Koonung Heights Uniting Church
Service of Worship at Home
Day of Mourning – 28 January 2024 – 10am or whenever possible
You may like to light a candle during your time of worship.
Feel free to text the Peace to other members of the congregation.
Introit: “Bless the Lord, my soul” (TiS 706)
Bless the Lord, my soul, and bless God’s holy name.
Bless the Lord, my soul, who leads me into life.
Candle Lighting:
If there is one thing we know about light,
it is that it shines equally on all that surrounds it.
Light illuminates what is good and pure and right
and also that which lurks in the shadows.
Today, as we light the Christ Candle,
we ask that the light of Christ
will continue to shine before us,
to show us where we should go,
and eliminate the shadows so that
both First and Second Peoples
might walk together in the light.
Acknowledgement of Country:
Today, as we gather to worship,
I acknowledge the Wurundjeri WoiWurrung
people of the Kulin nations,
the first inhabitants of this place
from time beyond remembering.
I acknowledge that through this land,
God nurtured and sustained the First Peoples of this country,
the Aboriginal and Islander peoples.
Together, we honour them
for their custodianship of the land on which we gather today.
I acknowledge that the First Peoples had already
encountered the Creator God before the arrival of the colonisers.
We acknowledge the Spirit was already in the land,
revealing God to the people through law, custom and ceremony.
Together, we acknowledge
that the same love and grace that was finally and fully revealed in Jesus Christ
sustained the First Peoples and gave them particular insights into God’s ways;
and so we rejoice in the reconciling purposes of God
found in the good news about Jesus Christ.
Welcome:
Today we are remembering some of the
tragic history of our nation
and the violent dispossession of her First Peoples.
Today is a Day of Mourning.
Today we mark in lament
the truth of our shared history
and we lift up to God our prayers for First Peoples
and for our nation.
This means that we need to say sorry
and to pray for forgiveness, healing and hope.
Today we will also come together and give thanks to God
for the grace which enables us to face ourselves
and the wrongs in our country.
We will also seek healing and be given the courage
to repent and seek to mend our wrongs.
Call to Worship:
Our land is alive with the glory of God;
desert sands hum and gum trees dance.
Brown grasses sing and mountains
breathe their stillness.
All created things add their rhythms of delight
and even stones rap out their praise.
Let our voices mingle with those of the earth;
may our hearts join the beat of her joy,
for our triune God is with us:
the Source of all being surrounds and upholds us.
Christ Jesus walks beside and before us.
The Spirit moves within and between us.
Blessed be God, our wonder and delight.
We Sing: “Where wide sky rolls down” – (TiS 188)
Where wide sky rolls down
and touches red sand,
where sun turns to gold
the grass of the land,
let spinifex, mulga and waterhole tell
their joy in the One
who made everything well.
Where rain-forest calm meets reef,
tide and storm,
where green things grow lush
and oceans are warm,
let every sea-creature and tropical bird
exalt in the light of the life-giving Word.
Where red gum and creek
cross hillside and plain,
where cool tree-ferns rise
to welcome to rain,
let bushland, farm,
mountain top, all of their days
delight in the Spirit
who formed them for praise.
Now, people of faith, come gather around
with song’s to be shared, for blessings abound!
Australians, whatever your culture or race,
come, lift up your hearts to the Giver of grace.
Prayer of Adoration and Confession:
God of all wonder,
we pause in the busyness of our days
to listen deeply to the wisdom of this land
and those who belong to it.
May our minds be open to dialogue,
may our hearts be open to transformation,
and may our hands do the work of reconciliation.
Abba, Father, Bäpa God, source of all life,
answer our call, as a mother responds to the cry of a child in the night.
Jesus Christ,
teacher and liberator, friend of the poor,
dwell with us as healer of creation, and restorer of hope.
Creator Spirit,
bringer of hope, source of courage,
help us to listen and open our hearts to the stories of these lands.
Merciful God,
as Second Peoples of this land we need to lament
the injustice and abuse that has so often marked the treatment
of the First Peoples of this land.
We lament the way in which
land was taken from them;
and language, culture, law and spirituality
despised and suppressed.
