Uncategorized – The Green Tau

Liturgy of the Palms

28th March 2026

Reflection with readings below

Today’s Gospel highlights Jesus’s radical leadership style – one that will also be witnessed latter this week on Maundy Thursday.

Last week we saw Sarah Mullally walking from London to Canterbury where she was installed as the new arch bishop. By walking, Sarah demonstrated a radical style of leadership – one that put her on a level with and accessible to those she will serve. Jesus does the same thing when he rides into Jerusalem on a donkey.

This approach is the converse of big businesses such as Shell and Barclays. Here the CEO and other company executives hide behind plate glass, card-swipe doors and security guards. They chose not to meet or engage with the person in the street. They only listen to big money shareholders and financiers. Their interests limited to the making of yet more profits.

And significantly, they – the CEOs and corporate business leaders are the ones that have the ear of government ministers. But as ordinary voters, we should not neglect our right to go to Parliament and ask to speak to our MP – a process called green carding. (Your request is recorded in a green slip and if your MP isn’t available they are required to send you a written reply instead).

Throughout the Gospels we Jesus walking amongst and alongside with people, listening to the. and asking them “What do you want?” He did not tuck himself away in a palace or villa. He didn’t separate himself from the ordinary people with a vanguard of vigilant disciples. He didn’t limit his acceptance of invitations to just those of the rich and influential. He didn’t limit his conversations to just those who were ‘proper’ Jews. Rather he made a point of turning no one away, of listening to people’s concerns, of entering into dialogue with those who opposed him.

Jesus’s leadership style of inclusivity, of attentive listening, of genuine engagement and genuine concern, is one that needs to be emulated by others in leadership roles if we are to create and maintain resilient, caring and proactive communities.

The Green Party recent successes is in part because their candidates have been willing to walk the streets meeting ordinary people and listening to their concerns.

When recently three bishops went and spent time in the occupied territories and speaking with and listening to the Palestinian inhabitants, they came away with a different stance on the conflict. Where at the synod in July the church had not wanted to to debate the Palestinian issue, now these three bishops spoke out

The alternative leadership style of exclusivity and othering of domination and suppression, is destructive of communities and community values. It devalues ordinary individuals, using them as pawns, It increases the divide between rich and poor, between the haves and have nots. We see this leadership styles in figures such as Putin and Trump and Netanyahu – and maybe too in the remote leadership figures in Iran – people who are narcissistic, who surround themselves with yes people, who don’t walk amongst the ordinary people, who place national (and personal) status above the wellbeing of the ordinary people, who disregard the ideals of the common good.

Today’s psalm with its reference to the rejected stone which becomes the chief cornerstone reminds us how God’s wisdom is often counter cultural!

What of the crowds in today’s Gospel story, the ones who lined the streets, who waved palm branches, laid their coats on the road, the ones who went with Jesus from Bethphage and those who join in en route, those who shouted out slogans and sang chants, praising God and celebrating a new era? They too are central to today’s story.

Yesterday I was in London for the Together Alliance March – a coming together of numerous groups and communities, all united in the desire for a nation that does not divide people, that does not disparage the outsider or those of us who are different. The march was preceded by a service at the Oasis Church with a full to capacity congregation of some 260 people – and a dog. The front of the church was decked out with flags and banners made by church members – Jesus Loves, Love Resists, Prince of Peace, Love Thy Neighbour, Love Drives Out Fear – whilst the energy and excitement of the congregation was palpable.

They too are march itself assembled along Park Lane with an interfaith block. Here even more banners were on display along with placards and flags – and in the centre of the block the Coat of Hopes. This coat, with extra long tails such that at least two people have to carry it, is covered with patches embroidered and appliquéd by hundreds of well wishers sharing signs of hope. The coat was first made for a pilgrimage from London to Glasgow for the COP.

Here too were a crowd of people, followers of Jesus, asserting their belief that a better world is possible and, indeed, is what the Gospel preaches.

Palm Sunday calls us to stand up and follow Jesus. To stand up for the mission of the Gospel which Jesus declared using the words of Isaiah: ‘to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’ (Luke 4:18-19)

Matthew 21:1-11

When Jesus and his disciples had come near Jerusalem and had reached Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her; untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, just say this, `The Lord needs them.’ And he will send them immediately.” This took place to fulfil what had been spoken through the prophet, saying,

“Tell the daughter of Zion,
Look, your king is coming to you,
humble, and mounted on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

The disciples went and did as Jesus had directed them; they brought the donkey and the colt, and put their cloaks on them, and he sat on them. A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and that followed were shouting,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

When he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil, asking, “Who is this?” The crowds were saying, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

The Psalm

Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; *
his mercy endures for ever.

2 Let Israel now proclaim, *
“His mercy endures for ever.”

19 Open for me the gates of righteousness; *
I will enter them;
I will offer thanks to the Lord.

20 “This is the gate of the Lord; *
he who is righteous may enter.”

