I heard recently that some folks are announcing their intention to make the country ungovernable.

I’m not quite sure what they might mean by those words. Maybe it means they want to make everyone responsible for themselves. Maybe it means they want to seize the part of the country’s wealth and power they don’t have access to. Maybe it’s a cry for help, albeit a challenging and angry one. Whatever it means, it’s an indication that life continues to become more divisive as we move through this century. It’s ironic to me that such an intention can be voiced semi-safely. In another country it would be a declaration of war and certain imprisonment.

The world is not the way it was and probably not the way most of us prefer it to be – socially cohesive, wealth shared, general outlook of safety for each other. Maybe actually it has never been whatever our preferred options are. Some have always felt disenfranchised to the point of rebellion; some have always lived feeling like outsiders in their own country. Maybe our view of our country has always been more myth than reality. Maybe. Perhaps we have been silenced by convention, by fear, by feeling too small to say anything. Or maybe the country has always been what we thought it was. And was, as long as we went to the right school or were brought up in the right suburb or the right town. Maybe.

I recently heard a comment on radio that “We need the All Blacks to be strong because that’s all we working class people have got.” It’s very hard to begin to make sense of the changes we are now confronted with, some of which are couched in the name of being Christian. To which many others retaliate with – not my understanding of Christianity. There’s a gulf of understanding and practice about almost everything. What are we to make of this as church folk? I’m not about to tell you because I am pretty sure the response would be that I don’t speak for someone else … And on it goes, and remains.

We have not listened well to the history of being Methodist in this country. I am not a good historian but I’m aware that the streams of Methodism that arrived in this country caused divisions too - among Methodists and among society. I make the plea to understand that history and to learn from it. When we celebrate our bicentennial history at Conference this year, what do we think we are celebrating? What has happened since? When we tell our land stories, or immigration stories, our tangata whenua stories, is it possible to really hear them? Maybe. It would be a sign of hope indeed.