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St Columba's Presbyterian Church Havelock North Group, 1 Columba Way, Havelock North (2026)

02/06/2026

ANNUAL KIRKING OF THE TARTANS 10AM SUNDAY 07 JUNE 2026
Bring /wear an item of your Clan tartan to be blessed this Sunday at St Columba's. Bring some Scottish food for the morning tea.

30/05/2026

31 May 2026 TRINITY SUNDAY Rev Wayne Toleafoa

THE HOLY TRINITY

Genesis1: 1-2: 4a; Psalm 8; 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13; Mathew 28: 16 -20

The over riding theme of our readings today is that “In the Beginning, In the Middle, and At the End, God is With Us”

Today is Trinity Sunday—the one Sunday in the year when the lectionary doesn’t ask us to remember an event in the life of Jesus, but a mystery.

Not a puzzle to solve, but a mystery to take into our hearts and minds, that God is Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer; or Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; One God in three persons, united in love.

You may or may/not be familiar with the famous icon of three identical figures seated around a table, all facing one another.

It is a simplistic way, of trying to illustrate the Trinity – Three Persons – different and yet the same. United in love.

I have said before that we can think of the Holy Spirit as Jesus’ ‘Other Self’ and we can think of God the creator as Jesus’ Other Self’ – all expressions of the One God.

Before his ascension Jesus promised to send his Holy Spirit (his Other Self) to lead the church and sustain the believers in his absence.

Although the word ‘Trinity’ doesn’t even appear in the Bible – we can see in our readings today, the inference that God is Three and God is One.

Our readings today don’t try to explain the Trinity. They do something better. They show us the Trinity at work.

In Genesis 1, God is depicted as a pre-existent being, the Someone/Something, the creative life-force that acted as the Prime Mover in all creation.

“In the beginning…God!”

Those are words that still stir something deep in us. Genesis 1 &2 are not scientific explanations, but declarations that : God speaks, and life begins. Light breaks into darkness. Order rises out of chaos. Creation is not an accident; it is an act of intelligent intention.

And right at the heart of these creation stories is a remarkable declaration: that: Human beings are made in the image of God. In the image of the God who creates, blesses, and delights.

Genesis tells us that from the very beginning, God’s intention is relationship. God is not distant. God is not indifferent. God is present, speaking, shaping, calling creation “good.”

Often, we shy away from the word ‘myth’ as though a myth is something that had nothing to do with truth. But a proper understanding of a myth is that it explains the way that things are.

The Genesis ‘myth’ explains that we did not create our world , nor did we create our selves, and that we live in a complex relationship with our Creator and with all other creatures – especially with the opposite s*x of our species.

Adam and Eve are made of the same stuff. They are made in the image of God and Wisdom, (God’s partner in creation), but they also live in a creative tension where, in the Genesis story they are to blame for their own unhappiness.

We could develop that myth further- and we do , in the stereotypes we make for men and women. Stereotypes that are sometimes limiting and unfulfilling.

Despite our efforts to be objective – we can’t help but be human-centred or anthropo-centric in our pictures of God.

We can’t relate to God except in human terms. I think Freud was right when he said that our god’s are often exaggerated, or super-human versions of our own parents. God the divine Father and the divine oedipal Mother.

But Freuds’ observations – don’t mean that there is no God. They do not disprove the existence of God. We could say that Freud’s explanations are merely new forms of modern myths , similar to all myths.

We can only understand God in human terms , and for us Christians, God has become one of us in the person of Jesus. The ultimate expression of the relationship between God and Humankind. .

Psalm 8

Our Psalm for today, Psalm 8 , is one of the most well-known among the psalms. I remember having to learn it by heart in my Sunday School days, many moons ago.

It is a psalm that reminds us of the majesty of God and God’s mindfulness of insignificant human beings like you and me.

Psalm 8 picks up the theme of the ‘Creator and the creature’ and turns it into a waiata/song.

I remember visiting my mother’s village in Eastern (American) Samoa. Her family land was right at the end of a peninsula. There was a beach there comprised of black rocks and huge waves that crashed against the black rocks. It was an awesome place to be – but a fearful place to be if you were alone. One wrong step and you could end up in the ocean. It might be some time before people realized you were missing.

At night it was even more fearful, down by that beach. But you looked up at a canopy of millions of stars that together with the ocean, made you feel insignificant.