21 I will give thanks to you, for you answered me *
and have become my salvation.

22 The same stone which the builders rejected *
has become the chief cornerstone.

23 This is the Lord’s doing, *
and it is marvellous in our eyes.

24 On this day the Lord has acted; *
we will rejoice and be glad in it.

25 Hosannah, Lord, hosannah! *
Lord, send us now success.

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; *
we bless you from the house of the Lord.

27 God is the Lord; he has shined upon us; *
form a procession with branches up to the horns of the altar.

28 “You are my God, and I will thank you; *
you are my God, and I will exalt you.”

29 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; *
his mercy endures for ever.

Prayers for the ecosystems of North America

28th March 2026

Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper. Ps 1:1a,3

You Lord, are the source of all good things:

We praise you.

You call us to tend and care for your creation:

May we strive to do your will.

You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives:

May we live together in peace.

A Reading Proverbs 22:16-18

Oppressing the poor in order to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich, will lead only to loss. The words of the wise: Incline your ear and hear my words, and apply your mind to my teaching; for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you if all of them are ready on your lips.

Each week during Lent I am focusing on a different continent; this week North America

North America extends from the tiny Aleutian Islands in the northwest to the Isthmus of Panama in the south. The continent includes the enormous island of Greenland in the northeast and the small island countries and territories that dot the Caribbean Sea and western North Atlantic Ocean. In the far north, the continent stretches halfway around the world, from Greenland to the Aleutians. But at Panama’s narrowest part, the continent is just 50 km across. North America can be divided into five physical regions: the mountainous west, the Great Plains, the Canadian Shield, the varied eastern region, and the Caribbean. Mexico and Central America’s western coast are connected to the mountainous west, while its lowlands and coastal plains extend into the eastern region. Within these regions are all the major types of biomes in the world. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/north-america-physical-geography/

Glory to God

Creator of successions of mountains ranges:

We praise you for the awe and wonder of these regions,

their reminder that we are but humans.

We marvel at the power of water to carve out canyons

and the power of water to generate energy.

Glory to God

Creator of forests and plains:

We praise you for the richness of their biodiversity, for tall prairie grasses and even taller trees;

for the smallest grasshoppers to the mighty bison,

for the whistling marmots and black bears that huff and grunt.

Glory to God

Creator of rivers, lakes and wetlands:

We praise you for the Great Lakes and the fresh water they contain,

for the Mississippi River and the fertile soil it nurtures,

and for the wetlands of the Everglades, the 360 plus species of bird

and the plump grandeur of the manatees.

Glory to God,

Creator of tundra and ice:

We praise you for the ingenuity of life that adapts to the extremes of climate and geography.

We marvel at the diversity of life – lichens and moss, polar bears and caribou,

and the many migrating birds such as the Arctic tern.

Merciful God,

Creator of human kind,

Forgive our greed that has mined land and sea for fossil fuels, jeopardising our future.

Forgive our greed that industrialises farming, destroying soils and draining lakes.

Forgive our greed that turns animals into commodities and disregards their sentient nature.

Forgive our greed for consumer goods that strips the earth’s reserves.

Merciful God,

Creator of our brothers and sisters:

Forgive the casualness with which we let the rich grow richer

and the poor poorer.

Forgive the casualness with which we let the rich break the laws

and yet still penalise the poor.

Forgive the carelessness with which we discard what we buy

ignoring the meagre pay of those who labour.

Guiding God,

Source of all wisdom,

Transform our hearts and minds, turn the direction of our hands and feet

so that with alacrity and commitment we will reform our lives

and live only in harmony with your creation.

Amen.

The Grace

Fifth Sunday in Lent

22nd March 2026

Reflection with readings below

We often talk about ‘breathing life’ back into a building or a community. It is as if we can sense that it is not just the physical structures – the bricks and mortar – that makes something real, but that essential ‘something else” that makes them alive. There needs to be a presence of spirit: the spirit of the place, the community spirit.

Ezekiel realises this is what is needed by the exiled community of God’s people. To be who they are, they need to be filled with God’s spirit – perhaps most importantly they need to be open to receiving that spirit. Openness to God’s spirit comes through prayer and worship, through maintaining a daily pattern of life that is focused on God and the community of God’s people.

Refugees – and foreigners – in a new land have to find a balance between maintaining customs and practices that maintain their identity, and between adapting to, and living, within the customs and practices of their new home.

That balance of maintaining traditions and adapting to the new, also applies to each generation. We can’t just stick with the old, traditional ways, just replicating the way things have always been done – refusing to embrace new ideas, new methods, new science. But nor should we disregard traditional practices just because they’re not modern, nor discard old wisdom just because it’s old. We have to consider the needs of the next generation and the generations to com. We need to find the balance that that keeps our communities alive, ensuring that they are lively spaces – not just bare bones.

