We were one of the first

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

I am here today to share from 1 Thessalonians Chapter One.

From Paul, Silas, and Timothy--- To the people of the church in Thessalonica, who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: May grace and peace be yours. We always thank God for you all and always mention you in our prayers.

For we remember before our God and Father how you put your faith into practice, how your love made you work so hard, and how your hope in our Lord Jesus Christ is firm. Our friends, we know that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own. For we brought the Good News to you, not with words only, but also with power and the Holy Spirit, and with complete conviction of its truth. You know how we lived when we were with you; it was for your own good. You imitated us and the Lord; and even though you suffered much, you received the message with the joy that comes from the Holy Spirit. So you became an example to all believers in Macedonia and Achaia. For not only did the message about the Lord go out from you throughout Macedonia and Achaia, but the news about your faith in God has gone everywhere.

There is nothing, then, that we need to say. All those people speak about how you received us when we visited you, and how you turned away from idols to God, to serve the true and living God and to wait for his Son to come from heaven---his Son Jesus, whom he raised from death and who rescues us from God's anger that is coming.

I want to take you back in time. I want to take you back to the early years of the Gospel's spread throughout the Greco-Roman world and to the days when Paul travelled from city to city proclaiming Christ. More importantly, I want to take you back to my church.

You see, I come to you today as one of the women of Thessalonica. I was among those from the aristocracy who came to know Christ when Paul and Silas visited our city, close to twenty years after the sacrifice of Christ. Many years have passed since those days. The faces of some whom I worshipped with have long since faded from this world. Yet the memory of what God did among us remains as clear to me as yesterday.

I would like to tell you about the letter Paul wrote to us and why it meant so much. You see, it was one of his first letters. It is possible that the Galatians received theirs a little earlier. History has never quite settled that debate. But both we in Thessalonica and our brothers and sisters in Galatia could agree on two things: we were among the first to receive letters from Paul and, while Galatia received a rather stern telling-off, we received extraordinary encouragement.

So what about us? What about the people of Thessalonica?

Well, you might think that Wellington is a rich commercial city, but you haven't seen anything like the richness of my city Thessalonica. We were, and still are, a thriving commercial city on the shores of the Aegean Sea. Since 146 BC, Thessalonica was the Roman capital of Macedonia. As a key port in the Roman Empire, we were allowed to keep our Greek identity.

Looking back now, I think we often took those privileges for granted. We were proud of our city, proud of our influence and proud of our prosperity. We assumed that because we were successful, we were secure. Age has taught me that prosperity and peace are not always the same thing.

The Romans even allowed us to keep our constitution and our gods. And talk about gods, the world was our oyster when it came to who we could worship. You could choose your religion. If your lifestyle revolved around wealth, fertility or drinking large amounts of wine, there was a deity waiting for you. We had all the gods and goddesses you could possibly imagine. And when you ran out of them, you could worship Caesar.

But in the midst of all this religious diversity, we also had the Jews and their synagogue. They worshipped one God only, the creator and provider of all things. Their God called them to live lives that were different. He demanded loyalty. He would not share their devotion with other gods.

For many of us, especially among my friends in the aristocracy, there was something deeply attractive about that faith. Looking back now, I think what drew us was the realisation that this God desired relationship before anything else. The gods of our city always seemed to want something from us. The God of Israel seemed to want us.

We wanted to fear this God and follow this God, but we did not want to become Jews. So we put aside our worship of the gods of our city and even our emperor and began exploring our relationship with Yahweh through regular participation in Jewish practices.

Then Paul and his friend Silas, also known as Silvanus, arrived.

I still remember hearing them speak.

They told us of Christ and his death for us. They told us how Christ united us all in Yahweh. They told us that Christ would return for his people. They challenged us to set aside our old assumptions and place our trust in Jesus.

Many of us Gentiles did exactly that.

The Jews were not particularly pleased. Before long tensions rose and Paul was forced to leave. Luke has already told you that story in Acts 17.

Yet what strikes me now is not that Paul left. It is that we stayed.

