Anzac Day reflection

On Tuesday Anzac Day, prayers for peace will be held at St Paul’s Cathedral, for the third year running.

We will remember those who said no to war. As in the past three years, we will lament the carnage in which so many young people were killed. There is an irony in meeting in the Cathedral: as the prayers are offered, the sound of military drums and marching will be heard.

As we have prepared these prayers of lament for the killing fields so far from Australian shores, we have been made aware by the Australian historian Henry Reynolds of war fought on Australian land.

His recent books, The Forgotten War and Unnecessary Wars, are a shocking reminder of the dispossession of indigenous people as European invasion took place.

That is an uncomfortable truth. It also questions why Australians have been so ready to travel around the globe to fight in wars generated by imperial powers, the British Empire and now the United States.

Christians of all people are called to remember these things which are so easily forgotten. With Easter so close to Anzac Day we are brought face to face to the cross on which Jesus was killed by the Roman Empire. And to his call to be peacemakers.

This is particularly urgent this year as military attacks are being threatened or carried out internationally.

The following statement is included in the Order of Service.

This is a service of lament, repentance and hope on the centenary of the First World War. We will lament the destruction and waste of so many young men and women on all sides, the pain and anguish suffered by those who returned, by their families and communities.

This is focused in 2017 in recalling the slaughter of Passchendaele, Fromelles, and Pozieres, those who said no to war, the forgotten Aboriginal wars.

We will repent of the ongoing war and violence in our world and in our hearts, and hear again the hope of God’s gift of peace, given to us in the Crucified and Risen Lord, being lived out in many scenes of conflict.

We will honour the courage and self-sacrifice of all who fought in the First World War by praying for peace and doing all we can that makes for genuine peace, that young men and women may never go to war again.

In this time of heightened tensions, we especially pray that Australia and other nations will not be led into war again.

Rev Dr Wes Campbell

An Anzac day challenge

"...So we may ask, as we gather within earshot of the ANZAC commemorations, which story are we to tell now?

Poet Wilfred Gibson says:

We are to ‘feel the heartbreak in the heart of things.’

This takes us to Detention Centres – that is prisons - to our north, the deep fear in many Australians of invasion, as permission to treat people seeking asylum badly. We must make the connection between those fleeing their homes and the war in Syria – as happened for people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Be angry at the waste.

Isn’t it is time for congregations Sunday by Sunday, as a matter of conscience, to heed the call to civil disobedience? Faced with years of imprisonment and large fines, we must act together, shaping a renewed ecumenical movement, welcoming our sisters and brothers from distant lands.  

Isn’t it time for us to warn politicians that our actions can put us outside the faith: as we do violence so we become an opponent of the Gospel.

Isn’t is necessary for us to hear the story of the First Peoples of this Land. Especially we who benefit from the invasion, with violence and deaths.

  

It is urgent for us to appreciate and celebrate the rich culture at the heart of this Land and its First Peoples; broken, yet in surprising ways, finding new life. Joining together with joy.

If we forget our story we no longer know who we are.

That is why we have listened to Scripture today, sung hymns, prayed, lit candles – and why we have donned our ecclesial uniform of servant’s clothes and the fiery red of the Spirit.

We are invited into a ‘counter’ story: a remembering that resists the drive to conflict and fear.

... 

He conscripts for life. And gives us a story to tell us who we are.

So don’t be fooled into thinking otherwise! The powers love to make mayhem. They insist that war never ends; they use church language and try to convince us we are powerless to stop the chaos.

But we can resist! We need to train even more seriously than the military do. We have to take risks.

So acts of imagination are called for, ones we must share with children and grandchildren, as they look toward their future. Even working for the abolition of war!

We must say all this for Jasmine who stood up for a man about to be deported, and now faces the power of the law.

We must say it for the Brisbane Canon, Peter, and the Sanctuary church movement. To Grandmothers against Detention, and ‘Love Makes a Way! To all who gather to write letters, visit the detained, keep hope alive in a welcoming and friendly Australia.

To those who craft a Treaty with and for the First Peoples.

And to ourselves as we practice the art of declaring the oppressive powers to be null and void.

In his life Jesus embodies the dream the prophets announced – of a world transformed, rich in life-giving. Peace, Shalom, Salaam for humans and nature alike.

And for this Pope Francis announces the call to non-violent discipleship,

  

And then we must expect that the Spirit of God, the wind of life, will create turbulence that pushes our little boat into surprising places.

So grieve and  be angry at the waste;

Remember..

Act for Peace.

This is the counter story Jesus tells, as he conscripts us for life.

