Uniting Church in Australia
Koonung Heights Congregation
Sunday, 23rd. June, 2024
Proper 7B: Psalm 9, Mark 4:35-41; 1 Samuel 17:32-49, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13)
47th Birthday of Uniting Church in Australia
Refugee Week all around our world
Jesus calming the storm. Irish illuminated manuscript, 11th century
Introit tune: Eriskay Love Lilt, Scottish folk melody
Lord of life, we come to you,
Lord of all, our Saviour be,
Come and bless and to heal
With the light of your love. X2
Words Catherine Walker, Hymn 782, Church Hymnary Scotland
Contemporary Call to Worship
Strength is commanding the wind and sea to obey,
Strength is wielding a slingshot in the face of a raging giant.
Strength is accepting vulnerability from inside the boat,
Strength is standing in solidarity with the powerless.
Strength is turning a cheek,
Strength is loving an enemy.
We come to worship
a God who redefines our vision of strength.
We sing: Here to the house of God we come,
Tune: Khao I Dang
Words: Shirley Erena Murray
1.Here to the house of God we come,
home of the people of the Way,
here to give thanks for all we have,
naming our needs for every day,
we who have roof and rent and bread,
sure of a place to rest our head.
2.There is a knocking at our door,
sound of the homeless of the world,
voice of the frightened refugee,
cry of the children in the cold,
asking the least that is their right,
safety and shelter for the night.
3.God who is shelter, who is home,
in borrowed rooms you came to live,
pleaded to save the dispossessed,
crucified, lay in borrowed grave,
these are no strangers in your eyes,
this is your family who cries.
4.Shelter us, tenants of your love,
gather us round a common fire,
warm us in company with Christ,
give us the heart to feel, to share
table and lodging without bond,
space in our living, in our land.
Prayer of Approach
We listen for the Word of God:
1 Samuel 17: (1a,4-11,19-23,) 32-49: The Story of David
We sing: TiS 561 Who would true Valour see
John Bunyan, 1628-88
Who would true valour see,
Let them come hither;
Those here, will constant be,
Come wind, come weather.
There’s no discouragement
Shall make them once relent
Each from a vowed intent
To be a pilgrim.
Those who beset them round
with dismal stories
cannot the brave confound:
their strength the more is.
No lion can them fright,
they’ll with a giant fight,
but each will have a right
to be a pilgrim.
Hobgoblin nor foul fiend
can daunt their spirit:
they know they at the end
shall life inherit.
Then fancies fly away;
they’ll scorn what people say,
and each work night and day
to be a pilgrim.
Psalm 9 Renewed — Duncan Wilson, UK
Our God is a tower of strength
to those who are oppressed,
a fortress in time of trouble.
Those who know you put their trust in you
for you never abandon those who come to you.
The nations are plunged into a pit of their own making
and snared in their own deceptions.
But you rouse yourself and justice is done.
You are moved by the plight of the needy
So that the hope of poor people is not crushed for ever.
Gospel of Mark 4: 35-41
Storyteller: On that day, when evening had come, Jesus said to the disciples:
Jesus: Let us go across to the other side
Storyteller: Leaving the crowd behind, they took Jesus in the boat, just as he was…..
A great windstorm arose. The waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But Jesus was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.
The disciples woke Jesus up and said to him:
Leader: Disciples: everyone together
ALL: Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?
Storyteller: Jesus woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea,
Jesus: Peace! Be still!
Storyteller: Then the wind ceased. And there was dead calm.
Jesus said to the disciples,
Jesus: Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?
Storyteller:: The disciples were filled with great awe and said to one another,
Leader: Disciples, everyone together.
ALL: Who then is this?
Storyteller: Who then is this, who can quiet a storm and calm the waves?
Leader: Mark’s story of the storm ends here.
May we hear and understand the message for us today.
REFLECTION: Crossing to the other side
IN the great literature of the world, campaigns into new areas, whether physical or psychological or both: there are usually obstacles which must be overcome for the mission to succeed. The disciples have been raised to think that gentiles are unclean and one should have nothing to do with them. The ‘great wind storm’ describes not only the physical effect of storm at sea, but also the psychological impact on the disciples of a mission to foreigners.
Our passage has been the inspiration for many, many paintings, as well as cartoons.
And symbolically Mark clearly intends us to understand ‘the other side’ as gentile: Jesus who compels the disciples to go into foreign territory, to ‘the other side’ of humanity!
From Mark 4 onward, there is a major theme of the ‘blindness of the disciples’: the disciples never ‘get it’ any place in Mark; I can still remember the late Rev Prof Norman Young opening that secret of the disciples’ ‘not understanding’ to me. ‘The other boats with them’ in verse 36” aren’t mentioned again. Maybe they didn’t freak out as the disciples did. Another gospel puzzle!
