Reflection of the Week - 16 January 2019

Posted Jan 16, 2019 in Faith

“We acknowledge and grieve with indigenous people that the coming of people from overseas to live here over the last two centuries has resulted in great losses for indigenous people. – losses of land, life, children, language and culture.”  (Para 2 – the Covenant statement between any UCA  congregation and the UAICC)

In the week ahead, as we prepare for the celebrations that mark Australia Day, we remember first the cost of the birth of a new nation, to the First Peoples. 

We mourn their losses with them.

When God’s people became exiles, losing their traditions and land, their lament was captured in Psalm 137. ‘By the rivers of Babylon, we sat down and wept when we remember Zion.”   As people gathered at Elliston on South Australia’s west coast in October 2018, to remember the murder of over 200 Wirangu people from the cliff tops, they wept as they remembered.   This is a sacred story too. 

Stories like this need to be told and remembered for a destiny together to emerge. A common destiny we can all share as an emerging nation, where we can be called Australians together and respect our origins and histories.   This land Australia could be the land where people come from east and west to create the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit. 

Prayer: God of every land and nation, you gather us as one people in Jesus Christ and bless us with One Spirit of Life.  By your Spirit teach us to love all people and their sacred stories and to remember that it is truth revealed and your love that comforts our sorrows and leads us into life together, Amen.

Photo: ABC news site https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-15/waterloo-bay-monument-to-massacre-allows-reflection/10375292

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