Fenced In, Fenced Out – An Australian Exile

 

 

 Thomas Merton, the American Catholic writer suggests that the only journey a human being takes is the inner journey, a journey paradoxically away from and into the world. It is a journey that can be found in exile, a journey into fullness of personhood and being and way from the superficiality of definitions, cultures and propaganda. It is only those who fully engage in this exile who discover themselves, discover others and discover the Other.

 

Our path as people is signposted by the steps we take, often timidly and stuttering, more often accidental and coincidental, towards the fullness of being. For Merton, striving towards being a full alive person involves the struggle of being disconnected and isolated from the custom and conventions of mass existence.

 

For a few moments today we are going to explore exile as the means to transcendence, as the necessary school from which we have the possibility, if we are brave enough, to transcend what we have been told about ourselves and to reimagine a new and ever changing identity, personally and culturally. In particular I will suggest this is vital for those of us who identify as Aboriginal and strive to find our place in a world where our existence has been defined for us by others.

 

Driving through south-western Victoria recently, I became aware, in a way I had not been before, of Australia as a fenced country. Ownership of the land is defined and marked out by fences, fences of all types, stone and rock, wood and wire, roads and rivers. It occurred to me that fences are not only physical but are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, where we came from, who shares our stories and who we will allow to do so now and in the future. Fences about where we place people in the geography of our country, the value we place upon them in our economy and the lingering presence of past definitions and practices.

 

Fences, in reality define who is a person, a subject in our national psyche, and who is an object, to be discarded and devalued, less than human.

 

Aboriginal people find themselves fenced in and fenced out by the definitions of others and, surprisingly, by using the same definitions as a means to protect and fence in their own sense of being, employing the very definitions of colour, behaviour and heritage the dominant powers have used over the last 200+ years.

 

I grew up in a town known for its violence against local tribes. Visiting the library, reading newspaper cuttings and letters from the mid 1880’s to the early 1920’s, I realised the steps taken by my family to hide my grandmothers’ heritage was a strategy deemed necessary for survival.

 

My grandfather made my Uncle promise to keep my grandmothers indigenous heritage hidden. No one in my family speaks of it; her background is shrouded in mystery. There is only a mother who registered the birth some time later in a different town. No father is mentioned. She had the name of the family she was left with when the small aboriginal community from which Jimmy and Joey Governor, part-aboriginal men who killed 9 people during a fourteen week rampage in 1900, the year prior to federation, and who inspired the book and movie “The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith” came, were forcibly moved out west at the request of the white community. 

 

While it was our family secret, it wasn’t a secret to the locals. I grew up known as ‘Young Darkie’ or ‘Young Blackfella’; my friend, when angry, called me the son of a drunken bush black; another friends’ father told a group of classmates they could be friends with me but to remember where I came from. Bullying at school was never-ending.

 

My father lived in exile, caught between a world he knew and a world he never knew, growing more bitter and angry as the years went on. He acted out his violence through alcohol, directing it at anyone nearby, particularly his family and I as his eldest son. He was never able to reconcile within himself these two worlds even when he stopped drinking. It was bigger than him and his family. It was the internalised oppression of a people and country from which he was exiled.

 

These incidents are metaphors for the destruction of the primal spiritual essence of our people and symbolise the battle for the soul of our nation. Our people are suffering from the cumulative effect of internalised oppression giving rise to the situation we see in front of us. It will take imagination, humility and a drastic rethinking of our own lives and the way we find value and meaning in and for ourselves, and others before we will be able to reach out to those we continue to oppress. They, we, are living in exile.

 

Perhaps exile holds the key for the future. ‘Only when you are out of rhythm with the familiar do you begin to investigate and explore the possibilities. Exile is the place in which such an investigation not only can begin, but becomes necessary for both survival and renewal. It is the place where one is forced, as an individual and a community, to reflect on who or what is at the centre of one’s being.’ Both cultures are disconnected from their centre due to the violent history of our country, and in a very real sense, both black and white, are exiled from belonging. Homeless and exiled, the violence continues and can only find peace when we own such disconnection together.

