AUSTRALIA DAY
Jeremiah 29:4-14 Psalm 33:12-21 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24 John 8:31-36
Australia Day always begs the question of our Australian identity. We have the indigenous Australians who see Australia Day as a bit of an insult and we have plenty who see Australians as those easy going larrikins who love a beer or six. In the middle of this are those who are just a little confused trying to figure out how we are any different to any other nation in this era of Globalization.
Before we look at the readings I’d like to have a look at the name “Australia”. Every name means something, and Australia means, “South Land”, and it obvious that our land is a great land in the southern hemisphere. Before the explorers came and named it Australia, it had no other name. There were indigenous living here but they consisted of many different tribes with many different languages – there was no name for Australia.
Throughout the Bible we see that God is big on naming things. Naming things gives them a purpose, a story, an identity, a place in history, and a future. The history of Australia certainly has some similarities with the ancient Israelites, because just as those people were taken into exile in foreign lands against their will, so too many of the early Australians were settled in Australia as convicts sent to the colony against their will. Oh, and don’t forget that the Israelites were sent into exile because of their sin…. However, our God of love and grace says this to them:
Jeremiah 29:4-7 ““This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.””
Australia has been a country that began in strife, but flourished and prospered greatly.
Psalm 33:12 “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people he chose for his inheritance.”
Our psalm for this week tells us about how a king is not saved by a great army, but by the will of God. There are so many stories of the weaker army prevailing because of their reliance on God and in Australia’s history there is grounding in Christianity that bore the fruits of God’s provision.
There are those today who will deny our Christian heritage, but this Christian heritage is historical fact. Even now, although we, as a country, have drifted a long way from our Christian heritage, our public holidays proclaim the lingering blessings of Christianity and we acknowledge Good Friday as a holiday where there are less shops open than any other day. Then of course we have Easter and Christmas as a testimony to our Christianity – and fast becoming a testimony to our new religion of materialism.
1 Thessalonians 5:12-15 “Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else.”
We are to be different from the people who do not confess a belief in Christ. What this means is that we will have an attitude that enables the Gospel to be preached without us needing to say a word. And this attitude is what we find defined in the letter to the Thessalonians. Sadly, we are falling short. Do we really acknowledge those who care for us in the Lord? And heaven forbid that they should admonish us!!! We are told to hold them in highest regard in love. And they’ll know we are Christians by our love…. This is how we prosper as a church…
The letter continues to exhort us to live in peace with each other and not be idle or disruptive… we are to encourage the disheartened, help the weak and be patient with everyone – never paying back wrong for wrong, but always striving to do what is good. To live this way is in direct contrast to the world. It always makes me cringe when I hear of people making judgments – and putting others down – and I would have to say it is heard as often in the church – sometimes way more, than it is outside – and this is a terrible testimony and completely contradictory to the ways of God.
Our Gospel reading presents another challenge. Jesus speaks with the Jews who believed him and tells them that if they remain in his word they will then know the truth and the truth will set them free.
I’m thinking that this means it isn’t enough to fill in your census form and mark the religion box as being Christian. This has an implication for us personally as well as for Australia as a country. These were believers who were with Jesus and he tells them that they need to remain in his word. There is freedom for us and good news for our Country if we, and it, remain in HIS word. As a country we are falling, falling, falling. Faith matters less and less and no one cares that they don’t always attend church. We think that as long as we “believe”, then we have our golden ticket, but Jesus is very clearly stating that we need to remain in his word to know the truth and to be free.
Why do we need more than just believing? Because without remaining in Jesus, we get lost. Let me give you an example. I was challenged by some teenage students about the book The Divinci Code. There are a whole lot of theories about Jesus that are presented in that book which are so far beyond credible that I couldn’t even read it as the piece of FICTION that it is intended to be. I could immediate spot the blatant flaws, but many people were so impressed that they took on many of the lies as truth.
AND the truth really will set you free. One of my little pet sayings is, “if it doesn’t seem like Good News”- then you haven’t got the Gospel. There is more to the way of God than what we see in black and white print. We need to know the cultural setting, the history and traditions to understand the heart of what was being said and we need the wisdom of each other AND more than anything else, we need the spirit of Jesus.
John 8:34-36 “Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
The truth sets us free, and the Son sets us free. The truth is Jesus. We can read a person’s biography and think that we know all about them, but it is often not unless you have a personal relationship with that person that you can really know what they think and feel. This is especially true if we need to come to a decision about things that are not written…. We need to know Jesus, speak with him and let him speak to us.
We need the light of Jesus – the truth to enlighten our minds.
On our Australia Day it is worth recalling the story of Christianity to the Torres Strait Islanders. They mark the anniversary of this with a festival called “The Coming of the Light”:
“One Saturday evening, 1st July 1871, the Reverend Samuel MacFarlane of the London Missionary Society anchored at Erub (Darnley Island). The Society had been active in the Southwest Pacific since the 1840’s converting people to Christianity.
Dabad, a Warrior Clan Elder on Erub, “defied his Tribal Law” and openly welcomed the London Missionary Society clergymen and South Sea Islander evangelists and teachers. Torres Strait Islanders acknowledgment of the missionaries was the acceptance of a change that would profoundly affect every aspect of life in the Torres Strait from that time onwards.” http://www.southbank.qm.qld.gov.au/Events+and+Exhibitions/Exhibitions/Permanent/Dandiiri+Maiwar/Torres+Strait+Islander+resilience/Coming+of+the+light
I spent some time in Cairns and did some theological studies with the indigenous theology students. It was explained to me that these people had God…. They knew God, but they didn’t know Jesus. There was a prophecy among them about a man who would come and bring the light. The tribe had been cannibalistic before this time and so it was such a huge miracle of God to prepare them in such a way that it was immediately recognized that this missionary was the one prophesied about who was bringing the light.
We, and the rest of Australia, need the light of truth. We’ve been asleep in the light for such a long time that we allowed the light to grow dim. We’ve been accepting lies as truth and thinking that truth are lies. We need the enlightenment of the spirit of Jesus. We need to claim this land as did the Spanish explorer Pedro Fernandes de Queirós in May of 1606 and name this land, Australia del Espiritu Santo – (Great Southland of the Holy Spirit).
Just as the Israelite exiles had children in foreign lands, who grew up knowing no other home, most of us call Australia home. We’ve been here so many generations now that there is only one other place that we call home and that is heaven. While we are on this earth and part of this country we belong to no other and we are to pray for it and care for it as if our own. In this way the country will prosper according to God’s will and we in turn will prosper – and this is God’s will for us and for our country…..
Jeremiah 29:11-13 ““For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.””
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