Climate Justice

St Matthew's made a submission to the government prior to the UNCOP26 Climate Conference.

This Mission Statement of Intent in response to the Climate Crisis has evolved from that process.

It is intended as a living document.

Season of Creation 2021

Our Season of Creation 2021 took place in lockdown with the theme, 'A Home for All: Renewing the Oikos of God'

You can watch the Reflection from each of three weeks in September 2021:

We explored the bias of worldview on our understanding of home.

The challenge of mutual respect and inclusion when power is unequally shared.

The impact of this on our relationships with one another and with creation.

As we are more aware that we can choose differently.

Season of Creation 2020

Over the first three Sundays of September 2020 we celebrated the Season of Creation at St Matthew’s.

Lock down levels meant we had to join on our learning journey over Zoom.

Each week, following a short introduction, we spent time conversing, considering, choosing and challenging ourselves,

and each other, to change, even if just a little, for the good of our planet.

On September 6 Richard Milne and Alan Broom led us to look at our use of energy and modes of transport.

On September 13 Bobbi Laing and Cathy Bi-Riley led us to look at our food choices and disposal of waste.

On September 20 Richard Milne and Richard Le Heron led us to consider ways to advocate for change.

Each week participants sent in commitments they’d make, shared resources and information to extend the debate.

On Sunday November 15 we will look back, celebrate the steps we’ve taken,

reflect on the power of joining together to effect change. We plan to document this in image and story.

Given our context of sacrament and ritual these words of Wendell Berry seem most fitting

“It is a contradiction to love your neighbour and despise the great inheritance on which their life depends …

It is possible – as our experience in this good land shows – to exile ourselves from Creation,

and to ally ourselves with the principles of destruction …

If we are willing to pollute the air – to harm the elegant creature known as the atmosphere –

by that token we are willing to harm all creatures that breathe, ourselves and our children among them.

There is no begging off or “trading off …” To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of Creation.

When we do this knowingly, lovingly, skilfully, reverently, it is a sacrament.

When we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration.

In such desecration we condemn ourselves to spiritual and moral loneliness and others to want.”

ST MATTHEW-IN-THE-CITY