Asylum Seekers – in the spirit of Bonhoeffer

November 13, 2009 – 10:55 am

This statement is developed from an e-mail sent to the Prime Minister earlier this month.
A STATEMENT ON ASYLUM SEEKERS
TO THE PRIME MINISTER AND THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT
Wes Campbell, November 2009

I offer these reflections as a way of gaining some clarity about our response to asylum seekers in the light of the Prime minister’s espoused source of inspiration from the German theologian and Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

I am pressed to this piece of writing because the issue of refugees has reappeared, and along with it, harsh rhetoric by politicians from the Coalition (including those former Ministers Downer and Ruddock), responsible for Coalition policy and, regrettably, from Prime Minister of the Labor government, Kevin Rudd.

During the rule of the former Labor Government and the subsequent Howard Liberal Government I had the opportunity to meet many people who came seeking asylum. They sought to be accepted as refugees having fled their country at a time when refugees were often vilified and dealt harsh treatment by departmental officers. Some had arrived by ship or plane, and some by boat. Some had fled to avoid conscription into war, others had already been imprisoned, some left their families to make this journey, and others came with family members. It became clear to me – as one who has also spent time away from Australia as a foreign student – the decision to leave one’s family home and country is not an easy decision but is a major step, prompted by many factors including fear of persecution and death. When the Tampa incident took place, then the sinking of SIEV X, two things were alarming. One, the vilification of those who sailed in these boats and, two, the government’s rhetoric declaring that Australia was to be ‘flooded’ with such people, and this should be regarded as a threat to Australia’s security. It was rarely acknowledged that many of these people were fleeing war zones (as they are now), and often belonged to minorities within their countries. Certainly little acknowledgment was given to the way in which Australia has been enriched by people fleeing, such as Jewish people during World War II.

It is significant that the question of asylum seekers was a pressing issue in the 1930s, and when people fled Germany they had difficulty finding acceptance from other governments. The classic case is the ship which sailed around the Mediterranean, being refused entry. (see the account from a Socialist perspective; http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php…)

In the light of the Prime Minister’s stated appreciation of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it is worth exploring his attitude to the Jewish people. One might have expected that members of the Confessing Church, such as Karl Barth, would have raised their voices against the anti-Jewish policies, but they were largely silent. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the few churchmen who protested. He was particularly critical of church movements which interested themselves in ecclesiastical and liturgical matters but failed to speak out in protest at the treatment of the Jewish people.

Certainly, it is not a simple matter in referring to Bonhoeffer and his attitudes in a situation different from our own. I make no appeal to the other over-simplistic and flawed approach: WWJD (what would Jesus do?), although there is certainly precedent for listening carefully to the ancient prophets who insisted on care and support for orphans, widows and aliens.

There will be those who use language which refers to ‘waiting lists’, jumping queues, economic migrants, and ‘illegals’. It will be rightly pointed out that there are many thousands of people who are displaced into camps, marshalling an argument which insists that such people should wait their turn. And there will be those who speak in alarmed tones of the ‘floods’ of people waiting to get into Australia. The Australian Government has the tak of ensuring that this discussion is not driven by fear or hysteria but is based in the socio-political realities of our region and the desperation of those who fear for their lives, taking the only option available – fleeing their home country.

Bonhoeffer did accept that the State should ensure good order. Such a State is therefore obliged to act justly.

What does Bonhoeffer’s view of the Jewish people have to say to us? The Jews were vilified, treated as financially rapacious and as a-group within the civilized society that could be legitimately placed in ghettos, treated as sub-human and murdered. Bonhoeffer knew that none of this is acceptable – not merely for theological reasons (they are the ‘chosen people’) but on grounds of sheer humanity, and in the name of justice.

In today’s world of war and displaced persons, I believe Bonhoeffer is a reminder that there is a costly task awaiting those who live in relative comfort; that is to welcome those in danger and in need. For those who claim to be Christian there is an extra level of interpretation – an understanding that in responding to those in need, we respond to Jesus Christ himself; or, more fundamentally, to God’s need.

In the case of people seeking asylum in Australia (whether by means of entry with adequate documentation, or those who risk sailing to our shores in small boats) we must – at the very least – provide them with the opportunity to put their claim for asylum, dealing with those claims as expeditiously as possible. We need to permit that process on Australian soil (not Indonesia, not Christmas Island, nor any other island). If that is done, we will be honoring our obligation to them as human beings, and as required by our international commitments.

I therefore encourage the Australian Government to remember the Australian experience of welcoming refugees, having received displaced peoples from many wars, including Jewish people who escaped the Nazi genocide, reminding our populace that Australia deals with but a small minority of the world’s displaced peoples. I therefore encourage the Australian Government, in the face of the deep-seated Australian fear of those who sail to our shores from the north, to make the case strongly for their welcome.

I appeal to the Australian Government to acknowledge the power a government has in shaping a national ‘narrative’, and to take seriously the role of government in shaping human society with justice. Contrary to the view that political courage is foolish or fool-hardy, I encourage the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and to the Australian Government to take up this task.

Wes Campbell
11th November 2009

By wesblog | Posted in justice & peace, occasional reports | Comments (0)

The Preamble: church and Aboriginal Australia

November 12, 2009 – 4:46 pm

THE PREAMBLE
November 2009

The Uniting Church in Australia is now addressing the question of a new ‘Preamble’ to its Constitution.
This comes after discussion with the UAICC (Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress), and discussion at the 2009 Assembly in July 2009.

 http://assembly.uca.org.au/images/storie…

The Preamble replaces an original paragraph with several paragraphs which give a brief account of the role of the church in Australian (settlement/invasion). The preamble also declares that the Indigenous experience of God is in continuity with their present confession of Jesus Christ.

Additional to the proposed Preamble are constitutional changes which give new rights and responsibilities to the Congress.

We may expect that these changes will produce strong discussion in the Uniting Church, not only because it is critical of the church’s role in dispossession, but also because it seeks to identify the God known for millennia is also the God revealed and known in Jesus Christ.

The discussion of the church’s involvement in European occupation and complicity (both willing and unwitting) takes us into hotly contested territory – the same that has been described as the ‘history wars’, and rejected by John Howard as ‘black-armband’ history.
This is recalled in brief by Robert Manne in The Monthly, November 2009:
 http://www.themonthly.com.au/nation-revi…
That comment by Manne introduces a scarifying account of black/white history in Australia: The Brutal Truth: What Happened in the Gulf Country by Tony Roberts
 http://www.themonthly.com.au/monthly-ess…

None of this is easy to read and to hear. It touches on deeply held views about our identity as Australians. It requires revisiting those beliefs about the early years of European presence in this country. It also confronts us with the cooperation of church with civil powers in the act of dispossession; not the least because the Uniting Church has had close association with this history: both in missions and in support for Land Rights. A recognition of the ‘stolen generations’ was prompted by a former President of the UCA Assembly and member of the High Court, Ron Wilson. Most painfully, it brings us to the grief and loss of dispossession experienced even now by the indigenous people of Australia.

