Thoughts on and around a national day
Ordinary Sunday 3: 27th January, 2002
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's Eastern Hill
I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
Be strong, and let your heart take courage
Wait for the Lord! (Ps 27: 13-14)
The Spanish conquistadors sailed towards the western horizon in the late
15th century with the cross emblazoned on the mainsails of their little ships.
They expected to find India and for a while they thought they had. They
expected to bring the Faith and to make a lot of wealth. In the 17th century
the Pilgrim Fathers also headed westwards with their households, hoping to
found godly communities in the wilderness – far more godly and open to God
than the society they were leaving. In the 18th century, the First Fleet
sailed south and then east to the landfall at Botany Bay with a sad and sorry
cargo of unwanted prisoners, uncertain of where their next meal was coming
from. Not the most promising of beginnings for what was the first European
settlement on this smallest of the continents, out of which was to grow this
Australia. And God had only a small walk-on part to play in this drama. So our
modern origins are different both in intention and in expectation than North
or South America. And with our sparse population even today and our relatively
limited resources, we differ also from the challenges, demands or opportunities
of Asia or Africa. It is perhaps true then that we are dealing here in
Australia with something that is particular. The strong and confident voice
of the psalmist today yet speaks of the experience of God in our lives and
where we live. God is to be found 'in the land of the living'. Our sense of
that presence, or indeed our sense of the absence of that presence in this
land of the living, is worth exploring.
I would be prepared to bet that it did not take 8 days for either than
Spaniards or the Pilgrim Fathers to get around to a church service after their
arrival. When Richard Johnson, the first chaplain in the colony, was able to
preach at the first service in Sydney Cove on February 3rd, his text was from
Psalm 116: "What shall I return to the Lord for all his bounty to me? I will
lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord." I have always
found that very droll. Now well over two centuries later, there is still a
sense of more yet to be done, of challenges still before us. It is never to
be easy here.
How might we reflect on themes appropriate to this time in national life?
There are after all those who strongly assert that this is not a suitable date
to have as our national day, because the associations are too mixed. Others
just as strongly note that this was indeed the beginning, however unpromising,
of European settlement, and is therefore worth marking even though other days
such as Anzac Day go much deeper. There are substantial issues here, more than
we perhaps want to grapple with on a hot summer long weekend.
There are some available resources to assist. It is actually worth digging
in the prayer book. How about a late January read of that particular religious
resource book? Try first the readings and prayers for the day, and then the
eucharistic preface set. There are in fact many points offered for reflection
and consideration.
If you are one of those who want to see the various concerns and challenges
acknowledged then the collect in our Prayer Book for Australia Day captures
some of that ambivalence:
Bounteous God,
We give thanks for this ancient and beautiful land,
a land of despair and hope,
a land of wealth and abundant harvests,
a land of fire, drought and flood.
We pray that your Spirit may continue to move in this land and bring
forgiveness, reconciliation, and an end to all injustice; through Jesus
Christ our Lord.
In that prayer is both thanks and repentance. There is the celebration of
'this ancient and beautiful land', there is the acknowledgment of the constant
perils we face – as Dorothea Mackellar put it in My Country: 'her beauty
and her terror, the wide brown land for me'. But as well, the social and
individual needs for forgiveness, reconciliation and justice stand declared.
Perhaps it is movement in those areas that will allow more of the goodness of
the Lord to be seen in the land of the living. We are asked to consider this.
Or putting it more directly, perhaps we are asked to consider to what degree
is God able to be experienced and God's blessings and gifts honoured and shared
where there remain major outstanding challenges of a lack of forgiveness, an
absence of reconciliation and continuing injustice?
In amongst our relaxed summer haze and pleasant barbecues, it is good to
give these matters some passing thought. We can do better. And insofar as we
see ourselves as stewards or custodians for our generations of time and then
handing on and over to others, we have a responsibility.
There is a special eucharistic preface in the Prayer Book headed simply
'Australia'. It is addressed to the 'Lord of every time and place, God beyond
our dreaming.' It retells the saving acts of God in Jesus Christ, and then
seeks to place our individual living in the broader context of what it is to
live in this land:
We give you thanks that in him
you have revealed to us your presence
in the vastness of this land,
your love in its fruitfulness, and
your purposes in its cycles of death and renewed life.
Which one of us has not thought along these stark lines of death and
resurrection as we watched the terrible bushfires of this season and yet
know that it is only through that death that life will come to these eucalypt
forests. What a searing teaching, what painful discernment lies there.
And there is more. In the post communion prayer, there is a renewed sense
of a powerful social vision offered:
As we have shared this holy meal,
inspire our hearts to see
every man, woman and child
given the dignity and value
which is your purpose and your gift;
Daily headlines about substance abuse, asylum seekers, detention centres,
child abuse, domestic violence, poverty levels, unemployment – to name
just a few that we would currently recognise – remind us that we do not
yet live in the new Jerusalem.
So the ways we have observed this weekend will vary. Official functions or
parades may well have passed us by. Too hot. There will be time enough to see
the new park by the Yarra and to hear the bells. We were not included in the
Honours list this year. But the occasion does encourage us to think again
about some issues and our own Prayer Book has some of the resources to assist
or stimulate.
For some things we can smile and shake our heads. We are a strange people.
For example, the altogether splendid and attractive fine sportsman and
generous philanthropist who is the Australian of the year announced on Friday,
nonetheless sees fit technically to have residence in tax free Bermuda for his
$US5m income last year, rather than to share with the rest of us in that part
of our community load. At least that is what was reported in The Age yesterday.
And it doesn't seem to matter. More broadly we do know in our hearts that our
much-vaunted, easy going nature and characteristic matey goodwill also has
within it distinctly uneasy fears about difference or change that is
understandable for a small player in a big world. We do well not to be too
complacent.
The opening text from the psalm set for today puts all of this in an even
bigger context. Of God in the whole of life, of God's much more evident
presence indeed God's concern and interest and potential involvement. Now
that would be something worth considering further.
I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
Be strong, and let your heart take courage
Wait for the Lord! (Ps 27: 13-14)
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