Liturgy and Reflection for Aboriginal Sunday/Day of Mourning, 19th January 2025

Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home

Aboriginal Sunday/ Day of Mourning – 19th January 2025 – 10am or whenever possible

Introit: “O Lord Jesus Marrkapmirr” TiS 253

O Lord Jesus Marrkapmirr,
all the power belongs to you.
Hold me by this power, O Lord,
you alone are king.
Now we praise you for your Word,
living, true and full of light.
Yours the hands that rest on me:
hold me for all time.

Call to Worship

Prayerful Action:

Our Lord is alive amongst all things of creation. (Lift your hand to your ears)

The sounds of the rivers in motion, the waves of the seas. (Make a motion of the waves with your hands)

The scents of the gum trees and native flowers on the winds. (Stand still with your legs firmly planted, take some deep breathes, stretch up both arms and sway like a tree in the breezes.)

You made the earth to give us life and daily sustenance and it is on Country that we find a place to retreat and walk alongside you in whispering conversation. (Rub hands together to make the sound of a whispering conversation.)

Today we come together, and we bring our full voices, to lift them in praise of our triune God. (Lift arms wide to praise God together)

We ask for forgiveness for not always being the givers of love and hospitality. (Bring hands together in prayerful pose)

And, we look to have our hearts made clean. (Use your right hand to catch the love of Christ and rub it onto your chest over your heart

(Together)

Lord our father of unconditional love,
we come in repentance and hope
Jesus, son of guiding and teaching love,
we come to listen, learn and act with courage.

Holy Spirit of multiplying love,
we come with humble awe and wonder of what you might move within our hearts and the hearts of those with whom we share life.

Acknowledgement of First Peoples

Today, as we gather to worship, we acknowledge the Wurrungerri/ Woiworong peoples, as the first-born peoples of these lands, and we acknowledge that through their continuing care of God’s creation, God and the Holy Spirit have been a source of spiritual sustenance and strength for First Peoples of this Country.

We pay our respects to the knowledge holders and sharers of story, for through their custom and ceremony God’s reconciling love and purpose is revealed.

We acknowledge First Peoples Elders present today and in doing so, acknowledge their suffering. We commit ourselves to an ongoing Covenantal journey.

Song: “Christ be our Light”

Longing for light, we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, we turn to you.
Make us your own, your holy people,
light for the world to see.
Christ, be our light! Shine in our hearts.
Shine through the darkness.
Christ, be our light!
Shine in your church gathered today.
Longing for peace, our world is troubled.
Longing for hope, many despair.
Your word alone has power to save us.
Make us your living voice.
Longing for food, many are hungry.
Longing for water, many still thirst.
Make us your bread, broken for others,
shared until all are fed.
Longing for shelter, many are homeless.
Longing for warmth, many are cold.
Make us your building, sheltering others
wall made of living stone.
Many the gifts, many the people,
many the hearts that yearn to belong.
Let us be servants to one another,
making your kingdom come.

Greeting

Friends, it is good for us to be together today. This, the Sunday before Australia Day, was first suggested as a Day of Mourning in 1938 by Yorta Yorta man, William Cooper, as you will hear later in our service, and has since been marked as Aboriginal Sunday. Five years ago, the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress encouraged Uniting Church people to return to the original language of a Day of Mourning.

Therefore, different First Nations Christians call it both of those things. So we have decided to call our day Aboriginal Sunday/Day of Mourning. All the resources we are using, except the hymns, have been prepared by First Nations Christians. Some are from Common Grace, an ecumenical group, and the main part of our liturgy comes from the UAICC.

It is important that we as beneficiaries of white settlement gather in this kind of solidarity with First Peoples. We may not all agree on the best ways forward for First and Second Peoples – and in truth it is hard to see how to proceed. But I suspect that we can all agree that there are very sorrowful parts to the history of this nation, parts that are still hurtful and saddening to First Peoples, stories of violence and dispossession and disconnection which are hard for us as later-comers to hear.

So – we come together today under God, to mourn and lament the darkness and suffering of our history, and to prayerfully welcome into our lives the healing light of the hope we have in Jesus.

A light that runs through all of us, to shine a pathway for us to journey together.

May God’s unending peace be with you,

And also with you.

BLESSINGS FOR A SACRED PLACE

Caller: Baiame, giver of life

Responder: Our Creator God, our guide, our protector and giver of wisdom.

All: You have come before us and made it possible for us to be together in this special place at this time.

You created us in your image to be in a reconciling relationship with each other through you.

