On Being Australian

Mathew 5:1-12

 

This week we celebrated Australia Day. For some of us this is not an easy task, we come from many places, backgrounds and experiences and find it difficult to connect to the major narrative about our nationhood. That is not a bad thing. In fact, it is healthy for us to discuss and debate what defines us as a nation and as a people.

 

We are not all Anglo Saxons with a long held desire to remain wedded to a story that only speaks for some of us. We come from countries, faiths and ethnicities encompassing the wide expanse of diversity that colours our world. Is the story of colonialisation the only story worth telling and holding on to? Is there not much more which defines and enlivens us and is it not time we began to let go of out-dated myths as the basis of our identity? Is it not time we included the sovereign inhabitants of this land and reconsider date and name of this celebration so that it fully recognises the violence done to, not only them, but the convicts cruelly transported to these shores in appalling conditions by contracted former slave runners, another part of the story we rarely hear?

 

As we have been saying over the last few weeks, as a church we are being called to relinquish out of date world views, myths and stories which have previously underwritten our faith for those which reflect the science and reality of an ever expanding and evolving universe. Is it not time for such to occur for us as Australians?

 

Jesus certainly thought this way when he spoke in the sermon on the Mount as given to us today. In this passage Jesus rewrites the narrative of faith for the Jewish people. What they had accepted as the story of faithfulness was turned upside down to include those who had previously been excluded.  The poor, the widows, the ordinary gentle folk, peacemakers and warriors for justice and more took the place of the rich, the powerful, the hardened, the warmongers and the ruthless.

 

God was seen to be interested in those who did not fit the stereotype of those who had God’s blessing. Rulers and the powerful were replaced by those who were ruled and weak. It wasn’t a physical coup, but a transforming mindset for all. You matter and you have a role. You are not excluded from this story by virtue of race, gender, wealth or lack there of or the seeming lack of power.

 

Jesus congratulates the ordinary person. Not as we heard in the speech of the new US President, a gratuitous throw away line, but as valued participants in the evolution of wholeness in the world. Like the ordinary incarnate Jesus engaging with ordinary fishermen in an ordinary village, the individual has value and is to be congratulated for what they in their circumstances add to creation.

 

Jesus is saying:

Congratulations to the poor in spirit!

Heaven's domain belongs to them.

Congratulations to those who grieve!

They will be consoled.

Congratulations to the gentle!

They will inherit the earth.

Congratulations to those who hunger and thirst for justice!

They will have a feast.

Congratulations to the merciful!

They will receive mercy.

Congratulations to those with undefiled hearts!

They will see God.

Congratulations to those who work for peace!

They will be known as God's children.

Congratulations to those who have suffered

persecution for the sake of justice!

Heaven's domain belongs to them.

Congratulations to you when they denounce you and persecute you and spread malicious gossip about you because of me. Rejoice and be glad! In heaven   prophets who preceded you.

[Scholars Version]

 

So what makes us Australian or what is being Australian like? Is it being good at sports, such as cricket, tennis and bocce, being great at business aka the billionaires, being successful in “Australians Got Talent” or “Married At First Site?” or being the BBQ wiz with lamb chops at family gatherings’?

 

I think not. I think

•     Being Australian is the smell of summer, the feel of sand whether red or white between your toes, the rush of fire, the surge of water and the capacity to come together as one to further the well being of all.
• 
  
•      Being Australian asks all who reside here to engage in deep dialogue and listening so we break down stereotypes, fears, ill informed prejudices and racism we hold about each other.
• 
  
•     Being Australian is celebrating the success of all regardless of the culture, faith or language; celebrating the amazing success of indigenous Australians across this country in sport, education, medicine, law, self-government and more.
• 
  
•    Being Australian is opening our borders and welcoming others and giving them the same opportunities our colonial forebears had. And it is extending such opportunities to the first residents of this country.
•      Being Australian is being honest about the treatment of the most vulnerable in our society, children and women in particular and to begin to tackle the domestic, gender and sexual violence that has occurred and continues to occur.
• 
  
•       Being Australian is being brave enough to recognise indigenous sovereignty and beginning the deliberate process toward reconciliation and treaty without getting side-tracked by government and pressure groups particular agendas’.
• 
  
•       Being Australian is recognising the damage we are doing to the environment and restrict the destruction caused by mining in all its forms, particularly coal mining. 

Congratulations are due for a nation who begins to embrace these ideals, not just as stated goals but as lived realities. Congratulations go to each and every Australian of all races and backgrounds who work to make this a reality in our daily living.

 

Like the Sermon on the Mount, this is no easy task, no list of ‘nice’ goals we can ignore when they become to hard to implement. Jesus commitment to the Sermon on the Mount and the values embraced by it took him all the way to an agonising death on the cross. In such a way, our commitment to what being Australian means we will look at how we celebrate our nation, whether how we do it now is inclusive of all and be prepared to let go of, give up, crucify old myths on the cross of congratulations – you are being Australian.

 

GK Chesterton famously wrote: ““The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” 

 

My suggestion is that being an Australian is difficult and instead of trying to so be we find excuses to exclude and build walls around our fearful denial of all that is at odds with the myth we believe about ourselves.

 

Jesus bluntly lays open the truth about being fully included in the surge for wholeness as an ordinary individual, it looks completely different to that which we have been told.