When Paul departed, we did not abandon the God he had proclaimed. Instead, we gathered together. Your Bible calls us a church, but we did not have a building. We had one another.

We worshipped together.

We prayed together.

We loved one another.

We cared and showed love for those outside our gathering.

Looking back now, I realise we were discovering something that every generation of Christians must learn: faith is never just something we believe. Faith is something we practise.

We knew that if we put our faith into practice, God's love would become visible among us and his Son might return at any moment.

And then Timothy visited us to see how things were going.

Apparently Paul had sent him.

Paul was having a rough time and nearly gave up his mission. Timothy told us that our faith, our love and our hope had encouraged him. Timothy described how stories about our church had travelled throughout the regions where he and Paul ministered.

Even now I smile when I think about it.

We never set out to become known.

We simply tried to be faithful.

Yet faithfulness has a way of travelling farther than we expect.

Paul then wrote his first letter to us.

What blew us away was that our story encouraged our teacher and enabled him to continue his work. For us, that was a profound lesson. Looking back now, I realise that when people are struggling, it is often the stories of those they love that keep them going. We assumed Paul was strengthening us, yet somehow God used our faithfulness to strengthen him.

So yes, this letter came to us.

At first glance it looked like any other letter written in our time. The opening always started with the phrase X to Y. Then there was normally some form of thanksgiving and prayer, followed by the main body of the letter and finally a short closing.

At the time I did not think much about that. It was simply the way letters were written.

Yet as the years passed and more of Paul's letters circulated among the churches, I began to notice something. Paul knew the rules of letter writing, but he was never controlled by them. He would happily bend the conventions if it helped him communicate the Gospel.

If you compare his letter to us with his letter to the Galatians, you can already see this happening.

In our letter, the thanksgiving begins in verse three and seems to go on and on. Some of your scholars even suggest it stretches through several chapters. Personally, I think they may be pushing the point a little, but there is no question that Paul spends a remarkable amount of time giving thanks.

And why?

Because our story genuinely encouraged him.

In contrast, if you read Galatians, Paul seems almost unable to contain himself. Where you would expect thanksgiving, you instead hear frustration. In The Message he practically blurts out, "I can't believe your fickleness!"

Every time I hear that, I smile a little.

Yet let's stop comparing ourselves with Galatia, because if I have learned anything over the years, it is that comparing communities of faith is rarely helpful. While Galatia certainly had issues to address, we were hardly perfect ourselves. Every church has weaknesses. Every church has blind spots. Every church depends entirely on the grace of God.

What really mattered to us was how personal this letter felt.

You see, it came from Paul, Silas and Timothy. Three men who genuinely knew us.

Most of the letter is clearly Paul's voice, yet what always strikes me is what he does not say.

He does not introduce himself as an apostle.

He does not list his credentials.

He does not assert his authority.

He simply says, "Paul."

At the time that meant everything to us.

It told us that trust already existed between us. He knew we recognised his leadership. He knew we accepted his teaching. He did not need to stamp his authority all over the letter because he already possessed it.

Looking back now, that humility impresses me even more than his authority.

And then, almost immediately, he reminded us of our shared relationship.

We belonged to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

That was it.

That was our identity.

Not our wealth.

Not our social status.

Not our ethnicity.

Not whether we were Jew or Greek.

Not whether we were rich or poor.

We belonged to God.

It was this relationship that united us to Paul, Silas and Timothy. They had no other reason to know us. We had no other reason to know them. Christ was the reason we were together.

And then came what I still think is one of the most beautiful parts of the letter.

Grace.

The gift of God.

Paul, Silas and Timothy wished grace upon us.

When I first heard those words, I heard them as a greeting.

Years later, I hear something far deeper.

Grace comes before peace.

It always does.

We spent much of our lives searching for peace. Our city offered peace through prosperity, pleasure, influence and security. Yet none of those things truly delivered it.

Paul understood something we were still learning.

Without grace there can be no lasting peace.