It is in the memory of moments like that, that I can identify with the Psalmist who looked at the magnificence and vastness of the night sky and declared in his song/his waiata:

‘God, our creator how majestic is your name in all the earth …!!!’

“When I look at your heavens… the moon and the stars and all that you have made…what are human beings that you are mindful of them?”

It’s a question we still ask.

Who am I really, in the greater scheme of things?

Do I really matter?

Does God really see me?

And the psalm answers:

Yes. You matter. You are crowned with glory and honour. Not because of what you achieve, but because of WHO made you. God the Creator.

Psalm 8 holds together two truths we often separate: God is majestic, beyond our comprehension and God is mindful, intimately aware of us.

The God who flung stars across the sky is the same God who knows your name, your fears, your hopes, your story.

2 Corinthians 13

In Pauls letter to the Corinthians his uses the Trinitarian formula and introduces God the Redeemer and Reconciler

Paul is writing to a church that has struggled since its beginning —a church that has had its own internal conflict s and divisions. Lots of misunderstandings. And what does Paul say?

“Put things in order. Agree with one another. Live in peace.”

Not because they can do it on their own, but because “the God of love wants you to live in peace and will help you to make it so.”

And then Paul gives the blessing we still use today at the end of many of our church meetings.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, The love of God ; The fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, now and forever. Amen.

For the embattled Church in Corinth, this is not a theological formula. It is a lived experience.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, The love of God, The fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Grace that meets us in our failures.

Love that holds us when we are weary.

Fellowship that binds us together when we feel alone.

The Trinity is not an idea. It is the shape of God’s life poured into ours.

Matthew 28: 16 -20

Finally, we come to the Gospel. Where we meet God as Sender and Companion.

The risen Jesus meets the disciples on a mountain. Some worship. Some doubt. And Jesus doesn’t scold either group. He simply says:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations , teaching them ato observe everything that I have taught you. Baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and I will be with you always until the end of time. …”

The Great Commission is not a command shouted from a distance. It is an invitation spoken by the One who has walked with them, died for them, risen for them.

“Go… make disciples… baptise… teach…

And remember, I am with you always.”

Not “I will be with you if you succeed.”

Not “I will be with you when you feel strong.”

Just: I am with you. Always.

The Trinity is not only the God who creates and redeems.

The Trinity is the God who goes with us.

CONCLUSION :

Bringing the Four Readings Together. What do these readings say together?
1. God is the source of all life.
From the first breath of creation to the breath of the Spirit in the church.
2. Human beings are created with dignity and purpose.
We are not accidents. We are bearers of God’s image. .
3. God’s love is relational, not abstract.
Grace, love, fellowship—these are the gifts of the Triune God.
4. We are sent into the world with a mission.
Not alone, but accompanied by Christ’s abiding presence.

The Trinity is not a doctrine to memorise. It is a story to live.

A story where God creates us in love, redeems us through love,
and sustains us with love.

A story where God is not far away but with us in the beginning, in the middle, and at the end.

So on this Trinity Sunday, may we: Marvel at the God who created us,
Receive the grace of Christ who redeems us, Walk in the fellowship of the Spirit who sustains us,
And go into the world knowing that we are never, ever alone.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

PRAYER

Holy and Triune God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
You have spoken to us through your Word
and revealed your life of creating, redeeming, and sustaining love.
As you formed the world in goodness,
crowned humanity with honour,
and sent your Son to guide our steps,
so now breathe your Spirit upon us.
Strengthen us to live as your people—
grateful for creation,
rooted in grace,
and courageous in mission.
Send us out in the power of your presence,
that we may bear witness to your love
in all we do and say.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

24/05/2026

24 MAY 2026 PENTECOST SUNDAY

Rev Wayne Toleafoa

COME,HOLY SPIRIT, COME.

Acts 2:1–21 1 Corinthians 12:3–13 • John 20:19–23

When I was preparing for this special Pentecost service, I went to the local gift shop to buy some candles for our Pentecost birthday cake, I realized that we are now into the third millennium of the Christian Church. So instead of buying the number shaped candles for 20 centuries, I got the number-shaped candles for 21centuries.

Despite the despondent voices talking about the decline of the Christian Church – the miracle is that even in the third millennium, Christ is drawing people like you and me and millions of others, into his fellowship – the church.

