Reprints of 2006 Services - Discussions

Sunday Service in Bayswater, 9July
Elder Alfred Klink

Service 10.15am in Bayswater 25th June
Elder: Renate Beilharz
Pianist: Veronika Frank

Welcome to today’s Religious Service. A special welcome to any visitors to our community. We hope that you feel comfortable amongst us. You may have noticed that the Sunday School children are not with us for the start of today’s service, as they will be joining us at the end with a special activity.
Let us start today’s contemplation with a traditional hymn of thanksgiving: Song number 47, Ich singe Dir mit Herz und Mund, O Lord, I sing with mouth and heart. We’ll sing all verses 1-8.
Our text for today comes from Luke chapter 17, verses 11 – 19.
Luke is recounting an event in the recorded life of Jesus, and has to do with two groups of outcasts in Jewish society at the time of Jesus: Lepers and Samaritans. We’ll leave Samaritans aside for the moment and concentrate on the lepers.
Lepers were sufferers under Jewish laws that went back to the time of Moses, laws that gave detailed instructions on many aspects of life, including health and disease, purification and atonement. Chapter 13 of Leviticus, the third book of Moses, defines the role of the Priests in detecting disease. It starts like this…Verses 1-3… and quickly goes into great detail describing the various diseases and how to detect infectious diseases. Word of warning; don’t read Leviticus 13 over a meal, it is quite grisly reading.
Verses 45-46 give us a good understanding of how the lepers were expected to act.
Luke’s story shows that these laws were followed in Jesus’ time. The ten men with leprosy who called out to Jesus, did so from “some way off’ as they could not mingle with the wider society and were considered unclean.
Jesus sent the lepers to show themselves to the priests, this was the time honoured tradition, and law, for those who wished to be declared clean and rejoin society. The priests in Jesus’ time were carrying out the duty and powers given to them at the time of Moses.
Jesus’ action, of cleansing the lepers, meant that these men could now become participating members of the community. They could contribute to the livelihood of their families, and subsequently society as a whole would benefit by their involvement in everyday life, rather than being unproductive outcasts.
Ten men were made clean, and we hear no more about nine of them. We can assume that they did as Jesus commanded in that they went to the priests who gave them a clean bill of health. We can also assume that they stayed clean, and rejoined mainstream society. We only read of one man who said thank you. The fact that the other nine didn’t say thank you to Jesus didn’t stop them from receiving Jesus’ gift of healing.
In all our lives we receive blessings and gifts from all different sources, and we don’t specifically thank the giver. Think about all you have received this morning since waking up, how much of it do we take for granted. The electricity that comes into our house in endless flows that allows us to make our breakfast toast and coffee, the baker who has been up for hours so that we have fresh rolls for breakfast, the husband who gives you a cuddle in the morning before you tackle the challenges of the day, the teenager who can be told to drop whatever they are doing and help out right now, the community member who gives you encouragement in your assigned task. Sometimes I remember to say thank you, but I’m sure it is not often enough.
It is also not often that I stop and make a conscious effort to give thanks for all those intangible things which come from God, the universal power. The song we sang at the start touched on many things that I daily take for granted: heavens, fields with rain and dew, life, power and courage. That’s why it is nice to come to a service such as this, to make the conscious effort to say thank you, even though we know that gifts will always come our way from many sources, despite non-recognition of the giver.
So let’s take another opportunity to say thank you through song by singing the brief song of thanks, song number 52 – It is a good thing to give thanks. Veronika will play it through once, then we will sing it twice.
Let’s now focus on the Samaritan, the man who came back to say thank you. Not only had he been a leper, but he was also a Samaritan, another group of outcasts as far as the officials of Judaism were concerned. I’d like to briefly explore why there was a strong mutual hatred between Jews and Samaritans.
There are religious and political reasons for this hatred, and they go far back into the history of Israel when, after the death of King Solomon, the kingdom was divided into two parts, Judah in the south and Israel in the north. The north was conquered by the Assyrians, some of whom stayed and inter-married with the Israelites who had not been deported, bringing their own gods into the land of Israel, or Samaria. The Jews of southern Judah looked upon all the Israelites living in the north as heretics. The people living in north they came to be known as the Samaritans, named after the region of Samaria. The Jews actually hated these Samaritan Israelites more than they did the pagans.
The animosity continued when the Samaritans offered to help rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem. The Jews refused to have anything to do with them, so the Samaritans built their own temple in the north to rival the temple in Jerusalem. The Jews later destroyed this Temple. Closer to Jesus’ time some Samaritans desecrated the temple at Jerusalem, after which all Samaritans were banned from worshipping in the Jerusalem temple.
Despite all this continuing political strife between the two groups, they were both worshippers of the same God of Israel and had similar canonical texts, both using the 5 books of Moses. The officialdom of Judaism believed that Samaritans did not know the real will of God, and had no real tradition, that their religion was a half-baked corrupt version of true Judaism.
Despite this animosity, Jesus uses the Samaritan as an example to show the importance of correct behaviour. Correct behaviour is more important than claiming to be able to interpret God’s will correctly and definitely more important than years of political warring.
In today’s text, the story tells us that it was the Samaritan who stopped and turned back to praise Jesus. This was not the traditional way, which dictated that you first had to go to the priest. The Samaritan didn’t do what was expected, he didn’t follow the crowd and he followed his heart not the law.
Jesus responded by saying to the Samaritan: your faith has made you whole. Jesus didn’t say my faith has made you whole, or God has made you whole. Rather he focussed on the man himself, showing that healing comes from within. The Samaritan was not just clean, but he was made whole by his own actions, simply by coming back and saying thank you. There were no priests needed as brokers.
Faith and self-development comes from within each of us, where we can find God. We in the Temple Society have very few outward signs of faith, but we do have a responsibility to work on our own faith. This does mean challenging ourselves to explore and take risks with ourselves to be more than averagely good.
The nine men who went on to the priest were averagely good, they did what was prescribed by the laws. The Samaritan did what was in his heart. Maybe the question that should be asked is not the one asked by Jesus: where are the other nine? Rather the question should be, where is the tenth man now? Where did following his heart, which made him whole as well as clean, lead him?
Faith is not about how to live a normal or averagely good life, nor is it slavishly doing as Jesus says, down to the last biblical letter. Rather it is to go on the journey that Jesus charted and have faith with Jesus in the world that he believed can be achieved. He left us a great legacy of ideas and stories to help take us through our own journeys of self-development to faith.
Those who find it easy, please stand for the prayer:
God,
We thank you for all the gifts you have given us. Help us use our gratitude to develop our faith, so that we can individually take the risks required to create the world Jesus envisioned.
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name,
Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
As we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us when in temptation and deliver us from evil.
For the Kingdom, the power and the glory
Are yours forever.
Amen.
As I said before Jesus left us many stories to help us on our journey of self-discovery. One of Jesus’ most well known story is that of the Good Samaritan, where again we see a Samaritan cast in the role of the one taking the risk, doing what his heart says, not what the norms of his society dictates.
The Sunday School class has been doing a course on the Temple Society, and are currently focussing on Jesus’ twin commandment of love: Love God, and love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus told the Good Samaritan story to answer the question put to him: Who is my neighbour? The Sunday school children have heard this story today, and will now present it with your help.
While the Sunday School class gets ready to join us, we’ll sing another song of thanks, this time more modern. Song number 101, Song of gratitude, all 5 verses.
Projected on the wall are words to the Good Samaritan song. The tune is the one many of you sang as children ‘Dornroesch war ein schoenes Kind’. We have to sing without accompaniment, but I’m sure we can live up to the challenge. While we all sing it, the Sunday School children will act it out.
Thank you everyone for joining in that activity with the children.
I’d like to spend the last moments saying thank you to all who make a service such as this possible, in beautiful surroundings, through their voluntary efforts. In a community such as ours, so much is dependent upon volunteers who are often unseen and unthanked. I get to stand up here and be recognised, but there are many who don’t get public recognition: quiet flower ladies, the noisier lawn mowers, the working bee people, those who organise refreshments for after the service, others who help with cleaning up, the Sunday school teacher, our pianist, my husband, the person who put together the Elders roster….the list is never ending. To all who belong on that list, please accept all our heartfelt thanks.
Veronika will now play the end piece before we adjourn for refreshments.