In John’s Gospel Jesus is trying to present to the people a vision – an understanding – of a new way of living, one that shines through and through with God’s glory. This is a way of living – a kingdom – where it is the best wine that is enjoyed, where all water is life giving, where the blind (physically and spiritually) see, where the hungry (physically and spirituality) are fed and there’s food to spare, where the dead (physically and spirituality) are rejuvenated by God’s spirit.

It is in this aliveness that God’s glory is revealed.

Jesus’s vision – his gospel – is something that still needs to be shared and spread. It needs to declared in our streets and churches, in our places of government and of business, in our farms and in places of commerce. For a different way of life is possible and to be desired. At the moment for too many people life is unjust and unkind, cruel and fearful. At the moment too many of the things we do sap the life out of the natural world, creating places of desertion and hopelessness and death.

The disastrous war in the Middle East is wreaking havoc on a global scale. Is this conflict the result of our global failure to address issues of food and water poverty? Issues of energy monopolies that disadvantage the poor and pollute the environment? Issues of distrust and prejudice towards people who are different? A lack of information and learning that informs us of the truth rather than sowing disinformation and lies? A lack of a desire to seek the common good, to agree and stick to rules and policies that would ensure social and environmental wellbeing across the world?

So many institutions and governments and way of thinking have become stale and introverted. We need to be open to receiving a fresh breath of life, a new inspiration of God’s Spirit, to resurrect life on earth – to establish God’s kingdom here on earth as in heaven.

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”

So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.

Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

Psalm 130

1 Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;
Lord, hear my voice; *
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2 If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, *
O Lord, who could stand?

3 For there is forgiveness with you; *
therefore you shall be feared.

4 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; *
in his word is my hope.

5 My soul waits for the Lord,
more than watchmen for the morning, *
more than watchmen for the morning.

6 O Israel, wait for the Lord, *
for with the Lord there is mercy;

7 With him there is plenteous redemption, *
and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.

Romans 8:6-11

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law– indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.

John 11:1-45

Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.” The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.” Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.”

When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Many of the Jews therefore, who had come with Mary and had seen what Jesus did, believed in him.

Prayers for the ecosystems of Asia

21st March 2026

You Lord, are the source of all good things:

We praise you.

You call us to tend and care for your creation:

May we strive to do your will.

You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives:

May we live together in peace.

A Reading – Psalm 95: 1-5

O come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!

Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!

For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.

In his hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also.

The sea is his, for he made it,
and the dry land, which his hands have formed.

Each week during Lent these prayers focus on a different continent; this week Asia.

Asia (the eastern half of the Eurasian supercontinent) is the largest of the world’s continents, covering approximately 30 percent of the Earth’s land area. It is also the world’s most populous continent, with roughly 60 percent of the total population. It comprises five major physical regions: mountain systems; plateaus; plains, steppes, and deserts; freshwater environments; and saltwater environments. The Himalayas are so vast that they are composed of three different mountain belts. The northernmost belt, known as the Great Himalayas, has the highest average elevation and includes Mount Everest, which stands at 8,849m. The glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau contain the largest volume of ice outside the poles and feed Asia’s largest rivers. Approximately 2 billion people depend on the rivers. Lake Baikal is the deepest lake in the world, containing 20 percent of the world’s unfrozen freshwater. It is also the world’s oldest lake, at 25 million years old. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/asia/

Glory to God

Creator of mountains and glaciers:

We praise you for the awe and wonder of these regions,

their reminder that we are but humans.

We thank you for the life giving water they provide for peoples far below.

Glory to God

Creator of rivers and wetlands:

We praise you for the Tigris and the Euphrates,

for the Fertile Crescent and the roots of human civilisation.

We praise you for the Ganges and Brahamaputra rivers,

and for the biodiversity of the Sundarban wetland with its huge mangrove forest.

Glory to God,

Creator of Steppes and deserts:

We praise you the ingenuity of animals and peoples, adapting to the extremes of climate.

We praise you for yaks and bactrian camels and for livelihoods sustained by trade.

Glory to God,

Creator of flora and fauna:

We praise you for rich diversity of flora, for the many fruit trees – oranges and peaches –

and the beautiful flowers of China – roses and camellias, peonies and hibiscus.

We praise you for the wildlife of the Sundarban wetlands – birds and monkeys, monitor lizards and Bengal tigers.

Merciful God,

Creator of human kind,

Forgive our greed that destroys ancient forests in favour of logging for timber and wood pulp.

Forgive our greed that destroys biodiverse rain forests in favour of oil palm plantations.

Merciful God,

Creator of our brothers and sisters:

Forgive the casualness with which we ignore their plight when faced with war and oppression,

their poverty when corporate greed takes away their livelihoods

and their hunger when climate change decimates their crops.

Merciful God,

Creator of climates and seasons,

Forgive our foolishness that creates both drought and flood.

Forgive our foolishness that destroys mangroves that protect shorelines

and the forests that stabilise soils and lock in carbon

Guiding God,

Source of all wisdom,

Transform our hearts and minds, turn the direction of our hands and feet

so that with alacrity and commitment we will reform our lives

and live only in harmony with your creation.