For the last few weeks, we have been reflecting on the development of early Christian Church – our ancestors in the Faith ; how they reacted to the crucifixion, and how they reacted to the incredible news of the resurrection.

Our readings today continue to focus on the formation of the early church. Luke, the historian of the early church gives us a picture of the first Pentecost.

Acts 2:1–21

2When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

In Luke’s description of the early church, we are seeing our ancestors in the Faith, come out of hiding – after fifty days – becoming a very bold, and public , world- facing , world challenging force of Jesus’ followers.

Some commentators have called it’ the church militant’. The church on the offensive. The church in mission.

They are no longer afraid of persecution and have become more confident of what they believe about Jesus.

As I have said previously, Pentecost is often taken to be the birthday of the Church – or its ‘coming out’ day.

‘Wind’ and ‘fire’ are the symbols we equate with the Holy Spirit. Symbols of dynamic life and passion.

When the Holy Spirit came down in the first public outing of the church, people of diverse cultures and languages were filled with this dynamic life and passion. Filled with wind and fire.

They were united by their life-giving experience of the Holy Spirit.

As we reflect on our own conversions, and on our ‘why’ we are Christian?’ Do we still have the dynamic life of the Holy Spirit within us, Do we still have a passion for the gospel?

Or do we need to pray for a re-fill, that the Spirit will rekindle our life and passion for the Christian life?

It’s so easy, for people who have been Christians for a long time to become a bit ‘Ho hum’ and blaze about the Christian life. It is comfortable, and we can easily get into a pattern where Jesus’ love is taken for granted.

A bit like taking our loved ones for granted and failing to ‘see’ them as our relationships have developed. Are they the same person that they once were? Are we ‘seeing’ them for who they are now?

Have we been developing our relationship with the God we know in Jesus? Is our daily life like a continuing dialogue with the Holy Spirit? Is Christ involved in our everyday decision making? and in the fabric of our lives?

1 Corinthians 12:3–13 •

Our second reading from I Corinthians shows the Holy Spirit’s ongoing work in the community after the Pentecost experience.

Listen to what Paul had to say to that newly-formed community:

‘3Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. 4Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good’.

It’s quite likely that tensions in the early church had already began to emerge soon after the first Pentecost.

Some believers felt that they were especially gifted compared to others, and a kind of ‘first class’ and ‘second class’ mentality emerged.

The same issues arose during the Charismatic renewal in the 70s . People who could speak in tongues claimed a kind of superiority over those without this gift.

St Paul wrote his corrective reminding them that :

‘7To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit ‘for the common good’. The gifts are given ,not for themselves, but ‘for the common good’.

How many times have we seen the first and second class mentality emerge in the Christian Church? Multiple times I suggest.

There have always been times when some Christians believed they had preference over others. Whether is be because of denomination or because of historical seniority, gender, s*xual orientation, or because of what some believe is a new manifestation of the Spirit.

Some churches may see themselves as the new, true Church. Everyone else is irrelevant.

Jesus told a parable about preference in the kingdom of heaven

In Matthew 20:1–16. Jesus tells of labourers hired at different hours of the day—some early, some late—yet all receive the same daily wage, illustrating God’s grace and the upside‑down logic of the Kingdom.

In the last verse 16 is the punchline of the parable : ‘The first shall be last, and the last shall be first’.

To the church in Corinth, Paul reminded them that:

12For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

In other words there is no reason to think in terms of upstairs down stairs or first and second class. We must work for the common good.

‘What we see in the earliest church is a diverse bunch of people being unified by the Spirit of Christ.

Christ came as a servant king , and we are to live in the same Spirit as our Master.

John 20:19-31

Finally, our gospel lesson from John, a gospel that was written after the other three (Synoptic gospels).

John exercised a freedom that is not dependent on the other three gospels.

We know that John’s gospel was written later than the other gospels. As such, John has had much more time to reflect theologically on the meaning of Jesus’ life.

John’s gospel is not the longest gospel, but his reflections are much deeper and more laboured than the synoptics gospels.

If a new Christian asked which gospel should I read first , I would recommend the gospel of John.

The symbol of John’s gospel is the eagle because he gives us a bird’s eye view of Jesus’ life.