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Saal im Altersheim 11. Juni
Elder: H. R. Uhlherr

Pianist: Elisabeth Wagner

Hymns: Choral No. 13, Wie groß ist des Allmächtigen Güte – alle 5 Verse
Choral No. 120, Lobe den Herren, den... Verse 4 und 5

Zu Beginn singen wir den Choral Nr. 13 (schwarzes Gesangbuch) – alle 5 Verse – Wie groß ist des Allmächtigen Güte.

Mein Name ist Hermann Ralph Uhlherr, und noch bin ich im Ältestendienst der TSA tätig. Als einer der ‘ältesten’ Ältesten denke ich manchmal, was gibt es eigentlich heutzutage noch Neues oder Interessantes zum Thema ‘Tempelidee’ oder der ‘Königreich Gottes Botschaft’ zu sagen?

Nun, das kommt darauf an, mit wem man spricht, denn trotz unserer langjährigen Gemeinschaft sind sich noch lange nicht alle einig, ganz besonders in Glaubens- und religiösen Sachen, und ich denke das ist auch gar nicht so schlimm. Ein jeder muss seinen Glauben für sich selbst finden und verantworten.

Unsere ‘jüngeren Ältesten’, überhaupt unsere Jugend hier in Australien, haben es weitaus schwieriger in dieser Hinsicht als Ihre und auch meine Generation. Denn heute hat man so viel Freiheit und Güter, dass die große Wahl oft zur Qual wird – hierbei möchte ich auch die Glaubensfreiheit und Auswahl mit einbeziehen.