Voices have been heard in the Uniting Church, as they continue to be, with different views of this history. The difficulty of engaging this history was illustrated at the Assembly itself. As the discussion of the Preamble proceeded in usual Anglo style, the Elders of the Congress declared that they no longer felt safe and absented themselves from the Assembly meeting. Those who were left in the meeting had to wrestle with why this took place. My own reading is this: the act of removing themselves from the debate was a signal that they had not been heard, and their absence depicted starkly the silencing of their voice. No double there are other readings.

I am aware that there will be theological discussion in various parts of the church. Among other resources is the book by Chris Budden, Following Jesus in Invaded Space: Doing Theology on Aboriginal Land (Princeton Theological Monograph Series 116 (2009).

When Latin American theologians in the 1970s began to find their own theological voice they applied themselves to an understanding of the history of their countries, engaging the socio-political and economic realities there. Following the Second World War, when European churches confronted the Nazi death camps and the genocide of the Jewish people, they grappled with the long history of anti-Jewish theology and politics in Europe, as they confessed their own part in that mass murder. In Australia the church is called to no less. The Assembly (in 2009) did adopt a statement on Jews and Judaism: a Statement by the Uniting Church in Australia.
For the text - http://assembly.uca.org.au/images/storie….

The UCA is now required to do no less as it engages in discussion of the words and implications of the new Preamble. This discussion requires a theological wrestling, the confession of sin, and the commitment to reformed, reconciled and just attitudes and actions.
Resources to assist:
 http://assembly.uca.org.au/resources/pre…
 http://assembly.uca.org.au/images/storie…
From there you will be able to download the Q&A document.

My strong hope is that the theologians of the church who concern themselves with ‘holiness’, ‘doctrine’ and ‘truth’ will take seriously what the Basis of union clearly appreciates – that we must be open to new understanding and new deeds, as declared in paragraph 19 (1992 edition):

Paragraph 18: The People of God on the Way
The Uniting Church affirms that it belongs to the people of God on the way to the promised end. The Uniting Church prays that, through the gift of the Spirit, God will constantly correct that which is erroneous in its life, will bring it into deeper unity with other Churches, and will use its worship, witness and service to God’s eternal glory through Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.
For the full text;
 http://victas.uca.org.au/who-we-are-what…

That is the spirit in which I will attempt to engage this discussion.

By wesblog | Posted in Aborigianl Land & Theology, justice & peace, theological reflection | Comments (0)

Women in the Story – Brunswick UCA, 8th Nov 09

November 9, 2009 – 2:18 pm

Sermon 8th November 2009 Pentecost 23
Ruth 1: 1-18; Psalm 146;
Hebrews 9: 11-14; Mark 12:38-44
Brunswick UCA
by Wes Campbell

A quote from the Age of Thursday last (5th November):
‘Forty years after Australian women won the right to equal pay, the Rudd government will back a major test case seeking hefty pay rises for 200,000 mostly female workers in the community sector.’
Equal pay for women’s work done outside the home! I note, as I say that, we have not yet begun to speak of an acknowledgment of women’s work in the home!

We have heard stories of a number of women this morning. For them, the notion of equality of women to men was unthinkable. Mostly, it would be fair to say, these women were invisible and overlooked. All the more remarkable, then, that their stories are recorded in the Bible.

What’s more, we have to listen carefully because the way we have heard these stories has been affected by the fact that men scholars have read them and taught us to hear them in a certain way.

Alert to that, we may ask why these stories were told in the first place, have been preserved and retold.

Consider the story of Ruth. In our Bible, following the order of the Greek version of Israel’s scriptures (The Old Testament called the Septuagint) , this small pamphlet, a short story, has been placed between the books of Judges and Samuel. In that case, Ruth is regarded as coming from a time in the early years of the people of Israel, in the time of the Judges.

Or, consider that in the Hebrew language Version of the ‘Old Testament’, the Book of Ruth appears among the wisdom writings, along with Proverbs, Song of Solomon, Job, Ecclesiastes, and so on: Ruth can be read as coming from the time of kingly courts, a story designed to boost the monarchy.

Then again, it might also be that the book is written very late, after the time of the exile, to provide a lesson about the way Israel is to relate to its neighbours.

Does it matter when this story is written? And how will we know anyway? Perhaps we might just listen to the story itself!

Remember how it began: a man and his wife – that is Elimelech and Naomi experience famine in the southern part of Israel called Judah).
Notice how it is said:
‘…there was a famine in the land , and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab…’
oh, yes,
‘he and his wife and two sons.’
This begins as a man’s story. He with his possessions, a wife and two sons leave their home country with their two sons, and head for Moab.
Moab is a neighbouring country but there is a long standing hatred between Israel and Moab. (Consider the heat that exists between Israeli and Palestinian people of today, and you are somewhere near it.) Nevertheless, this small Israelite family finds a home there, and settles, but the man of the family, Elimelech, dies. What hope is there? A widow was in real danger. She had no man to protect her, and she is a foreigner. Well, some relief seems to be at hand: her grown sons take wives, Orpah and Ruth. They are intermarrying. As foreigners, they are now entering a foreign people through marriage. But then the unimaginable happens: both sons die. Just like that!

The other day I was shocked to hear that some ministers are interpreting the story in this way:
Naomi must have done something really evil, such is her punishment. The death of her husband and sons must be God punishing her.
Do you think that? There is not a hint of that punishment in the story. Rather, the events just follow one after the other, one death after another.

Is it like those Sri Lankan people who escape from detention camps, find enough money to board a flimsy, unseaworthy boat, hoping to find safety in another country, only the boat sinks and most of the family drowns? God’s will! Not in this story. (You may remember that Job has friends who try to convince him that the disasters which befall him must be some sort of divine punishment. Job also rejects that explanation.)

Naomi, an unprotected woman, a foreigner, decides that the best thing she can do is to return to her homeland. She heads for the border with her grieving daughters in law. When they reach the border, and are about to step across it, Naomi appeals to her companions to go back to their own people. Life will be more secure for them that way. Perhaps they will find a man to protect them!

Orpah, convinced, turns and leaves. Ruth, quite unconvinced, clings to Naomi. That was the power of the painting we looked at. And then Ruth makes this amazing vow:
‘Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
Where you die I will die…
May the Lord do thus and so to me and more as well.’

Hear that passionate promise:
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.

