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Good morning. Just before Christmas a note was slipped through our letterbox. It came from a boy along our street It read, ‘Imagine a life where your home is just sheets of plastic, corrugated iron and a dirt floor. I will be going to Mexico with a charity next Easter to build houses for families in desperate need and I’m keen to do any odd jobs to fundraise for this project’.

Imagine a life where… Frankly, it’s uncomfortable over Christmas imagining such a situation. I’ve been enjoying a cosy home and good food as I’m sure many others have been over the festive period. And I thought I deserved it!

But this note reminds me that in my normal daily life I already have far more than I deserve… if that’s about the equitable distribution of the world’s resources. If I have a bed, if I have 3 meals, and if I have clean water, in material terms then I am rich.

Yet my neighbour’s note provokes me to realise that I am also poor. Poor at imagining, poor at engaging, poor at sharing – poor at living equitably with a generous heart and a wide horizon. I say that not to encourage guilt, but to remember what really matters. 

Merciful God,in Christ you make all things new;transform the poverty of our nature
by the riches of your grace, and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.