Our pain is known to you and you have shared with us the way through darkness and into light.

Help us not to stumble like children, but to stand proudly as followers of your teachings and lessons of healing.

Caller: Jesus, the name of salvation.

All: And our home of assurance.

PRAYER OF CONFESSION (SPOKEN IN UNISON)

We invite you to read through this prayer in silence and then join us in reading it aloud as you find you are able.

Merciful God, we, the Second Peoples of this land, acknowledge with sorrow the injustice and abuse that has so often marked the treatment of the First Peoples of this land.

We acknowledge with sorrow the way in which their land was taken from them

and their language, culture and spirituality despised and suppressed.

We acknowledge with sorrow the way in which the Christian church was so often not only complicit in this process but actively involved in it.

We acknowledge with sorrow that in our own time the injustice and abuse has continued.

We have been indifferent when we should have been outraged,
we have been apathetic when we should have been active,
we have been silent when we should have spoken out.

Gracious God, forgive us for our failures, past and present.

By your Spirit transform our minds and hearts so that we may boldly speak your truth and courageously do your will.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

PRAYER FOR THE JOURNEY OF HEALING (three speakers)

It was suggested that the speakers be First Nations people. We have instead asked members of our congregation with long connection to First Nations people to read this prayer on their behalf.

Speaker 1.
Oh God, your love is wider than our differences,
larger than our loneliness,
and stronger than our sorrows.

At times we may doubt that we are able to overcome hostilities we feel towards others, or have felt towards us,

Yet you invite us to experience
that through surrender and obedience to your great and reconciling love,
we are able to see more clearly the beautiful picture
of your gift of a wondrous creation.

Speaker 2.
We are reminded of the words of Paul to the church in Rome calling us to peace and hope through faith, grace and perseverance:

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Speaker 3.
Oh God, we know the work of reconciliation is not simple.

It requires peoples who may feel suffering through dispute,
to look at each other as we would look to reconciling with you God;
to see the joy in working to live amongst each other in peace,
in a creation made for us.

Peace given from you God, with you God, and in you God.

Help us to reckon with the challenge that reconciliation between First and Second Peoples must begin with reconciling ourselves in truth and humility with you, our God.

Speaker 1.
Then we can do the work of being peacemakers and justice seekers,
in understanding what we may need to know better,
to be able to act responsibly and respectfully.

Speaker 2.
Oh God our hope for the coming season of faith in our Uniting Church,
is that we look towards each other as peoples of God,
who wish to be supported to live freely,
in enjoying the giving of spiritual care for each other,
through wonder and worship.

Speaker 3.
We bring our truth-telling, our lament and our confessions to you God,
In the name of Jesus Christ,
Who bore our sins,
And is the great reconciler.

Amen

DECLARATION OF FORGIVENESS

Water for First Peoples is always a sign of God’s peace and fulfillment in everything that is good. The promise of food, of harmony with ourselves, and the creation around us.

At the very beginning Creator God blessed the waters, God’s great gift to us and renewed in this water here today.

God who hovered over the waters, invites us to ‘come to the water’ to drop our heavy burdens of lament and confession.

Hear then the words of Christ’s forgiveness to us all:

Your sins are forgiven, and you are cleansed and made new again.

Go now and live as my reconciled people.

In the name of Christ, Amen.

Song: “Nothing is lost on the breath of God.”

Nothing is lost on the breath of God, nothing is lost forever;
God’s breath is love, and that love will remain, holding the world forever.
No feather too light, not hair too fine, no flower too brief in its glory,
no drop in the ocean, no dust in the air, but is counted and told in God’s story.
Nothing is lost to the eyes of God, nothing is lost forever,
God sees with love, and that love will remain, holding the world forever.
No journey too far, no distance too great, no valley of darkness too blinding:
no creature too humble, no child too small for God to be seeking and finding.
Nothing is lost to the heart of God, nothing is lost forever;
God’s heart is love, and that love will remain, holding the world forever.
No impulse of love, no office of care, no moment of life in its fulness;
no beginning too late, no ending too soon, but is gathered and known in its goodness.

Community News

Bible Readings

Exodus 14:19-31
¹⁹Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, ²⁰coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.

²¹Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Lord drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, ²²and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.

²³The Egyptians pursued them, and all Pharaoh’s horses and chariots and horsemen followed them into the sea. ²⁴During the last watch of the night the Lord looked down from the pillar of fire and cloud at the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion. ²⁵He jammed^[^a^] the wheels of their chariots so that they had difficulty driving. And the Egyptians said, “Let’s get away from the Israelites! The Lord is fighting for them against Egypt.”