We also acknowledge and lament the way in which
the Christian church has been both complicit
and involved in this process,
that this has continued in our own time,
and that we have been indifferent.
Gracious God, hear our confession –
we have not loved you with our whole heart,
nor have we loved First Peoples and other neighbours as ourselves.
God of mercy, forgive us for our failures, past and present
and give us the grace today to make a fresh start.
By your Spirit transform our minds and hearts
so that we may love as you have loved us,
that we may boldly speak your truth
and courageously do your will.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Words of Assurance:
This is the best of all:
when we are empty, God fills us;
when we are disheartened, God is compassionate;
when we are wounded, God brings healing;
when we confess our sin, God forgives.
In Christ, through Christ and because of Christ,
our sins are forgiven.
Thanks be to God.
The Peace
The God of all justice, the God of all peace, be with you all,
and also with you.
A Time for All:
There are some things that it can be difficult to talk about, so much so that someone once suggested that you should never talk about religion and politics. Last week I caught up with a friend I hadn’t seen for a while. In the course of the evening the conversation turned to Australia Day and the fact that some stores have decided not to sell Australia Day merchandise this year. From there it quickly moved to things including Acknowledgement of Country and how people feel about it – both First Nations People and Second Peoples. My friend said that she hates being told what do to and that an Acknowledgement doesn’t help anyone anyway. When she challenged me on whether I would use one each Sunday, she couldn’t believe it when I explained that for me, as a Uniting Church Minister, it was part of the commitment the Church has made to walk together with First Peoples (as requested by the United Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress). My sister interjected here saying that many of the First Nations People she knows, don’t like it being used so often either as it loses its intended meaning.
In the course of the conversation, we couldn’t agree on which position was the ‘right’ one, and no-one’s opinion was changed exponentially during our chat, but we managed to find some common ground. What we could agree on was the belief that our country would be in a better position if we could all learn to treat one another with respect. Treating one another with respect means treating one another with care. To do this we have to listen with grace and integrity, acknowledge when things go wrong, and play our part in making things right again. Maybe it can be summed up in Jesus’ commandment that we ‘love one another’ as we have been loved.
So, however you feel about Australia Day, I’d invite you to listen with respect to UAICC National Chairperson Rev Mark Kickett and UCA President Rev Sharon Hollis as they share their message for this year.
We Sing: “A New Commandment” – (TiS 699)
A new commandment I give unto you
that you love one another as I have loved you,
that you love one another as I have loved you.
By this will others know that you are my disciples
if you have love one for another;
by this will others know that you are my disciples
if you have love one for another.
Bible Reading: Psalm 85:7-13
7 Show us your steadfast love, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation.
8 Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,
for he will speak peace to his people,
to his faithful, to those who turn to him in their hearts.
9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,
that his glory may dwell in our land.
10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;
righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
11 Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,
and righteousness will look down from the sky.
12 The Lord will give what is good,
and our land will yield its increase.
13 Righteousness will go before him
and will make a path for his steps.
Bible Reading: Micah 6:6-8
– What God Requires
6 “With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
and to walk humbly with your God?
Bible Reading: John 13:34-35
34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Reflection:
I remember the time when I first began to think differently about our First Nations people. It was long before the term ‘First Nations’ was even in use, or at least before I had heard it used. It happened in my year 11 General Studies subject. General Studies was a one-unit subject taken by most students to make up the 13 compulsory units for Year 11. As such, it wasn’t seen as that important and taken as a ‘nothing’ study. As part of the assessment for that course we had to choose a subject from a given list, research and then present it to the rest of the class. I chose to look at the Aboriginal people because of a song that I’d recently come across, which intrigued me. It was the 1980’s, the band was Goanna and the song Solid Rock, Sacred Ground. Let me share some of the lyrics with you.
‘They were standin’ on the shore one day,
saw the white sails in the sun.
Wasn’t long before they felt the sting,
white man, white law, white gun’.
‘Don’t tell me that it’s justified,
‘cause somewhere, someone lied,
Yeah well someone lied, someone lied, genocide.
And now you’re standing on – solid rock
standing o-on a sacred ground,
living on borrowed time’.