So, Naomi gives up trying to persuade her otherwise, and they go together to Bethlehem. Note that – to Bethlehem!

The story will continue; Naomi and Ruth live by their wits and intelligence. Boaz appears in the story, a rich landowner, and a relative. Naomi advises Ruth to seduce Boaz, who falls into that pool, and ends up marrying Ruth.

This is a remarkable tale. It comes to us in the middle of stories of men at war. Judges, prophets and later, kings.

How are we to read this little story of these resourceful women?
The story hints that we should not simply take it at face value; the names given to the characters are puns; what the meanings here are not necessarily fixed, but you’ll get the idea from these suggested meanings: for example, Naomi is said to mean ‘pleasant’ or ‘pleasure’; Ruth means ‘pasture’ or ‘companion’; Orpah may mean ‘to mourn’, or ‘stop here’; Mahlon may mean ‘sickness’, and Chilion , ‘weakness’; and, Elimelech, ‘God is my king’;.

However, apart from that implied meaning in Elimelech’s name, God hardly gets a mention: and when referred to, it is by the foreigner Ruth. So, this is certainly a story about King David and his ancestors: Ruth, you see, is David’s great grandmother. Now this is, in itself, remarkable. Usually it takes seven generations before a convert to Judaism can be regarded as fully Jewish – and here, the hated Moabit Ruth gives rise to the great king David in three generations.

Some interpreters reckon that this story of Ruth was told to address an issue in the life of the Jewish people; at a time when the Jewish people were afraid of losing their special identity, and were closing ranks against other peoples, foreigners. That is, following the exile in Babylon, when the people were scattered, and the Jewish sense of identity was fragile, a movement developed to try to keep Israel separate from foreigners. (We live through similar opinions every so often- it’s the One Nation’s appeal to people who fear the outsider is going to take our land and life from us!)

What a contrast to hear that Ruth, a foreigner and a woman is crucial to Jewish history, to the great king David, of Bethlehem!.

And if we listen carefully, we may also hear another level of meaning. In this very human story, when God hardly gets a mention, there is in fact a story of God here. In Ruth’s passionate vow to Naomi as she clings and promises to live and die with her, Ruth gives us a glimpse of the God who makes promises; and keeps them. You could say that the figure of Ruth is a parable of the Covenant God who is bound by a promise to Israel – and through that intimate and faithful bond with the Jewish people, reaches out to every other people and nation.

[And this has clear implications for us: as a church, we are called to be a covenant people, to trust it is possible to keep our promises to each other, to show that God is faithful by being faithful to one another!]

Now, that is what the temple in Jerusalem was meant to represent: God’s presence with the Jewish people; and a place where all nations will gather to know and worship God.

That is why Jesus goes to Jerusalem, and why we hear of him visiting the temple. But when he sees the widow putting all her money into the treasury boxes, he is outraged.

Many interpreters have seen the women in the temple and have said she is a picture of faith: she gives all. They say Jesus ‘commended her’. But we are now being led to see that this is a misreading. Notice that Jesus, looking at the temple and the religious authorities, launches into a scathing attack on the authorities who act in the name of God, exercise themselves with long prayers and flaunt their religion in town – but crush and destroy the widows. There he is at one with the prophets of Israel!

What are we to learn from the defenceless, impoverished woman? She is in company with the many women who come to Jesus for healing, and a full life. But today she is one with Jesus himself. The religious authorities will see Jesus as a threat to their religion and will seek to destroy him. When Jesus points to the widow, he is uncovering a system that pretends to be of God, but acts to serve the very opposite.

That is why the widow catches our attention. The very same forces which conspire against Jesus, are to be seen in the widow who is robbed of all she has.

Perhaps, and I say this cautiously, when we have noticed the severe critique, we might then see this women as pointing to Jesus who also gives all he has, in his death, his gift to his Father.

Clearly these stories today are not read to comfort us., They are designed to unsettle us – and to show us where God can be found; in the overlooked, and the defenceless.

If, as a Christian community, we took that just a little seriously, we would be in great trouble, and we would not remain silent about the women amongst us who are being crushed in the name of God, nor would we be able to live easily as long as there are people forced to flee their homes to seek refuge, and cry out for our welcome and our friendship, as they struggle for life.
May we hear their cry!

By wesblog | Posted in Bible study notes, sermons, theological reflection | Comments (0)

All Saints Day : death and new life

November 5, 2009 – 2:05 pm

A sermon preached on All Saints Day at Church of All Nations, Carlton, Sunday 1st November 2009
Wes Campbell
Isaiah 25: 6-9; Psalm 24; Revelation 21; 1-6a; John 11: 32-44

Halloween Pumpkins have been on sale in the supermarket. In our street we were encouraged to join in trick or treat.

Are you turned off by the American commercialisation? What is Halloween, anyway? Holy evening? All Souls? All Saints Day?. Some congregations take All Saints Day as an opportunity to remember those in the congregation who died in the past year. In Germany at this time this time of the year you see people tending graves, planting bulbs which will lie dormant during winter and bloom in spring. They are participating in ‘Alle Heilige’ commemoration –in English, All Saints, or All Souls.

Australians prefer to dwell on death as little as possible. Our best medical efforts keep us alive for as long as possible. Then when death comes we bury quickly and are urged to move on.
But Greek families not only gather for the funeral, the return to the grave time and again. To eat, to remember and to pray. At the funeral, as the coffin is lowered into the grave, bread, wine and grains of wheat are also tossed into the grave, elements of the Lord’s Supper. The person being buried has the church’s food with them; and here is the reminder that at the heart of the church’s life is a meal that celebrates both death and resurrection.

Do your Protestant hackles rise? Or your humanist ones? Prefer to keep it simple? Yes, it is wise to avoid a maudlin hankering after the person who has died. You may have seen an extreme case of this in the first part of Wuthering Heights last Sunday evening on ABC TV, where a grieving Heathcliff digs open the grave of his long-since deceased lover, and (thinking that he is with her preserved body), lies down with a skeleton! Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is in the same territory, where a son is unable to let his mother die.
Fortunately, now, funeral directors, pastors and even medical staff (!)do have more understanding now of the way death and loss affects us. We know that grief is sometimes so acute it feels as though we are going crazy – whereas we are going through a normal human response to death.

All Saints Day is an opportunity to take time to remember those who have died, and their continuing part in our life Those whose parents have died know what a gap their death leaves, as we discover that we are always the child of our parents. Perhaps even more devastating is when a parent experiences the death of a child. This reverses the order of things, and leaves the parent grieving the lost child.

Why would we want to forget who they are to us? It has been wisely observed that those who forget the dead will soon no longer remember the living.