Aber das nur zur Einleitung, denn wenn ich mich umschaue, dann sehe ich Templer, die in jeder Beziehung ihr ganzes Leben lang die Grundlage der Tempelgesellschaft gekannt, erfahren und gelebt haben, also, da gibt es keine Überraschungen mehr in Glaubenssachen? Vor einigen Monaten kam mir das Büchlein Ist die Bibel die Quelle der Gotteserkennung? von Christian Rohrer wieder einmal in die Hände; es hat mich vor Jahrzehnten schon sehr angesprochen, und ich fand, dass Christian Rohrer ganz besonders für die heutige, schnell-lebige Zeit in einfachem Deutsch, relativ kurz, klar und sehr sachlich unseren Templer Glauben – die Tempelidee – zusammenfasst, ganz modern (speziell für die Zeit um1935, wo das Büchlein entstand).

Einige von Ihnen haben Christian Rohrer vielleicht persönlich gekannt, oder viel von ihm gehört oder gelesen. Er war Tempelvorsteher von 1911 bis 1934 (U 31.5.1934), und hielt 6 Vorträge in den Jahren 1929 und 1930 über das Thema: “Ist die Bibel die Quelle der Gotteserkenntnis?” Vor seinem Tod fasste seine Frau diese 6 Vorträge zusammen in das Büchlein, aus dem ich Ihnen heute einige Auszüge vorlesen möchte.

Diejenigen, die dieses Buch selbst besitzen und darin häufig lesen, bitte ich um Nachsicht, wenn ich sozusagen versuche, offene Türen einzubrechen, ansonsten kann ich das Buch nur empfehlen, und es ist es wert, auch als guter Templer ab und zu seinen Glauben aufzufrischen.

Das Buch besteht aus 9 Kapiteln:
1 Die Entstehung der Bibel
2 Die Literaturformen der Bibel
3 Bibelkritik
4 Naturerkenntnis der Bibel
5 Die Gotteserkenntnis der vorprophetischen Stufe
6 Die Gotteserkenntnis der prophetischen Stufe
7 Die Gotteserkenntnis Jesu von Nazareth
8 Die Gotteserkenntnis der christlichen Kirchen
9 Die Gotteserkenntnis der Tempelgesellschaft

Nun bitte ich Sie, nicht sofort abzuschalten, ich weiss, dass das, was ich vorlesen möchte, für Sie bestimmt nichts Neues ist, aber ich werde mich bemühen, nur (meiner Meinung nach) interessante und bedenkende Auszüge vorzulesen (nicht einmal aus allen Kapiteln).

Ich beginne mit Kapitel 1 – Die Entstehung der Bibel, Seite 5, 6, 7 & 16.

Das als Einleitung, denn Christian Rohrer schrieb über die Entstehung und Form der Bibel, d.h. des Alten und Neuen Testaments, in weit mehr Einzelheiten; wer darüber mehr lesen möchte, findet dies in den Kapiteln 1 bis 4.

In den folgenden Kapiteln 5 bis 9 behandelt Christian Rohrer die Gotteserkenntnis:
– der vorprophetischen Stufe (er bezeichnet diese als Stufe 1)
– der prophetischen Stufe
– Jesu von Nazareth
– der Christlichen Kirchen
– der Tempelgesellschaft

Aus den Kapiteln 5 bis 9 zur Gotteserkenntnis werde ich nur Auszüge aus Kapitel 7 und 9 vorlesen.
Aus Kapitel 7: Die Gotteserkenntnis Jesu von Nazareth, Seiten 42 bis 51.

Ich überspringe Kapitel 8 und dann kommen wir zum letzten Kapitel, 9:
Die Gotteserkenntnis der Tempelgesellschaft: Seiten 54 bis 57.

Ich hoffe, dass mein Vorlesen von Auszügen aus dem Büchlein Ist die Bibel die Quelle der Gotteserkenntnis? von Christian Rohrer nicht zu lang war; es soll nur eine Anregung sein, selbst darin zu lesen, um vielleicht die Zusammenhänge und weitere Erklärungen besser zu verstehen. Wie ich schon zu Anfang sagte, war ich erstaunt, wie sehr mich die Erklärungen Christian Rohrers ansprachen: ganz und gar nicht altmodisch, nicht zu religiös, keine leeren Worte.

Nun singen wir vom Choral 120, Verse 1, 2 und 3, Lobe den Herren…

(Anmerkung: englische Übersetzung von Kapitel 9 im Templer Record, Juni 2006.)