 

My sense of exile has continued. A couple of months ago I went back to Mudgee and took the funeral of my mother’s best friend.

 

After the service, outside, a man came up to me and asked, ‘Your Blackfella’s young bloke, aren’t you? Your Young Blackfella!” Now this man had known me since I was born and nowhere in the conversation that followed was I referred to by name. Here I am, at 61 years of age, dressed in Anglican priests robes undertaking an English ritual, and I was still Young Blackfella with no name.

 

Exile is a place of fences, definitions and cultural stereotypes yet is, I suggest, the most powerful place to be. We have been, continue to be and, indeed have appropriated these fences for our own purposes in such a way that only a radical rethinking can move us beyond the stagnation within the politics of aboriginal identity we now experience.

 

Carson in her book on the Politics of Identity outlines the processes which have lead to the three proofs of identity for anyone wishing to be understood as aboriginal: the proof of self identifying, community acceptance and a provable history. In the devolution of power to communities from Governments this bureaucratic definition now is enforced by aboriginal communities for a range of reasons. It is not simply sufficient to know whom you are, you must prove it and you must prove it according to an imposed definition, a definition I would not be able to fulfil, nor would I bother to try.

 

This is exile. This is the place of no belonging. This is the place many of us find ourselves. Our choices of responses range from despair to anger to hope to transcendence. And it is our choice. We may be defined out of the existence by others, but we alone can define our existence for ourselves. Exile challenges us to rise above the fences that dot our lives and our history and to begin to live lives of transcendence.

 

As I have noted elsewhere: Exile can be both the end and the beginning. The end as it symbolises the loss of what we had; the beginning because it asks of us questions we would otherwise never have confronted. What is important? Who am I? What is my identity? Where do I belong? Where am at home? Is where I am now where I am to be forever or is this beginning of something different and new?

Exile has the power to unbalance, challenge, empower and transform… 

 

What is it for me? When I began to identify as an aboriginal person I sought to know about my country,  heritage and  culture as most people in my situation seem to do. I soon discovered society, white and black, reacted with a scepticism requiring proof, a proof I could not give beyond the statement, I am aboriginal. The first time I told my story was to a group of aboriginal and islander people at an Anglican conference. Half through my talk I became very ill and spent 10 minutes throwing up in the toilet. When I came back, one of the group commented, ‘You are free now, you will make our people proud.’ It was defining moment for me. I no longer needed to grasp at the proofs of identity or traditional aboriginal culture. I am sufficient as I am.

 

Like Thomas Merton, when he came face to face with the sleeping Buddhas at Polunaruwa I was able to explain, “I have found what I was (unknowingly) looking for.’ The sense of being without need to prove my existence, of belong to the two different societies I found myself in exile from.

 

Exile is the place we discover we are sufficient as we are. It is here we are offered capacity and resources to speak from our centre and to imagine a new place for our people and ourselves. It is important to remember exile is not just about indigenous people being exiled from country and the dominant culture but about indigenous and non-indigenous people who are exiled from their own culture and country by their own people. It is bigger than us and needs to be understood from that point of view.

• In exile we are able to ask the questions we have no need of if we are inside.
• In exile we are able to discard the simple answers to complex problems and remain alone with the questions.
• In exile we find ourselves letting go of definitions, culture and practices that are no longer useful in a world outside or beyond the fences.
• In exile we find ourselves in relationship with others whom we would have not met or discovered on the inside, our fences would have kept us a part.
• In exile we discover how little of what we thought was important actually is and we begin to connect to what remains – the essential unity with all creation and created beings.
• In exile we do not struggle and fight for existence, we recognise our existence as a gift and celebrate it in simply being who we are; we do not need to be recognised to be real. 