That mix of forgetting and remembering goes on around us: with the apology to the Stolen Generations, and now a second apology to those people separated as children from parents and family. And consider, too, survivors of sexual assault, who remember the abuse and seek acknowledgement, reparation, healing.

That mix of forgetting and remembering also takes us to the mass murders and concentration camps and detention centres which seem to fade into the past, then suddenly re-emerge.

The perpetrators of such crimes do not want memory. It is being played out in the trial of Radovan Karadzic; but the victims will not be forgotten! See this in the animated film, Walz with Bashir, which tells of middle aged men who were soldiers, whose repressed memories of violence in their youth are resurfacing. The victims refuse to be forgotten. Although for some so great is the pain suffered, the survivor will be tempted to silence the memory in an effort to forget.

We seem to be on the horns of a dilemma: either remember and be overcome with deadly and immobilising grief; or forget and have your own spirit diminished by that amnesia.

Mary’s grief for her brother Lazarus shows how acute such grief is. The mourners stand, as they must, outside the tomb of death. Notice this strange fact about death. The person who dies undergoes their death; but it is living who experience their death, watching the loved one pass from breathing to stillness; it is the living who remember the act of dying. Those who continue to live, experience the death as they remember! They live on, as Robert Frost said in his poem: Out, Out. A young boy has his hand cut off by a circular saw and dies. But the parents: ‘since they were not the one dead, they turned to their affairs.’

Are these the two options? Being crushed with the weight of grief in a living death; or, living on the surface, denying death, trying to cover it over with tinsel.

Some try a religious path: deny that death really happens.
Be like the Egyptian Pharaohs who treat death as another step on a spiritual journey. The Pharaohs are not alone.
You may hear it said at funerals that the dead person is now a star watching over us; or perhaps you have heard the poem saying that the person in the coffin has not really died: they are just in the next room’! This has become very popular. In fact the Anglican Canon, Scott Holland, who was responsible for those words, was not endorsing such views; he was reporting on what people wee saying at funerals –he was saying that such statements were evasions of death’s reality. I have noticed that many films these days are exploring a sort of time-shifting, where time travellers fall in love though they belong to different times. I wonder it is another way of trying to beat death’s power, with its way of leaving things unfinished.

The reality of death is made clear at the tomb of Lazarus: he stinks!

Today’s verses from John’s Gospel are part of a longer passage. The dispute between Martha and Jesus seems to veer away from Lazarus to into a discussion about the future and resurrection at the end of time – only to have Jesus to cut across this discussion, and to call Lazarus from the tomb. But Lazarus is not being resurrected. This is merely (!) resuscitation; Lazarus will face his death again later. This episode points us to Someone who goes into the place of death, and its stink. Lazarus points to the resurrection of Jesus: Jesus, who says he is ‘the Way, the Truth and the Life will go into a godless death, to conquer its power. Not by sidestepping it, but by going directly into the emptiness and darkness of the grave.
John wants us to hear this:
Jesus who died in the name of God is given the future. Raised from death’s power he is the last word on life and death. Condemned by religion and politics, he now has the claim over all rulers, authorities, systems and empires.

That is the point of the Book of Revelation. You know it was a sort of secret pamphlet, Apocalyptic writing for early Christian communities undergoing persecution. It makes a claim that is offensive to the powers that be; it was offensive to the Roman Empire; after all, Jesus had been crucified by the Empire, but this vision declares he is at the centre.

If some talk these days of a clash of civilisations in the strife between Islam and the West, here in this Vision is a clash of loyalties and of empires. Here is a sharp contrast: a contrast between the world where Caesars describe themselves as divine and hold games bathed in blood, where the crushing boots and weapons of soldiers are expected to take the lives of others, and to sacrifice themselves; and in opposition – the vision of the new city of light, the new Jerusalem, where peace reigns, at its centre is the throne of God. And surrounding the throne are the crowds of matyr-saints, dressed in white holding palm branches and singing. At their centre is a slaughtered Lamb.

This clearly takes us into the world of the Twin Towers and the aftermath of their destruction. So, there are strong political themes here.

The claim is this: the future does not belong to those who hold political power and oppress their subjects, and crucify those who rebel. The future belongs, not to the eagle, to the lion, to the rampaging serpent, but to the Lamb that is slaughtered: Jesus, who refused of his followers desire to defend him by taking up swords; now surrounded by a great choir of voices, who hold in their hands palm branches. And from his mouth comes instruction to love your enemy, to do good to those who hurt you; to forgive those who offend you. These are the weapons of the New Jerusalem; and this is the place where the unprotected person receives a welcome, where those who are strangers are invited in, where the voices of curse are replaced with words of blessing.

The future belongs to him. At present other rulers do not see it – but his followers and witnesses live by this claim. Those who gather at his throne in John’s vision are those who witnessed to Jesus, at the cost of their lives. The martyrs in white who sing along with the rest of creation are his witnesses. And he is worth dying for. For with him comes the promise of a renewed Creation.

I was listening to an ABC Radio National interview with Linda Neil, a musician, on Saturday morning. In the course of the conversation, as she spoke about her mother, a singer who contracted Parkinson’s disease, she said something like this; a love song defeats death!
A love song defeats death.
Today we are being told of the love song Jesus sang; and then the answering love song that comes from his witnesses who gather around him.

John’s vision makes the amazingly bold claim that the choir of martyrs and saints around the Lamb is in tune with the deep structure of the universe; their choir sings along with the living beings of the entire creation; their love song is the very music of God who created the universe, and who is now engaged in saving all life: though Jesus the slaughtered Lamb.

Now he seeks witnesses who admit his claim on them and put themselves in his choir, in his corps.

We know some of them. And in our All Saints commemorations, we will name some of them. This very action recalls the New Testament’s claim that we are surrounded by a large community of faithful people, the ‘communion of saints’, who lived and died under the rule of Jesus Christ.
Some are in our family, others in congregations we know, others are known to us by reputation. For some it is as stark as Bonhoeffer stepping out of his cell towards the hangman’s noose, saying. ‘For me to live is Christ!’ Others live a quiet, hidden, loyal witness without any fanfare. They remind us that the word ‘saint’ is at root the same as the word, ‘holy’. Both have the sense of those who are called.

With them we are members of the ‘holy’ church – that is, to be part of that community called out to follow Jesus Christ.
When we gather around the table today, before we receive bread and cup, we will take a moment to recall the saints we know. To remember, and to name them. They are not forgotten and, what is more, their very names reassure us that we are not forgotten, but are called and claimed by, Jesus, crucified and risen. He claims us; now he wants us to live in his new life and, to help us, he surrounds us with the ‘communion of saints’.
Thanks be to God.