²⁶Then the Lord said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea so that the waters may flow back over the Egyptians and their chariots and horsemen.” ²⁷Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and at daybreak the sea went back to its place. The Egyptians were fleeing toward^[^b^] it, and the Lord swept them into the sea. ²⁸The water flowed back and covered the chariots and horsemen—the entire army of Pharaoh that had followed the Israelites into the sea. Not one of them survived.

²⁹But the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left. ³⁰That day the Lord saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. ³¹And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.

Isaiah 53:1-6
53 Who has believed what we have heard?
    And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
²For he grew up before him like a young plant,
    and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³He was despised and rejected by others;
    a man of suffering^[^a^] and acquainted with infirmity;
and as one from whom others hide their faces^[^b^]
    he was despised, and we held him of no account.

⁴Surely he has borne our infirmities
    and carried our diseases;
yet we accounted him stricken,
    struck down by God, and afflicted.
⁵But he was wounded for our transgressions,
    crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
    and by his bruises we are healed.
⁶All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have all turned to our own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

Mark 9:35-37
³⁵He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, ‘Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.’ ³⁶Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, ³⁷‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

Reflection

Reflection Transcript

Cultural warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are advised that the following video contains images, names, and quotes of people who are deceased.

__________________________________

Bianca Manning

Gomeroi woman, Common Grace Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Justice Coordinator

Yaama! Thank you for marking Aboriginal Sunday. Our prayer is that you will be inspired and equipped today to continue the journey of walking alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, to deeply listen and be transformed and empowered to take action for justice.

In this video, Safina Stewart and myself will be guiding you through an Aboriginal Sunday reflection based on the theme Defiant Hope, and throughout the video you will also hear from a range of voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders.

Safina Stewart

Wuthathi Country and Mabuiag Island woman, Common Grace Relationships and Storytelling Coordinator

One of the grounding pieces of imagery that we will return to, is the Southern Cross. The constellation of the Southern Cross has been a faithful guide for our people whenever someone is navigating at night, whether on land or sea. When people need to know which way to follow, or maybe they’ve been lost, if they know how to read the Southern Cross it helps them to find their way.

Can you see that the wounds of Christ are marked in the Southern Cross in the sky above Australia? The crown of thorns, nails in his hands, in his feet, the spear in his side. Well for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christians, this has been a reminder of who we put our trust in, who we put our faith in. We know that Jesus knows our people’s pain. Jesus knows our land’s pain, and yet through His sacrifice He has given us hope, direction and possibility for the future.

Adam Gowen

Wiradjuri man, Deputy Chair of the Common Grace Board

I think one of the things that I really find a deep sense of hope in is my faith, to be able to think about that things aren’t as they should be, and that there’s a way that things can change for the better, for improvement, and to see things come into the alignment of the kingdom of God, which is perfect and wonderful and beautiful, and also at the same time a complex mystery, is something that I find a deep sense of hope in.

Joshua Lane

Kanolu and Lardil man, Chaplain, Pastor, Chairman of Queensland Youth Connection

Defiant hope means for me that no matter how dark the night gets, we do have a hope in Jesus. You know, God promises us in Romans 8:28 that he will work all things for good for those who love him and live according to his purposes. So I know that if I can trust in a good God and in His good nature, I can stay hopeful.

Bianca Manning:

Let’s remind ourselves of some stories of the past that have guided us to where we are today.

On 26th January 1938, Aboriginal Leaders gathered on Gadigal land in Sydney on the 150th anniversary of the first fleet’s arrival in Sydney Cove. Some of these leaders included Yorta Yorta man and Pastor William Cooper, Jack

Patten and William Ferguson from the Aborigines Progressive Association, Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls, Aunty Pearl Gibbs and Aunty Margaret Tucker. In protest, they declared the 26th January to be a Day of Mourning, rather than a day of rejoicing. For Aboriginal peoples, these 150 years since colonisation were filled with deep pain, dispossession, and discrimination, very much worthy of mourning.

In the years following the 1938 Day of Mourning, William Cooper made his call to the Australian Churches to pray for and uplift the plight of Aboriginal peoples on the Sunday before January 26th. This vision is what we now reclaim as Aboriginal Sunday.

Often we stop here in the story. But we want to take it a little further, and share a powerful story about the defiant hope of William Cooper’s mob, the Yorta Yorta people.

