The service was based on the traditional Festival of 9 Lessons and Carols which has its origins in Cornwall.

I downloaded the Proost video series Nine to which I added a few videos from our own context including Christop’s fantastic Adam and Eve for the first Genesis reading.  We lit a candle at the central table for each reading of the lesson followed by video/audio or a carol.  People could respond by lighting candles throughout.

The service was reflective and the ‘sit back, listen and watch’ vibe seemed to work well for people in the hectic week before Christmas .  We only managed one carol in Norlane (sung off an iphone!) and four in Bendigo and Footscray which was plenty with all the other content.

One of my highlights was projecting the nativity line drawing animation (see You Tube clip below) on the organ pipes of the Peace Memorial Pipe Organ in the Footscray Baptist Church Sanctuary.  The ‘thread’ of light appearing to weave in and out of the pipes was real nice.

Set up at Norlane Baptist Church

Set up at Footscray Baptist Church

Candle lighting at St. Matthews, Long Gully, Bendigo

These are some of the slides and notes from my presentation at the ‘Welcome to My Place’ Workshop run by Welcome to Australia, Surrender and Crossway and held at the Crossway Center in late November.

The day was designed to equip people to become aware of and assist asylum seekers and refugees in their communties.

Some of the impetus for this particular workshop came out of some public statements from Dale Stephenson the Pastor of Crossway Baptist, offering to house ‘unaccompanied minors’ as an alternative to the current Australian government policy of mandatory detention and the so called ‘Malaysia solution.’

The Free Burma Cafe embodied hospitality to us with their beautiful food and powerful stories and the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre provided useful big picture perspective on the issues of practical support in the local context.

I was presenting on behalf of Surrender who’s partners Praxis, and UNOH Mission were represented at the workshop.

I did a brief blurb on why Surrender exists, its ethos and the coalition of like minded partner organisations it represents.

I quoted stats on how often our response to issues of justice and poverty is mentioned in different parts of the Hebrew Bible, The New Testament and Luke’s gospel in particular.

Surrender believes that how we respond to ‘the poor’ is not an optional extra for our faith or the domain for some special, ‘called’ saints.  Neither is it a ‘do good / feel good’ icing on the cake of our religion, rather it is central to what it means to have faith in Jesus, to understand the good news of salvation in the ‘here and now’ and to follow God’s mission in the world.

This image/idea of the biblical identity of humanity and the church as “Boat People,” (that we are all in many ways homeless/ marginal/ seeking refuge,) came from Rev. Dr Gordon Preece in an article on the Bible and Refugees where he makes connections between ideas of a fallen humanity, Noah, the boat motif of the early church and our particular Australian history of boat based migration.

Whilst Welcome to Australia has a broader focus that the ‘church’, the fact that this was a workshop being run at a church venue for a majority of Christian people meant I was invited to do a brief ‘Bible Survey’ on why ‘Welcoming the Stranger’ is at the heart of the Judeo- Christian tradition.

Starting at the beginning, I introduced the idea of Genesis 1-11 as ‘resistance literature’ of small, oppressed communities struggling for survival against the Imperial forces of thier day and that Genesis accurately narrates an increasing spiral of violence that names many of the dynamics that cause global displacement of peoples even today.

I first encountered this perspective from Ched Myers who’s brilliant ‘The Fall of Adam and The Rise of Civilization: Brief Notes on Genesis 1-11′ article is downloadable for a small fee. Another good resource for this sort of perspective is Wes Howard Brooks’ Come Out My People: God’s Call Out of Empire in the Bible and Beyond.

I mentioned Noah and the Deluge in Genesis 4 again, as in Gordon Preece’s article listed above, but I also gave emphasis here to the theme of the reversal of the Genesis creation where God separates land and waters.  I made connections to this and the ‘de-creation’ implicit in the current climate change crisis and the increasing reality of people being displaced due to climate factors.

God’s plan for redemption is received through an offer of hospitality to strangers.  This is where the Christian tradition of ‘unknowingly entertaining angels’ begins.

This hospitality of the wandering herdsman Abraham is contrasted by what happens to the same ‘angels/strangers’ at Sodom in the next story.  Sodom represents a fortified city state in opposition to the ‘ways of God’.  In our context this opposition is often reduced to a conservative religious position on ‘homosexuality,’ however in Ezekiel 16: 49-50 the Bible itself names the sin of Sodom as one of not providing hospitality for the poor and needy.

