Tag: Indigenous

Saints | NAIDOC Week | William Cooper

The theme for NAIDOC Week 2023 is ‘For our Elders’ so it’s a good time to introduce you to a very significant Aboriginal Christian Elder, William Cooper.

On December 6, 1938, the Consul General to the Third Reich, Dr Drechsler, received a deputation. A dozen men and women had marched from Footscray to Collins Street to object to “the cruel persecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi Government of Germany and asking that this persecution be brought to an end.” Continue reading “Saints | NAIDOC Week | William Cooper” →

Genesis | Abram: Our ancestor-colonizer

The story of Abram points to a more just settlement, paving the way to Voice and Treaty. (Listen.)

Leave your country, your kin, and your ancestral home, you poverty-stricken Cornishfolk, for a land which I will show you. It’s the colony of South Australia, Burra to be precise; and it needs people like you to chop down trees and lay out farms and work the mines and subdue the earth. Continue reading “Genesis | Abram: Our ancestor-colonizer” →

Reconciliation Week | Before reconciliation

If you enter your place of worship then remember that your brother or sister has something against you, abandon your offering and go, be reconciled to your brother or sister. Make things right. Then and only then, come back and offer your gift to God. (Matthew 5:23-24)

I was absolutely sickened by the brutal, arrogant and downright ugly carving of a Jesus-branded message into an Indigenous sacred site on Mount Beerwah last week. (If you missed it, someone used a power tool to gouge “JESUS SAVES JUST ASK HIM” in letters up to an inch deep across the rockface.) Continue reading “Reconciliation Week | Before reconciliation” →

Ezekiel | Dem dry colonial bones

A reflection for white settlers living on stolen land. (Listen.)

It’s tempting to reflect on the bones. The massacre site that is now a fast food restaurant just a couple of blocks from Sanctuary. The bones which still wash up from time to time on the beach near Peterborough. The babies’ bones buried six feet under at the missions. The bones which were scattered throughout the landscape, left to rot in every lake, valley and hollow, left lying in the paddocks to dry out in the sun. It’s tempting to focus on the bones: because our history and geography are studded with other people’s bones. Continue reading “Ezekiel | Dem dry colonial bones” →

Friends of the cross

For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ … (Phil. 3:18)

Saturday saw an appalling spectacle as British campaigner Kellie-Jane Keen, sitting member of Parliament Moira Deeming, and masked neo-Nazis performing the Nazi salute held an anti-trans rally on the steps of Parliament House. And so it was timely and perhaps spirit-led that Sunday’s reflection was a queered up reading of a well-known biblical text (here). Continue reading “Friends of the cross” →

Our spiritual geography

Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:24) – The invitation to Sanctuary to write about the place where they live in 2023.

Once upon a time, our ancestor Jacob went on a journey. He left the place called Beer-sheba and came to the place called Luz. It had been a long day on the road;  it was now twilight. The first stars were becoming visible in the darkling sky. So he took one of the stones of that place, a flat stone, a smooth stone, and brushed off the dirt; then he used it as a pillow. He wrapped himself tightly in his traveling cloak, and drifted into a deep, God-filled sleep. While he was dreaming, he saw a stairway reaching from that place all the way to heaven, and God’s messengers were travelling between heaven and earth. Continue reading “Our spiritual geography” →

Genesis | ‘Surely God is in this place!’

God-stories are always anchored to particular places. So what are our God-stories, and how can they charge the landscape? (Listen.)

Once upon a time, our ancestor Jacob went on a journey. He left the place called Beer-sheba and came to the place called Luz. It had been a long day on the road;  it was now twilight. The first stars were becoming visible in the darkling sky. So he took one of the stones of that place, a flat stone, a smooth stone, and brushed off the dirt; then he used it as a pillow. He wrapped himself tightly in his traveling cloak, and drifted into a deep, God-filled sleep. While he was dreaming, he saw a stairway reaching from that place all the way to heaven, and God’s messengers were moving between heaven and earth. Continue reading “Genesis | ‘Surely God is in this place!’” →

26 January | YHWH, Bunjil and Waa: Implications for Voice and Treaty

But Abram said, ‘I have sworn to YHWH, El Elyon, maker of heaven and earth …’ (Genesis 14:22)

Something interesting happens in Genesis 14. Abram swears to YHWH, whom we usually respectfully and obliquely refer to as the LORD. Then he also names El Elyon, maker of heaven and earth: the god whom Melchizedek serves. Perhaps Abram is implying that YHWH and El Elyon are one and the same. Perhaps he is acknowledging and honouring the creator spirit of the land alongside the god he already knows. Whichever, it’s intriguing: for have you ever heard anyone speak in the name of YHWH, Bunjil and Waa, creator ancestors of this land? Continue reading “26 January | YHWH, Bunjil and Waa: Implications for Voice and Treaty” →

Isaiah | The city of joy

Good health, good work, and good relationships come together to form a city of joy, and a people of delight. (Listen.)

A city of joy, its people a delight: this is what God promises through the prophet Isaiah. Sounds wonderful! So, what are the elements of this joyful city? First, says Isaiah, health and wellbeing. No child will die young; no senior die prematurely (Isa. 65:20). And we can imagine it. There are no coal-fired power stations; no rampaging wildfires; no unprecedented floods. There are no smouldering rainforests; no record-breaking heatwaves. No children or elders are struggling for breath through air thick with particulate matter; no one is sick from herbicides or forever chemicals because these are strictly banned; nobody is collapsing from extreme heat. Continue reading “Isaiah | The city of joy” →

All Saints | Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls: Footballer, organizer, preacher, saint

Next week is All Saints, when we particularly remember the people both before us and beside us, the living and the dead, with whom we are gathered in the body of Christ. This week, then, I’d like to introduce you to one of the saints, Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls.

Charismatic and confident, Yorta Yorta man Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls (1906-1988) grew up at the Cummeragunja Aboriginal Reserve on the banks of the Murray River. He was the fifth child of Herbert and Florence. As an Aboriginal person born in the colony, he lacked land, rights and recognition; and so much of his life was devoted to caring for others also suffering the consequences of dispossession, and campaigning for these basic human rights. Continue reading “All Saints | Pastor Sir Doug Nicholls: Footballer, organizer, preacher, saint” →

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