Hi All, and Welcome to the blog for 2013!
We start this year with excerpts from Rev. Steve Aynsley's Christmas sermon based on Luke 2:1-20 preached at Pymble Uniting Church, December, 2012. In it he recounts the experiences of members of Pymble Uniting Church and students of Knox Grammar and Presbyterian Ladies College in living " in the light of Christmas " at Enngonia, NSW.
"During the year I sat on a committee helping another
congregation find a new minister.One
of the questions we asked in the interviews is
a common one in minister circles:
What is your understanding of the
gospel?
It’s
a question that goes to people’s perception of the core Christian message and
how it might be shared meaningfully in today’s world.
One
particular response to that question struck me for its simplicity and economy.
The
fellow simply said: “There’s another way.”
As
I read again Luke’s Christmas story I
see that message of another way
shining brightly…….
The
Christmas story doesn’t suggest that the way of the empire has been obliterated
– just that there’s another way to
live within it.It
is not so much revolution or anarchy,as
a fresh set of eyes
and
a new set of values to live by……….
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| Outback Christmas -Courtesy of the Dept.P.R.I Country Web web site |
The
news of Jesus’ birth is not announced in the royal palace or
even the Temple but
in the fields where the shepherds mind their sheep. Some
have wondered why the shepherds aren’t also madly making their way to Bethlehem
or their place of birth but
it might be because shepherds were next to worthless –counted
or not, the governor wouldn’t get much money out of them. Shepherds
really were on the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder, and they were part
of the large and unfortunate group the religious authorities designated
‘sinners’ because their work made it impossible to meet the requirements of the
religious law.
And
yet it is to this lowly, despised group, perhaps
to people who had given up on God and maybe needed him most, that
the news of the Saviour first comes.
The
situation of Joseph and Mary tells a similar tale.
As
Julia Baird wrote in the Herald last week,
[The
Christmas story] is a tale of two refugees having a baby in a stable.
Much like an
asylum seeker giving birth in a tent on Manus Island. There is no power, no
hierarchy, no sense that God only springs from influence and respectability
but, instead, [God comes] from the margins.
The
other way of the gospel understands
God this way and seeks to embody this type of living in personal and church
life.
So
by all means come to this lovely chapel on Christmas Day; continue
to join us at the church during the year – I
think you’ll experience something positive of the Christian faith – but
perhaps in order to see the Christ being born into our world today we need to
be looking on the margins;
we
need to be with the poor or the sick or ostracized because
the Christmas story tells us
that seems to be where God likes to
operate.
Let
me conclude with a story that brings together the 2 main themes I have spoken
of; another way and God on the margins.
In
November, a group of 5 from our congregation joined
10 girls from PLC and 3 boys from Knox , plus
a few teachers for a trip to Enngonia Public School. This
is the school 100 kms north of Bourke that our congregation has been supporting
in a variety of ways for over 3 years.
And
for the year 10 students from both Sydney schools the
visit was a community service-learning project where
they were to be teaching the primary school children,most
of whom are indigenous.
 |
| Students at work in the classroom at Enngonia |
Enngonia
is a small and isolated town of around 90 people.It
sits on the Mitchell Highway about 30 kms shy of the Queensland border.Besides
the school, there is a pub, a police station, not manned and a couple of closed up shops. But
it has a positive vibe about it – especially the school that boasts good
facilities, a veggie garden and committed staff.
 |
| A view across the front of Enngonia School |
Regardless
of the huge amount of preparation undergone by the students, the
culture shock going from large private schools on the leafy north shore to
a tiny 1 teacher school in flat and dry Enngonia was
always going to be enormous. But
all the adults were so proud of the efforts of the Sydney students to engage
and befriend and help the young kids of Enngonia. They
worked really hard, with great imagination and flexibility, and
gave of themselves for 2 full days in temperatures up to 40 degrees.
At
first it was a little awkward, the
2 groups were unsure of each other as you would expect.When
they broke up into smaller groups the Enngonia kids were all together on one
side and the students from Sydney on the other but
after about 15 minutes, the barriers came down and the friendships started to
form.
 |
| Barriers breaking down as all play together |
And before long, the young kids were sitting all over and hanging off the older Sydney students –and it stayed that way for the rest of the visit.
 |
| Before long .......... |
The
trip was beneficial in so many ways.The
young Aboriginal kids who have so few role models and
such a restricted outlook on what they can achieve in life, saw
engaged teenagers who cared for them and
who clearly worked hard at school to achieve goals. The
PLC girls were particularly struck by the fact that most of the girls in
Enngonia have an expectation that they will be pregnant by
about 15 or 16.The
Sydney girls were about that age and couldn’t believe that
was the extent of the Enngonia girls’ imagined futures.
Perhaps
through the visit, the Enngonia students began to imagine that there could be
another way for them.The
Sydney school students, most
of whom had never been further west than about Bathurst, learned
so much from the exposure to a different set of circumstances. They
questioned why things were the way they were and
began to realise there are no easy answers.
And
through our Rural Chaplain Julie Greig, they were challenged to think that
there could be another way for them – in
considering how they might use their skills and even their working lives to
support people in the bush.
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| Julie discusses a bit of context and perspective with the PLC/Knox students |
Since
the trip the Sydney students have continued to talk about what they have
learned
and
what they can do from here to continue to support the school kids.They
have set up a Facebook page to that end,and
they decided to write to the children at school.And
as a sign of the care they are taking, they
decided that they would each write and then send all the letters together in a
large envelope, lest the children received them at different times and some
would feel left out.
I
haven’t done the trip justice in a few minutes but believe me when I say it was
a wonderful experience for all concerned.
But
more than that it was a little bit of Christmas come to life.
 |
| Some experiences are so special, you never forget them. |
The
Sydney students preparing, traveling, in bus, plane and car, way
out of their comfort zone;
the
Enngonia children seeing something of another way,another
life to strive for;the
Sydney students being challenged with
questions of equity and justice being raised in their minds.
And
through it all, in a very real way, hope coming alive,not
in the city or even the suburbs, but in the margins; in the outback.
The
Christmas story of Joseph and Mary and Jesus in a manger sometimes seems so far
away, so remote,but
perhaps it’s happening all around us.
We
just need new eyes to see it.
* Our thanks to Steve for this wonderful story and message. Just let us know if you would like a full copy of the sermon. It's worth the read!
* The Country Web magazine is a publication of the Dept.of Primary Rural Industries on rural and family issues. You can apply for it online. Recommended reading.
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