The narrative of the Exodus liberation of slaves and the sojourn through the wilderness and the giving of the law is vital for an understanding of biblical welcome.

The alternative economics of abundance implicit in the provision and test of the manna in Exodus 16 offer a vision of Sabbath and Jubilee law designed to protect people, the land and significantly, the foreigner or alien. (Leviticus 25, Dueteronomy 15)

Whatever you feel about the idea that ‘We are all Boat People,’ Judeo-Christian identity IS one of a wilderness people, searching for home, learning to live free and remembering they were once a dis-placed, enslaved people who were to be a model of freedom and hospitality to others (eg. Deuteronomy 15:15).

The best overview of Sabbath/Jubilee Economics and the hospitality it affords is articulated by Ched Myers in God Speed the Year of Jubilee and Jesus New Economy of Grace: The Biblical Vision of Sabbath Economics.

The Prophets relentlessly call Israel back to its wilderness traditions of hospitality and justice when the Jubilee laws are forgotten.

The ‘Year of the Lords favour’ in Isaiah 61 is a reference back to the Jubilee tradition and the chapter includes a place for the foreigner/ stranger in its conception of salvation for the nation.

I read a line by someone the other day… “You know that guy who holds up the sign John 3:16 at sporting events around the world,  in the ancient world that would have been Isaiah 61!”

At the start of his own ministry Jesus in Luke 4 uses Isaiah 61 as a manifesto to describe his mission and purpose in the world.  Significantly after reading this ancient text he specifically applies the fulfilment of this prophesy to foreigners; people of other cultures and religions which almost get’s him killed before he starts by the xenophobes of his own home town!

Hospitality can often seem a small and inadequate response to the large amount of issues / problems that are represented in the life of a dis-placed person.  I think often the sheer size/amount of problems that dislocation of people represents (war, oppression, torture, corruption etc) can be one of the reasons we don’t want to welcome the stranger.  Refugees remind us of the reality of a world we would rather not know about.  Their presence interupts our ‘comfortable’ but potentially dangerous denial.

God’s response of ‘becoming poor’  in the ‘incarnation’ of Jesus as narrated in the book of Philippians, could be considered small and inadequate.  One human life located in a backward region of the dominant empire of the day.

The Missionary instructions of Jesus in Mark 6 are for his followers to ‘remain small,’ travel light and to be dependent upon the hospitality of others.  There is a mutuality in the give and take nature of true hospitality.  We do not just give but we also receive much in opening ourselves up to others… In welcoming the other we need to be open to the fact that we ourselves may be the ones being saved or helped through the process.

Sadly the history of Christian Mission suggests we have often ignored Jesus’ instructions and have proceeded into the world taking up the sword rather than a cross, or at the very least, a LOT of cultural and doctrinal baggage that can easily destroy the mutuality of hospitality.

As an ex-communist activist who converted to Catholicism, Dorothy Day and the Hospitality House tradition of the Catholic Worker Movement can offer us an inspiring and informative example of how to sustain a significant movement of welcome. Against many of the big slavation ‘isms’ of her day her movement provided a deep, embodied critique and example of how LOVE through personal, local action, is ultimately the most important solution to the worlds biggest problems.

“Your love for God is only as great as the love you have for the person you love the least..”

“What we would like to do is change the world–make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute–the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words–we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend.”
― Dorothy Day

The earliest image of the Church, based upon its fishing village movement origins is that of the boat.

Jesus missionary journeys included getting in a boat and stilling a storm in order to cross to the ‘other side’ in Mark 5.  The image of the Geresean demoniac in this Mark 5 text is of an oppressed, self abusing, cultural ‘other’ (dwelling amongst pigs and tombs).  I highlighted the Roman military images implicit in his ‘exorcism’ (Legion, The Charging Boar, the ‘drowning’ reference to the Exdous liberation of slaves etc.) There is a similarity of many of these ‘internalised oppression’ dynamics for present day survivors of war, torture and oppression and we would do well to note them in seeking to help asylum seekers.

Jesus liberation journeys are risky and shocking to his disciples.  Faith is demonstrated by a ‘disciple overboard’ saga in Matthew 14:28-31. Each time they cross from Jewish to Gentile territory there is some kind of ‘storm’ or ‘the wind is against them’ (Mark 6:48.) On one occasion Jesus comes to them on the water as a ghost.  Jesus often comes to us as ‘the other’, the thing we most fear.  Each occasion Jesus enables this connection with ‘the other’ and enacts wilderness feeding and healings on both ‘sides’ as a symbol of reconciliation.