Amen.

The Grace

Green Tau reflection

The Great Commandments

17th March 2026

When asked what was the greatest commandment, Jesus replied ‘Love the Lord your God with all you being and love your neighbour as yourself’. On the surface they sound simple. In practice they are not. We might think prayer and worship address the first part. But that may not be enough – if we love God absolutely, we also need to love and respect all of creation. We would not say to a young child, I love you absolutely and then tear apart their beloved teddy bear. To love God is to actively – proactively – love what God loves.
Loving our neighbour is to give them care and respect. But who is my neighbour?

The one in need, those I encounter in my everyday – those I encounter physically and those I encounter virtually via news channels, the internet etc. For some it maybe all that I can offer is prayer.

And is my neighbour just my human neighbour? Or is my neighbour all my brothers and sisters in creation?

Loving my neighbour is to care and and respect not just people but plants and animals, birds and insects, and indeed whole ecosystems. We cannot not both act and pray.

We can’t react to every situation in need of attention but we can each actively discern where we focus our attention. Individually we are single stones but together we are the House of God

Fourth Sunday of Lent

15th March 2026

Reflection with readings below

The gospel of John is full of signs. They are signs that invite to see beyond what has just happened. Jesus wants us to see the signs as a stepping stone to understanding something fundamental about the kingdom of God. At Cana we are invited not just to see that water has been turned into wine, but that generosity and transformation are key characteristics of God’s kingdom. In today’s story we are invited not just to marvel at the healing of a blind man, but to question our own ability to see. Our ability to see determines our ability to engage with the ways of the kingdom of God.

It seems to us curious that anyone would think that blindness would be a result of sin – particular the sin of a parent – where is the justice in that? But what do we mean by sin?

A starting point might be to understand sin as that which separates us from God or which separates us from our fellow brothers and sisters (and the two are interlinked. To love God is to love our brothers and sisters; to love our brothers and sisters is to love God). Nothing separates Jesus from God, and nothing separates him from his love for this fellow human. In that love, God’s glory is to be revealed.

The man does as Jesus directs and as he washes at the Pool of Siloam, finds that he has been healed. However it is a change of circumstances in which others do not seem able to rejoice. They don’t seem to feel that he is deserving of healing, and keep questioning him – and then question the validity of his healing: maybe he wasn’t really blind in the first place! Not surprisingly the man born blind is getting somewhat annoyed. He has been healed, he is grateful to Jesus for what he has done. He understands Jesus to be a prophet who has through the power of God healed him. He senses that Jesus is closer to God than the Pharisees.

When Jesus seeks him out, his faith in Jesus as the promised messiah is completed.

Jesus declares his mission – that he has come “that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” It seems clear that the Pharisees whilst their eyes see – indeed pry – they are the ones who are blind: blind to God’s presence and purpose. The response of those Pharisees who hear Jesus, is ambiguous but maybe some who were unable to see the truth now come to understand their blindness and repent accordingly.

In response to the line in Amazing Grace, “Once I was blind but now I see”, Nadia Bolz-Weber said, “Once I was blind blind, now I see badly!” I think in her answer there is a lot of honesty. We are not good at seeing clearly. We are often struggle to see what it is that is obstructing our vision.

When I buy a coffee, am I blind to the low pay received by the barista? Am I blind to the poor price paid to the coffee grower? Am I blind to the vulnerability of coffee growing areas to the impact of climate change?

It is easy to be blinded by a prevailing expectation that a cup of coffee should be cheap; the belief that free markets always ensure fair prices; the common understanding that climate change is a future – not a present – worry. We only see badly. Like the Pharisees, we don’t look beyond the norms we have grown up with, to see what God might really be wanting.

And it is not just in buying cups of coffee, but in so many other parts of our lives that we are – perhaps unwittingly – going along blind and indifferent to the plight of our brother and sisters and so failing at the same time to love God.

The Pharisees are surprised when Jesus suggests they cannot see: they are surely inherently good people, following the laws of God. And I am sure each in their own way did love their chosen neighbour and did in their own way love God. Yet they are blind to so much. The culture and system in which they live perpetuates this blindness, this inability to see what is separating them from all their neighbours, from the expansive eternal nature of God.

This can be true for us. Our blindness to the suffering of neighbours – both human and creaturely – happens because we are trapped in a culture and system that is inherently unjust and unsustainable. Simply paying for a more expensive, fair trade, coffee or recycling all our plastic, will not at scale restore justice or ensure sustainability. We need system change – salvation – so that we can live in harmony together with all our brothers and sisters, in harmony with God.

This radical transformation – this healing of our blindness to the – is what Jesus declares and offers to us. How will our lives be if we accept his healing?