These words sparked a curiosity in me and started me on a path of questioning, learning and understanding that I’m still on.
In his book: ‘Life Selected Writings’, Tim Flannery comments on Australia’s history. He writes of the time before the Europeans sailed across the ocean and set up colonies in this country in his 2002 essay called ‘The passing of the Birrarang’. The word Birrarang might sound familiar … there is a park called Birrarang Marr in the city near Federation Square … Birrarang is the original name of the region where Melbourne has developed.
If we could travel 200 years back in time, this country would appear very different from what we see now. John Murray sailed past the bay in 1802 and named the waterway beyond. He described a beautiful bountiful region. He talked of ‘billabongs and swamps teeming with brolgas, magpie geese, swans, ducks, eels and frogs. So abundant was the wildlife that we can imagine a kind of temperate Kakadu with the Yarra River flowing through the region over a waterfall…what was once located at the foot of Market Street in the City.’ (Flannery 2002)
The people who lived in this country knew their Creator. They knew of Bunjil, the Creator Spirit who flew like an Eagle down the river valley. So when they heard the words of our Christian scriptures they sensed a resonance with the Creator they already knew about and the deep peace that springs up from country, from the ground. As we read in the psalm,
‘Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other.
Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky.
Creator will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase.’ (Psalm 85)
Then the early settlers arrived in this country and they wanted the land to yield its increase, just like the Psalmist said. But they did not see or respect that the country was already inhabited by others who already knew about the yield of this land that springs forth when righteousness and peace kiss each other. These people were already in the land but they were ignored, or worse. It is quite telling that ‘the first, so-called criminals, to hang in the Melbourne jails were Aboriginal. Yet of all the massacres, rapes, and poisonings that marred that time, not a single European was brought to justice.’ (Flannery 2002).
God was later discovered and the city of Melbourne was again built on the wealth of the earth. Grand buildings went up – some of them churches that we now inhabit, big houses for the wealthy and cottages for workers, universities for study, but the Aboriginal people are not often seen.
Then, as now, people read passages from the bible that call them to love. We have heard two this morning. From Micah we are reminded that what God wants from us is that we ‘do justice and love kindness and walk humbly with God’. We then have the commandment Jesus gave his followers – ‘Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another’. Have we done justice and loved kindness and walked humbly? Have we loved as Jesus loved us?
We can cite examples of when we have done these things, but it’s easy to do justice and kindness to the people in our immediate circle. It’s also easy to blame others or a political and cultural system for what happened, but if we aren’t willing to listen to the truth, then I suspect we are just as guilty as those who committed some of the atrocities we try to distance ourselves from.
If we say that God is Love, and call ourselves Christians, then we must live lives that reflect God’s love. It is what we have been called to do all along, so much so that Jesus even commanded it. Being called to love as God loves is a serious thing, and if we are held to account, then surely we will be judged by the extent to which our lives have reflected God’s love.
As we listen more and more to our First Nation’s Peoples, and learn more of what happened to them, I am left wondering how the early European settlers made sense of this call to love. I wonder how we can justify our wealth, which is built on stolen ground. The First Peoples were certainly not treated with love … for ‘there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear’ (1 John 4:18). As Aboriginal people were taken into church missions I doubt they went without fear, and I wonder if sometimes the fear was so great that it cast out love. Many of the first Europeans who came to this country feared the Aboriginal people – they didn’t understand them or their ways, saw them as the ‘other’, as dangerous, and so this fear cast out their love.
It is up to us to confess and lament these actions as part of our shared history in this country. We need to hear this truth and accept it. We need to hear this truth and acknowledge it, for without it there can be no hope for reconciliation, no hope for the love of God to abound in our communities. We need to count all as our brothers and sisters and take seriously what scripture tells us … to love as Christ loved us with love that is about justice, mercy and humility.
Perhaps the psalm will help us as we pray:-
‘Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation.
Let us hear what God will speak, for God will speak peace to all people,
and all those who turn to God in their hearts.
Surely God’s salvation is at hand and the glory of the great Creator Spirit may dwell in our land.’ (Psalm 85)
Let us lament with our First Nations brothers and sisters, let us tell the truth and let us love one another.
Amen.