Für mich persönlich ist Gott nicht greifbar, er hat keine Gestalt oder erkennbare Form, und ist weder männlich noch weiblich. Vielleicht ist die beste Bezeichnung, die ich geben kann, folgende: für mich ist Gott der Begriff für eine all-umfassende Macht, eine durchdringende Kraft, verbunden mit der Schöpfung, dem gesamten Weltall, bestehend deshalb auch in jedem Menschen, bestehend im kleinsten Atom, aber auch in der gewaltigsten Galaxie. Es ist eben nicht möglich für uns Menschen, Gott mit unserem Verstand voll zu begreifen! Deshalb ist wie wir Gottes Art und Wesen begreifen eine sehr persönliche, individuelle Angelegenheit. Jeder Mensch wird und darf Gott so begreifen, wie er selbst in sich seine eigene Art und das eigene Wesen erkennt und begreift. Jeder sieht Gott ein bißchen anders und erwartet vielleicht auch etwas anderes von ihm. So steht unser Gottesbegriff im direkten Verhältnis zu unserer eigenen Person. Unser Gottesbegriff aber – das Gott-Begreifen – macht keinen Gott. Ich denke, wie wir Gott verstehen ist auch nichts Endgültiges, sondern das wächst mit unserem Begreifen.

Jesus hat uns gezeigt, dass sich die heilbringende Wirkung des Geistes Gottes in uns so weit erstreckt, wie wir persönlich unsere Hindernisse wegräumen wollen und können, soweit wie wir uns lossagen von Sorgen um unser Wohlbefinden und Wohlhaben, und unsere Vorurteile, Mißgunst und Apathie überwinden können. Aber es ist die Aufgabe jedes Einzelnen, sich so zu verhalten, dass er in einer Gemeinschaft Gleichgesinnter wirksam ist.

Ich glaube allderdings, dass wir, wenn wir darum bitten, von einer höheren Macht geleitet und dabei geholfen werden. Wie wir handeln, das muss jeder für sich selbst entscheiden und verantworten.

Das ändert nichts an der Tatsache, dass jeder einzelne Mensch befähigt und verantwortlich ist, sein Verhalten – das heißt seine Gedanken, seine Worte und sein Wirken – so aufeinander abzustimmen, dass er dadurch wächst und seelisch reift. Das gilt in der Jugend sowie im Alter.

Wir erfahren, dass ein solches Reifen uns laufend vor Entscheidungen stellt, in wichtigen sowie in kleinen Dingen. Um solche Entscheidungen zu treffen, ist uns der freie Wille gegeben. Jede gute Wahl festigt uns geistig, jede schlechte verlangsamt unser Reifen.

Unser Gewissen – das tief in uns vorhandene Gefühl für das Gute und Rechte, das Urgeistige in jedem Menschen – hilft uns diese Entscheidungen zu fällen. Es ist wohl das, was Jesus als das Göttliche in uns ansprach, das, was uns hilft zu erkennen, das was zum Reich Gottes gehört, und danach zu streben. Unser Erreichen des Reichs Gottes, das er verkündete, schätzte Jesus weit höher ein als die bestehende weltliche Ordnung.

Jedoch denken wir daran: wir selbst tragen die Verantwortung für unsere Lebensweise, für unsere Lebensansprüche und somit auch für unsere Teilnahme am Reich Gottes. Sind wir bereit, von ganzem Herzen in Gottes Gerechtigkeit und Wirken zu vertrauen und diese vorbehaltlos zu akzeptieren?

Durch unsere Grundeinstellung sollten wir eigentlich jederzeit dazu bereit sein.
Wenn uns das gelingt, sind wir Bausteine zu einer Gemeinschaft wie Jesus sie sah, wo jeder Stein den anderen mitträgt, so wie es durch den Geist Gottes in uns bestimmt ist.

Vaterunser.

Vom Choral Nr. 120 – Verse 4 und 5.

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Founders Day Service in Bentleigh
Elder Mark Herrmann

Musical prelude: Monika Strasser

Thank you Monika for the musical introduction. Good afternoon and I greet you on this cool but dry winter’s day to our Founding Day Service. My name is Mark Herrmann, an Elder of the Temple Society Australia, and I especially welcome our Sunday School children for the first part of our service and any visitors joining us. I trust you will feel comfortable in our midst. There will be coffee and cake served at the conclusion of the service, providing an opportunity to meet and mingle.

I would like to begin our period of contemplation with a short segment directed at the children.
Have you ever had to go without something?
Have you ever lost something of value?
Have you ever been forced to give something up?
Have you ever wanted or needed to change something in your life? 

Read story (“Spirit of Hope” by Bob Graham)

It was important for the Fairweather family to stay together. They had to rely on their friends to help. They had a strong spirit of hope

 Hymn – “Seek ye first of all God’s Kingdom” – number 1 – verses 1,4,9 (seated)

 Sunday School children depart with Renate Beilharz

It was 145 years ago when, on 19-20^th June 1861, at a meeting called at the hamlet of Kirschenhardthof in southern Germany, 64 men signed a manifesto stating: “In view of the general disorientation of mankind caused by the fact that none of the existing Churches aspires to making man into a temple of God and to establish the sanction at Jerusalem for all nations, we, the undersigned, disassociate ourselves from Babylon, that is to say the existing Churches and Sects, and unite to establish the German Temple, to carry out the Law, the Gospel and the Prophecy.” Thus the Temple Society, as an independent Christian Community, was born.