For example, Jesus (in John) is equated with the Logos which pre- existed before all creation. Jesus is also equated with The Great I AM which Moses encountered in the burning bush . All eight of the ‘I AM sayings’ appear in John’s gospel only.

In our extract this morning, from John’s gospel, we see a short ‘ film reel ‘ of the disciples after the crucifixion.

They are still in hiding in the Upper Room and wondering if they will be the next victims of the Jewish and Roman cooperation – meaning their persecution.

In the’ film reel’ , Jesus passes through a locked door to be present with his disciples.

The thing we note is that the Holy Spirit is given to the disciples even before the first Pentecost .

Jesus breathes on them and says, ’receive the Holy Spirit’.

Not quite a CPR rescue, but similar in the sense that Jesus was breathing new life into a faith that was almost dead.

May be we have had our own upper room where our faith has almost died – and Jesus has breathed his Spirit into us.

I remember receiving good news after a time of feeling down and despondent. The Good news came as a breath of new life. Changed my whole outlook. Like the breath of the Holy Spirit.

The difference in John’s account, compared to Pentecost Day in Acts, is that there is an intimacy about John’s account – compared to the very public account the Spirits coming, in Acts.

The Spirit comes to us in both ways: intimately, and publicly (as in public worship).

Jesus came to the 11 frightened disciples in a very personal way. And yet in a very authoritative way – even giving them the power to forgive sins.

Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit’….

In Summary :

Pentecost reveals the Spirit who breathes peace into fearful hearts,
Pentecost unites diverse people into one body, and Pentecost
empowers the church to continue Christ’s mission in the world.
Come, Holy Spirit, Come.

PRAYER
God of wind and flame,
you have spoken to us through your Word.
Let what we have heard take root in our hearts.
By your Spirit, empower us to live with courage,
to speak with grace,
and to serve with joy,
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

10/05/2026

10 MAY 2026 Easter 6 A Reflection Rev Wayne Toleafoa

GOD IN WHOM WE LIVE AND MOVE...

Acts17: 22-31; I Peter 3: 13-22; John14: 15 -21

One of the reasons why I like using the Revised Common Lectionary (RCL) is that the readings basically follow the life of Jesus in a chronological order.

The lectionary starts with Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. We catch a brief glimpse of Jesus in boyhood during the family pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem. Then we catch up with the adult Jesus, aged 30, at the River Jordan, where he was baptised by his cousin John the Baptist. Then we followed Jesus into the wilderness and his ‘temptation’. We followed his preaching and miracles throughout Galilee and Judaea, and then marked his triumphant ride into Jerusalem.

Here, his story took a turn for the worse, as we know. Within one week, the week we call, ‘Holy Week’, Jesus came up against the hard face of the Temple authorities and the cold face of Roman brutality.

On the cross, his life seemed to be over. The movement Jesus started became scattered and confused, until we hear the breaking news of the appearances of the risen Christ – firstly from Mary Magdalene – and then from the frightened disciples , and then from other resurrection ‘witnesses’ .About 12 – 14 stories of the resurrected Jesus appear in the NT .

Today we celebrate Ascension Sunday, when the church traditionally celebrates the day when Jesus/Christ was taken up into heaven.

We could say that this is where the gospel story of Jesus’ earthly life ends.

In our first two Bible readings today, we are in the In-between period between the Ascension and Pentecost. Pentecost being the day when the Holy Spirit came to the church.

Some Bible commentators have focused on this period between the Ascension and Pentecost as a period of ‘abandonment’ because Jesus was no longer physically, or spiritually present. A period when God was absent from the church.

I’m not sure I agree that God was ever absent from the life of the church.
I’m not one of those ‘great souls’ who stand as a saintly an example to others, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt abandoned by God, even when I wasn’t seeking God.

But I do recognize that there are people do think they’ve been abandoned by God.

People who commit su***de for instance, may believe that no one cares about them anymore, including God.

If I was Iranian or a Palestinian, or Lebanese, or indeed an Israeli or Russian soldier conscripted and reluctant to kill my neighbour- I might wonder where God is in the carnage of war.

If I was homeless and unemployed in NZ, I might wonder where God is.

We can look at the times of God’s absence in the Bible, and ironically, see these absences, as times of unexpected blessing.

