Letting Go

I wrote this three years ago. I am not preaching this week so have not written and theme. But in light of Gabrielle and other weather (climate) catastrophes over the last month or two,  it seems we need more than ever to "change our priorities and to live in such a way that this planet is not just treated as a resource to use, but as God’s gift."

It begins with Abram and Sarai being invited to leave everything behind. Everything that shaped who they were and their place in the world. Their maunga, awa, marae, iwi and hapu. They were invited to become the people through whom God would restore humanity and all creation to all that God had originally intended.

Nicodemus is an inheritor of this identity. But over the centuries his people had forgotten, and it had become all about maintaining your place in the tribe, your privilege and power. Jesus invites Nicodemus to leave everything behind and join the people through whom God is restoring humanity and all creation to all that God intended.

We too are inheritors of this identity. And like Nicodemus we too have forgotten who we are as people of God. We too are invited to leave our old ways of understanding ourselves and join the people through whom God is restoring humanity and all creation to all that God intended.

This Lent, may we be granted the wisdom to change our priorities and to live in such a way that this planet is not just treated as a resource to use, but as God’s gift to us that we are invited to live on in such a way that it may flourish and all who in this world may thrive. May we have the will to live into and out of the values portrayed in the Beatitudes, persistently resisting the values of this world, and living persistently into the way held in God.