I have read and re-read this manifesto many times trying to conceptualise it in today’s language and in terms and circumstances relevant to me. If we were to rewrite the statement now, in the early years of the 21^st Century, I wonder what equivalent words we would use. And would this even be a meaningful exercise with any intrinsic purpose or value? Furthermore, would we feel in a position to endorse the statement, sign our name and be prepared to commit to and act in accordance with it?

The passage of time to the present day, marked with critical world events and their impact, has seen abundant change and generational shifts in the Temple Society’s presence and influence. Yet, throughout time and change, its basic framework – the philosophy, the aim and ideals – have remained constant, notwithstanding variations in interpretation and application. This, I believe, was well expressed in 1972, on the occasion of the 111^th anniversary of the founding, when Dr Richard Hoffmann indicated that studies of the origins of Christianity and the development of the church had forced the Temple Society to re-examine itself, particularly in light of its enforced departure from Palestine and subsequent resettlement. Dr Hoffmann wrote: (I quote) “The founding generation, in a literal interpretation of Prophecy, saw the establishment of the Sanctum at Jerusalem as their immediate, God-given task and the short-term goal of the Temple Society. In view of our experience, we no longer share that interpretation in the same form; rather our present goal is to work, at the place to which history has led us, towards the realisation of the timeless principles of the Temple Society. The disorientation referred to in the founding manifesto is no less prevalent today, and we still believe that the way out of this disorientation is for every individual to reflect on the meaning of Jesus Christ’s simple message and to strive to live according to it, in his surroundings, in the family, the community, the Society (spelt with a capital “s”), the street. This task is easier in the company of those who share our aim. Although today we no longer speak of bringing together God’s people, but of creating and spreading a Christian attitude and community, we mean the same thing. Therefore, we are prepared, as we were in the past, to contribute to all reasonable measures directed towards this aim. However, in this regard there is still such great scope for work within our own circle that there will be no lack of tasks in the foreseeable future.” (end of quote)

I can only speak for myself, but I am truly grateful for the legacy created, formed and ultimately passed to subsequent generations by our forebears. To belong and be a part of the Temple Society is of great significance to me, and I remain ever-thankful that I had the opportunities to be aware of its presence and to be guided by its influence.

But, was I just fortunate to have those opportunities? What if I’d been in a different place at a different time – would I still have had access to this way of life? To be honest, I suspect not, and I find my negative suspicions to this question (theoretical in my case) a little disturbing and rather sad.

Sometimes, when we take our summer camping holidays together with the Blackwell and Beilharz families, the adults relaxing beside a campfire at day’s end, have tended to gaze at the astral carpet above and make comment or provoke discussion on the universe, our world, the Temple Society, our own lives and the respective place of one within the other. Despite acknowledging how lucky we’ve been to grow up immersed in the Temple Society, we have also questioned its seeming inability to attract many more adherents from outside. Put simply, if our principles are deemed appealing and able to be personally applied, why haven’t others come on board and why don’t more people join us?

Sadly, I think a great number are denied the opportunity of access, a noteworthy yet understandable problem in itself, and I believe others either see no need to join – it would be presumptuous to presume that one cannot be a “good” person and do “good” things without becoming a Templer – or, in being protective of what we have, we are perhaps not open and inclusive enough to outsiders. Like in our own families or circle of friends, we are justifiably careful as to who we relate with and therefore open our door to. While understanding of these factors, I wonder whether they contribute to threaten our future existence. Through their situation and, perhaps because of it, by their very nature, I can see a label of “conservative” applying to Templers generally. I have no issue with this and no doubt that this label also fits me quite comfortably. But, I have a problem if “conservative” is replaced with “defensive”, whether in a “protective/shielding” sense or (even worse) in a “suspicious/cynical” sense.

Was the Temple Society established to encourage involvement and participation or merely to serve and cater for itself? In answering the question, I’m sure the vast majority of members would say the former, but how strongly do we really strive to pursue this? How do we go about actively encouraging involvement from outside? This is the vexed question, and I’m sure were there an easy solution it would have been implemented and continuously repeated over the years. After all, we are not missionaries, nor salespeople brandishing the latest gadget and hoping to make a quick sale. We seek a commitment to a life philosophy.

When thinking of the sacrifices made by our founding fathers in uprooting and re-establishing their lives and lifestyles in a foreign land through their convictions, I wonder how prepared I and my contemporaries (the present generations) would be to do likewise. I would hazard a guess that most of us are too comfortable with our lot. Does this imply our faith is not strong enough? To be fair, we’ve never really been put to that sort of test. Therefore, I sometimes wonder whether the prolonged existence of the Temple Society following its founding has almost been as much to do with survival through community spirit and a strong will in the face of adversity than building on its philosophy and system of values. This is not to say that the Templer ideals were not very much to the fore during these battles for survival. In place of a forced necessity we today have choices and are not compelled to defend what we have and what we have inherited. However, Dr Hoffmann spoke of not only creating but also spreading a Christian attitude and community. Perhaps this is why I believe a serious review of the approach to be taken regarding attracting membership is needed. For perhaps the first time in its relatively long and proud history, it could be argued there has been a sustained period of comfort without threat in the Temple Society.