The gospels go out of their way to paint Jesus as the ‘other’.  The one who comes to as one who understands deeply the experience of what it means to be ‘marginal,’ who identifies and seeks to reconcile the ‘marginality’ in our world and our own lives.

Matthew 25 is perhaps the most powerful image of the Christ who comes to us in the poor and our offer of hospitality to Jesus, embodied in ‘the least of these,’ is presented as vital for salvation.

Saul/Paul is converted from being a persecutor of a religious minority through a vision of Christ who appears to him as a ‘persecuted refugee’ on the road to Damascus.

Whatever you think of the Apostle Paul and how his theology and instructions pick up the ministry of Jesus, Paul stakes his whole ministry upon the cultural reconciliation of Jew and Gentile in the ancient world and on the redistribution of resources from rich churches to poor churches for the sake of ‘equality’.

Having started at the beginning in Genesis I concluded our bible overview with the final book of Revelation.

The image above by English artist Holman Hunt was a popular one based on Revelation Chapter 3 where Jesus says “Behold I stand at the door and knock…”  My Grandmother had a print of it in her house and as I grew up in the church the imagery was used in many an evangelistic call to suggest Jesus is knocking on the door of your heart waiting to be invited in.

What was never made clear to me in this type of preaching was that the context of this image in John’s ‘Revelation’ is one of criticism of a wealthy church who have forgotten the poor at their doorstep.  Jesus once again is presented as the stranger and for ‘wealthy’ Christians, faithfulness is all about how we see, hear and respond to this ‘knock’ in our world.

Jesus may well be knocking at the door of our hearts, but he also is knocking at the door of our actual homes and nation, coming to us in the form of the ‘marginalised,’ the ‘refugee,’ the ‘asylum seeker’.  Opening the door of our hearts to Jesus involves opening our homes, lives and nation to the Christ at our doors and the welcome he invites.

Some more Biblical Texts about Welcoming the Stranger:

Deuteronomy 10: 19 You shall love the stranger, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:34 The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

Luke 10:27 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.

Matt. 5:43-44 You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy’. But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you.

Romans 13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Romans 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbour,    therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Romans 12:13 Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.

Acts 10:34 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.

Revelation 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.”

3 John 1:5 Beloved, you do faithfully whatever you do for the friends, even though they are strangers to you; they have testified to your love before the church. You do well to send them on in a manner worthy of God; for they began their journey for the sake of Christ, accepting no support from non-believers. Therefore we ought to support such people, so that they may become co-workers with the truth.

Hebrews 13: 1 Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

Collossians 3:11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.

Matthew 25: 35 I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

Matt. 25:40 Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of my brethren you did it to me.

Bible and The Stranger Link

Mennonite link

The kids join in the burial of the placenta!

We enjoyed participating in the blessing of Anthony and Ruth’s little one Isaac in the backyard at Footscray.  I hadn’t done much around placenta burial in a ritual sense and it was interesting to explore different traditions and work on the words below.

Rachael helped ‘midwife’ Isaac through a long labour and so her emotion whilst saying the words of blessing was a special and powerful highlight of the afternoon.

Dedication of Isaac Varenica

December  11, 2011

Opening Ritual

We acknowledge that we gather on the land of which the Murrun Bulluk of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation have been custodians from time immemorial.

We acknowledge their elders past and present.

We honour this history and commit ourselves to care for the land with them. May our lives be work for reconciliation with people and with the Creator Spirit.

This ritual is a time where we acknowledge the generations and our connection and dependence upon each other.  Welcome to family elders present…

Water is an important symbol of this connection…

Short explanation of water in biblical and local history

(silence while water is poured for cross marking blessing later… I liked the plastic watering can from Ming Mings Bric a Brac with $2 texta price still visible…very Footscray!)

2. Welcome: Marcus

Purpose of dedication: Thanksgiving and Commitment 

3.Reading; Psalm 139:13-16- Rach

13 For you created my inmost being;  you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; 
   your works are wonderful, 
 I know that full well. 
15 My frame was not hidden from you 
   when I was made in the secret place, 
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; 
all the days ordained for me were written in your book 
before one of them came to be.

 4. Introduction of the Elements – Marcus

We are gathered here as a family, with the creatures of the earth who are waiting to receive the placenta.

The Yucatan of Mexico call the placenta “el companero“, the companion. Lots of cultures deal with placentas after the birth in ritual ways, though their reasons look to me, a modern westerner, to be superstitious and sexist.