By wesblog | Posted in liturgical events, sermons, theological reflection | Comments (0)

Valedictory address St Hilda’s College 2009

October 21, 2009 – 2:37 pm

Psalm 98
Gospel according to Mark 9: 30-37
Meditation
Let us acknowledge with thanks that we are on land cared for by the Elders of the Wurundjeri people for many millennia, and so commit ourselves to the task of reconciliation.

Today, here and now, we are sharing in a Valedictory service. The word valedictory means a farewell oration (especially one delivered during graduation exercises by an outstanding member of a graduating class); a closing or farewell statement or address, especially one delivered at graduation exercises. I will speak now, and later the Valedictorians prayer, composed by a former student, will be prayed. The word valedictory comes from the Latin: vale farewell; goodbye.

So there is an ending here. A farewell. And yet, this is but one more step on your path. When I was in the United States in March one year I noticed the graduating students were attending Commencement ceremonies. Why commencement? because as they graduate and finish their studies they are commencing a new life! Setting out on a new path on their journey through life.

We live in a country where Aboriginal people had a pattern of journeys across this land. In our literature it’s the same: someone sets out on a journey, faces great dangers, and survives arriving at their goal: think of Pilgrims Progress, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and so on.

It’s true of the great spiritual traditions, too: Buddha sets out on a path of Enlightenment; Abraham (father of Jewish Muslim and Christian peoples) sets out from his settled home to become a nomad heading toward a promised land; the Jewish people remember that Moses led them on a journey, an exodus.

And every day now we hear reports of people who have set out on a dangerous journey as refugees, in boats, or planes, or trucks, looking for a new life. Most, if not all, of us are here because someone in our family set out on a journey to get to this great south land.

It is a normal thing for people to fly from Australia to places all over the planet, in journeys of all sorts. No doubt students who are completing their time here at St Hilda’s have plans for some sort of travel.

I recall that members of the earliest Christian community called themselves ‘people of the Way’; they understood that life is a journey. And in church services week by week, many congregations follow the journey Jesus took from the northern region of Galilee to the southern capital city, Jerusalem.

I come to this theme as a member of the church, a uniting Church minister. I know that we are a mixed group here today, with a variety of beliefs. Allow me to let you in to how I hear what happens with Jesus ‘on the way’ to Jerusalem. When he turns south, he warns his hand-picked companions that when he gets to the capital city he will be arrested and killed; and this is the way he must go. He repeats this to them several times; and he warns them that if they are to be his followers they will share in the same fate.

Then what happens? As soon as Jesus has finished talking about ‘losing self’, his travelling companions have an argument about who is the greatest. That is not really surprising. After all, like them, we are used to aspiring to be the greatest. I saw ‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ the other day. The film has its power because the Chinese dancer is superlative, one of the greatest. In academic life rewards are given to those who excel. And we also know how disappointed we are when we fail to match those dreams.

So it is entirely ‘natural’ for those people following Jesus, a special a teacher, to want to be his best student. And, more than that, they are following him because they imagine he will invade the city, take charge and set up his empire. If he is going to win power, they want to share in it. Except that Jesus has said that he is going to the city to lose everything, including his life. The New Testament has a Greek word for this: kenosis: self-loss. That is the summary of Jesus’ path.

When Jesus asks his disciples what they a were arguing about there is a silence. Probably an embarrassed silence. Then Jesus takes it in hand, and reminds his followers what he has said about his own destiny. And more, if anyone wants to follow it is in these terms; the greatest must be the least, the last will be first.

And then to make the point, he takes a child and says that this child is a picture of the kingdom of God. He is not talking about the child because it is cute. in those days children had no rights, and were most defenceless. Think of the African children now in AIDS-ridden Africa, and we are close to it. Putting such a weak one at the centre Jesus explains that anyone who wants to take the path he does must be ready to receive the one who is nothing!

Here we are hearing something that is completely counter-cultural – completely against every thing we think is normal. If the world tells us to put our ego first, Jesus says that he loses his ego for the sake of God and for the sake of humanity – and calls on his followers to do the same.
In other words, because Jesus puts his Father God at the centre of his concern, it removes his ego from the centre.

That is the path of life that he offers.

Jesus warns of the usual way things are, there is a hierarchy of power and those at the top rule for themselves. A friend who has just had heart surgery tells me that the medical world the GP is on the bottom of the pecking order, and the surgeon is on the top, and, of course, is most highly paid. The anaesthetist, he says, doesn’t even get acknowledgement because of being a mere scientist! Or you might think of military life, where the decorated and celebrated soldier kills most enemies, and does ‘heroic’ deeds.

And there is the role of political power: there is nothing as helpless as an opposition leader under attack undermined by others wanting power. And he ultimate, of course, is to be Prime Minister (as the name suggests – or, perhaps in reality, it is better to be an executive of a corporation, earning millions of dollars per year!

Power works in hierarchies. And yet perhaps there is something in the Australian approach that has learned from what Jesus is: where we affirm a life lived serving the best interests of others, especially the poor and sick. Consider Fred Hollows giving sight to African people; or Weary Dunlop, the general, who is remembered because of his care for the wounded and sick; or politicians who are remembered well because of social policies they set up to support those on low incomes. They used their power for the good of others. We see that too, in the current Quarterly Essay – a piece by Noel Pearson who, what ever we may think of his particular views, acts tirelessly for his people and in this essay is addressing questions of education and equality.

Today, as you conclude your studies – this part of them, at least – it is natural to recall your achievements and your successful path. As you do that let Jesus’ words echo when he speaks of ‘dying to yourself’, putting the last first, welcoming the little child. Follow the trajectory of his life as he empties himself, giving himself fully to his Father – which set him free to step out of the centre. That is what he offers his companions. Put him at the centre, and you no longer need to be at the centre of power. You will be free to give yourself away and to serve the best interests of those in need.

He also offers a gift to us when we fail to achieve what we longed for; when we judge ourselves to be a failure. At that point, when we are at our lowest, he reminds us that we a children of God, people of great dignity, with the possibility of living again, for him, and for others. And when we have to face hard things: the death of a parent or friend or loved one; serious physical or mental illness; the loss of certainty, he also gives us his companionship, promising to walk along the dark paths with us.

In all this, he relieves us of having to be at the centre of things; and frees us to put at the centre the person who has the least.

All that will allow us to receive the gift of learning we have been given, for the sake of others. We will receive our intelligence and will be set free to explore the universe, for others. In this we will receive life.

And to Valedictorians in particular, on this special, you will be free to remember all who have given life to you and have supported you, and to thank them. As they have given you the wealth of this education in this elite place, you are now free to explore how to use your gifts for the good of the weakest, most powerless and poorest in the world. How will you give of yourself in caring for the planet and all forms of life on it; how will you contribute to the making of life in whatever you do?