1 Samuel 16:1-13

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you grieve over Saul? I have rejected him from being king over Israel. Fill your horn with oil and set out; I will send you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I have provided for myself a king among his sons.” Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me.” And the Lord said, “Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what you shall do; and you shall anoint for me the one whom I name to you.” Samuel did what the Lord commanded, and came to Bethlehem. The elders of the city came to meet him trembling, and said, “Do you come peaceably?” He said, “Peaceably; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord; sanctify yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.” And he sanctified Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

When they came, he looked on Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is now before the Lord.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for the Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” Then Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. He said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all your sons here?” And he said, “There remains yet the youngest, but he is keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him; for we will not sit down until he comes here.” He sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, and had beautiful eyes, and was handsome. The Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the presence of his brothers; and the spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward. Samuel then set out and went to Ramah.

Psalm 23

1 The Lord is my shepherd; *
I shall not be in want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures *
and leads me beside still waters.

3 He revives my soul *
and guides me along right pathways for his Name’s sake.

4 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I shall fear no evil; *
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

5 You spread a table before me in the presence of those who trouble me; *
you have anointed my head with oil,
and my cup is running over.

6 Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, *
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Ephesians 5:8-14

Once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

John 9:1-41

As Jesus walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbours and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am the man.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.”

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the sabbath.” But others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.”

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out.

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him, he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.”

Third Sunday of Lent

8th March 2026

Reflection with readings below

In the reading from Exodus, the people are up in arms that they don’t have enough fresh water to drink. Quite rightly so. They know how important water is. Without water they will not survive.

Do we know what is important for life – or do we get distracted by populist issues such as wifi speed, foreign travel, journey times between London and Manchester, how many asylum seekers are occupying cheap hotel rooms, or the availability of strawberries in January?

Equally do we get up in arms about what is truly important? Are we more concerned about the love-lives of pop stars or the fate of prisoners? The domestic arrangements of the royal family or the plight of steel workers in Wales? The most recent diatribe from Nigel Farage or waiting times in our local A and E?

Returning to the necessity of water, how many of us are aware that Tehran is about to run out of drinking water? How many of us are concerned about the amount of water needed to cool AI data centres here in the UK?

The UK already faces a projected daily water deficit of nearly 5 billion litres by 2050 – which doesn’t include what might be needed by as yet to be built data centres. Might we expect agriculture to take precedence over data processing?

Water shortages re not just a UK issue, but a global issue. Across the world we are collectively consuming fresh water faster than supplies can be replenished! How many of us are outraged at the amount of water needed to make a cheap t shirt – worn today and thrown away tomorrow? Or how many of us are outraged that so much water is used to grow crops for cattle to eat so that ever greater quantities of meat can be consumed?

If nothing else, maybe their time in the wilderness taught the Hebrews that they couldn’t just expect water to be readily available at the drop of a hat – or a stick! More precisely they would have learnt that their access to water was dependent on their understanding their relationship with God. They should expect to go through life – or through the wilderness – without engaging in a real and trusting relationship with God.

God, as creator, is the source of the wisdom we need to live sustainably, securely, happily within the limits of creation. We are not gods. We cannot make creation conform to our demands. We have to live within the limitations of the created world. We cannot consume more water than the world can supply. We cannot discharge more pollution than the environment can absorb. We cannot take more resources from the earth than the earth can sustain.

Where are our contemporary prophets, who, like Moses, will challenge us to think rationally, who will challenge us to understand our dependency on God? Where are the preachers, the thinkers and writers, who will help us understand how God wishes to – and indeed does – relate with us, and the rest of creation? Are we ready to ‘kneel before the Lord our maker and listen to his voice’?

We can, nevertheless, draw consolation from the fact that God does not require us to be sinless for God to love us. What ever the state of our stupidity, our greed, our misplaced self-assurance, God is always willing to pay heed to our concerns, to afford us her wisdom, to show us a way forward. But we do have to want to engage with God – and that surely is what we mean by faith: the desire to be guided by God, to be in a relationship with God, to trust that God does indeed have answers to our problems. That is faith.

The Samaritan woman had the means of taking water out of the well. She could do this day in, day out – for as long as there was water in the well. What she hadn’t understood was that water like everything else was a gift that God had given her so that she might understand the universal nature of God, so that she might replicate God’s actions by sharing what was freely given so that all might benefit, that this water might enable eternal life not just for her and her tribe, but for everyone.

Like the Samaritan woman, we, even now in the 21st century, have a lot to learn about the life giving properties of water, and most particularly that those properties depend upon water being properly cherished and shared – to understand that all water is holy.

Exodus 17:1-7

From the wilderness of Sin the whole congregation of the Israelites journeyed by stages, as the Lord commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. The people quarrelled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarrelled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Psalm 95

1 Come, let us sing to the Lord; *
let us shout for joy to the Rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving *
and raise a loud shout to him with psalms.

3 For the Lord is a great God, *
and a great King above all gods.

4 In his hand are the caverns of the earth, *
and the heights of the hills are his also.

5 The sea is his, for he made it, *
and his hands have moulded the dry land.

6 Come, let us bow down, and bend the knee, *
and kneel before the Lord our Maker.

7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. *
Oh, that today you would hearken to his voice!