Ritualising the disposal of the placenta hasn’t been a part of the western Judeo-Christian culture, perhaps because of the Jewish fixation with cleanliness, and the association of birth, menstruation and blood with the “unclean.” Despite what Jesus said about cleanliness, most churches have followed the Jewish lead. In recent times birth has been reclaimed as clean and wonderful.

Now it is time to claim some meaning for the disposal of the placenta. And we do this at a time when we desperately need to remind ourselves of our connection to all life.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is of some help here, beginning with a creation story which calls humans the ‘adamah’, the earth creatures.

The earth, like the womb, is our origin

The earth, like the placenta, sustains us.

At funerals we remind ourselves that we are made of dust, and return to the dust.

By burying the placenta, the birth companion, and honouring it rather than handing it over to cosmetic companies as is common practice in Australia, we remind Isaac, and everyone, of our intimate link with the earth and with all creatures who come form it and return to it.

So Isaac-

though you don’t yet understand it, we’re here to bury your birth companion.

Once it linked you to Ruth, your sustainer,

Now it links you to the earth which sustains us all, even as it sustains the olives on which we hope will soon grow and feed us.

Once it allowed your intimate relationship with one life,

Now it speaks of your intimate relationship with all life.

May creation provide all the nutrients, faith, hope and love you need to live as one who knows where he came from, where you belong, and how to live in fidelity with this reality.

(words based largely on reflection found at ecofaith.org here)

5. Burial of Placenta 

6. Commitment Ritual

Ruth and Anthony what are your hopes for Isaac:

• We hope that Isaac grows to know and follow Jesus.
• We hope that he grows up with a heart that loves and can be loved.
• We hope that he finds joy and fulfillment in the simplicity of life.
• We hope that Isaac develops an awareness of the troubles of the world and has the courage to take action.
• We hope that he develops a spirit of hospitality, mercy and generosity.

Ruth and Anthony what are your commitments to Isaac:

• We commit to creating an atmosphere where Isaac can explore faith openly.
• We commit to loving Isaac for who he is and not who we expect him to be.
• We commit to doing our best as parents even though we won’t always get it right.
• We commit to prayer and seeking advice from our community of faith and family as Isaac grows.
• We commit to standing with Isaac during failure, adversity and suffering.

7. Watering of the Tree

Grandparents first then Family and Friends

(Song: Return of the King, ipod)

8. Blessing for Isaac: Rach

Isaac. For you Jesus Christ has come and has lived; life in all its fullness.  For you he endured the agony of Gethsemane and the darkness of the cross; with which we mark you now. For you he has uttered the cry, ‘It is accomplished!’ For you, he has triumphed over death; for you he prays at God’s right hand; all for you, little child, even though you do not know it.

The blessing of the God of Sarah and of Abraham

The blessing of the Son, born of Mary,

The blessing of the Spirit, who broods over us

As a mother over her children

Be with you now and forever

Amen.

9. Benediction

The LORD bless you and keep you;  the LORD make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace.

“There’s something about a nonviolent protest that gets any coffee-drinkin’ progressive excited about “stickin’ it to the man.”

I appreciated this reflection by Kurt Willems at The Pangea Blog on the current ‘Occupy’ Movement and the parable of the Lost Sheep.

May you… be light and life (John 1)

May you… choose the good over the evil.

May you… know your esteemed place in the Economy of God

May you… buy in, sell out, and learn how to be ‘not Egypt’

May you… be honest and courageous and at least a little bit wild

So that the Spirit can establish you in freedom and give you imagination

May you… receive your manna with gratitude and reliance

And know awe at the mercy seat…this new way, THE way…Jesus way.

May you… proclaim the coming peace of our Jesus

Though it be messy, costly and often times lonely.

May you… embrace your Sabbath

Knowing true rest, extravagant grace, compassion

And the ability to ‘be’.

May you… be rich in only those things that are truly of value

And live in the abundance of enough.

May the life and death of Jesus both bring you peace

And thoroughly disturb you.

May you… know the precious presence of the Spirit in your life

And dignify the image of God in others.

Be light.  Be life.

Amen.

Benediction for Final Eucharist of Donvale Christian School Staff Retreat by Jess Killeen.

Steven Said and myself had done two morning sessions on the Call to Discipleship.

There are moments when someone sums you up better than you can yourself.

This was gold!