Years later I noticed that almost every letter he writes follows the same pattern. Grace comes first and peace follows.

It is almost as if Paul is preaching the Gospel before he even begins the letter.

May the grace of Christ come upon you so that you might know true peace.

That simple greeting contains the whole Gospel story.

Then Paul, Silas and Timothy told us that they remembered us.

I cannot fully explain what that meant.

Have you ever experienced a relationship that profoundly shaped your life only to have that person leave? You find yourself wondering whether they remember you at all.

So when we heard that Paul, Silas and Timothy remembered us constantly in prayer, we were overwhelmed.

We mattered to them.

We had not been forgotten.

Even now, all these years later, I feel the warmth of those words.

And then they remembered us through three qualities that came to define our church.

Faith.

Love.

Hope.

I know that later Paul would tell the Corinthians that love is the greatest of these. Yet the ordering here was intentional.

He knew that we wanted our faith to be visible.

We never saw faith as a pathway to earning salvation. Rather, we saw faith as something that transformed how we lived. We believed that faith should allow God's presence to become visible within our city.

Faith was not private.

Faith was active.

That activity was powered by love.

We knew God's love through Christ and through the cross. We knew that this love had drawn us into relationship with God. We knew that such love always gives rather than takes.

So our labour of love was not simply serving others.

It was allowing God to transform our lives so completely that others might see him through us.

Looking back now, I think this is one of the hardest lessons for Christians to learn.

We often think our task is to change the world.

But God's first work is changing us.

Hope completed the picture.

Not passive hope.

Not wishful thinking.

Patient hope.

Active hope.

The kind of hope that prepares for Christ's return.

I often think of gardeners when I reflect on this.

You do not sow a crop and immediately put your feet up waiting for harvest.

You weed.

You water.

You prune.

You thin the young plants.

If you grow beetroot, you even pull some up and replant them.

A gardener waits, but a gardener waits actively.

That is how we understood hope.

Christ was coming.

Therefore we worked.

Christ was coming.

Therefore we loved.

Christ was coming.

Therefore we remained faithful.

We were not prepared to wait for Christ sitting on our hands.

Because, as Paul knew, being a Christian in Thessalonica was not easy.

People sometimes imagine the early church as a golden age.

It was not.

We became outsiders.

People pursued the gods of wealth, status, pleasure and convenience.

Those of us who followed Christ were considered strange.

The Jews rejected us because we believed Jesus was the Messiah.

Many within our city rejected us because we refused to worship whichever god happened to suit the occasion.

We discovered very quickly that following Christ came at a cost.

Yet Paul had taught us something important.

We had to turn from the gods we followed.

The Jews called this repentance.

We turned away from idols.

We turned toward God.

Then we served the one true and living God through our faith, our labour of love and our patient hope.

Finally, we waited.

But true waiting is never passive.

True waiting recognises that God's timing belongs to God alone.

Christ will come in God's time, not ours.

Our task is not to predict the day.

Our task is to prepare the way.

Our task is to love faithfully today.

That was what Paul taught us.

That was what he modelled for us.

That was his testimony.

So we followed him.

We imitated him.

And somehow our little church became known throughout Macedonia and Achaia.

Can you imagine that?

We were not powerful.

We were not famous.

We were not influential.

We were simply faithful.

Paul called us a tupos.

Now in your language you might hear the word "type", but for us it meant something much deeper.

It meant an impression.

The mark left by a seal.

The imprint left by a stamp.

Something that permanently alters the surface upon which it falls.

So when Paul described us as a tupos, he was telling us that our lives had left an impression upon the people around us.

What an extraordinary thing to hear.

Even after all these years, I am humbled by it.

And sometimes I wonder whether that is why our letter still survives today.

It was never meant to become famous.

It was simply a personal letter from Paul to a church he loved.

A letter encouraging us.

A letter strengthening us.

A letter answering our questions.

A letter reminding us who we were.

Yet God preserved it.

Perhaps because our story is not really about us.

Perhaps it is about what God can do through ordinary people.