8 Harden not your hearts,
as your forebears did in the wilderness, *
at Meribah, and on that day at Massah,
when they tempted me.

9 They put me to the test, *
though they had seen my works.

10 Forty years long I detested that generation and said, *
“This people are wayward in their hearts;
they do not know my ways.”

11 So I swore in my wrath, *
“They shall not enter into my rest.”

Romans 5:1-11

Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person– though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

John 4:5-42

Jesus came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have laboured, and you have entered into their labour.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.”

Prayers for the ecosystems of South America

7th March 2026

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom like the crocus Isaiah 35:1

You Lord, are the source of all good things:

We praise you.

You call us to cherish and protect your creation:

May we strive to do your will.

You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives:

May we live together in peace.

A Reading: Daniel 4: 10-12

Upon my bed this is what I saw; there was a tree at the centre of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew great and strong, its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth. Its foliage was beautiful, its fruit abundant, and it provided food for all. The animals of the field found shade under it, the birds of the air nested in its branches, and from it all living beings were fed.

During Lent these prayers focus on a different continent; this week South America.

South America, the fourth-largest continent, extends from the Gulf of Darién in the northwest to the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego in the south. South America can be divided into three physical regions: mountains and highlands, river basins, and coastal plains. Mountains and coastal plains generally run in a north-south direction, while highlands and river basins generally run in an east-west direction.
South America’s extreme geographic variation contributes to the continent’s large number of biomes. A biome is a community of animals and plants that spreads over an area with a relatively uniform climate. Within a few hundred kilometres, South America’s coastal plains’ dry desert biome rises to the rugged alpine biome of the Andes mountains. One of the continent’s river basins (the Amazon) is defined by dense, tropical rain forest, while the other (Paraná) is made up of vast grasslands.
The diversity of animal life in the Amazon rain forest is unsurpassed in the rest of the world. There can be as many as 100 different tree species on a single acre. The rain forest is perfectly suited for arboreal, or tree-living, animals. More than 2 million species of insects are native to the region, including hundreds of spiders and butterflies. Primates are abundant—howler monkeys, spider monkeys, and capuchin monkeys—along with sloths, snakes, and iguanas. Thousands of native birds include brightly coloured macaws, parrots, toucans, and parakeets. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/south-america-physical-geography/

Glory to God

Creator of rivers and oceans:

We praise you for the Amazon, 1725 miles long!

Glory to God,

Creator of mountains and valleys:

We praise you for the Amazon Basin, all 2.7 million squares miles.

Glory to God,

Creator of trees and plants:

We praise you for the 40,000 plants species of the Amazon.

We praise you for biome that supports 350 millions tonnes of life per square kilometre.

Glory to God,

Creator of all that crawls and swims and flies.

We praise you for wildlife of the Amazon –

2 million species of insect, 2000 birds and mammals, 800 amphibians and reptiles.

Merciful God,

Creator of human kind,

Forgive us for the destruction of the Amazonian rainforest, 18% lost and counting.

Forgive our greed that replaces trees with cattle ranches and fields of soy for their fodder.

Forgive our greed that replaces trees with sugar cane, for sweetmeats and bio fuel.

Merciful God,

Creator of air and space,

Forgive our foolishness in destroying the source of 20% of the world’s oxygen.

Forgive our greed that gobbles up the living space of others, endangering the survival of jaguars and blue macaws, poison dart frogs and river dolphins.

Merciful God

Creator of climates and seasons,

Forgive our foolishness that creates droughts and heat waves.

Forgive our greed that fills the air with carbon dioxide and destroys carbon sinks.

Guiding God,

Source of all wisdom,

Transform our hearts and minds, turn the direction of our hands and feet

so that with alacrity and commitment we may reform our lives

and live only in harmony with your creation.

Amen.

The Grace

Thank you for inviting me here today to explore with you today’s Bible readings and to relate them to the mission of Christian Climate Action.

Psalm 121 asks where does our help comes from? Not from hills say the Psalmist. Those are the high places where the Cananite gods and goddesses were worshipped. No our help comes from God!

In his letter to the Romans St Paul is writing to a Christian community that is a mix of those who have come to believe in Jesus as the fulfilment and expansion of the very Jewish faith that they have grown up with. Others will be those who have grown up within the culture of worshipping the gods and goddesses of the Greek and Roman tradition, and who have now adopted a completely different faith – that of following Jesus.

But what underpins their faith? From what Paul is writing, it seems as if some want to read the scriptures as telling them that strict adherence to the old laws is essential, and that this is the only know that they are righteous. And it may have been just a much the non-Jewish believers who wanted the certainty that a rigid set of rules would give. No more thinking: just follow the rules: job done.