Safina Stewart:

In February 1939, just over a year after the first Day of Mourning, the Yorta Yorta people of Cummeragunja Station in New South Wales walked off in protest of their living conditions and treatment. At that time, the government and the station manager controlled every aspect of their lives, and their children were being taken away and forced into domestic work.

In protest, the Yorta Yorta people crossed the Murray River and walked into Northern Victoria. The Cummeragunja Walk Off was the first mass strike of Aboriginal people, and was a powerful act of peaceful resistance and standing for justice.

Now at that time there was a song, an old hymn, that had been translated into Yorta Yorta language. It was a song of defiant hope.

You may recognise it from the play and movie ‘The Sapphires’. The song Ngarra Burra Ferra was translated from the original hymn, that was titled ‘Turn Back Pharaoh’s Army’. This hymn was one of the songs shared with the Yorta Yorta people by the African American choir from Tennessee, called the ‘Fisk Jubilee Singers’.

One member from the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1887 said

“I shall never forget the effect of our singing there…The music of the plantations stirred their souls like no other music could have done, and they seemed to recognise us as brethren from a far distant tribe.”

Bianca Manning:

This song is based on the Biblical story in Exodus chapter 14 of the Israelites fleeing slavery and oppression in Egypt. Led by Moses, in faith they fled towards the Red Sea, and as we know, God made the impossible possible by parting the Red Sea and freeing the Israelites from their captivity.

This declaration of freedom, this faith in God’s power, and this hope for the future is what the Yorta Yorta people declared as they sung in their own language, Ngarra Burra Ferra.

Song lyrics:

Ngara burra ferra yumini yala yala
Ngara burra ferra yumini yala yala
Ngara burra ferra yumina
Burra ferra yumina
Burra ferra yumina yala yala

Bianca Manning:

In my own experience of hearing the stories and wisdom from my elders and so many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian Leaders, this is a familiar story. I have heard time and time again of songs and music being the thing that our mob often clung to when all around them seemed dark, full of suffering and injustice.

Like the Southern Cross, these songs, these old hymns have become powerful guiding lights. Anchors in the midst of suffering, and a way to raise our voices in defiant hope through song. In these songs, we proclaim our faith and hope in the goodness of God. We are reminded that Jesus is our ever-present friend. We cling to that old rugged cross. We declare that His life gives us strength to face tomorrow. There is power in the blood of the lamb. And we are not alone – we gather, we sing, and we pray together unto Him.

Aunty Shirli Congoo

Kabi Kabi and South Sea Islander woman, The Salvation Army’s General Manager – National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Team

Defiant hope for me takes me back to being nurtured from a young child and it’s about how we sink our roots deep, to weather any storms and it’s standing in our birthright and our inheritance in all that we do. And where there are systems and structures that harm our people, that’s where I would say I would stand in defiant hope, in believing that we can be a part of change. It came from our Elders, it sits with me and it’s nurtured in my children. So there’s these generational defiant hopes and that’s something that I’m very proud of.

Mikenzie Ling

Wiradjuri woman, theologian, works for the Uniting Church Synod of NSW & ACT, and the World Council of Churches

I draw my hope from our old people, from our storylines, from our songs, our law, our land, all these core cultural tenets that stand from time immemorial, that are still carried through. Our carried story that’s been, though tried to be silenced, though tried to be knocked down and held down and suppressed, has managed to come through, and that’s come through because of our old people, because of our Elders and our ancestors and those who’ve carried the story despite the cost. And out of that, I think, is a defiant hope.

Safina Stewart:

And we take heart that Jesus is our suffering servant King. A man of sorrows and he’s familiar with our pain as Isaiah 53 reads. The Cross seemed like one of the darkest moments to the followers of Jesus – but we know it now as the symbol of hope, because the darkness was never going to overcome Him. The Cross was the precursor to the coming resurrection.

Sometimes hope is easy to imagine, but other times hope is something that we must courageously dare to believe and cling to. Hope is activated in darkness, sadness and heaviness. Choosing to activate hope in the midst of suffering, is something First Nations peoples know well. Defiant Hope is about courageously persevering, taking up your cross, bringing people together and building each

other up. Defiance is a refusal for injustice to prevail and a posture of keeping on towards fullness of life. Our hope isn’t in something that is human but it is in our Creator God who brings about change – believing that our God will carry us through and that we can participate in that freedom story also.

We honour all of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait leaders who have prayed, endured, raised their voices, and acted for justice and freedom. They are whose shoulders we now stand on, and we have what we have now because of their sacrifices and defiant hope.