That is what Easter celebrates!

Jesus Christ is risen: Alleluia;

 He is risen indeed, Alleluia." 

Rev Dr Wes Campbell - for full sermon see sermon's page.

Anzac Day

Anzac Day

Day of shining medals.

With each marching step 
they clink solemnly the nation's gratitude

upon proud chests.

There are medals for peace-keepers, too.

Rightly so;

but only a few for peace-makers.

The peace-makers press on determinedly,

undaunted, undecorated

and undisturbed.

© Ken Rookes 2016

Anzac Day

(Context - In Australia we have an annual remembrance day which is focused on the battle at Gallipoli in the first world war. This year marks 100 years since that tragic day.It is a big event in Australia with many vents held at all levels of the society and with a massive media focus. The day is called ANZAC day because it particularly focuses on the participation of the Australian and New Zealand armed forces at Gallipoli)

None of you need to be told that yesterday Australia celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli. For several years we have been reminded more and more of Anzac Day and in recent months our media has been full of stories. Whole series of programmes on television have been based on the First World War and its impact on young Australians and New Zealanders. Many thousands gave up their lives for their country by dying in the fighting and many more paid an enormous price as they lived with the consequences of injuries and gassing. If we have been reading, watching or listening, we will have heard story after story of what it cost these people.

Is it just a coincidence for us who are called to follow Christ the Good Shepherd that the Gospel reading for today is about being ready to lay down our lives for others? Was Jesus talking about war or could he have been thinking of other ways of protecting the more vulnerable members of our communities?  Many of us these days are more familiar with ideas of the futility of war and hope that we and our children and grandchildren are never called to lay down their lives like this. But there may be other ways in which this call may come.

A teenage girl learned that a friend was self-harming and looking at methods of suicide on the internet. She immediately spoke to her mum and together they went to see the mother of her friend. The mother was grateful but the daughter has completely cut herself off from the girl, feeling she had betrayed her trust. Some of their friends are also not talking to her and this is deeply hurtful as she was trying to save her friend’s life and thought she was doing the right thing. Is this what it means to lay down your life for someone else?

A man was widowed several years ago and has two teenage children. He feels stuck in an unsatisfying job. He has toyed with the idea of doing something different but that would require several years of study and he thinks his only priority should be educating his children so they can have better opportunities than he has had in life. They need the income from

One of the reasons given over and over that women can expect to have considerably less savings in superannuation when they retire is because they take time off from the work force to have children and to look after them. Are women laying down their lives for the future of this country by sacrificing their wealth or even their comfort in old age to have and care for children?

There are thousands of grandparents looking after children, giving their lives so the young ones don’t have to go into government sponsored care of some sort. And there are many people, some elderly who have given up their lives to take care of others with disabilities.

Perhaps it is time someone proposed a day to celebrate the sacrifice of all these and the many others, who give their time, effort and money, not in big dramatic gestures but in everyday, low-key plodding on and on through the years.

We could assure these people that Jesus, the Good Shepherd cares for them, or suggest that they might like to read Psalm 23 from time to time because it has been a comfort to us, but what I suspect might encourage them and restore their souls would be for others to occasionally carry their burden for them so they could have a chance to lie down in green pastures, beside still water for a few days. We can make some sacrifices to enable them to have some financial help where that is needed.

REv Julianne Parker

Betrayal

 

In 1915 numerous sons

and a few daughters embarked on ships
to participate in a war.
We grew up saluting the flag on Mondays,
and hearing, each April.
the stories of war.
Ours was a young nation, proud, defiant, fearless;
born, we were told, in blood, on the battlefields
and in the trenches of Turkey, Belgium and France.
We heard of courage, larrikin resourcefulness,
and compassion.
These brave soldiers were injured, traumatised and died,
the grand myth attests,
for us, and for our freedom.
We honoured their sacrifice;
remembering, too, those who served in later conflicts.
 
A century later
the stories become a celebratory avalanche;
while dignitaries and politicians make their preparations
to assemble at Anzac Cove. There they will glory in the moment.
The legendary spirit, however, has become elusive,
betrayed by a nation that has become afraid to love,
and by its even more fearful leaders.
Back in this fortunate land, desperate people,
whose only crime was to come seeking refuge,
are, for political convenience,
denied the same freedom so fiercely defended by our forebears.
They are sent off-shore, to be imprisoned behind wire fences
and within an officially sanctioned conspiracy of silence.
For convenience. And for shame.
It is a costly convenience;
in more ways than one.

 

©Ken Rookes 2015