Exile is the separation of people from what makes them human, from what allows them to act as self-directing persons responsible for finding meaning and purpose in their way of life. Exile places people in an uneven relationship with others and with their land. They are no longer equals but are subservient, powerless and becalmed in a world that is foreign to them. This is a world in which they are told what is acceptable or unacceptable for them by others and these others include their own people as well as those of the dominant culture.

 

For indigenous people this happens on two levels. Indigenous culture restrains people to live and act out of a sense of tradition while western culture coerces people to leave behind traditional culture and become white. Both approaches produce exile. One use tradition as a means of control, dictating what is acceptable for a person who identifies as indigenous, the other uses consumerism and integration as the means to make good corporate citizens of people who otherwise maybe happy sitting down on their land.

 

Peoples' understanding of indigenous matters are coloured (no pun intended) by the duality of who is in and who is out in society, by what is acceptable for one group of people and not for another. Our society is defined by the idea of exile, the idea that one group of people has to be disinherited of country so another can inhabit it, and in so doing the former is regarded as less than human, not a person(s) but someone who is an object to be moved, helped, guided, restrained and told where they should live, what they should do and how they should behave.

 

There is a third way. Allow people to be persons able to make decisions for themselves about how they live, where they live and what they do, whether they buy into the western consumer myth, retain a more traditional way of being or live somewhere in between. Being a person is not about a being an individual but about not succumbing to the stereotype of the masses. Meaning, we are not to fall into line with the mass of individuals who are all doing the same thing.

 

The challenge here, as for aboriginal communities and those who define aboriginality at all levels, is that today many of us are different. We live outside of community, have not been initiated in culture and have no immediate kin. We no longer fit the definitions and don’t want to. We are proud of who we are, we remember our ancestors, we touch their stories, feel their presence but we no longer fit the places people want us to live in.

 

We have, or are in the process of, transcendence, rewriting our story in a new language, with a different culture and a new mob, who like us simply don’t fit the boxes others have made for us.

 

Let me finish:

Received a letter addressed to me. Signed but no return address. The writer asked why I, as a Wiradjuri man (adding if I am a Wiradjuri man) was living and working in Glen Iris and not amongst my own people in Redfern. Now I am not sure how many Wiradjuri live in Redfern, or if there are in fact any at all, and I am not sure why it is the expectation of the writer that I be there for them, but apparently living and working in a perceived wealthy white community brings my identity and my commitment to indigenous people into question.

 

This is not an attempt at validating my place in the world. I will work in the communities I decide to work in and I will bring my indigenous sensibilities to that place. That is the freedom all people should have. To live and work where they want to, even indigenous people.

 

Apparently by living and working in this place I am not being a strong leader or an example to indigenous people. I would have thought it is exactly what I am doing. Showing that it is possible to succeed in modern Australia and educating the communities in which we work and live about indigenous culture and history.

 

Thomas Merton reminds us that if we love (treat others as equal) only those who agree to live in the way we wish then we do not love them for being who they are but only for the reflection of ourselves we see in them. This third way requires we love others, allow them to be, authentically themselves and not how we wish them to be. This applies equally to those in their own communities as well as those in the dominant cultures who wish to set the boundaries of what is acceptable or not, of who is in and who is out.

 

To answer my anonymous correspondent, indigenous people are capable of deciding where they live, how they live and how to model their deep and powerful indigenous sense of self and the innate sensibilities that go with it. They can do this in remote communities, in urban housing estates, in wealthy suburbs or in parliament house. There are no limitations if we allow each other to be true to the real self. THANK YOU.

You Are Enough

Luke 10:38-42Colossians 1:15-23 

Researcher Rene Brown writes, “Life-paralysis refers to all the opportunities we miss because we’re too afraid to put anything out in the world that could be imperfect. It’s also all of the dreams that we don’t follow because of our deep fear of failing, making mistakes and disappointing others.”

