In Ray’s presentation, he explained to us that when we gather for worship, we are taking part in a Drama, with a beginning (The Gathering of the People), a middle (The Word), and an end (Response to the Word), culminating in the Blessing and the Sending of the people.

It got me thinking!

Dramas usually have one or more actors, an eager audience, and sometimes a prompter to help the actors remember their lines. In that case, when it comes to the ‘Drama of Worship’, perhaps we could say that it is the Minister who is the actor on stage, it is the congregation who make up the eager audience, and it is God who is behind the curtain prompting the Minister’s performance.

As a Minister, I rehearse as well as I can, looking to God to help me. As the spectating audience, we cheer or boo (silently of course!) the actor on stage and decide if we like how well they perform. We will then consider whether or not we come back again next week. Perhaps we prefer different ministers leading our worship from time to time so we get a bit of variety in the performance each Sunday. In the nineteenth century, a very well-known Christian teacher told his congregation that this understanding of the drama of worship is actually ‘upside down’.

When it comes to Christian Worship, he explained,
• the actor on stage, performing the drama, is not the Minister but the Congregation!
• the audience is not the Congregation but God!
• the ‘prompter’ is not God but the Minister!

I wonder how that might turn us and our thinking about Sunday worship ‘upside down’?
See you on stage on Sunday! …I’ll be behind the curtain!
Blessings, Randall

Expressions of the Gold Rule Across Major Religions

Christianity: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).
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Islam: “None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself” (An-Nawawi’s Forty Hadith 13).
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Judaism: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary” (Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 31a).
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Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause you pain if done to you” (Mahabharata 5:117).
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Buddhism: “Do not hurt others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful” (Udanavarga 5:18).
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Confucianism: “Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself” (Analects 15:24).
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Baha’i Faith: “Aify [Choose] for your neighbour that which you choose for yourself” (Baha’u’llah).
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Sikhism: “The divine light is within everyone; you shall not harbor ill-will against anyone” (Guru Granth Sahib).
This says to me that we humans do not lack for knowledge of how to treat each other. Just the will.
Ray Gorman

Hospitality is at the heart of our faith. It was a sacred duty in much of the Middle East to provide hospitality to strangers. And could at times be a matter of literal life and death.

There is a well-known account of radical hospitality recorded in Genesis 18:1-15, where Abraham greets three strangers and which later inspired the New Testament verse in Hebrews 13:2: “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

I was pleased to learn that Koonung Heights folk have visited other faith communities and are now in a position to extend the favour. It is important that hospitality is a two way exchange. If it is always one community or one individual offering hospitality it too easily carries the whiff of paternalism. It becomes a way of actually keeping people at a distance. You never become vulnerable and learn to receive. It is a form of control and reminds the other that you are in the upper position.

So, let’s be a welcoming, cheerful, faithfilled community on Sunday and in the name of the Lord God welcome any who come through the doors.

The 10 commandments have been hugely influential in western culture and the basis for our legal system. Which got me thinking of the play on words “Law” and the other version of organising societal life that sounds the same – “Lore”

Law is structural. It is written, codified, and enforced by institutions. Law demands compliance, relies on logic, and establishes boundaries through consequences and logic. It governs our external civic duties.

Lore is cultural. It is spoken, felt, and passed down through generations. Lore demands connection, relies on myth, and establishes boundaries through shared values and identity. It governs our internal communal spirit. In Australia we can see the two expressions of these words – in our legal system and in the Dreaming of the First Nations people. They present quite a varying comparison.

Australian Aboriginal Lore (Dreaming) emitted from the Ancestral Beings who shaped the land during the Dreaming while the Ten Commandments are said to be dictated by a singular Creator God to Moses on Mount Sinai (though many of us would question the literal historicity of this account.) Aboriginal Lore is embedded in songline, art, dance and the landscape. The 10 commandments and accompanying law is a codified text, purportedly inscribed in stone and recorded in scripture. The concept of time presents a contrast with the Dreaming envisioned in the past, present and future.

First nations people think of themselves as belonging to the land and have a sacred duty to care for country. Lore dictates precise social rules, marrying structures and environmental responsibilities. Traditionally Christianity has held a view of humans as “stewards” over the earth and while it has definitely led to the exploitation of the earth this is slowly turning around. God exists outside of the physical creation. The laws are handed down to humanity from a transcendent sphere, rather than emerging from the earth itself.

Despite significant differences which we should not deny, both systems share a striking common purpose: the survival and cohesion of the collective group. We must resist the temptation of judging these world views, and definitely not be calling the First Nations of this country “primitive” but accept the good both have produced and hold them as the basis for the sacred care of our country, society and land.

That was a shock to me; that only 3% of the world’s water is fresh! And it becomes even more critical when we realise that one quarter of the world’s population lacks safe access to fresh drinking water.