So I wish you this: may you discover the path that leads to life.

Let me now offer prayer and invite you to pray with me.
Welcoming companion God who has made the world with all its natural beauty and wealth and sets us on the path of life,
we thank you for your goodness to us.
We pray especially for Valedictory students concluding their courses, preparing for final exams, finishing papers, and anticipating their future, that their studies will bear good fruit. We give thanks for their learning, for all who have taught them; we give special thanks for their time in St Hilda’s as home, and for all who have enriched their life here.
With these students we also pray for all who are about to take a next step into a new future, that it may be a blessing to them.

We pray for all who face tests, examinations, assessment. And we pray especially for those who fail to achieve what they hoped for. May they learn that they are not measured as a person by their grades; release them from their disappointment and despair, so that they are free to become the people you will them to be.
We give thanks for those who have gone before us, people of every belief who have put their own ego in the service of others, whose example shows us how to live in freedom for God and for the good of others. Make us generous of heart and spirit.
Today, with the Valedictorians, we give special thanks for all who have walked with us to this point, parents, families friends and companions. Where they have given encouragement, shown generosity and support, may we thank them. And if we have taken their presence and support for granted, help us to find words and ways to show our gratitude.
We pray for children and all who will come after us that we will care for the planet and hand it on to them in good shape.

We remember with sorrow all whose lives have been devastated by natural events: bushfire, tsunami, earthquake, flood and typhoon, and for all who bear the burden of poverty in our global financial crisis. We remember those who are dear to us who have died; we pray for all who grieve the loss of family or friends through accident or illness. Set us free to look after the interests of those in need, who face death and grief and poverty; give us imagination and courage to support the weakest members of our world community. Fill us with hope for your future.
All these things we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. AMEN ,

By wesblog | Posted in liturgical events, sermons, theological reflection | Comments (0)

God after the ‘death of God’ – Thursday Forum

October 15, 2009 – 11:40 am

THURSDAY FORUM: God after the death of God
brief but serious Christian thinking -
WHEN: Thursday lunchtime, 1.05– 2.00pm,
22nd October 2009-
WHERE: MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY, Alice Hoy Building (Education), room 330 (off Monash Rd)
The sessions are short but interactive. Hosted by Wes Campbell, chaplain.

In the past century there have been numerous claims that God is dead or eclipsed, and theologians have wrestled with the question of how to speak about God. WE’LL REPORT ON THAT IN ONE LUNCH HOUR!

Garry Deverell, Professor of Worship and Preaching. Uniting Church Centre for Theology and Ministry. Garry is a Uniting Church minister who has also worked as a Baptist pastor and a university lecturer. His interests include continental philosophy, theology, politics and the renewal of the church. For fun he swims, reads novels and hangs out with his partner, Lil, and two gorgeous daughters.

More information – Wes Campbell:  wesleyc at unimelb.edu.au; tel: 0431 847 278/ 8344 6034.
This is the final forum for 2009! In 2010 we expect to continue the forums, exploring western culture, literature and the Bible; Christianity and politics; Christian response to war; a ‘new faith’?, and so on, drawing on local theologians and academics

By wesblog | Posted in calendar for 2009, god and secular world, liturgical events, theological reflection | Comments (0)

Afghanistan Rally Speech and draft resolution

October 13, 2009 – 10:06 am

On Saturday 8th October 2009 a rally was held in the City Square (Melbourne) to commemorate the Eighth anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, with a call to withdraw Australian troops. Several speakers directed us to the anti war movement in the United States, the mismatch between the original reasons given for invading Afghanistan and the present policies, the cost of the war and the resulting refugees coming to Australia from Afghanistan and the cost of the war, especially for women and children.

I was invited to speak and the text follows below. Some preliminary comments: I was aware that many of those present were socialist or – at least – not church members, but I decided that it was necessary to speak from the heart of the Christian faith. The background to my thinking was informed by a number of responses to the presence of Australian troops (1500) in Afghanistan. Some of these are:
- if we pull out now we will only make it worse;
- it’s a complicated situation and we need to understand the history and the various parties involved;
-we don’t want to express an anti-soldier attitude as happened with the Vietnam protests;
- we are trying to foster democracy and support of women who are oppressed by the Taliban;
- our government is going to pull out the troops at the first opportunity.

SPEECH AT THE AFGHANISTAN RALLY 10th October 2009

Thank you for the invitation to speak at this rally today.
It is a painful task,
because I must speak as a man of God: a Christian minister in a tradition, which stretches back to Abraham. The same tradition shares a history with the Jewish and Muslim communities.

These three great spiritual traditions share one basic thing: the call of God.
This is a painful reminder:
the violence and death we face today is often justified with the name of God, and communities are pitted against each other,.
Today, we weep for all caught up in this net of violence – children, women and men (soldiers and civilians alike).

Let our communities who name God, also cry out in lament with tears, groans too deep for words, at the wounds and deaths.
We must call out for an end to this mayhem – to God!

Yet, the conflict takes place in a far-off place. Only occasionally, as a soldier’s coffin arrives from Afghanistan, do we register the grief and tears. The death is distant.

Here the ancient prophets speak. Those prophets, shared by our three traditions, see a false peace and break it. They uncover their people’s attempt to buy security through military alliances. They see the oppression which crushes the poor and defenceless, and cannot remain silent.
These prophets even uncover the fear deep within – fear of those who are different, who then are treated as a threat!
Today as we gather here we join our voices with the prophets.

But I confess I am getting tired of coming to the city yet again, to yet another public demonstration against yet another war that involves Australian soldiers and reassures us with the false promise that this fight will win us greater security.

Those who remember the rallies of yesteryear, particularly against the war in Vietnam, will recall the great American Baptist Pastor Martin Luther King who reminded us that those who take an eye for an eye’, finally makes everyone blind!
[“The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding. It seeks to annihilate rather than to convert.” – Wikipedia – as did Mahatma Gandhi: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”]

Martin Luther King also pointed out that the war in Vietnam was intimately connected to the ongoing effects of the two world wars and their carnage; and also to the nuclear threat.

The Afghanistan war, again to our north, seems at first glance to be more confined, much more local; but in reality we cannot separate the use of military means against tribes and movements from global interests.

And, remembering the decades of violence there, we must say: Afghanistan does not deserve another decade of warfare.

The attempt to solve the wounds of 2001 with military force is failing and will fail.
Can we find a different path to this vicious circle of payback? Can we find ways that recognise injustice done, build confidence between hostile parties, and seek ways to resolve wrongs, ancient and new?

That is our reason for being here today – to join our voices to past protests, for the sake of the world’s future. In that we join the prophets of God.