During the confirmation program we do an exercise with the teenagers in which the imaginary HMAS Temple Society – that trusty vessel sailing on the high seas – is seriously overloaded and needs to shed some of its load in order to avoid sinking and taking down everything with it. But what is to be jettisoned and what is vital enough to be retained? Decisions have to be made: Do we keep the hymnbooks? How important is the German Language School? I can tell you the Business Manager is usually unceremoniously cast aside, as are the Community facilities, the Archives, the Choir, the camps, the sporting groups, even the Elders and the confirmation lessons themselves. In the end, the confirmands invariably recognise the essential worth and value of members (and perhaps the money in the Central Fund!), virtually everything else able to be rebuilt and everyone else (in the sense of position) capable of being replaced or re-established. Despite being a hypothetical scenario, it makes the young minds assess the many components defining the Temple Society and focus on what is truly important. It goes to the heart of the Templer Community and what is required to keep it beating.

In the end section of Part 1 of Occident and Orient – The Temple Society and its Settlements in the Holy Land, Christoph Hoffmann writes: This account of the history and the principles of the Temple Society was not written in the expectation that reading it would convince the German public of the truth of these principles and persuade it to join us. The aim of this description of the Temple Society is only to give an accurate picture of our philosophy and how it has evolved, so that everyone can know what we believe and what our intentions are. The validity of our principles has to be demonstrated by our actions. As the Bible says, “By my deeds I will prove to you my faith”. (James 2:18)

There were two Bible texts allocated to today’s service: perhaps not surprisingly, James 2: 14-26 and Luke 17: 20-21.

The passage from Luke reads: Some Pharisees asked Jesus when the Kingdom of God would come. His answer was, “The Kingdom of God does not come in such a way as to be seen. No one will say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’, because the Kingdom of God is within you.”

Part of the passage from James begins: My brothers what good is it for someone to say that he has faith if his actions do not prove it? Can that faith save him? Suppose there are brothers or sisters who need clothes and don’t have enough to eat. What good is there in your saying to them, “God bless you! Keep warm and eat well!”, if you don’t give them the necessities of life? So it is with faith: if it is alone and includes no actions, then it is dead. But someone will say, “One person has faith, another has actions.” My answer is, “Show me how anyone can have faith without actions. I will show you my faith by my actions.”

I see a parallel between these two complementary passages from the New Testament and the twin commandments of love – Love God with all your being, and love your neighbour as yourself – as expressed in Matthew 22:37-39. To me, they are so illustrative of what the Temple Society represents and strives to achieve. You are the centre of your own pond and the ripples your deeds create bring others into play.

With each passing year, the past personal contact with the settlements in Palestine and fresh beginnings in a new country following the internment period in Tatura diminishes. In describing the Templers’ rebuilding work, Peter Lange (in his 1992 publication Templer Handbuch under the heading “Past and Present Aim: Community”) writes (I quote) “although this initially brought with it many material, financial and organisational problems, they were almost always solved through persistent and determined action” – again, that word. “The success of the rebuilding work was predominantly due to the fact that those involved had clearly in their minds their own experiences of the living conditions and community relations of the old settlements. The impressions absorbed now guided and motivated them.”

Peter continues: “…but the type of motivation described above can no longer be taken for granted amongst the younger people. Remember that they (that is, we) have not shared the same experiences.” (end of quote)

If the 1950s were about a new start and the 1960s consolidation of re-establishment, then the 1970s and 1980s were about aged care in the form of first Templer Home and then Tabulam. The 1990s brought more building with the unit development in Bayswater. The new century has been marked by the unfortunate coupling of the sale of the Boronia Hall with the advent of the striking Community Chapel.

Aside of building projects – notwithstanding the pride and sense of community such initiatives can engender – other endeavours have included the exchange scheme with Germany, the Kids’ Club, successful creation of Community Care Worker and Youth Coordinator positions, services at various locations in Country Victoria and a restructure from geographically-based Community Councils to activity-based Focus Groups.

These are all fine examples of our Community in action. From the kernel of an idea, it germinates into a project which, with appropriate nurturing and support, matures into an exercise generating benefits through much involvement and participation. So, we create but do we spread? Such initiatives are developed, quite rightly, by and for the Community, but do they stay too much within our Community?