 

Perhaps it is time to take seriously being an Australian and embrace a new and different narrative. Amen.

Australia Day 2017

How do I approach Australia Day as an indigenous Australian, a day having particular meaning and ramifications for my people? Bill Haywood is indeed a brave Australian asking me here, for this could go to custard quickly. I could denounce Australia Day and all it stands for and do so with a sense of legitimacy and right. Or I could take the position of reconciliation and reach out a hand in friendship, crossing the barriers of violence, ignorance and racism.

 

The first is the easy option. Railing against injustice is loud, aggressive and belligerent and gains the recognition of others who appear to feel as deeply about the issue as you. This option is the one we find on the front page of our newspapers and to which those who wish to continue the racism use as proof of a divided nation.

 

It would be the easiest for me to take and justifiably so.

 

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.

 

A few months ago, I returned home as a 61 year old man to conduct a funeral for my mother’s best friend. After the funeral I was standing outside dressed in my Anglican clerical garb and a man who had known me since I was a child came over and looked at me and said; “You’re blackfellas young fella, you’re young blackfella.” In the next 10 minutes he never referred to me by name. A teacher I had respected also came over and the conversation went the same way. Nowhere in this conversation was my first name used. I was still the anonymous blackfella.

 

These and many other experiences have challenged my identity and my place in the Great Australian Dream. For many years I was unaware of why I was angry and self-destructive and it has only been in recent years as I have explored my indigenous story that I began to find a way to accept my place as indigenous and Australian. They are not mutually exclusive but they are also not one and the same. One comes from your ancestral connections to country, language and culture, and the other from where you reside. The difficult task one has, is to find a way to live as both in a society still grappling with what both means.

 

An important moment for me was in recognising why I sought to become an Anglican priest. Now one would normally say this because such a calling is seen to come from God. In one sense this is true, but for me there is more to it and I am now grappling with what it means. You see, growing up I understood early on that to be white was to not only to be acceptable to society but also inherently good. My father would refer to someone he respected as a white man. “That Bill Haywood, he’s a white man. He’s a good bloke.” Being black was not good or being good.

 

Somewhere this stuck in my mind and I suspect I became an Anglican priest because it is the whitest thing I can do. Being a priest in the Church of England connects me not only to the ‘old country’ but also directly to the Queen. You cannot get any whiter than that.

 

But has this made me an Australian? Am I an Australian because of the colour of my skin or my connection to the faith foundation of our country? I am I not an Australian because I am indigenous and therefore have claim to both a physical and spiritual presence older than anything else I know? What does being an Australian mean for me? May I suggest the following:

 

·      Being Australian is the smell of summer, the feel of sand whether red or white between your toes, the rush of fire, the surge of water and the capacity to come together as one to further the well being of all.

 

·      Being Australian asks all who reside here to engage in deep dialogue and listening so we break down stereotypes, fears, ill informed prejudices and racism we hold about each other.

 

·      Being Australian is celebrating the success of all regardless of the culture, faith or language; celebrating the amazing success of indigenous Australians across this country in sport, education, medicine, law, self-government and more.

 

·      Being Australian is opening our borders and welcoming others and giving them the same opportunities our colonial forebears had. And it is extending such opportunities to the first residents of this country.

 

·      Being Australian is being honest about the treatment of the most vulnerable in our society, children and women in particular and to begin to tackle the domestic, gender and sexual violence that has occurred and continues to occur.

 

·      Being Australian is being brave enough to recognise indigenous sovereignty and beginning the deliberate process toward reconciliation and treaty without getting side-tracked by government and pressure groups particular agendas’.

 

·      Being Australian is recognising the damage we are doing to the environment and restrict the destruction caused by mining in all its forms, particularly coal mining.

 

These are the values I hope describe an Australian and I hope, describe me.  I have come to this place through a torturous journey and know there are many such journeys ahead for those who are serious about being an Australian.

 

Coming home to myself as both an indigenous person and an Australian was made possible by my art. In the booklets on your table (which are for sale) you will see my self-portrait. Not having grown up with an explicit culture, language or a personal connection to country it was important for me to make that connection if I was going to move on. Unfortunately the country I grew up on is now populated by three large open cut coal mines and all but three sacred sites have been destroyed along with my grandmothers home, the home my father grew up in and the church that served as the centre of our community life. As country is your identity I sat and painted the country from memory, only later getting an aerial photograph of the mines and realising just how accurate my memory was of a place I left in 1972.

 

In doing so I discovered a solid foundation for my identity, one which allows me to journey across the barriers my family had constructed and had been constructed by white and black society alike. I on record as saying indigenous identity is very different in the 21st century than the preconceived understanding of most Australians. There are more people like me, aboriginal but not traditional (ABNT’s), and we are finding ways to cross over and back through education, success and sheer commitment to a better society. These are people who have had successful national and international roles and are now beginning to talk about the unspeakable, that they are indigenous and are seeking a way to affirm both this and their Australian identities as compatible and real.

 

Australia needs us and we need Australia.

 

So in conclusion, where does that leave us on this Australia Day? On the cusp of great possibilities as we take seriously what it means being an Australian.  The danger is that we get side-tracked by prejudices and fear and fail to see the possibilities for our country and our cultures if we fail to take the time to listen to one another. THANKYOU