Today’s Gospel reading, from Luke 24: 36b-48 ends with the words: You’re the witnesses!! For Luke, to fulfil the hope of the resurrection is to tell the story of Jesus – what he did , how he was rejected and then vindicated; and at the same time to live by the power of the same Spirit, by doing good and bringing liberation for all.

I touched last week on the increasing number of Indigenous deaths in custody – 5 in the last 5 weeks; 474 since the Royal Commission into Indigenous deaths in custody. You’ll recall the 2017 National Constitution Convention at Uluru, where indigenous people from all points of the southern sky put together The Uluru Statement from the Heart. Here at Koonung, you
have the Statement displayed in the Fellowship Room.

The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign Nations of the
Australian continent and its adjacent islands, and possessed it under their own laws and
customs, from the Creation, according to common law from ‘time immemorial’ and according to science more than 60,000 years ago. This sovereignty is a spiritual notion: the ancestral tie between the land, or ‘mother nature’, and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples who were born therefrom, remain attached thereto, and must one day return thither to be united with our ancestors. This link is the basis of the ownership of the soil, or better, of sovereignty. It has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown.

The From the Heart campaign is renewing the call for all Australians to make a submission to the Federal Government’s Co-Design Process for a Voice to Parliament. Closing date was 31st. March. HOWEVER we can individually go to the From the Heart site, and put our personal details on the Document: A statement from the Heart. I’ve just signed. Check all possibilities out with our Social Justice Committee – Rose K and her vibrant committee.
Let’s look for ways we can increase God’s offer of liberation for all peoples.
Jenny