But we must not speak platitudes.
The roots of the tragedy playing out in Afghanistan are deep. So, as we call for an end to military activity, we must be ready to offer even greater humanitarian means to rebuild the land and its people.
For this we need understanding of the complexities of the situation in Afghanistan.
That is why the peace group Pax Christi is organising a forum on Sunday 18th October [2.00-5.30pm, Centre for Theology and Ministry, Parkville (College Crescent.]

And, even deeper, we need the resources of the great spiritual traditions.
At heart they understand that it is not God who desires and generates violence: the source of violence is the human heart.

That is the reason why, at the centre of the spiritual tradition which I know best, is the crucifixion of Jesus Christ – here the God of infinite compassion enters our violence and takes it on, to remove its power over us.

It is not merely that humans suffer; God suffers with the sufferer – in order to generate the hope and possibility of new life.
Here we may discover the God who deals justice with mercy, whose heart breaks for every person wounded; a reconciler who makes peace between enemies, and prompts warring humans to turn swords into ploughshares, instruments of war into the means of growth and health.

Now this leads us to something absurd but necessary; to is prayer. That is, a cry which joins us to God’s own longing for our peace.
• a cry to God asking that hard human hearts so addicted to violence be broken;
• a cry in solidarity with every violated sister and brother, and for nature itself, for the healing of the world;
• a cry for the courage to engage in the costly struggle for an end to all conflict;
• a cry that we may have the imagination to expect a world where justice and peace embrace and kiss each other, where justice rolls down like a never-ending river, and where those who were enemies sit at the same table to share bread, and to seek the best for each others’ children;
• a cry that patience and wisdom will grow in us as we speak to our political leaders, convincing them we want to give up the culture of fear, to live in harmony with our neighbours;
• and a cry that we will have the tenacity, the endurance, the commitment to work for such a world.
May this be our cry today!
(Wes Campbell, 10th October 2009)

A draft resolution for the national Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia

For your interest I post a draft resolution that was put to the Assembly of the Uniting Church in July 2009, then referred (as unfinished business) to the Assembly Standing Committee in August: the text below was the original propsed by Chris Waler and me. The final result expressed support of the Australian Government’s intention to withdraw troops as soon as possible.

My text:

PROPOSAL RE AFGHANISTAN
(submitted to the Assembly in July and referred to the Assembly Standing Committee August 2009)

Recalling that the Assembly has acknowledged that God came in the crucified and risen Christ to make peace; and that same God calls the church, as a peacemaking body, to save life, to heal and to love their neighbours, working for true justice and security by non-violent means (Uniting for Peace (03.19.02); Resolution 88.62; Assembly Minute 82.57):

We, the members of the Twelfth Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia, therefore:
a. declare our readiness to seek to respond to the fear and threat of international terrorism in ways consistent with Jesus Christ’s gospel of peace and his call to love enemies (Matthew 5:44);
b. express our deep distress at the human deaths, injury and trauma, and the environmental destruction, resulting from military interventions undertaken in the name of opposition to terror;
c. pray for the building of societies based on a just peace and the end of hostilities, especially in Afghanistan;
d. request the Australian Government to implement urgently such humanitarian and diplomatic means as will assist the people of Afghanistan to build a peaceful and just society and, as a matter of urgency, to withdraw Australian troops from Afghanistan.
PROPOSER: WES CAMPBELL
SECONDER: CHRIS WALKER

RATIONALE
Previous Assemblies have acknowledged Jesus Christ’s call to the church to be a peacemaking body. That call to peace has been reiterated in a variety of contexts, including the nuclear threat and the impending war in Iraq (2003).
(Uniting for Peace (03.19.02); Resolution 88.62; Assembly Minute 82.57

The present proposal arises after the Australian withdrawal from Iraq but with continued Australian military involvement in Afghanistan. As an Assembly we voice our own distress at the destruction of human life and of the natural environment being experienced as a result of military action in the name of opposition to international terrorism. The proposal asks the Assembly to pray for peace, especially in Afghanistan. The proposal supports positive and non-violent initiatives which will assist to build a just peace in Afghanistan.

As Christian people we draw on the Christian tradition that seeks a peace between enemies, built on a search for mutual trust and just relationships. Although Christian tradition offers the possibility of a ‘justified war’, we know that the conditions for such conflict are extremely rigorous, making any military action an utterly last resort, only when all other means are exhausted. We believe the building of peace is the primary claim on people of faith. Given the complex history of Afghanistan we must assume that this will be a costly and complicated task, at least as costly and complicated as military intervention.

Debate is beginning about the military intervention in Afghanistan. Based upon the long history of Afghanistan resistance to foreign forces, and also supported by the experience of Vietnamese resistance to invading forces, there is a growing opinion that military victory in that country is very unlikely.

Australian military intervention in Afghanistan has been justified as a response to terrorism. The proposal does not support military action as a solution. It expresses the mind of the Assembly gathered in council and requests the Australian Government, as a matter of urgency, to reconsider Australian military involvement and to withdraw from military action in Afghanistan, applying in its place all possible resources to make Australia a force for peace and reconciliation in that region. The proposal makes clear that we want Australian military involvement in Afghanistan to cease.
(Wes Campbell, July 2009)

Afghanistan Proposal ASC August 2009

The ASC passed the following resolution
That the Assembly resolve:

Recalling that the Assembly has acknowledged that God came in the crucified and risen Christ to make peace, and that same God calls the church as a peacemaking body, to save life, to heal and to love their neighbours, working for true justice and security by non-violent means: (Uniting for Peace (03.19.02); Resolution 88.62; Assembly Minute 82.57):

a) Encourage the Australian Government to increase such humanitarian and dipomatic means as will assist the people of Afghanistan to build a peaceful and just society, and

b) Support the intention of the Australian Government to withdraw Australian troops at the earliest possible opportunity.

Comments:
A letter will go to the Australian Government from the UCA with the above.

Visit: the Assembly website.  http://assembly.uca.org.au/

The September edition of Assembly Update mentions the Afghanistan proposal

By wesblog | Posted in justice & peace, theological reflection | Comments (0)

calendar offerings October 2009

October 12, 2009 – 3:41 pm

THREE COMING EVENTS /OPPORTUNITIES:
‘Where to for Afghanistan? Prospects for a Just Peace’: a public forum on Sunday 18th October, 2.00-5.30pm, at the Centre for Theology and Ministry, Morrison Close (between Ormond and St Hilda’s Colleges. Keynote speakers: Prof. Amin Saikal, ANU; MS Fazia Tasmin Hajeb, radio presenter; Prof. Joseph Camilleri, Latrobe university. Organised by Pax Christi. Admission free. More information from : tel: 9893 4946, or Wes 8344 6034.