 

One of the characteristics of modern humanity is the expectation to be perfect, perfect in how we look, in our work, even in our hobbies and our worship. To exercise we buy the best fit wear, have our fitness tracker attached to our arms and ears and our water bottle, colour coordinated with our outfit, all visible for others to see.

 

Students at school fail to try because they are afraid their best is not good enough, that they might get it wrong and therefore fail. They fall back to what they know and stay stuck, not achieving their full potential because they are fearful that they are not enough.

 

Churches remain stuck in the past in a very similar way. The corporate secular world has embraced new ideas of corporate governance, of marketing and promotion, of technology and media, but the church remains attached to a governance system best suited to small collections of people in the sunny English countryside. We are afraid to change because we are afraid that our enough will not be enough, that we simply can’t possibly apply such ideas to the work of the church.

 

The result? We keep polishing the brass, putting the flowers in the same place and singing the same songs. We continue to focus on detail, on the minutiae, in parish councils, synods and parish meetings. We have forgotten the big picture or are, in fact, scared of the big picture because we do not believe our enough is enough to make the steps into the real world.

 

The writer to the Colossians reminds us bluntly whom we belong to.  In the hymn we read in verses 15-20 make it very clear.

“¹⁵ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation;¹⁶ for in^[a] him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He himself is before all things, and in^[b] him all things hold together. ¹⁸ He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything. ¹⁹ For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,²⁰ and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”

 

It would take many sermons to unpack the power and might of this Christological hymn, suffice to say, this is the Jesus we have given our allegiance to- the image of the invisible God, the first of all creation and the source of all that is and will be created, the power which holds all things, including you and the church together. He creates, animates and redeems all of creation.

 

He is indeed awe-some, the indescribable abyss which blinds us and our focus on the minutiae and opens us up to the immense possibility of creation at its essential beginning. Jesus the Creator holds within and is held within the source of all being, God. By his very act of obedience and redemption we are gathered within and hold within ourselves the power of all being. We are not powerless. We are not imperfect. We are one with all things and with the initial source of all things.

 

We have within us the potential to bring the power and presence of God into our world. We are able to rise above the detail which so occupies us and to move mountains, change paradigms, shift cultures without fear of failure.

 

In the Gospel Jesus reminds Martha of this very truth. Get out of the kitchen Martha, you are enough, you have done enough. What you have done is enough. Fussing about in search of perfection gets in the way of the good things available to you.  See Mary, she is sitting here soaking in the goodness that comes a relationship with me. Your relationship is no less real than hers, except you are preoccupied with the little stuff and that prevents you from getting the big stuff.

 

A training principal of mine once said, “If it’s worth doing it is worth doing badly’, implying tat if you wait until you can do it well you may never in fact do it. In the words of Voltaire, (In his writings, a wise Italian says that the best is the enemy of good.) "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without." (Confucius)

 

The writer of the letter Colossians pens a powerful antidote for our fear about the future of our church and of ourselves. Maturity for the church and us is to hold fast to the truth of who Jesus is who has redeemed, given birth to the church and lives within you and I. Maturity is the ability to translate this hymn, this Christological mission statement, into our lives and our practice.

 

We are not to become a church of occupation, fighting grimly to hold our ground in a rapidly changing world, but are to be a church of invasion, ever moving out from where we are into the world confident in the Christ who knows us and lives within us, the church. The church has become a place of hibernation, of drawing in, in the hope that somehow we will survive.

  

The best defence is always attack, not violently but in a gentle moving out into the world in full confidence. St Oswald’s will not survive if we try to hang onto what we had or have. We will only survive if we begin to look out, then move out and engage, finding new ways to make the word (the life of Christ) fully known in the world. This is the living out of the grand portrait Paul pens for us, experience the reality of Christ alive in ways that are different to those we have experienced and want to remain with.