Six years after my first attempt I reworked ‘The Waters Edge’, a series of reflective stations upon the Call to Discipleship and the Economy of God for the Tear Victorian Gathering at Phillip Island.  This time I laminated the station instructions on big paper fish… an abundant catch!

I enjoyed putting this together for SURRENDER at the TEAR Australia ‘Good News Stories’ Gathering this weekend with my new birthday camera… thanks to all who contributed!

We asked participants What “HOPE IS…” and “What are you HOPING FOR?”…

You can download the full version for a small fee and support the important work of Baritmaeus Cooperative Ministries here.

…Now comes the moment in our story that any church in moral quandary or ethical debate putatively longs for. In bumper sticker parlance: WWJD? The One who our Christian orthocrats deem to be “without sin” is about to issue his official ruling on this matter, to offer unequivocal guidance on the issue they deem to represent the moral watershed. Here at last is God’s own edict concerning the boundaries of marriage law, free of cultural static. Let’s settle this hash once and for all.

And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn you…’ This verb (in Greek katakrinō), which appears twice here in John’s punch line, is important. It is employed by the apostle Paul in his famous argument for divine grace in Romans 1-2.

This is germane because it is there that we also find the verse (Rom 1:26f) that is used incessantly by the Christian morality tsars to beat up homosexuals.

This is,of course, another example of these friends missing the point. In fact, Paul’s conclusion in Rom 2:1 sounds very much like Jesus’ “proposition” in John 8:

You are without excuse, whoever you are who would judge, for in passing judgment on the other, you condemn (Gk katakrineis) yourself, because you are practicing the very same things!

Indeed, Paul’s theological manifesto on grace in Rom 6-8 culminates with the extraordinary and unequivocal declaration:

“There is therefore no condemnation (Gk katakrima) for those who are in Christ Jesus!” (Rom 8:1).

Such does not appear, however, to be the faith of those who invoke the apostle to exclude gays and lesbians. Instead, Constitutional amendments and righteous resolutions and threatened splits fly like stones, with intent to kill.

John’s story ends abruptly with Jesus’ simple invitation to a fresh start: “Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” The Divine guidance we’ve been waiting for turns out to be what Elsa Tamez calls “the amnesty of grace.” Restorative justice trumps retributive legalism. And the moral of the story: the one true prerequisite to rendering judgment is self-examination. (emphasis his)

As so often with scripture, this ancient wisdom invites us into some deep waters. John’s scenario of the authorities gathered to “execute justice”—that grimmest of double entendres—has, of course, been repeated ad nauseum in the history of our church—but without the happy ending. Jesus’ response unmasks the two characteristics that lay beneath the theology and politics of condemnation.

One is the presumption that one’s own position on the issue is normative. The other is a distinct lack of humility. Both are necessary to sustain an effort to render another person or group inferior or expendable, and both lead to ideologies, practices, policies of dehumanization. No matter how painfully polite or putatively pious the anthropological exclusionists may be, this is the spiritual and psychological reality.

…But there is one more thing to be said about John 8. That is the way it immediately circles around and cracks back on those of us who would assume the heroic stand of solidarity. It short circuits our impulse to condemn those who are condemning. How quick we are to replicate the very characteristics this story exposes—to absolutize our own position, and to jettison humility in our righteous advocacy. We love to imagine—at least in our hearts—the excommunication of our enemies. But as soon as we start reaching for stones to hurl, Jesus is going to switch sides.

This story’s wildly circulating grace confounds any attempt to redraw the lines of in and out. We should not be too sure of ourselves, because we have a long way to go to truly embody solidarity, and we have all too many blind spots. We all have to figure out what it means to “sin no more”—issues of ethical behavior remain after inclusion has been secured. As Audrey Lorde famously put it, we must be vigilant in “doing our own work.”

And as for humility, we could start by asking why it took us so long —both as individuals and as institutions—to take our stand with the vulnerable, who were enduring their marginalization long before we showed up. It seems to me that part of the self-examination to which Jesus invites everyone in John 8 is to acknowledge that we are all on a journey to deeper and wider communion. This includes our adversaries, with whom we must have empathy even as we do battle. We are all only on the road, not at the destination, and no one is beyond the reach of grace. As Gandhi put it, even our adversaries have part of the truth; as M.L. King put it, they too must find a place in the Beloved Community.

- Ched Myers in “If a Bible Story Could Stop a Culture War: A Reflection on John 8, Proposition 8 & the Politics of Affirmation”