PHOTO ALBUM

Reconciliation Banner — February 2020

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 All Australians are on a Journey     

 

by Rev Eric Smith

I invite you to share a journey.  Our journey as Christians is always in the context of worship– the worship of the one God who calls us forwards as servant people, in the assurance of the covenant promises through Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I do not expect we will all agree with everything along the way, but I do invite you to do as I need to do, to look afresh at disturbing challenges to our views of the past so that we may live well in the future.

On the Sunday before Australia Day, the Uniting Church Assembly invites congregations each year to look at the story of Australia, and particularly at the often fraught relationship of the 1st and 2nd peoples.

Today we live in a country partly ravaged by bushfire, fires that overwhelm the landscape and tear at the heart and soul of country, the spirit country of our First Peoples and the beloved land in which we have the honour and privilege to dwell.  All Australians are on a journey. We hold many views about the relationships between white and indigenous Australians.

As Christians our views are formed from our beliefs, based on the Scriptural teachings.  On the Sunday before Australia Day we had these three Bible readings:

Psalm 40 is one of numerous Psalms that are a lament, an honest declaring to God of our grief, our frustration and our difficulties.  Such truth-telling is a necessary precursor of revived relationships.

Isaiah 49 is one of the servant songs: God inviting people in the darkest of times to know that they are not on the journey alone and that they are not simply to know comfort and personal hope, but that they are to serve as a light to the nations – they (we) have a purpose beyond our own immediate circumstances.

In the last part of the Gospel of John 1 one of Jesus’ first actions as he commenced his public ministry was to draw people to him, call them to follow him as he went about the countryside teaching, healing, opening people’s vision to God’s grace.  

If it was true then, it is true now.  We too are called by Jesus with our yearnings, as we search for the way ahead.

The Assembly and the Congress are offering a banner to congregations. 

It is no point just putting the banner up in the church building because someone thinks it is a good idea.  It needs to be done only if the congregation feels it expresses something of what we believe, something of the yearnings we are committed to achieving, God being our helper.

Let me take you through it:

The banner has been designed jointly by representatives of the Assembly and the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (the indigenous arm of the UCA).  It is an agreed and negotiated form of words, to be used consistently across the whole church, except for the names of the local First Peoples.

At the top are the emblems of the Uniting Aboriginal Islander Christian Congress
& UCA drawn together and belonging together in the cross.

 The words are in English, but the painting is indigenous – another form of partnership.

Words and painting recognise that God was active amongst the indigenous nations of the great southern continent before European people came, and that the Gospel gives an ever reviving spirituality for all Australian people.

The Covenant amongst First Peoples and Second Peoples draws out the action of the Spirit of God in creation, and celebrates the sacred gifts of God through the Dreaming, in Jesus Christ and through the future relationship we share.

The timeline is a reminder that this is a journey, a journey which still has much distance to travel.  The church has achieved much as a partnership of First and Second Peoples, but we are still not in the Promised Land.

The Australian nation has much more to do and our banner symbolises our commitment to continuing the journey.

At the top are the emblems of the Uniting Aboriginal Islander Christian Congress and UCA drawn together and belonging together in the cross.

The words are in English, but the painting is indigenous – another form of partnership.

Words and painting recognise that God was active amongst the indigenous nations of the great southern continent before European people came, and that the Gospel gives an ever reviving spirituality for all Australian people.

The Covenant amongst First Peoples and Second Peoples draws out the action of the Spirit of God in creation, and celebrates the sacred gifts of God through the Dreaming, in Jesus Christ and through the future relationship we share.

The timeline is a reminder that this is a journey, a journey which still has much distance to travel.  The church has achieved much as a partnership of First and Second Peoples, but we are still not in the Promised Land.  The Australian nation has much more to do and our banner symbolises our commitment to continuing the journey.

We ought not be concerned about any legal implications of the word ‘sovereign’.  In this context it is not referring to the monarch, but to the concept of national identity.  Until a Treaty is negotiated, the prior residents have entitlement.

The reconciliation group of our congregation welcomes your comments and conversation.

As we celebrate so much that is good about Australia, maybe we can grasp the goal of the lament to honestly tell the truth of the past.  Maybe we can more fulsomely respect the indigenous people of the land and their culture, showing we have a purpose as a nation that we actually can make a difference.  And doing it because we are gifted by God, as servants of the Living God, in the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit.

 Footnote: re The Covenanting Painting — The Wagalak sisters are creation sisters, who carry their power in their dilly bags.
When they walk, they use the contents of their dilly bags to create the landscape.