We were simply a group of believers trying to follow Christ in a complicated city.

We were trying to put our faith into practice.

We were trying to labour in love.

We were trying to live in hope.

And by God's grace, that simple faithfulness left an impression.

If there is one thing I would leave with you today, it is this.

Put your faith into practice.

Let love shape your actions.

Live in active and patient hope.

Allow God's grace to transform your life.

For I have learned over many years that the greatest testimony is not found in grand achievements.

It is found in everyday faithfulness.

It is found in choosing Christ again and again.

It is found in allowing him to leave his imprint upon your life so that his imprint might be seen by others.

Thank you for listening to my story.

Thank you for listening to the story of my church.

And thank you for listening to the story of God's faithfulness among us.

No reira rā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

We Serve a God of Compassionate Justice

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena tatou, katoa

Last week Cecily reminded us that, as we read the story of the Exodus Journey in Exodus, we too must remember that we are on a journey with God. We were reminded, to quote Cecily that “our actions and behaviours are a direct result of our attitude”. So I wonder, if on our journey with God, when we encounter brokenness, how do we act? Are we prepared to step out and act on the word of God?

Especially, when that word tells us to love God’s Law; if you read the Old Testament closely, you will find a common theme come through – Lord, I love your Law. Just look at the oldest and one of the most structured Psalms in the Bible, Psalm 119. The whole Psalm is obsessed with God’s Law, all 173 verses focus on the precious nature of God’s Law. I wonder if verse 97 sumerises how WE think about God’s Law today? “How I love your law! I think about it all day long”

Personally, I think it is fair to say that very few of us here think and meditate on the 613 laws and commandments that can be found in the books of Moses daily. Most of us would agree that one of the differences between the first testament and the second is that in the first testament, God revealed himself through his Law, yet in the second, God reveals himself through his Son. However, we need to be careful to assume that Christ replaced the Law entirely. If both the Law and Jesus reveal to us our heavenly God, then there is still something to be found in God’s Law. We can find the heart of God in his Law. This is why we are called to worship through a meditation on God’s word and Law.

And, this is why we need to venture into the books of the Law in the first testament. The Law is a beautiful thing. It is worthy of meditation because when we struggle to see Jesus by our side, we can find both Him and His Father in the Law.

One of the attributes of God revealed through, and in the Law, is one of Justice. In fact, it is one of Compassionate Justice. Both the Law and Jesus instruct us to live lives of Compassionate Justice. We are called not to be silent in injustice. We are called to label something what it is, if the world is broken, we are to call it broken and live a life separate to this brokenness so that God can be revealed. We are called to speak up for the poor; but, also, to speak up for the rich. We are called to not take sides. Sorry, I have that slightly wrong, we are called to only take one side in cases of injustice, and at is the side of our Father.

This is the heart of the Law. This is the heart of the Son. Compassionate Justice is what we have been called to even when we live in a world of injustice. And I am going to get to the world a bit later on, let’s start where we should all start – in the Word and Law of our Father. As I read this, I ask that you close your eyes and listen with your whole being. Allow yourselves to meditate on these verses. I am reading from Exodus 23, verses 1 to 9 from The Voice translation:

Do not pass along a false report. Do not plot with evil people to give a false witness.  Even if the majority of people are doing evil, do not follow them.  

Also when you are called to give testimony in a dispute, do not let the crowd pressure you into perverting justice.  In the same way, do not side with the poor in a complaint just because he is poor.

 If you are walking along and come across your enemy’s ox or donkey that has wandered away, then you must return it to its owner.  If you see the donkey of someone you know who hates you and it has fallen beneath its load, you must not leave it there. You must stop and help the donkey recover the load.

 Do not deny justice to the poor among you in their disputes.  Stay far away from false accusations, and do not condemn the innocent or righteous to death. Understand this: I will not acquit those who commit such miscarriages of justice.

 Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe can blind those who see and twist the words of those who are in the right. Do not oppress an outsider. You know well what it is like to be an outsider living in a foreign land, for you were strangers once in the land of Egypt.

