Colourful Dreamer

  Ōtūmoetai – 15 th Sunday of Ordinary Time + Matariki 2026 Readings: First Reading :               Genesis 25:19-34 Psalm:                         Psalm : 119:105-112   Second Reading :         Romans 8:1-11 Gospe l:                        Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 What I want to say: explore Matthew’s reading using the titles – Parable of the Sower, Parable of the Soils, Parable of the Seeds and Fruit, weaving Rebekah and Isaac into our own experience of sliding on the continuum of soils, holding Paul’s promise of the Spirit making a home within us. Use Matariki to invite us to reflect What I want to happen: Invite us to consider as we hear ...

Mānawatia a Matariki – Let’s celebrate Matariki! This gift from Te Ao Māori invites us to remember those who have died, celebrate the present and our shared history , and plan for the future with whānau over kai (food), waiata (song), and tākaro (games). Sowing Seeds of Hope The Matariki themes of reaping and sowing beautifully mirror the parable of the extravagant and wasteful farmer in Matthew 13, who outrageously scatters the seeds of life across all types of soil. This story offers profound hope to a struggling church, asking us to reflect on what kind of soil we are and how we might cultivate our hearts and our world to receive these life-giving seeds. Grace in Our Humanity At times we are good soil; at other times, we are shallow, or even deceitful and conniving like Rebekah’s whānau in Genesis. That is simply what it means to be human. Yet, despite our flawed messiness, God relentlessly remains at work in every single kind of soil, transforming us and cultivating new g...

The Sower by Vincent van Gogh The scripture readings for this Sunday focus on discernment and how we make choices that align with God’s vision for a restored world In the Genesis reading Rebekah actively chooses generous hospitality by watering both a stranger and his camels. When invited to leave her homeland to marry a man she has never met, she boldly chooses the possibility of a new life. In Romans Paul continues his discussion around Torah describing it as given to allow God’s people to be righteous – to be faithful to the ever present and eternally faithful (righteous) God working to redeem humanity and restore creation. He examines our inner, warring motivations and how we have turned Torah into a tool for self-righteousness, exclusion, and measuring personal worth, ultimately losing God and forgetting God’s covenant all of which prevents us from embracing a different life. And in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus offers a hash critique of those who oppose both John and him –...

What an interesting collection of readings this week. Take Genesis 15: 1-12, 17-18. A gruesome story that makes little sense to us. It is easy to get hung up on the brutality of the sacrifice and miss the significance of the moment. This is an ancient way of promising that what is being promised will happen, or the person promising will end up like the animals whose remains they walk between. Or in other words, God will be faithful to this covenant or God will die. God makes this promise even while Abram sleeps. God’s faithfulness does not depend on our response. God just is faithful. And God fulfilled the promise. Abram and Sarai did have a son, and through that son they had many descendants. God remained faithful to those many descendants. They were blessed, so that they might be a blessing for all creation and all life. For the gospel writers and for Paul, Jesus is how God fulfils the ultimate promise of this moment. Humanity would be restored, and creation renewed. Through Jesus,...

Last week we reflected on taking up our cross and following, or Jesus our Liberator. What is it we are being liberated from and into? Perhaps it is how we live on this world. This week we begin our celebration of the Season of Creation.   From September 1 to October 4, we join the Christian family as we unite for this worldwide celebration of prayer and action to protect our common home. This year we are invited as followers of Christ from around the globe to reflect on our common role as caretakers of God’s creation;   to see that our wellbeing is interwoven with its wellbeing and to rejoice in this opportunity to care for our common home and the sisters and brothers who share it. Last year Pope Francis said, "this is the season for letting our prayer be inspired anew, ” a season “to reflect on our lifestyles ,” and a season “ for undertaking prophetic actions . . . calling for courageous decisions . . .directing the planet towards life, not death." This year, the theme ...

In our gospel reading this week from Matthew (13:31-33, 44-52) Jesus is continuing helping people grasp what he means by the “kingdom of heaven”. Just to be clear, he is not talking about heaven. This is not about what happens when we die. This is about this life before we die. It is when what we pray for everytime we pray the Lord’s prayers comes to be; when “God’s will is done on earth as in heaven.” It is when all the dishonesty, rivalry, deceit, dysfunction, misogyny and injustice at work in the story of Laban, Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah (Genesis 29) is replaced with God’s way of justice and generosity. It is, as Paul writes to the Romans, when all that the Spirit of God longs for, groaning with creation in anticipation of, comes to be, and love comes to town (as B.B. King put it). That is what Jesus is trying to describe using images and similes which confused and perplexed, and invited all who heard to see the world and the reign of God in the world in some ver...