And we also focused on the point that our theme for Season of Creation is not just “Water” but “immersed in water”. This introduces the idea of action, gesture, even commitment. It is a similar idea to the sacrament of baptism where the power of the symbol is not just in the bread and wine itself but in the bread being broken for us, and the wine being poured out for us. And so we in the sacrament of Baptism are immersed in cleansing, yet drowning, waters and we rise to new life in Christ.

This Sunday we will continue our theme in what I am thinking will be the third and final service in our series. To be honest, I think I only have three watery-themed services in me! It will be wonderful to welcome Antony McMullen from Uniting World as our guest speaker. Antony will bring a perspective from the Pacific Ocean countries and churches that the Uniting Church is in partnership with.
Ray G

We are linking this theme with the reading for the day which is a continuation of last week’s reading from Matthew 16 where Simon, soon to be Peter, declares Jesus to the Messiah and Son of God. Jesus in response declares Simon to be Peter – that is Rock – a strong and sure foundation to build the Church on. But dramatically this week Peter stumbles when he tries to shield Jesus from necessary suffering – from going the way of lowly suffering when called upon. Jesus rebukes Peter, declaring him to be “Satan” (not so much devilish as Adversary/Opponent) and saying he has become a potential Stumbling Block.

How the peaks of faith can come crashing down so quickly. How bizarre that the same person can be a rock and stumbling block within such a short time. Which one are you feeling more like today?

All the best, Ray

I received some positive comments about the sermon on Joseph, anger and forgiveness last Sunday. A few said it spoke to them in their own struggles to overcome either guilt or challenges in forgiving others. As I said last Sunday these are issues everyone faces, not just religious people. Perhaps the difference is in the Church we have the language, tradition, stories, liturgy, sacraments and hopefully personal experience of being forgiven and in turn forgiving others. One of the most powerful illustrations I have seen of all this was in the film The Mission. In it Robert De Niro plays a character named Rodrigo Mendoza, a mercenary and slave trader in 18th-century South America. He’s a violent man—profiting from the misery of others, hardened by power and guilt. But then something happens that breaks him: he kills his own brother in a fit of jealousy.

Overcome with shame, Mendoza plunges into despair. He joins a group of Jesuit missionaries who take him on a gruelling journey into the jungle—to the very tribe he once enslaved.

As penance, Mendoza drags behind him a massive net filled with weapons and armour—the tools of his old life. We see scene after scene of him pulling it up mountains, through rivers, across rocky terrain. It’s heavy, slow, humiliating. Once he slides down a cliff and is dragged to the bottom by the weight. Slowly he picks himself up and without a word shoulders his burden and painfully, slowly begins climbing up the cliff. You can see on his face: he believes he deserves the burden.

Finally, the group reaches the tribe. One of the tribal men—who should have every reason to hate Mendoza— walks up to him. He is holding a knife, and Mendoza stands with no protection, no weapon, ready to receive his deserved fate. Dramatically the man before him cuts the rope. The burden tumbles down the cliff and into the river below. Mendoza weeps. For the first time, he’s free—not just physically, but spiritually. Interesting it was someone he previously wronged that finally cut the burden away. It is often messy, costly, slow with many steps, but finally we can be liberated by both being forgiven and forgiving others. Thanks be to God

All the best,

Ray

I have been reading about you recently. Graham Ray was kind enough to pass onto me some old copies of Koonung Corner with autobiographical pieces from several members of the congregation. And a piece about Jim’s Well’s parents being involved in the production of the Yirrkaka bark petition, and I have nearly finished Jim Begg’s autobiography, “Proud to be a Wharfie”. I do find people’s stories interesting – well the first time or two. Not so much the fifteenth or fiftieth to be honest! There does not even need to be any earthshattering miraculous elements. Just the impact of choices taken, decisions made in the spur of the moment, a commitment to endure and be faithful – all these elements are part of what makes us different.

We don’t do all that much sharing of our stories in church anymore, so I am glad to see these “Getting to Know You” pieces. We used to do it a bit in my younger days at Ashburton Methodist/Uniting when we ran Youth Services. We would try to include what we called a “testimony” – usually someone sharing how they had come to faith. There were elements of this that are a bit worrying in hindsight – the pressure to tell a good story sometimes had fresh faced 18 year olds embellishing stories to make it sound like they had hit the absolute pits and been dragged up and restored to a blemish free life of Christian service. But they were encouraging to many of those attending and we would do well to find ways of sharing our stories of faith.

Reading the Bible is one way the Church shares its story of the faithful God. As I said recently our primary purpose in reading the Bible is not to find out what God did in the dim dark past, but more to discover what sorts of things God may want to be doing today through us. We read the Bible and tell our stories to reorient ourselves, strengthen our sense of who we are, and to be reassured once again that this God who was faithful to previous generations will also remain faithful in our generation.

All the best, Ray