Australia’s Place in the Global Refugee Crisis – Nellie Watson Memorial Lecture – by Peter Mares, at St Aidan’s Uniting Church, Duggan St, North Balwyn, Sunday 8th November 2009 at 3pm. Afternoon tea provides; all welcome. Enquiries: 9857 4050 or  mail at staidans.org.au

Volunteer Training, Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Projec, Thursday 15th October (6.30-8.45pm) and Thursday 22nd October (6.30-8.30pm), at the Centre for Theology & Ministry, I Morrison Close, between St Hilda’s and Ormond Colleges – Melways ref: 2B D4. This training provides information about volunteer opportunities and is designed to equip you to work with community based asylum seekers. Attendance at both sessions is a prerequisite for volunteering with the Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project. Light refreshments. More information: Sam Charlesworth: 9326 8343 or  sam.asp at hothammission.org.au

By wesblog | Posted in calendar for 2009, justice & peace | Comments (0)

October 12, 2009 – 3:37 pm

THE NOTION OF ‘RADICAL CHURCH’ takes the world seriously – that is, we are to take the world seriously as the place where God is active. That includes meeting together as a community where we learn to care for each other, and prompting each other to be aware of what is happening in the wider world.

In our recent activities that has included:
• the Agape Meal, drawing on the memory that the early Christian community met in hoes to hear the apostolic teaching, to ‘break bread’ and to care for the needy: six of us, from various places including Zambia, South Africa, Singapore/Melbourne, Victoria in general, Western Australia/Melbourne, met for a conversation and meal on Saturday evening, reflecting particularly on the fact that we are well fed but so many people live precarious lives, as the Tsunami, typhoons and earthquakes show. We reflected on our feeling of helplessness, and small actions we may and must take.

• The Thursday Forum at which Sam Charlesworth, Volunteer Coordinator, introduced the particular issues facing people seeking asylum in Australia, and the Asylum Seeker Support Project that provides financial and medical support for people who have applied for refugee status but have no decision – and also those who have been granted refugee status but are not eligible for social security of Medicare cover. Volunteer training will be offered on the next two Thursdays: 6.30-8.45pm, Centre for Theology and Ministry, 1 Morrison Close, Parkville.

By wesblog | Posted in Bible study notes, calendar for 2009, justice & peace, musings, occasional reports | Comments (0)

Bible study notes – 12 October 2009

October 12, 2009 – 3:26 pm

The Acts of the Apostles study 12th October 2009

Having risen from my sick bed late last week there was a Bible study at lunchtime today!! And we meet again next week.

By way of recalling what we have done, I made some general observations:
• The early Christian movement was Jewish – the split came in the AD70s. The people in that movement called themselves ‘followers of the Way’.
• Luke was writing a history of the early years of the church for the second generation of Christians;
• The Christian movement would have been very suspect; Jesus was crucified (therefore regarded as a dissident who was executed as an enemy of the Roman Empire). [In today’s terms Jesus might have been seen as a sort of Osama bin Laden figure.]
• The resurrection of Jesus is key to understanding who Jesus is for the church.
• Luke conveys the startling character of this small minority movement that spread and grew in the face of severe persecution.
• Luke’s explanation of this growth is that it comes from the ‘Holy Spirit’: ie. from the power of the living God.

‘Apostle’ comes from the Greek word ‘apostolos’, meaning ‘the one who is sent’. This was the name given to the first twelve of Jesus’ followers (although Luke also includes a wider group of 70 or 72, including women).

For Luke, Peter is strongly connected to Jerusalem. James (brother of Jesus) was the key leader there. Paul, a missionary apostle to the Gentile (non-Jewish) world, spends most of his ministry in the northern areas of the Mediterranean, and concluded it at Rome. Tradition has it that both Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome.

It has been said that without Paul there would have been no Christian church, certainly no Gentile church.

Paul’s letters make up more than half of the New Testament.

This leads to a reading of Paul’s ministry – beginning with his presence as Saul of Tarsus at the stoning of Stephen, his organised rout of the followers of Jesus, his conversion on the road to Damascus, and his missionary travels – including severe disagreement with the Jerusalem council. Our aim is to read the full text of Paul’s activities and to get a sense of the whole story –returning to particular parts that have caught our attention.

For next week: read as much as you can of Paul’s ministry, especially Acts 17.

You may find sections 7 & 8 of the pamphlet published by the working group on doctrine (Uniting Church) How to Read the Bible helpful.

To conclude I reported on:
• the Agape Meal: six of us, from various places including Zambia, South Africa, Singapore/Melbourne, Victoria in general, Western Australia/Melbourne, met for a conversation and meal on Saturday evening, reflecting particularly on the fact that we are well fed but so many people live precarious lives, as the Tsunami, typhoons and earthquakes show. We reflected on our feeling of helplessness, and small actions we may take.

• The Thursday Forum which introduced the particular issues facing people seeking asylum in Victoria, and the Asylum Seeker Support Project that provides financial and medical support for people who have applied for refugee status but have no decision – and also those who have been granted refugee status but are not eligible for social security of Medicare cover.

THREE COMING EVENTS /OPPORTUNITIES:
‘Where to for Afghanistan? Prospects for a Just Peace’: a public forum on Sunday 18th October, 2.00-5.30pm, at the Centre for Theology and Ministry, Morrison Close (between Ormond and St Hilda’s Colleges. Keynote speakers: Prof. Amin Saikal, ANU; MS Fazia Tasmin Hajeb, radio presenter; Prof. Joseph Camilleri, Latrobe university. Organised by Pax Christi. Admission free. More information from : tel: 9893 4946, or Wes 8344 6034.

Australia’s Place in the Global Refugee Crisis – Nellie Watson Memorial Lecture – by Peter Mares, at St Aidan’s Uniting Church, Duggan St, North Balwyn, Sunday 8th November 2009 at 3pm. Afternoon tea provides; all welcome. Enquiries: 9857 4050 or  mail at staidans.org.au

Volunteer Training, Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project, Thursday 15th October (6.30-8.45pm) and Thursday 22nd October (6.30-8.30pm), at the Centre for Theology & Ministry, I Morrison Close, between St hild’s and Ormond Colleges – Melways ref: 2B D4. This training provides information about volunteer opportunities and is designed to equip you to work with community based asylum seekers. Attendance at both sessions is a prerequisite for volunteering with the Hotham Mission Asylum Seeker Project. Light refreshments. More information: Sam Charlesworth: 9326 8343 or  sam.asp at hothammission.org.au

By wesblog | Posted in Bible study notes, calendar for 2009, liturgical events, occasional reports | Comments (0)
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