John Petty says the translation of phobos as filled with great awe – is not a sufficiently strong translation. It should be ‘fearing a great fear’ – they weren’t piously in awe of Jesus, as NRSV suggests, they were scared out of their wits, and totally ignorant as to who Jesus is:
Bill Loader says ‘The gospel according to Mark, is about Jesus coming to liberate people from such forces. – sees Jesus as the embodiment of God’s power, the bearer of the Holy Spirit (which will ) challenge and overcome the deep and destructive powers which the furies of nature symbolise.’
Bill says the calming of the storm is like the slaying of a dragon. When we pause to think about it, Mark’s world of demons and legions of pigs and storms being calmed is not all that strange, if we think about the stories as symbols. It’s actually not so different from our own storms, demons, dramas and such.
The stories show there are forces in the world which push us around. These can range from the things that go wrong with our brain making us mentally ill, to the social issues of discrimination and poverty that seem to try and fence our lives in.
The disciples felt they were drowning – over their heads , just like we feel we are in a situation where we find ourselves in over our heads. Of course we are afraid as we face climate change, or a broken marriage, sick grandchildren, jobs we hate, downsizing, financial uncertainty.
However maybe the question is not how the disciples FELT – More – doesn’t Jesus care about us drowning; If he did care He certainly wouldn’t be asleep!
Many of us have that default move when we are quick to assume the worst – aren’t we.
Debie Thomas says: when I think God doesn’t care about me, maybe I am expendable, then I say: “Okay Jesus, prove you love me by fixing my circumstances – I’ll do A and love you if you’ll do B and protect and save me.”
What if the passage has Jesus saying: Why are you afraid of me
“Why do we still not trust that I am with you for you in you, and around you.
After all this time, why do you suspect my heart”
To trust Jesus, then, is to hold two pictures of the kingdom in productive tension. Yes, sometimes Jesus demonstrates his power in miraculous, echnicolour ways; and we’re not wrong wanting to hope for such demonstrations. At other times, though, we need to trust that his Incarnation – his quiet, abiding presence in our lives – is enough for the circumstances we face. Jesus’ power is paradoxical: it comes to us in what looks like vulnerability, like weakness, like ‘sleep’. The hiddenness of God, in other words, is simply that. Hiddenness, not absence.
The disciples are privileged, yet they don’t get what Jesus is teaching them. Jesus declares parables are elusive. Are you ready to hear and see and understand?!
The passage has less to do with managing nature than it has to do with portraying the gospel as struggle against the demonic and destructive powers. About Jesus coming to liberate people from such forces. Jesus slaying the dragons which we face. What are the powers that destroy and distort and endanger, and can we liberated from such powers; the personal and social/political dimensions. The way the highly exaggerated arguments about refugees continue to subvert the debate and keep governments from being more understanding of the need of brothers and sisters – the thousand and millions in squalid refugee camps.
I was at a hen’s party on Friday night – a lass of Indian ethnicity who lived with us for a while, has thrown over ‘the powers of caste’ and has had the courage to trust a young man again, and become engaged to marry a young man of a different caste – it’s taken her much courage to cross over to the other side.
Heshmet came from Iran 11 years ago: a younger son, a Christian, someone who wished to study engineering, has been here in Australia unaccepted all this time: he does house painting with another ex-refugee with whom he was on Christmas Island. He’s a member of Ashburton Presbyterian church and is studying the Old Testament there.
However, it’s wait, wait, wait, and he feels his brain is atrophying. Uniting Vic Tas through Lentara is managing the Camberwell Refugee network – St John’s Anglican, Highfield Road UC, Camberwell UC and St Dominic’s RC.
However, the press – TV and newspapers, and shock jocks – enflame citizens of many countries – in the UK refugees are again living in hulks in the Thames like my great great grandfather – we’ll send them to Rwanda! Why?
“Refugees will take away our jobs;
They are dangerous people
We won’t be able to control the cost of living; yet what about the counter-argument – immigration makes more demand for goods, and more employment.
My great grandfather was a refugee from the poverty of Scotland, a 12 year old who stole chickens with his gang; he lived on the docks in Glasgow, in Sauchiehall Street, and was sent to a hulk first, and then to Tasmania. Such shame, my own grandfather never knew about him.
There probably was a serious storm and Mark used it symbolically for his message to his readers: with the challenge to go to the other side – to see the refugee and love the other and share our conviction of God’s love for God’s entire cosmos, every hair on every head – it takes the heat of argument away. Amen.
We Sing: TiS 674 Inspired by Love and Anger
Inspired by love and anger, disturbed by need and pain,
informed of God’s own bias, we ask him once again:
“How long must some folk suffer? How long can few folk mind?