Every time Israel felt abandoned in the in the desert, or in exile, they were times of learning to trust God. Times of blessing. Israel emerged with a stronger relationship with God.

When Jesus quoted Psalm 22 from the cross, ‘My God why have you abandoned me?’ Jesus was speaking for all people who’ve felt abandoned by God. And we know that the end-result was the unexpected blessing of the resurrection.

The Easter story is a story of hope where even the abandoned Jesus was given new life. It is a story of hope for all people including you and me..

Our first two readings from Acts and Peter were written in the days of the early church when Jesus was no longer present.

Today, we read the story of Pauls visit to the Areopagus in Athens. The Areopagus was both a place and a council in ancient Athens — a powerful and prestigious body of scholars who oversaw matters of religion, morality, and philosophy.

There, before this learned gathering of scholars, Paul marvelled at the pantheon of Gods on display throughout the ancient city of Athens.

Paul then focused on a monument to an Unknown God , and he claimed that the ‘Unknown God’ was none other than the God proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and raised from the dead and who now shared in the power and glory of the unknown God.

Paul quoted the Cretan poet Epimenides, (6th& 7th century BC) who said that ‘God is the one in whom we live and move and have our being’. All of the scholars present would’ve been aware of that quote and that concept of God.

Paul took that concept and attempted to Christianise the concept.

It fitted perfectly with the doctrine of the Ascension whereby Jesus’ Ascension meant that Jesus could now be present everywhere, because he was no longer confined to the body of Jesus of Nazareth.

In his ascension Jesus had become as it were, the ‘Cosmic Christ’ – present every in the universe and beyond. He had become ‘the One in whom we live and move and have our being’.

Its certainly a concept that’s easy to grasp as we look at the creation around us and the miracle of life. We can say, we are looking at the logos or the Spirit of God incarnated in nature and in the goodness of other people.

In his dialogue with the other religious leaders at the Areopagus , Paul was doing what Peter encouraged all Christians to do, in his pastoral letter:

Peter wrote:

“Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you;

Our mission, and our responsibility, is to reflect on the reason(s) for the hope that is in us. We are commanded to love God with heart, soul, mind, body and strength which means working out why we believe in Christ and in God.

We shouldn’t be afraid to look at the latest philosophies and pit them against our own faith. I have enjoyed reading Richard Dawkins ‘The Selfish Gene ’and it certainly made me think how I might respond as a Christian to his theories.

I found myself wondering how I could Christianize his theory which I believe matches with the importance we place on genealogy in the Bible. (Matt 1: 1-17; Luke 3: 23-38 the genealogy of Jesus).

Dawkins focus on genes also matches with the importance Polynesian cultures (including Maori) place on whakapapa.

Many Europeans also see the importance of genealogy. We all derive our traits from our ancestors. Including genes for certain diseases that can be mitigated against, if we know our whakapapa well enough.

It is good for our faith to engage with philosophies that challenge our faith.

“Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you;

Peter adds:

16yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

The polar opposite of Bible bashing and yelling at the people to convince them that the gospel is true.

I can imagine that both Peter and Paul both preached with gentleness and reverence.

The only reason why they would’ve raised their voices was to be heard. Today we have microphones.

I remember attending a church in Samoa where they’d just installed a new sound system. Even before I reached the church – 20 metres away I could hear the preacher yelling into the microphone, at the top of his voice- and I remember someone saying: ‘Someone should tell that man he’s using a microphone!’. Someone must’ve told him that day and they turned the volume down.

16yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”

The four gospels were written after the Book of Acts and after the Pastoral Letters of Paul and Peter and others.

One of the main reasons why the gospels were even committed to writing, is that the eye-witnesses to Jesus life were getting older and there was the fear that Jesus’ story would be lost, or distorted by human memory.

Our gospel lesson today from John’s gospel was written after Acts and after Peters pastoral letter, but it telescopes back to the night of Jesus’ arrest…Thursday of Holy Week.

The passage is part of a long section of Johns gospel known as the Farewell Discourse of Jesus. In the Discourse Jesus is giving his final instructions to his disciples , before his arrest and crucifixion.

On that Thursday night, Jesus did three significant things with his disciples: 1. He washed their feet, 2. He instituted the Lords Supper (Eucharist) and 3, He reinforced his greatest commandment, ‘to love as he had loved’.