Fostering partnerships, as with Knox Council, given their generous grant funding for our Fabric of Society: The Templer Journey wall-hanging project, is a vital way of opening and reaching out. A collaborative effort will result in benefits, hopefully lasting benefits, both within and outside. A recent performance in the Community Chapel in Bayswater by the Eltham East Primary School choir was well attended by some connected with and others unrelated to the Temple Society. Later this year a Youth fest, initially pitched at our young people, but hopefully attracting a number of their school colleagues and friends from other quarters, will be conducted over a weekend. Our aged care facilities serve as an outstanding model in catering for the care needs of many frail aged Templers and benefiting others from the wider German-speaking community.

We owe it to ourselves – as well as those who travelled before us and those still to come – to earnestly look for opportunities to present the Templer way actively, not just internally, but also on a wider scale of endeavour.

The Templer Handbook refers to the following inscription on the grave of Jakob F. Schumacher and is also a quotation from a poem of Christoph Hoffmann’s:

“Laß uns den Anfang doch gelingen, sei auch den Enkeln erst das Ziel beschert”

Grant us success as we begin our task, though only our descendants reach the goal

While the past may be viewed with respect, the present with recognition and the future with hope, there is a constant – that of striving – that lies beneath and across. This is the motivation that continues the work and aspirations of the Temple Society.

145 years ago a strong band of people wanted to make a statement, a stand, a difference. As a faith community we have much to offer, our success or failure depending not on a hierarchical structure or direction from above, but on the abilities and actions of each and every one of us.

Let us pray (standing)

From his book “When I talk to you” by Melbourne cartoonist Michael Leunig:

Dear God,

We give thanks for places of simplicity and peace. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of refuge and beauty. Let us find such a place within ourselves. We give thanks for places of nature’s truth and freedom, of joy, inspiration and renewal, places where all creatures may find acceptance and belonging. Let us search for these places: in the world, in ourselves and in others. Let us restore them. Let us strengthen and protect them and let us create them. May we mend this outer world according to the truth of our inner life and may our souls be shaped and nourished by nature’s eternal wisdom.     Amen

Hymn – “That we may love” – number 107 – all 5 verses (seated)

 Musical postlude: Monika Strasser

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Saal - Bayswater Community Chapel - 14.5.06
‘Mothers Day’
Elder: Rolf Beilharz