 

Martha is challenged to get out from behind the familiar and become open to the vulnerability a relationship with Christ brings.  We are to step out from behind the safe walls of the church and our Sunday practice and become open to the vulnerability of relationship with the world in the reality of Christ.

 

What a difference we would experience if we were able to live out of Pauls hymn to Christ! Our enough will be enough in his awesome presence and we will indeed go into the entire world and make disciples of all we meet. 

The Good Samaritan in 2016

My mother-in-law would tell the story of being lost with a group of people in Adelaide. They had no idea where they were or how to get to the venue they were heading for. While they were standing on the side of the road in their Ascot finery a group of Harley Davidson riding bikies in full club colours rode by. Imagine their surprise when one broke ranks, turned around and roared to a stop in front of them. He said they looked lost, could he help? They said where they wanted to go and he gave them the directions. This story was told (often) to remind us not to judge the book by the cover. Help comes in many shapes and sizes. Knowing my mother-in-law, this was indeed a moving moment because one she would not normally have associated with, under any circumstances, helped her.

In the light of the outcome of our recent general election, it is more than appropriate todays gospel is the story of the Good Samaritan, an oxymoron for the audience in Luke’s story, nothing good comes out of Samaria!  Here was a despised person taking the central role in an object lesson on who is my neighbour and how to be neighbourly.

Those who were the obvious doers of good crossed to the other side, for no other reason than for the fear that what had happened to that unfortunate traveller may indeed happen to them, and no amount of doing good was worth putting self at risk. They were good, were deemed good and were responsible for doing good in their lives in other ways, in the temple, in their religion and in their practice. Somebody else would deal with this situation. It wasn’t their responsibility.

It is the question sitting at the back of our heads, or at least mine, how would I react in a similar situation? It is fine to do good when there is no risk, when the one we are doing good for is like us, shares our values and our lifestyle, but what about when it is a possible life threatening situation or the one needing our help is unlike us or is our enemy? Would I act as the Good Samaritan does? Would I do the right thing then?  I can never be sure of the answer.

As a country the recent election answers this. How do we respond? Not very well. We are more concerned with the protection of our lifestyle and safety. We have ignored those who are our neighbours and have prevented others from caring for them as well.

Our neighbours? Those without a country, those who seek to find a better place in this world, those who are homeless and unemployed, those who have their land and country taken away from them. These are our neighbours and we have supported policies and ideals which isolate, marginalise and persecute them through the continuing support of hard-line policies ranging from the One Nation rhetoric through to the mainstream parties strong borders and close the gap policies and more.

Luke’s Jesus says enough is enough. Our neighbour is our responsibility. Our neighbour relies on our neighbourliness for hope, life and a future. We cannot avoid this responsibility by pointing to all the good we do elsewhere if we cross to the other side and leave people stranded, victims of injustice and violence, to be violated again and again by our limited goodness.

Luke’s Jesus expands the Deuteronomy 6 definition of neighbour beyond the borders of a state (Jews and aliens living in the community) and spreads it out to include all, even the dreaded Samaritans. Neighbourliness is the hospitality we owe to all even at the risk of our own wellbeing.

It is also important to note the Samaritan was the first responder who placed himself at risk. After helping the traveller he took him to an inn and delegated e task of neighbourliness to the inn keeper. We do not have to stay involved for ever. This is a task to be shared.

Luke’s Jesus equates neighbour with the one who should act and the one who needs our action. Here is the discarding of duality – the doer and the one for whom it is done are the same one. This is not charity. Charity is the embedding of power and the embedding of hopelessness. The one being done for is seen as a lesser being because they need someone to help them.

For Luke’s Jesus, we are one with, same as, united with the one we assist. We are aware we may in fact require them to be neighbourly to us at some time. We are vulnerable, frail, ordinary human beings whose life circumstances may very well mean we are laying by the road side waiting for a neighbour to wander by.

Thomas Merton writes:  “A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.”