In the section of the Farewell Discourse that we read today Jesus says:

15”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

In other words: If you’re serious about following me , love with the same love that I have given you.

I will send the Advocate – The Holy Spirit- who is my Other Self – to be with you forever. He is already in you and will shape your life if you listen to what the Spirit is saying to you.

In verse 18 he says: 18”I will not leave you orphaned;

There will be no time when God is absent from your life.

I could easily spend a month unpacking what Jesus said in his Farewell Discourse. It is such a rich and inspiring passage of the gospels. I invite you to read it again

It reminds us that God is always near, that God’s presence fills the universe and that God’s or Jesus’ Other Self – The Holy Spirit is always with us.

Christ is in us and we are in Christ. What a marvellous place to be!

PRAYER
Gracious God,
you have spoken to us through your Word.
Keep us faithful to what you have revealed,
steady in the hope you give,
and bold in the mission you entrust to us.
Send us out strengthened, grounded and renewed,
that our lives may bear witness to Christ
in all we say and do.
Amen.

03/05/2026

03 May 2026 Easter 5 Rev Wayne Toleafoa

THE STONING OF STEPHEN

Acts 7: 55-60; I Peter2: 2-10; John 14: 1-14

Stories are tremendously important to our Christian Faith. Besides the Holy Spirit, it is stories that feed our faith and build us up.

Last weekend we commemorated ANZAC Day - where we remembered the story many of us have heard since childhood. The story of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli. Some of your ancestors may have been there.

Every time we hear the story, we once again, claim our unique identity as New Zealanders and Australians.

I had the privilege of taking part in the Dawn Service at Gallipoli in 2008 – alongside an Australian Chaplain. As we woke up to the breaking dawn, we could see thousands of young (and not so young)Aussies and Kiwis , lying on the ground , in their sleeping bags .

They had all made the pilgrimage to Gallipoli because they had heard the story of the 2700 kiwis killed there and about 8,000 Australians. And they wanted to become part of the story. Claim the story as part of their own identity. Many of them had relatives who died or landed at Gallipoli.

The retelling of the tragic story of ANZAC inspires new generations to value life, courage, peace, freedom and all the things that we believe the first ANZACs stood for.

More recently, the government has encouraged us to remember all wars and conflicts where the NZ Defence Force has been involved, from WW2 , right up to the latest Peacekeeping efforts. New, younger veterans are now being remembered as we tell their stories.

As we remember family stories of our parents and grandparents, we reclaim our identity and feel the inspiration which previous generations pass on to us. Each one of us has some treasured family stories. Our identity is shaped by our stories.

Christian Stories are much the same. We listen to the stories over and over again and reclaim our unique identity as followers of Christ. The Christian stories inspire us to live better lives and hopefully become more Christlike.

In our first reading today from the Book of Acts, we heard once more, the story of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr who was stoned to death by an angry religious mob. It is difficult to believe that in some Muslim countries, stoning is still a possible penalty.

The early Christian church had begun as an offshoot of the Jewish Faith. Many of the earliest Christian followers –– including Peter and the first disciples - had hoped that all Jews would one day, somehow, come around, to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah, but we know that that was not what happened.

Instead, the ‘People of the Way’ as they early Christians were called, were soon regarded as heretics and outsiders, separated from Mainstream Judaism. The separation was followed by their eviction from the synagogues, and the brutal persecution of the Christians.

Its one of those horrible features of some forms of religion that they see religion as ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’- where ‘separation’ becomes one of the key tenets and tools of their faith. ‘Let’s separate ourselves from all those sinners!’ Let’s separate ourselves from anyone who doesn’t believe in baptism by total immersion. Let’s separate ourselves from anyone who doesn’t use the King James version of the Bible. Let’s separate ourselves from everyone who is not like us. A religion of separation.

Presbyterians, like many other churches, have been guilty of this in the past.

In the story of Stephen – almost as a footnote, mention is made of a man who believed in the religion of separation - Saul of Tarsus – who held on to Stephen’s cloak as he watched Stephen being stoned to death. In separating and persecuting, Saul thought he was doing God’s work - until his famous Damascus Road conversion.

We know that after his dramatic conversion, his life was totally transformed and he took the new name of Paul.

After his conversion he wrote: “There is no distinction before God, between Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, men and women’ (Galatians 3:28).

