Social Service Sunday

This Sunday is Social Service Sunday, a day set aside to remember, celebrate and pray for the work of Anglican Care and its work in the community. It is easy for us to think that the Salvation Army are the big Christian provider of community work, but it turns out us Anglicans are much much bigger and involved in a lot more communities. We just don’t get the press.

This year the theme is building community. This ties in nicely with the Gospel reading, which has Jesus continuing speech on images for the kingdom of heaven. Our other readings are also helpful in understanding this theme.

The psalm reminds us of the eternal faithfulness of God through retelling the history of the people of God. A God who builds a new people. We are called to that same faithfulness, and to follow the model of our God who remembers. When we build community we are faithful. Paul in his letter to the churches in Rome reminds us that the Spirit of God is yearning for us and within us, yearning for true community for all creation. We are to work with God in giving birth to God’s community, trusting and hoping that even when not a lot seems to be happening that God is at work, the yearning of the Spirit of God will bring all things to good.

Finally, the readings from Genesis and Matthew reminds us that our God is a God of the unexpected, who uses and subverts the established social and political systems, and our expectations of what should be, to create new community, new social and political systems that are built on God’s justice and peace The kingdom of God, the community of God is appearing in unexpected places, among those you would least expect it to appear among, offering new ways of being and living.

We recognise today all who represent social service agencies and all they do in our communities. We especially recognise and celebrate Growing through Grief, Merivale Whānau Aroha Childcare Centre, and Centrepoint. In a very practical sense, by the work they do, they are the heart and soul of our community; however the challenge that is provided today is: that we not just see these people as the heart and soul of our community but as well, ourselves and our church we must show each other the seeds of what Jesus called “The Kingdom of Heaven.”