We Sing: “Marrkapmirr” – (TiS 253)
O Lord Jesus Marrkapmirr, all the power belongs to you.
Hold me in your 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.
(*Marrkapmirr is a term of endearment used by the Aboriginal people of Arnhem Land. It means ‘all together lovely and worthy of affection’.)
Affirmation of Faith (by Rev Jenny Tymms
in consultation with First Nations people):
We say
God created the universe and the world we live in
and every living thing on earth.
We believe
the Creation shows us the power and presence of God
and makes us want to give thanks to God and take good care of the earth God has made.
We are full of joy
that across the world different peoples have their own culture and language
and that in God we are all united together as one.
We say
God is Spirit, breath of life who is always working to bring people to life in God.
We believe
the Spirit has been alive and active in every race and culture,
getting hearts and minds ready for the good news:
the good news of God’s love and grace that Jesus Christ revealed.
We are full of joy
that from the beginning the Spirit was alive and active,
revealing God through the law, custom and ceremony
of the First Peoples of this ancient land.
We say
Jesus is Saviour and Lord,
and that he began the church and prayed that the church might be together as one.
We believe
that in the risen Jesus we are all brothers and sisters in the one great family of God
and that God calls us to live in faith, hope and love
for the sake of the Kingdom of God here on earth.
We are full of joy
that we can learn, grow and serve together as a pilgrim people in the name of Christ.
Amen.
Prayer for Others (prepared by Rhonwen Pierce):
Let us pray …
Lord God,
You created this land that has been named Australia. It has places that are the oldest to be found on this planet and you inhabited it with the oldest civilisation still living on this planet. By song and story they learnt how best to live here. Other peoples have come and are still coming all with their ideas of what is best for this country. Teach us all how to care for our land and waters.
Help us to share justly the resources of this land. Help us to bring about spiritual and social change to improve the quality of live for all peoples in our community. Guide and strengthen the workers who have the responsibility for this work.
We pray for all the people who have and still are suffering from the floods. Guide those who have offered support that it goes to the most affected and reaches all equally. We think too of people who have lost loved ones either in the floods, car accidents or beach disasters. The trauma lasts a long time and is very difficult to recover from. We hold in silent prayer loved ones, people we know in difficulties, the lonely and special needs.
May your power and love be the foundations on which we walk together as First and Second Peoples and build our families, our communities and our nation.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
We pray together the Lord’s Prayer written by the Noongar People of WA.
Our Father who is above and beyond everything.
Holy and sacred is your name.
Your word will come here and be boss on our ground
as you do in your holy and sacred home.
Give us this day our bread.
Forgive us our bad doings.
We forgive those who do bad to us.
Don’t take us on the struggling path.
Father hold us so the devil doesn’t get us.
Your word is boss.
You are strong.
You are the rising sun.
Forever and ever.
Amen.
We Sing: “What does the Lord require?” – (TiS 618)
What does the Lord require for praise and offering?
What sacrifice desire or tribute did you bring?
Do justly; love mercy; walk humbly with your God.
People listen, give ear! should you not justice show?
Will God your pleading hear, while crime and cruelty grow?
Do justly; love mercy; walk humbly with your God.
Leaders in wealth and trade, for whom the worker tils,
think not to win God’s aid if greed your commerce soils.
Do justly; love mercy; walk humbly with your God.
Still down the ages ring the prophet’s stern commands:
to all who are living he brings God’s high demands.
Do justly; love mercy; walk humbly with your God.
How shall our life fulfill God’s law so hard and high?
Let Christ endure our will with grace to fortify.
Then justly; in mercy, we’ll humbly walk with God.
Blessing:
People of God,
be strong and of good courage,
live as people of the Covenant,
seek justice and resist evil,
honour First Nations People and confront racism,
love and care for creation
and turn from exploitation of the earth.
And the blessing of God our rock be upon you,
Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer,
lover of us all.
Amen.
Thanks to all those who have assisted in preparation for this liturgy with encouragement, prayers and conversation. I have also utilised the following resources: UCA Day of Mourning 2024, Fig Tree Worship and pilgrimwr.unitingchurch.org.au – Joan Wright Howie.