He also wrote beautiful passages about the expansive love of God.
‘There is nothing that can ‘separate’ us from the love of God’. (Pauls Letter to the Romans Ch 8)

A totally new tune from the tune of Separate! And Persecute!

Luke, the writer of the Book of Acts, recorded the gruesome story of Stephen. He tells us that Stephen “filled with the Holy Spirit” looked up to heaven and saw a vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

When I read that I wondered what Luke meant by that. We tend to think of God as invisible. Maybe God appeared as a light - I don’t know.

But like Jesus, Stephen prayed that God would forgive the ones who were killing him. He saw his persecutors as people, like himself, needing God’s forgiveness and love. That is the story of Stephen , our ancestor in the Faith.

Stephen’s expansive faith inspired the faith of St Paul who has indirectly inspired ‘our’ faith because so much of what the church(es) believe, comes from the writings of Paul.

1 Peter 2:2-10 Christ Our Cornerstone.

In our second reading , St Peter is writing to churches who are not only under persecution from Judaism, but under the brutal persecution of Rome under the Emperor Nero.

In his pastoral letter, Peter emphasizes Christian identity: You can imagine how low the morale must’ve been in the churches under persecution. There was nothing triumphant about being rejected by the Jewish authorities and persecuted by Romans. It was a real low point in the story of the church. Christians were used as entertainment in the Roman Colosseum. Burned alive, or torn apart by wild animals and crucified. It is said that Nero used Christians were set alight as human torches to light up Nero’s garden.

In that period of darkness (about 60-65 AD)Peter inspired the believers by calling them …’living stones…with Christ himself being the cornerstone…’
‘9But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people’.

Peter was lifting their self-esteem, telling them, urging them to hold on to their faith: You are not fragile. You are not forgotten. You are part of God’s house, God’s story, God’s future. Hold on to the cornerstone of your life – Jesus Christ.

Your identity is not something you have achieved. It is an identity given to you by God!
And that is a message we need to hear in the church today. We are part of God’s continuing story. Christ is still the cornerstone. Our identity as a church and as individuals, is built on how well we follow Jesus.

John 14: 1-14

Our gospel lesson today is one of the most controversial passages of the New Testament. It is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse , a speech made on the night before his crucifixion.

‘I am the way, the truth and the life , no one comes to the Father except by me’ is often used by some Christians to put down other religions and to show the superiority of the Christian religion , but that is not its original meaning.

We must look at the context in which Jesus made those statements.

When Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me”. Jesus was talking to his disciples about the religion they were raised in.

All of them were raised in the Jewish Faith. Their religious foundation was in Judaism.

When Jesus made that statement, ‘Noone comes to the Father except through (following) me, he was speaking about the His own way in relation to the Jewish way. His own Truth in relation to Judaism and his own life in relation to Jewish life at that time.

But he certainly didn’t mean , ‘Now we can separate ourselves, and start persecuting the orthodox Jews and all other religions.

If we are following the Way, the Truth and the Life we will be loving towards people of other faiths and people of no faith. We will be loving towards all people.

I want to finish this reflection by telling another story.

I remember going to the funeral of an old school friend who died when we were in our Forties. Henney was an inspirational Christian who helped me and many others to find Christ. I will always admire his honest faith. If he didn’t know the answer to the tricky questions of the faith, he said so. He was just such a lovely guy.

Several boys from our old school arrived at his funeral that day, including one of our Muslim friends who came dressed in Muslim attire. We had known each other since primary school and had had many discussions about religion. He knew that I had become a minister.

I felt really privileged when, just as we were entering the church, he asked if it was alright to sit next to me?

I never felt more Christian than when I said, ‘Of course you can!’ And when I sat next to him throughout the service. I never felt more Christlike (if I may dare to use that term).

His religion and mine were not about separation or superiority. We were just old friends – believing in God, in our own way - coming to grieve the loss of ‘one of us’. Some one we both knew as a good man and a good friend.

I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me.

PRAYER
God our Rock,
you have spoken to us through your Word.
Root what we have heard deep within us.
Strengthen our trust,
renew our courage,
and build us together
as living stones in your house of grace.
Through Christ our Cornerstone. Amen.

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1 Columba Way
Havelock North
4130

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Website

https://schn.org.nz/

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