How long dare vain self-interest turn prayer and pity blind?”
From those for ever victims of heartless human greed,
Their cruel plight composes a litany of need:
“Where are the fruits of Justice? Where are the signs of peace?
When is the day when prisoners and dreams find their release?”
God asks, “Who will go for me? Who will extend my reach?
And who, when few will listen, will prophesy and preach?
And who, when few bid welcome, will offer all they know?
And who, when few dare follow, will walk the road I show?”
Amused in someone’s kitchen, asleep in someone’s boat,
attuned to what the ancients exposed, proclaimed and wrote,
a saviour without safety, a tradesman without tools
has come to tip the balance with fishermen and fools.
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE – Harriet Ziegler
(Adapted from a prayer by Janet Dickson of Common Grace)
God of love, we give thanks that you are always present to us in our fears, in our challenges, and in our joys.
As we celebrate the 47th anniversary of the Uniting Church, we give thanks for the pioneers of our Church and that they overcame the fears and challenges of creating one church out of three by putting their faith in you.
We give thanks for every church member of that time who could see beyond fear and difference, every person who could see that the stranger from another denomination or the church down the road was also a loved child of yours.
We pray today for every leader and every member of the Uniting Church, of whatever race and in every corner of this land. May we more perfectly be your people and more perfectly serve you and our neighbours.
We ask this especially as Refugee Week draws to a close. May we honour this church anniversary by praying for justice for refugees.
Loving God, you see your children in warzones and conflicts, In Ukraine, Gaza, Myanmar, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan… There are too many to name, but you see them all. We ask that you will comfort the terrified, the injured, the orphaned, the families trying to protect their children. May we see as you see, and may we take action that all these people may experience your sheltering care.
God of all, you see your children In the years after wars, living in makeshift camps. Millions are trapped endlessly in the waiting rooms of the world. Grant hope to the families who have waited for decades. May parents see a pathway of life for their little ones. We pray for freedom for those who have lost all hope and for compassion from leaders and nations who would deprive people of that pathway because they are ‘not like us’.
Maker of all, you see the lonely ones, The fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, who find work far away, to support their loved ones. May employers be fair and kind, and may we encourage lawmakers to protect these vulnerable people.
Loving God, you see millions without freedom, and yet we know that in your dominion, there is room for all. We lament that it is so hard for your children on earth to find a place for all. God, show us how to change our ways, our actions, our hearts, so that it may be on earth as you would have it be.
And so we pray together:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your Name,
your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those
who sin against us.
Save us from the time of trial, and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours,
now and for ever. Amen.
OFFERING. Jeff Shrowder
Bless our gifts and our lives, O God,
that your Spirit might work in us,
through storm and calm,
in following Jesus. Amen.
We sing: TiS 595 O Jesus I have promised to serve you to the end
O Jesus, I have promised
to serve you to the end;
Lord, be forever near me,
my master and my friend:
I shall not fear the battle
if you are by my side,
nor wander from the pathway
if you will be my guide.
Still let me feel you near me:
The world is ever near;
I see the sights that dazzle,
and tempting sounds I hear;
My foes are ever near me,
around me and within
But, Jesus, draw me nearer,
And shield my soul from sin.
O let me hear you speaking
in accents clear and still,
above the storms of passion,
the murmurs of self-will;
Lord, speak to reassure me,
to chasten or control;
O speak, and make me listen
true guardian of my soul.
Lord, let me see your footmarks
and in them plant my own;
that I may follow boldly
and in your strength alone;
O guide me, call me, draw me,
uphold me to the end;
and then in heaven receive me,
My Saviour and my friend.
Litany of Justice
Jesus said, “I was hungry and you gave me food.”
Made in the image of God,
We see the face of Christ in all.
Jesus said, “I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.”
Made in the image of God,
We see the face of Christ in all.
Jesus said, “I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
Made in the image of God,
We see the face of Christ in all.
Jesus said, “I was naked and you gave me clothing.”
Made in the image of God,
We see the face of Christ in all.
Jesus said, “I was sick and you took care of me.”
Made in the image of God,
We see the face of Christ in all.
Jesus said, “I was in prison and you visited me.”
Made in the image of Christ,
We see the face of Christ in all.
Jesus said, “Inasmuch as you did to one of those considered the least important, you did it to me.”
Made in the image of God,
We see the face of Christ in all.
We go from here to see and serve Christ in all. Amen.
Blessing:
May the storms within and around you be stilled,
May you recall the depth of God’s love
And the breadth of God’s power;
And may you, too, bring calm to all you meet.
We sing:
Go now in peace, go now in peace,
May the love of God surround you,
Everywhere, everywhere, you may go. X 2