Many of us have been there, a typical school playground. But all of us here would have been a different person in the story. Some of us would have been the rejected one, the one that no one liked. Some of us would have been the cool kids. And some of us just wanted to have friends. The story remains the same all the time. The rejected kid sits at a table with just-plain normal kids and the cool kids come up – eaw, why are you sitting with the reject? Look, come over to our table. No rejects sit there. If you stay sitting with the reject you will get the curse of the cheese. You will smell like the reject and then you will be rejected.

The next day, the rejected one brings chewing gum to school and uses it to try and make friends. It seems to work until PE class. You see, the reject finds them self without a locker to put their bag in. The normal kids come in and, wanting to be cool, instead of making sure the bag was safe, finders’ keepers, losers’ weepers after all, they take the bag with the gummy contents, leaving all the books behind. The rejected one, has to carry their books home in a shopping bag. But the bag soon breaks so the books are stacked high in the rejected one’s arms as they stumble home to the chorus of laughter from their school peers.

No one ever asked the rejected one for their story. If they had asked, they would find out why this kid comes to school in old hand-me-downs, sporting black-eyes and without the latest gadgets.  They turned up as the new kid at the beginning of the year. Because they hadn’t done primary or intermediate with the others, they had no right to feel accepted. Not at this school anyhow. At this school, everyone had to play the same game

This school story bears all the injustices of Exodus 23:1-9:

• The injustice of lies and rumours
• The injustice of following the crowd so that we don’t feel rejected
• The injustice of taking someone’s possessions, or leaving someone’s possessions to be taken when they are out in the open
• The injustice of walking away when someone is bearing a burden
• The injustice of accepting bribes, and therefore, allowing oneself to be blind, deaf and mute as a result
•  The injustice of ill-treating an outsider
• The injustice of denying justice – full stop!

If we want to see our God in these verses with the understanding that he is telling us his nature through his Law, this is our God, this the way we are called to live:

• Justice is about speaking the Truth; especially as we serve ‘The Way, The Truth, and The Life’
•  Justice is about standing up for the victim even if we have to step out of the crowd
•  Justice is ensuring that our enemy is not denied possessions that they rightly own and need
• Justice never walks away from  those carrying burdens
•  Justice refuses bribes, and therefore, chooses to see, hear and speak the Truth
• Justice shows compassion for outsiders
• Justice is nothing short but compassion in action

But this is not our world today. And hear me here friends, this message is not about rich or poor. But rather it is about the outsiders and the insiders. It is about the ‘us’ or the ‘we’ and the ‘them’ or the ‘other’.  It is about the precarious nature of this world today as the disillusioned working-class peoples around the world find their shared frustration and anger pushing them to vote together as one for extremist leaders and policies.  The world today is broken.

In many places there is no compassion and where there is many are speaking against the compassion being offered. We have the truly scary elections in the United States, where walls are being talked about to stop outsiders entering, meanwhile, the current President finds himself in tears at a funeral for five police officers because the racism Martin Luther King Jr preached against is still evident in his country today. In Europe, we have a massive refuge crisis and countries falling apart. The German president, a strong Christian, has vowed open doors for refugees; her country is against this policy and she will probably be voted out in the next election. The UK is now leaving the EU, a decision which will affect generations and has already affected ethnic groups within England. Polish businesses and cultural clubs have been attacked; leaders on both sides are calling for calm. Meanwhile, we have the terrors of groups such as ISIS, and the ethnic cleansing of Christians. The world is broken.

And what can we do about what is happening in the world today. Well there is only one answer, pray. Pray hard and pray strong.

With all this going on, it is a good thing that we live in little Aotearoa New Zealand eh? While I agree that we are all globally connected today and I agree that these things can, and might, happen in Aotearoa, I actually believe that we have our own injustices occurring. Injustice can be found in three ways here in Aotearoa.