Paul however takes the story of Abraham to help them their understand the scriptures from a new – Christian – perspective . Look, says Paul, Abraham’s relationship with God wasn’t established or maintained through him doing X number of good works or performing particular rituals – and it certainly wasn’t about following the law because Abraham predates that. No Abraham’s relationship with God was established through faith, through his implicit trust in God.

Paul is saying to the Christians in Rome that they must read the Jewish scriptures – remember at this stage the Gospels had yet to be written – through a new lens which is Jesus Christ. And whether they have been brought up as Jews or as followers of Greek and Roman gods, it is not following the law that will grow their relationship with God, but faith. This is a radical but inescapable truth that Paul is urging them to understand.

So we come to today’s Gospel reading. What is going on here? It sounds as if Jesus is answering a different set of questions to the ones that Nicodemus is asking! Or is it that Jesus is answering the questions that Nicodemus ought to have asked?

This sense of the two protagonists debating together is captured in a picture by the 17th century artist, Crijn Henricksz Volmarijn. Here by the aid of candlelight Jesus and Nicodemus sit together with several books on the table in front of them. Jesus is using his fingers to enumerate the points he is making.

The open books in front of Nicodemus are the Jewish scriptures which he had grown up with. The painter shows him with a pair of spectacles which he is holding in his hand. These glasses are the painter’s way of telling us that Nicodemus has always read the scriptures through the lens of his pharisaical learning. But as he is listening to Jesus, he has taken the glasses off because Jesus is giving him a different way of understanding the scriptures. Now at last Nicodemus is beginning to grasp what Jesus is saying.

The book in front of Jesus is only partly open. It represents the Gospel – the new scripture – that has yet to be written but which Jesus – who is the Word – is proclaiming through what he says and does. Jesus is inviting Nicodemus to read the scriptures differently, to see the world around him in a different light, and therefore to start living differently, to begin life anew! “You must be born again, you must be born from above.”

And isn’t that what Jesus also asks of us?

Especially during Lent when we are invited to hear and read the scriptures anew, alert to how Jesus wants us to hear his word, ready to step away from where we were going wrong, and to begin afresh following the new ways of the radical Jesus.

I’m both part of Green Christian and of Christian Climate Action, and it is through prayer, the study of scripture and theological reflection that we are constantly trying to focus on where Jesus is leading us and what he is asking us to do.

Recently we have had some conversations about the two creation stories in Genesis, and how are the Hebrew word translated as dominion might be understood. In the past the story has been read as sanctioning human rule over and exploitation of all natural resources, plants and creatures. A more contemporary understanding would be that humanity is tasked with relating to natural resources, plants and creatures in the same way that God himself exercises dominion over all creation. This developing theology is one that embraces that of St Francis of Assisi who held that all creatures, all parts of the natural world from sun to rain, from moon to fire, should be treated as brother and sister, to the more recent thinking of Pope Francis who called this earth our common home. From this viewpoint humanity is seen as an integral and interdependent part of creation – and not as a separate and superior species.

We can see afresh that our human self assurance and greed have led us to exploit fossil fuels such that their carbon emissions dioxide have increased to such an extent that the earth’s climates has been irreversibly changed (at least for the next millennia). Human activities are now causing overheating, extreme weather conditions, floods and wild fires, and are harming – and killing – our fellow brothers and sisters, human and creaturely.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to love all our neighbours. And so Christian Climate Action has been calling on the Government not to licence the development of the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea.

We have been calling on oil companies such as Equinor and Shell to transition into renewable energy companies.

We have been calling on banks such as Barclays, to stop funding new oil and gas projects.

We have successfully campaigned in calling upon the Church of England’s dioceses and their National Investment Bodies (NIBs) to divest from fossil fuels.

We have successfully campaigned in calling upon organisations such as Oxfam and Christian Aid to switch away from banking with Barclays. And we continue to campaign calling on other institutions such as our dioceses and the National Trust, to likewise shift to ethical banks.

We take to heart the command in Genesis 2 to cherish and protect the earth. Across the world, biodiversity – natural wildlife in all its richness and beauty – is rapidly diminishing, pushed out of existence by human urbanisation, industrialised farming, and the impacts of climate change. An international consensus has led to the development of the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework.

This framework sets out how we can reverse the rapid loss of biodiversity across the world and protect the natural ecosystems – clean air, fresh water, fertile soils, a sufficient number and variety of pollinators etc – on which life depends. Each participating nation, including the UK, has committed to restore and protected for nature 30% of their land and seas by 2030.

This clearly is in line with God’s words of instruction in Genesis.

In response to this Christian Climate Action is in dialogue with the Church Commissioners over the scope they have to restore for nature up to 30% of the land that they control.

In light of the increasing ecological crisis that the earth faces, Christian Climate Action has produced a vision document entitled ‘Stop Crucifying Creation.’ The document was drawn together after much prayer and reflection, as we looked again at what God is calling us to do in the face of the damage we humans are causing.

It is a call to the Church to discover afresh its roots – that lively and compelling faith demonstrated by the early churches that St Paul wrote to.

