, near the equator; and they allowed us to restock our water tanks from their huge store of rain water, collected from the roof of their very large A-frame church. We had to wait for our first ice cream in a month, though, to get to the next island south.

Anyway … have a happy Festive Season conserving water!

Thanks be to God.