First, we have historical injustice. Historically, the missionaries brought to Aotearoa three things, first they brought western knowledge and technology, second the brought the gospel and thirdly they brought, Te Tiriti. Our Maori ancestors accepted all three. By the 1860s, more Maori could read and more Maori attended church than their Pakeha counterparts. Problem is, settlers wanted and needed land. Like a donkey left on the side of the road, successive Governments enabled this land to be taken and used. Maori saw Te Tiriti as a covenant (just as God made a covenant with Moses), Pakeha governments didn’t. As the church had a central role in the development of Te Tiriti, we as New Zealand Christians need to choose to open our ears and listen to the stories of the past so that healing can occur for all of us.

If this is something that you think you need to know about then a good place to start are the books:

Healing our History, or Bible and Treaty

Second, we have welfare injustice. As a country we pride ourselves on being the first welfare state in the world. While this is only true in the contemporary sense (you see, Israel’s Law enabled a welfare state in the Biblical sense), it does mean that as a country, we pride ourselves on supporting the less-well off. But the truth is here in this valley. This valley was a construction of the welfare state. Okay, we have very few state homes; but most of the homes in this valley were built to enable people to have a start in a nice home and community. We also had factories here in this valley and over the hill meaning that families were assured of employment. They are all gone now. Most went in the 1980s. What also left us in the 1980s was the old Welfare State. Before successive political reforms, high taxes meant that benefits enabled people to live adequately until they found work. And yes, the way the country was structured back in the past meant that unemployment rates were kept at a bare minimum. At one time, the prime minister knew the names of the unemployed by heart.

Our welfare system is no longer like this; we live in a job market. Beneficiaries are shamed through the process. Alongside this, we have been fast moving up the ranks towards first place in statistics of shame. We now have the second highest child abuse rate in the OECD. One child dies every two weeks often as a result of parents not coping. If we agree that it is not okay for our poor to live in garages, if we agree that it is not okay for parents to be working four jobs but still needing a food bank, if we agree that our children deserve to live in love and warmth, then are called to speak, to have a voice, and assist the poor step out and act in love.

If this is something you are interested in, talk to Allan Taylor about CAP and the video that was shown last week showing that our Church recognises the trauma of poverty and the story of hope that can counter it.

If you want to know what happened in the 1980s then watch the DVD ‘In the Land of Plenty’ or the series ‘Revolutions’ on YouTube

Finally, we have outsider injustice here in Aoteaora. I don’t see this as much in places like Wainuiomata, but I do see this in small town Aotearoa. Many Pakeha NZers, do fear foreigners and are quick to knock our Pasifika and Maori brothers and sisters. I have seen this often on the gossip book – facebook – where people, my friends, are quick to speak against and in fear of outsider groups. There was one time I posted a video, very much about this message, where a Muslim sister spoke about 9/11 and her family’s fear. They decided to go to the Mosque to worship and were blown away by the Christians who were there to say we will not reject you. We will stand with you. We will show compassion. But the comments to this woman’s amazing speech on my Facebook feed were of absolute hatred and fear. Church, I only want to fear one thing, and that is God.  

If people are going to speak against the outsiders living with us and these outsiders have done us no harm, then God calls us to stand with the outsiders and speak with them on their behalf.

So, how do we live a life of compassionate justice? Well, it is simple – choose to see injustice. This involves knowing and hearing all sides of the story. And this means, going deeper than television and newspaper news, both of which are created with advertisers in mind and not you. So, first you have to see, then you have to hear, and then you have to act, and this just might involve speaking.  

You need to know your Truth and speak your Truth. And if your Truth is the heart and mind of our Lord Jesus Christ, then if you enemy, is lying on the street beaten and bated, you won’t leave them there in the mud. You will know the intent of the Law as Jesus summarised in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. You will go to them and you will show them love, you might be passionate about your faith, you might be passionate about your God and your Saviour, but you share both God’s passion and His heart. And when God’s heart and your heart become one it takes all this passion for justice to emerge and the result is the outpouring of compassion bucket after bucket.

