matthew henry john bartlett

St Michael’s Anglican Church, Kelburn
Sermon for 8 August 2010 – Be ready

Psalm 33; Wisdom 18:6-9; Hebrews 11:1-2; 8-19; Luke 12:32-48

Jesus’ parables invite us to take up residence for a while in their imaginative world, and see things from a different point of view. But the parable in today’s gospel reading is at first glance a fairly unpleasant affair. It asks us to imagine ourselves as slaves. Slaves who are tempted to laziness and who risk a beating if they’re found shirking their tasks. It doesn’t sit comfortably. It’s a jarring metaphor, but I think appropriately so – because the whole thrust of the Gospel reading, and of the Hebrews passage, is to shake us out of our complacency, to literally take us out of our comfort zone. I’m going to return to the parable later, but for now let’s wind back to the start of the passage:
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Tim Jones has a good if difficult post up today, responding to the idea that we should boycott BP in protest at that big oil spill(ing). He suggests we boycott all the oil companies – Shell for messing up Nigeria, Exxon Mobil for funding climate denial and Chevron (Caltex) for polluting here and there (and he could add funding the Burmese regime).

Loom loom loom loom

my blog is better this way
[via Bruce the Great]

10:10 means producing 10% lower emissions each year (starting 2010).

Their suggestions for reducing your own emissions:

• fly less/take local holidays
• turn down thermostats, insulate house (they obviously don’t rent our house)
• swap in compact fluorescent for incandescent bulbs
• walk and bus instead of driving
• eat in-season fruit & veges and have one no-meat/no-dairy day a week
• buy less, buy second hand, buy durable/repairable
• don’t buy packaging-heavy stuff, recycle, compost
• don’t waste food
• or water (shower rather than bath), careful about lawn/garden watering, fill your washing machine up
• feel happier (smugger?) because “It’s Dec 2010… you’re healthier for walking & cycling, you’ve made new friends from swapping stuff & car-pooling, you’ve saved a big chunk of cash… and you know that you’re part of the global effort to prevent castastrophic climate change…”

I wrote about 10:10 a wee while ago.

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Apparently it’s what’s left of a crater created by an asteroid impact about 214 m.y.a.

From Herman Daly & John Cobb’s excellent book For the Common Good (1989):

Power criticises the “economic base” models that treat production for export as the “base” or driving force of economic development, and production for the local market as derivative and dependent on export production. … The real economic base of a community is not exports, but rather, “consists of all those things that make it an attractive place to live, work, or to do business. That means the economic base includes the quality of the natural environment, the richness of local culture, the security and stability of the community, the quality of the public services and the public works infrastructure, and the quality of the workforce. None of these things are produced by the commercial economy or produced for export.”

The quote within the quote is from Thomas Power’s The Economic Pursuit of Quality (1988). It’s relevant to the mining question, to the idea of ‘catching up with Australia’, to the Greens’ beyond-GDP approach, and to the Transition movement.

Oceana gold mine, near Reefton

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There’s also the Pike River coal mine, which I can’t find. It’s 46k east of Greymouth and mostly underground.

It’s no good; don’t read it. Read The Road by Cormac Mccarthy and Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace instead.