It is a call to the Church to embrace anew the courage it has shown at other critical points in history, and to reclaim its prophetic role in speaking truth to power – whether that is calling on oil companies to cease burning the planet, or calling on water companies to stop polluting the rivers, or calling on the Government to take urgent action in addressing the climate and nature crisis, or calling on world leaders to seek peace and dialogue rather than a knee jerk reaction towards aggression and conflict.

Truly we are being called to see the world and the scriptures anew, to be as ones born again as we follow in the steps of the radical Jesus, loving whole heartedly our neighbours whoever and wherever they are.

Amen.

Psalm 121

Levavi oculos

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills; *
from where is my help to come?

2 My help comes from the Lord, *
the maker of heaven and earth.

3 He will not let your foot be moved *
and he who watches over you will not fall asleep.

4 Behold, he who keeps watch over Israel *
shall neither slumber nor sleep;

5 The Lord himself watches over you; *
the Lord is your shade at your right hand,

6 So that the sun shall not strike you by day, *
nor the moon by night.

7 The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; *
it is he who shall keep you safe.

8 The Lord shall watch over your going out and your coming in, *
from this time forth for evermore.

The Epistle

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17

What then are we to say was gained by Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness.

For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

For this reason it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham (for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”) —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

The Gospel

John 3:1-17

There was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

“Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

“Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

Prayers for the ecology of Australasia

28th February 2026

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom like the crocus Isaiah 35:1

You Lord, are the source of all good things:

We praise you.

You call us to tend and care for your creation:

May we strive to do your will.

You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives:

May we live together in peace.

A Reading: Isaiah 42: 5, 10-12

Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth!
Let the sea roar and all that fills it,
the coastlands and their inhabitants.

Let the desert and its towns lift up their voice,
the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the inhabitants of Sela sing for joy,
let them shout from the tops of the mountains.

Let them give glory to the Lord,
and declare his praise in the coastlands.

These prayers during Lent focus each week on a different continent; this week Australasia.

The Australasia realm is dominated by the Australian continent and 2 additional subrealms — New Zealand and the Australasian Islands: Papua, Sulawesi, and other Indonesian islands east of the Makassar Strait and south of the Java Sea, as well as the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia. Australasia encompassed a diversity of environments from the vast interior deserts of Australia, dry and wet tropical savannahs and rainforests, Mediterranean woodlands, temperate grasslands and alpine uplands. With its seven seas and immense coral reefs, Australasia is one of the most important realms for ocean biodiversity. The Great Barrier Reef, considered one of the Seven Natural Wonders, is the world’s largest coral reef system. https://www.oneearth.org/realms/australasia/

Australasia is already greatly affected by the ongoing climate crisis, with rising land temperatures and an increasing frequency of heat waves and bush fires; rising sea levels and an increasing frequency of heavy rain causing flooding, interspersed with increasing periods of drought. Rising sea levels disproportionately affect small islands nations. Rising temperatures in the oceans are destroying coral reefs.

An extract from ‘Kangaroo’ by D H Lawrence

Delicate mother Kangaroo

Sitting up there rabbit-wise, but huge, plump-weighted,

And lifting her beautiful slender face, oh! so much more

gently and finely lined than a rabbit’s, or than a hare’s,

Lifting her face to nibble at a round white peppermint drop

which she loves, sensitive mother Kangaroo.

Her sensitive, long, pure-bred face.

Her full antipodal eyes, so dark,

So big and quiet and remote, having watched so many

empty dawns in silent Australia.

Her little loose hands, and drooping Victorian shoulders.

And then her great weight below the waist, her vast pale belly,

With a thin young yellow little paw hanging out, and

straggle of a long thin ear, like ribbon,

Like a funny trimming to the middle of her belly, thin

little dangle of an immature paw, and one thin ear.

Her belly, her big haunches

And, in addition, the great muscular python-stretch of her tail.

There, she shan’t have any more peppermint drops.

So she wistfully, sensitively sniffs the air, and then turns,

goes off in slow sad leaps

On the long flat skis of her legs,

Steered and propelled by that steel-strong snake of a tail.

Intercessions

We give thanks for the beauty and diversity of the world you have given us,

for its colour and abundance, its richness and vitality.

Generous God, hear our prayer.

With sorry we acknowledge our part in damaging what you have created.

We acknowledge that our lifestyles have been selfish and careless.

We acknowledge that we could and can do more

to tend this earth and care for its inhabitants.

Merciful God, hear our prayer.

We pray for these who conserve plant and animal wildlife, birds and insects.

We pray for the work of agriculturalist and scientists

developing better, kinder ways of living on this earth.

We pray for the resilience of indigenous communities

that strive to live in harmony with their environment.

Gracious God, hear our prayer.

We pray for government leaders and advisers,

farmers and business leaders,

that they will hold dear the needs of the environment

and strive to avert the risks of the ecological crisis.

Enabling God, hear our prayer.

The Grace