Aunty Sue Hodges

Wiradjuri woman, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Engagement Coordinator, Salvation Army, NSW/ACT and Territorial Team

So defiant hope, wow, you know I always thought about hope, but when you think about defiant hope, it means that you are doing things in the face of adversity. You are actually thinking about the struggles that you’ve been through, you’re thinking about the pain that you’ve endured, but you still have hope.

And it’s always looking towards the future to acknowledge that you have people that you can lean back on, that you have people who have got your back, and that, you know that hope, it comes from the Lord. And I really do believe that doesn’t matter what our struggles are, there’s always hope in everything that we do. And I just want to pass it on to all our young people who may be out there struggling and to our Elders who feel that they haven’t got there yet. I don’t know whether we’ll ever get there, but I have hope that one day we will see a lot of success for people in our communities.

Cameron Balcombe

Olkola and Djabuguy man, Aboriginal Forensic Mental Health Clinician in Victoria

For me as a young Aboriginal person, proud in my culture, following the failure of the referendum last year, I felt hopeless. I felt like, I wondered, questioned, where was our country going and, if they couldn’t support us walking hand in hand with them and to give us a voice, where are we going to go? So I felt hopeless and what I drew hope from was being able to stand and walk hand in hand with our non Indigenous brothers and sisters who supported us tooth and nail in order to get the referendum to succeed. For me that drew hope in the lead up, and after, unfortunately with the outcome, I drew hope knowing that we have solid brothers and sisters who are willing to fight for us for a better future for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Nathan Tyson

Anawan and Gomeroi man, Head of First People Strategy and Engagement Uniting Church Synod of NSW & ACT

So I think the defiant hope is despite the things that we have seen in this country, despite generations of injustice, centuries of injustice, our people still have hope in what is right and what is just. And I think for those of us of Christian faith, our faith gives us hope that there is justice, that justice does exist and justice is achievable. And we just have to maintain that faith and that hope that one day we will get there, and the only way that we won’t is if we stop trying.

Bianca Manning:

In the darkness of the night, like the Southern Cross, may we look up to the heavens where our wounded Saviour has left His markings as a reminder of His great love and faithfulness.

Safina Stewart:

May we find our next steps in confidence and hope with Him. May we hear His voice calling us up and out of despair and into the living hope of His kingdom and good way.

Aboriginal Christian Leaders:

From the songlines that have been shared on these lands since time immemorial, (Safina Stewart)
to the 1938 Day of Mourning, (Aunty Sue Hodges)
to the Cumeragunja Walk Off, (Adam Gowen)
to the 1967 Referendum, (Aunty Shirli Congoo)
to the Yirrkala Bark Petitions, (Nathan Tyson)
to the Freedom Rides, (Joshua Lane)
to the Barunga Statement, (Mikenzie Ling)
to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, (Cameron Balcombe)
to the Mabo decision, (Father Stanley Marama)
to the Uluru Statement from the Heart, (Aunty Sue Hodges)
to the Voice referendum, (Aunty Shirli Congoo)
to calls for truth-telling, treaty, closing the gap, and safety for our kids, (Adam Gowen)
and finally, to the long journey ahead towards healing, restoration and fullness of life. (Bianca Manning)

Bianca Manning:

So will you join us! Join us as we take inspiration and strength from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leaders of the past and present, by raising our voices in defiant hope.

Take action today by sharing a photo on your social media and contacting your local federal member as we call on the government to have a more compassionate approach to youth justice, including raising the age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 and funding prevention and early intervention services and programs so that our kids can truly be safe, free and flourishing as God intends.

Time of Silent Reflection

Song: “God of Freedom” TiS 657

God of freedom, God of justice
God whose love is strong as death,
God who saw the dark of prison,
God who knew the price of faith:
touch our world of sad oppression
with your Spirit’s healing breath.
Rid the earth of torture’s terror,
God whose hands were nailed to wood;
hear the cries of pain and protest,
God who shed the tears and blood;
move in us the power of pity,
restless for the common good.
Make in us a captive conscience
quick to hear, to act, to plead;
make us truly sisters, brothers
of whatever race or creed:
teach us to be fully human,
open to each other’s need.

PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE:

Leader: Loving God, on this day of celebration we acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people throughout Australia. We turn to you in prayer as we commit ourselves to journeying together in the spirit of Faith.

Father, you are good.

All: Lord fill our hearts with Love and Compassion.

Leader: We pray for all Leaders in this Great Southern Land, that they may respect and accept the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage, and provide truth, justice, peace, unity and equity for all.

Father you are good.