How do we answer Merton? What is the end we live for? How is our lives shaped by that end? Are we indeed shaped by a spirituality grounded in neighbourliness or are we living simply for the immediate, the safety of the moment, out of fear of the other? Merton is direct, as is Jesus: “You are made in the image you desire”. Luke’s Jesus responds with, “Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

Merton and Jesus reminds us, just as the duality of helper and the one needing helps is false thinking, so is the duality of spiritual and secular. You either act out of your spiritual experience or you don’t, you either remain faithful to the faith you attest to here at the Eucharistic table or you seek only your own wellbeing.

It is at the Eucharistic table we celebrate, not only the breaking open of the the life of Christ, but the breaking open of our own lives to the other, to the neighbour and it requires us to be neighbourly at all times, especially with those so unlike us we must exhibit the obedience that took Jesus to the cross.

In our church, in our country we are called to be inclusive, welcoming, empowering, giving, at the risk of losing all we hold dear. The growing world wide epidemic of isolationism by states is an epidemic contrary to the growing out into the world of the neighbourliness essential to the Christian faith and contrary to the example of Jesus.

How do take on the role of neighbour? By becoming, as we concluded last week, open-hearted, open-minded and open handed. Critically so. By this I mean we must critically reflect on our practice, how we engage with, talk about and listen to those who need our neighbourliness. We must challenge our conventional thought, leave behind our intellectually lazy acceptance of seemingly acceptable thoughts and behaviours and begin to wrestle with the reality in which we live.

Jesus engages the lawyer in this deep reflection. We do not know what conclusions the lawyer came to but we know he was challenge to move beyond what was the normal wisdom. It is time for such deep reflection by all of us, individually, as a church and as a nation if we are going to discover the Good Samaritan within.

White Australia and the Fear of Protectionism - Election 2016

Luke 10:1-20

On our holiday in Port Fairy I stumbled across some interesting finds in an antique store in town. I picked up this official publication, “Australia – Official Handbook’, 1947. The preface  reads as follows:

 

“This book, telling the story of Australia in all of its aspects, is published by the Australian National Publicity Association, a non-profit organisation, controlled by an Honorary Board representing the Australian Railways, Overseas Shipping Lines, General Australian Business interests and the Commonwealth Government.

 

The aim of the Association is to promote knowledge of Australia in overseas countries, to which end this and other publications are issued.

 

The Australian Handbook is commended to people of other lands who might be interested, and to Australians themselves, who will find it a suitable publication to mail to their friends and business associates abroad.”

 

It provides a wide range of details and interesting data on Australia in 1947. One interesting paragraph is entitled: “White Australia”.  It states: “To the principle of “White Australia” all political parties in the Commonwealth subscribe, for the economic reason that the white man’s standard of living would be endangered by the introduction of coloured labourers who would be prepared to accept wages and live under conditions that are not acceptable to a white workman. Were coloured labour unrestricted, the ultimate result would be that the white workman in Australia would be forced out of employment by the cheap labour, with a consequent dislocation of the national life. Thus the immigration laws are so designed as to exclude coloured people from permanent residence in Australia.’

 

Not a lot has changed, except now it is refugees who are kept out of our country and our jobs are exported to those we made laws to keep out of ours. Protectionism, the desire to hold onto something by denying others the opportunity to share our good fortune has a habit of biting back. The thing we so desperately desire to keep for ourselves has a way of dying or escaping, leaving us without what we coveted for ourselves.

 

The recent referendum in England could be described as an attempt to hold on to or regain something the country never had, not of itself anyway. Much of its remembered wealth and power came from resource rich countries it conquered, controlled and pillaged. For many who voted to leave it could be seen as an attempt to maintain a fast receding quality of life and deny the possibilities of a life to others. How much of the voting in this country reflects similar desperation and fear? Stop the boats, keep our jobs and maintain our personal lifestyle of entitlement, travel and comfort that is all we seem to desire. Even people who belong to the kingdom not of this world, Christians, seem to adhere to such ideology.

