Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou, Tena Koutou Katoa.
The title for this service is as you can see ‘Tales of Love midst Tales of Horror’.
The title and reflections began to percolate during the week in which Trump and Zelensky had their ‘fall out’.
Today I’m taking the step of telling stories rather than preaching an actual sermon. We need stories. We need to hear the bible stories of love but we also need to hear tales of love in these times of fear, horror, astonishment .. the list might go on.
So… here’s the first story.
As some of you know I belong to the Benedictine Oblates associated with the World Community for Christian Meditation. There are WCCM oblates all over the world including the Ukraine. Since the beginning of the conflict there has been a global zoom meditation and discussion with them and oblates from around the world once a week. There are several NZ oblates who join it – I don’t for various reasons but hear about it from time to time. Early March one of our oblates told us how the people in Ukraine are pulling together – developing community groups of support – nurture and resilience. There is much good – many tales of love – midst the horror of uncertainty and instability – most of all there are people from all around the world talking and connecting with the Ukraine oblates so they know they are not alone – not completely isolated. These are not stories that are reported in the news but they are stories of people living and loving in a time of crisis. Remaining connected and belonging in a global community of concern.

Another story. Perhaps the greatest story of all which as Christians we are stewards of.
Lent is a time when we are encouraged to lament and as in the book of Joel
“Rend our hearts not our garments”.
Liturgically this is the season that leads up to the tale of the horror of betrayal and crucifixion that is Good Friday but it is also the season that leads up to perhaps the greatest tale of love – the tale of resurrection – Easter Sunday.
The thing about resurrection is that it is not about ‘returning to normal’ to that which is familiar. It is a gradual movement across a threshold into new life. We experience many little deaths in our lives. And subsequently many little resurrections. After all Jesus was not recognised until he showed his wounds.
It is appropriate that in this season we reflect on and own our complicity in the ‘state of our country’ – humankind – in our own state of being …that leaves us wide open to tales of horror. And I’m sure you can fill in the blanks for yourself whether on the world stage, Aotearoa NZ’s stage or our own personal stages where suffering is inevitably a fact of life. Part of this story of renewal and redemption is the act of self scrutiny and the permanent gift of forgiveness. Then the resurrection – the renewal – the ongoing life we are called into.
So before we move to the readings and further tales let us bring to God our prayers of confession. And for old times sake I’ve kept to the formula I used when I was minister here.

Introduction to the readings from scripture.
Richard Rohr writes
If we are to believe the primary witnesses—the prophets, the mystics, the saints, the transformed people—an unexplainable goodness is at work in the universe. Some of us call this phenomenon God, but that word isn’t necessary. In fact, sometimes it gets in the way of the experience, because too many have named God something other than Grace.
Me – there have been many side roads laid out for the followers of divine love which have led to dead ends and unsatisfying life…we thirst. It seems we might need to listen more deeply in order to meet and recognise Grace and forgiveness.
Listen to the prophet Isaiah and to the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians
Reading: Isaiah 55:1-3
Hear everyone who thirsts; come to the waters; and you who have no money, come buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your earnings for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; listen so that you may live.
2 Cor 5:20B, 6:1-2
We entreat you on behalf of Christ; be reconciled to God.
As we work together with Christ, we entreat you also not to accept the grace of God in vain. For God says, “At an acceptable time I have listened to you, and on a day of salvation I have helped you.” Look, now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation.

Hymn: He Came Singing Love Lyrics Colin Gibson #9 St Ninian’s Hymnbook

1. He came singing love and he lived singing love,
He died, singing love. He arose in silence.
For the love to go on we must make it our song.
You and I be the singers.

2. He came singing faith….
3. He came singing hope….
4. He came singing peace….

Yvonne – Introduction to the Gospel
Serene Jones (President Union )
God does not stay at a distance from us but constantly seeks to transform our lives by asking us to awaken to the divine presence. God is a mysterious, creative, sustaining life force.… God is there all the time. The challenge for us is to open our eyes, ears, hands, minds, and hearts to receive the truth of God’s real, persistent presence, God’s grace. When we open ourselves to it, we are changed by it. The way we perceive the world shifts, like a radically refocused camera lens, and we experience life differently. You see everything around you as suffused with God’s love. You see God’s grace everywhere, saturating all existence. This process of awakening to what is already true, but you haven’t previously seen it, is called conversion—a word that literally means “to see anew.”

Reading : Gospel Luke 13: 6-9
Then Jesus told this parable.
A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the man working the vineyard, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil.
He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good, but if not you can cut it down.

Another tale of love. I share this because we often listen to scripture and the occasional fine words from the pulpit but forget to ask ‘what does that look like’ in everyday life. What could be more everyday life than a neighbourhood BBQ in someone’s backyard.
Please read A Contemporary Tale of Listening , Love and bearing Fruit from Sarah Hopkinson, found in E Tangata Mar 9, 2025

Richard Rohr notes that resurrection – flourishing life can only occur when we accept that it isn’t perfect ….when we learn to live in the middle place …the place of Grace and divine Love …when we recognise such places and moments and dwell there.
You have in your order of service the extract from Hadjewich of Antwerp
A 13th C Beguine from the Rhineland she and her cohort were voicing insights about love that in turn fed into Meister Eckhart’s teaching. I came across this in a book by James Olthius titled ‘Dancing in the Wild Spaces of Love.

I am going to read it through Hadewijch’s words and then invite you to meditate on them as we listen to music and sit with our thoughts.
Excerpt from poem by Hadewijch of Antwerp (late 13C early 14C Beguine ) quoted in James Olthius, ‘Dancing in the Wild Spaces of Love’.
Oltius leads in with ‘we don’t just have tales of horror we have persons facing each other with tales of love’.
Crossing the threshold despite….
Taking the risk despite….
Not trying (always to counter)
Not (always fusing or fleeing)
But sometimes meeting in the middle spaces of love.
Not always wandering in labyrinths,
Or falling into abysses,
Yet not snugly settled, serenely enconsed
But journeying together….
Sojourning in the wild spaces of love,
Despite and in spite of
Zarathustra’s laughter
In spite of the killing fields …
Faith is always despite..
We sojourn, not alone
God tents, tabernacles – sojourns – with us.