So, church we are going to finish this message with a short Ted Talk about Justice and Silence. Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu once said to ‘To choose to be silent in moments of injustice is to choose to take the side of the oppressor’. It is by this saying and Truth that I choose to live my life personally. I will not be silent about the injustice in this world. I will not be silent about the injustice in this county, even if it means I have to buy history books.  I will know my God, I will know my Truth, and I will choose not to be blind, deaf and mute to this world.  I will not give up one of the most precious gifts God has given me – my voice.

No Reira

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou, katoa

Voting is a Waste of Time in Aotearoa: Yeah Right

You know your country’s broken when … voting seems a waste of time. You know your country’s is failing its people when … voting is seen as something separate to youth development.

If you think that voting is a waste of time because both the so-called ‘left’ and the so-called ‘right’ have the same policies at the end of the day, then you are right. But you are wrong to use this as an excuse not to vote. Somewhere along the line, we have got ourselves into the trap of thinking it has to be one party or another in coalition with smaller parties. We have failed to realise that even the big parties started once as small. They had to prove themselves in order to be the players in the political game that they are now.

One thing that age has taught me is that policies of advantage and disadvantage simply advantage those who vote and disadvantage those who don’t. It is simple math, really. Hence why, in our nation, Maori and women fought so hard to vote. So why have we stopped seeing the power in the ballot? And what does this mean for youth development?

If you want to see when voters were disadvantaged you have to journey back to the 1980s and the welfare reforms that took place under the Lange Government (Labour). The Labour party has traditional left-leaning roots back to the mining communities of the West Coast. The Savage Government of the 1930s heralded in massive reforms to enable those of us at the bottom rung of the ladder the support to get through the hard times. Full employment was the aim and the policies of this Government and by the 1960s, we were just that, a nation fully employed (we have to remember though that we are talking about our menfolk).

With global and local economic crashes in the 1980s, something had to change and it did. Under the Labour Government, we switched our thinking from social outcomes to economic outcomes. This meant that unemployment became needed in order to enable the free market to flourish. Labour promised a change when it was apparent that workers were hurting. They were voted in again. And, they under the policies of Roger Douglas, they were lied to. When the 1990s hit, a National Party was elected, with the finance minister Ruth Richardson thanking Labour for starting the job. The welfare reforms that followed simply crushed our poorest.  For those of us of the 1990s high school generation we watched as tertiary education became user-pays. That election we were too young to vote. Not having a voice meant a pathway for those in advantage, setting policy, allowed them to disadvantage those of us without that pathway.

So, yes, if you were voting in the 1980s, you would be right. Your vote wouldn’t count. But we live in different times now. MMP allows us to keep the big players in Government in check. It allows us to vote for the independents and smaller parties. But, only some of us vote, those of us who benefit from a free market Government. Many other people aren’t voting. The reality is, you will get what you always got (and maybe lose some), if you don’t vote.

Over the years, I have watched less and less young people being empowered to vote because the adults in their lives don’t emphasise the importance. It is true, young people are engaging more and more in political actions. The one that we need to emphasise more and more is the power to vote. Imagine the difference that we can make, that you can make, to the mistakes of the economic policies of the last 30 years if everyone that has experienced disadvantage due to these policies voted.

I am not calling for a Donald Trump to be elected but what we are seeing in America is the disadvantaged working class speaking up. They are tired of seeing policy driven by corporate agendas and a perception that other minorities matter more than them and their families. Let us not get to the extreme point of the United States, but let us make a stand for those who are disadvantaged in our communities. Let us create a world for tomorrow where our children enter in with their gifts and talents not with a huge debt and no hope for the dreams of the baby boomer generation.

As we journey towards another voting cycle. My challenge to us all is not to vote for yourself and what you need. Vote for your neighbour. Think of the most disadvantaged person in society, the homeless youth on the street, the abused kid, the prisoner that always wanted a life outside of the bars but doesn’t know the way. Vote for the policies that will support and enable them. Let us reshape the image we have of ourselves as a nation. Let us be a society first, an economy second. Most of all let us encourage a new generation of voters to sign up and have their say.