Hello everyone
This newsletter will be bookended by a message which is important.
ON SUNDAY JUNE 9 (NEXT WEEK, NOT THIS WEEKEND) THE SUNDAY GATHERING WILL BE BEGIN AT 10.30AM.
This is the day when 200 Centenary guests and choir are attending from Queen Margaret College. The time change is because of events it would take too long to detail here. But, it gives us plenty of time to arrive for a prompt start at 10.30am! It would be helpful if people who are able bodied and have no duties on June 9, went upstairs to sit in the gallery. If you have a notice for the congregation, please phone or email it in, so we can save time with spoken notices on that day also.
We need two volunteers to usher at the start of the Gathering and take up offerings in the gallery.
This all reminds me of the preparation which used to go on in my mother’s house before guests came. We didn’t always go so far as to clean the silver and brass (my mother collected horse brasses), but we scurried about quite a lot and we did make sure that the forks on the good cutlery had clean tines. I always wondered if the guests noticed the cleanness or if they would have noticed any dust and tarnish if we had let it be!
It is good to go to some effort for special occasions. Next year we will be celebrating 180 years in action by this parish which has functioned on Petone Beach, on Lambton Quay and here on the Terrace for 140 years alone. No doubt metaphorically speaking the silver will get polished then.
When I was in Oxford, England, years ago, I noticed a threshold stone at the base of a small stone doorway into one of the Colleges. It was irregularly worn by the many feet which had crossed that threshold for centuries. A little like the bottom step in the picture above, (but many of you will spot this is not an Oxford doorway – its night the light creamy stone so typical of that town.)
In New Zealand we are only just approaching two centuries of western settlement. Not a lot of our buildings have that kind of wear and tear. But the light of love and justice has burned brightly here at St Andrew’s for many decades, over one century at least. The feast of communion has been served in different ways here, from individual cups to chalices, for that long also. Good justice making is fuelled by vital spirituality. Our core responsibility here is to make sure that spirituality is vibrant and relevant so our work in the world is relevant and vibrant too. Come to communion this Sunday to nourish your social action in the world with the bread of life and the cup of blessing.
This Sunday come at 10am, but on Sunday June 9, remember we begin at 10.30am! (smile)
Susan
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