 

Jesus sends out the 70. Two by two they go. They appear to be going out on a short term mission into the world, they are not going to stay, they are going to model a lifestyle and faith completely at odds with the worlds expectations. They are to take very little and accept very little in return for their efforts. Although Jesus says the labourer is worth the hire; a bed, bath and a meal seems to be the wages they were to receive. They aren’t to be choosy, moving to get a better bed, meet a better cook or have a spa bath! They go simply and are expected to be comfortable with enough.

 

Mark Davis suggests that "The response to the scarcity (and danger) of workers is for the seventy-two to go out with their own scarcity and vulnerability – in total dependence on others for food, shelter, drink and protection."

 

Jesus is given the words: “Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” Lambs have no means of repulsing the wolves. They are helpless and vulnerable. All they have is the mob they belong to and an ewe who will do everything to protect them. Yet for neither the lamb or the disciples there is no comfort or comfortableness, no assurance all will be well, no promise of an abundance of the good things of life. Jesus suggests they will be provided with what they need, and no more.

How far have we moved from this ideal of Jesus! The politics of nationalism has placed the protection of what we have now at the centre of all debate. The idea of the redistribution of wealth so that all may live seems to have escaped us or disturbed us so much that we cling desperately to what we perceive to be ours. This applies not just to money our resources, but to our time, talents and community. It belongs to me and I will decide who, what or when I engage. God is lucky to have me on his/her side and therefore he better get used to the fact I will only give, do, share what I decide. Thats why we decide who comes to our country, who is welcome and what I do for God.

The 70 are modelling a radically different understanding of life:

The mission of the church is to be their/our life. In this story we see the integration of mission and life. Our personal life is not a separate entity in which we make time for God’s mission in the world. Sunday worship, a bit of social justice here, a meditation there; God’s mission in the world is to be our life. All that we do, our work our investments, our leisure time, our money and our talents are to be employed in the fulfilment of God’s mission in the world through the church. We do not have the luxury of making choices that do not have as their first priority: how will this further God’s kingdom in the world? It is not easy and Jesus is aware of this but reminds us it is not about us and our comfort and security, it is bigger than that: “Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

The mission of inclusion is the central point of their being sent out, to bring others in and to share out of their poverty what others need. If people welcome you, include them; hospitality and openness is all that is needed to fulfil the mission. They spend no time planning, getting the logistics in place, setting up places to care for, educate or counsel people. They simply go as they are and find that in the doing and living the needs of both themselves and others are meant. This is not about scarcity of welcoming other, the fear that there will not be enough, but about the abundance that occurs when people open out, become expansive and believe in the possibility of enough.

The sufficiency of enough is to be experienced to be trusted. Jesus reminds them they do not need the things of the world in the way others do, building up security through power and wealth. This is a mission aimed at breaking the power of commercialism and tyranny that was and is rampant across theirs and our world. The modelling of sufficiency or enough is counter-cultural and a stark reminder that those who die with the most still die.  There will always be enough if you do not go looking for more. Stay in the first place that welcomes and don’t move if a better offer comes up. Respect the possibilities you find and live out your mission from a place of enough.

Friday I enjoyed the best Vietnamese street food at the restaurant at the Melbourne Botanical Gardens and purchased some exquisite indigenous merchandise. I was reminded of the gifts those who came by boat (the Vietnamese refugees) and those who were here since time began have given us and celebrated the wonder of diversity and inclusion. The same arguments were heard in relation to the boat people escaping Vietnam as we are hearing today, yet 40 years on our society is enriched by their culture, food and even by a State Governor who came by boat. There is always enough and more.

God is bigger than our needs.  The challenge for the parish, the church and this country following yesterday’s election is to become open hearted, open-minded and open-handed and welcoming of all. Until we are able to do that we are not fulfilling the mission of God witnessed in Christ.