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Good morning.

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Today is World Toilet Day. Honestly, I’m not joking. It really is World Toilet Day. And it’s deadly serious. It’s a United Nations observance to highlight a serious problem that 2.5 billion people in the world do not have access to proper sanitation. It’s a startling fact that on this day in 1969 Apollo 12Ìýtouched down on the moon. Forty-six years ago we landed on the moon for the second time but by the year 2015 one in three of usÌýaround the world still has no access to a safe and private toilet. Can you even imagine not having a toilet? And here’s another shocking fact. In 2015, more people in the world have access to a mobile phone than a toilet. And the tragic result behind the startling facts is that 840,000 people die every year from diseases related to lack of access to water and sanitation. One of the UN’s Global Goals is clean water and sanitation for all by 2030.

In the parable of the sheep and the goats the King says to the sheep:

‘I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,ÌýI needed clothes and you clothed me,ÌýI was sick and you looked after me,ÌýI was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Perhaps today we could add ‘I was without a safe and private toilet and you helped to provide me with clean sanitation’.

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

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Lord for people who have no access to clean sanitation today we pray. May we who have everything take one small step today to aid those who have nothing, Amen.