Welcome to everyone! A special welcome to the children of the Sunday School on this day when we celebrate our mothers, and our families! And a special welcome to any visitors here for the first time.
Hymn: We’ll begin by singing Hymn Nr. 106: ‘Thank you dear God’. We’ll sing all four verses. This song was composed by our elder and long time choir director Morna Kortschak, or Eva Ruff. Krista Imberger will play the melody through once then we’ll start verse 1.
Sing Hymn
Children, to day I want to talk about the importance of having a friendly happy family, and the importance of our mother in the family. You are all very fortunate to have a wonderful mother who looks after you and fixes all your problems. Did any of you give mum a present or perhaps a pleasant surprise this morning?
Anyway your mother will enjoy how nice you will be to her for the rest of the day. And, of course, you, all of you, are going to be very good children for your mothers in all the days to come. But now is the time for you to go to the Sunday School room where Christine will do interesting things with you. Thank you. Are there any other children who would like to join the Sunday School? Everyone is welcome.
Children leave
Our text for today is Matthew 13: 24-30. Read text
This is a parable. The whole of Matthew’s chapter 13 seems to be given over to parables. And the parables all deal with the kingdom of God. This kingdom is very important to us Templers. Striving for this kingdom is part of our Templer Motto.
The first parable in the chapter is that of the sower, who dropped wheat seed in different places, some of which were unsuitable but the wheat on good soil gave a return up to one hundredfold.
After this parable the disciples asked Jesus why he was talking to the masses in parables. He explained that the disciples understood what the kingdom of God was. But he was speaking to other people in parables because these people look without seeing and listen without hearing. Incidentally, he emphasised that ‘those who have will be given more, till they have enough and to spare; and those who have not will forfeit even what they have. He was clearly making a strict differentiation between those who were disciples and those who were not. ’This is as was prophesied by Isaiah whom Jesus quotes like this: ‘For this people’s mind has become dull; they have stopped their ears and shut their eyes . Otherwise their eyes may see, their ears hear, and their mind understand, and then they might turn to me, and I would heal them’. By ‘me’ and ‘I’, Isaiah meant God, as he was proclaiming God’s message.
Jesus then explained the parable of the sower. The wheat landing on unsuitable ground describes people who hear the message of Jesus, but for different reasons don’t accept it. Or they are people who concentrate on other matters that choke and suffocate it. The seed sown on good soil is the person who hears the word and understands it; he does bear fruit and yields up to a hundredfold.
The text we read, about the darnel in the wheat, is the next parable. Then come the parables of the kingdom of God being like the mustard seed which grew tall, and like the yeast which leavened the whole dough. These are both self-explanatory. After sending the other people away Jesus explained the parable of our text which the disciples had asked him to do.
‘The sower of the good seed is the Son of Man (which is one of the titles given to Jesus). The field is the world; the good seed stands for the children of the kingdom, the darnel for the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed the darnel is the devil. The harvest is the end of time, and the reapers are the angels. As the darnel is gathered up and burnt, so at the end of time the Son of Man will send his angels, who will gather out of his kingdom every cause of sin, and all those whose deeds are evil; these will be thrown into the blazing furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. If you have ears, then hear’.
There are three more parables. The first two are short and indicate that the kingdom of God is something extremely valuable to obtain, for which the people who know are prepared to give up all their possessions. One person sells everything to buy a field in which there is a buried treasure. The other is a jeweller who buys a pearl of very special value.
The last parable is about a net which caught all kinds of fish. The good fish were collected into baskets and the worthless were thrown away. Again this parable finishes with an emphasis on the difference between the good and the worthless. Jesus says ‘That is how it will be at the end of time. The angels will go out, and they will separate the wicked from the good, and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.
Jesus asked his disciples whether they understood all this and they answered, ‘Yes’. He then said, ‘When, therefore, a teacher of the law has become a learner in the kingdom of Heaven, he is like a householder who can produce from his store things new and old’.
The last paragraph of the chapter describes how Jesus fared in Nazareth, his home town. He spoke in the synagogue. Listeners were amazed by his wisdom and powers. However, they did not believe that he had special powers because he was one of them. And Jesus did not do many miracles there. Such was their lack of faith.
When I read this whole chapter in one go, and realised that almost all of it dealt with parables, several things stood out for me! At a recent service in Bentleigh, our elder Peter Uhlherr showed that much of what Jesus does in the gospels reflects prophesies made in the Old Testament. This means that the New Testament Gospels are not reporting the historical truth about the life of Jesus. We know almost no details about the life of Jesus. Rather, what we see is a developing story, in which, over time, Jesus gets closer and closer to the descriptions of the prophesied Messiah or the Son of Man whom the Jews at that time were expecting to come as a saviour. I have also spoken in recent services about how this story about Jesus took ever more detailed form as time passed in the beginnings of Christianity. Early Christianity continued to develop this story to the point where, at the Council of Nicea called by Emperor Constantine, the bishops of early Christianity declared Jesus to be one of three persons in the Trinity of God. In this Trinity, God the Father sent Jesus, his Son, to earth to die for the sins of humanity, so that those who repent their ways, the children of God’s kingdom, will be saved in this kingdom when Jesus returns at the end of time, to set up this kingdom on earth. The third person is the Holy Spirit, who came at the time of Pentecost and brought the understanding of what the death and resurrection of Jesus had really meant.
The point that struck me most is that all the parables of Matthew’s chapter 13 are not about how we humans must change our earthly behaviour so that we can create a peaceful earth for all humans and the rest of Creation. The reward promised in these parables is that Jesus, or his angels, will separate the good from the bad and that God will create a kingdom in which these good people can live. The emphasis is no longer on our personal challenge to make this earth a peaceful place in our present life. No, if we follow God’s rules, God will take us up into his kingdom where he presents us with a better life, even if this is long after we have died.
You might like to check whether you agree with what I am saying, by reading this chapter 13 of Matthew’s gospel. And then, you should follow this up by reading the chapters 5, 6 and 7 of Matthew. These are the Sermon on the Mount. To me this Sermon on the Mount is closer to what Jesus actually taught than the later developments about God’s kingdom coming at the end of time.
For me, this ‘sermon’ is the clearest collection of what Jesus may have actually told his followers to do. One of the things it says there is ‘You must be all goodness, just as your heavenly Father is all good.’ This means that we should try to be like God, impartially good to everyone, just as God is good to all of his creation. You will also see that Jesus asks us to change our ways so as to get on better with our neighbours, here on this earth. In our prayer (the Lord’s prayer) we are told to ask that God’s will should be done on earth as well as in heaven. This prayer also says that God will forgive our wrongdoing just as we forgive the wrongs being done to us. That last part of the sentence is a clear challenge for us to forgive others. And in the verses before the Templer motto we read that we should not worry about clothes, or what we will eat (today we call this our consumerism). Instead we should above all set our minds on God’s kingdom and his justice. If we get our relations with other people right, all other things will come to us as well. The wisdom in this Sermon on the Mount is for me the clearest call to action for us to work, in the present life, towards a decent earth on which people can live in peace and harmony. If we succeed here, and even if we die trying to get it right, we can trust that God will look after us after we die, whatever that situation might be.
In this modern scientific time we need not argue about whether God created the Universe as it says in the bible or whether we accept what the science of astronomy tells us. The same applies to whether Jesus did miraculous things like rising from the dead in bodily form. It should be obvious that in the time when the bible was written, people’s understanding of the universe was completely different from ours today. We now know that the earth is a small part of our solar system, which is a minor part of the total Universe. Similarly the authors of the bible also had ideas about life completely different from our modern understanding. Today most of us accept that humans evolved, in the absence of angels, as a part of the totality of life which has developed on this earth.
With this background stimulated by our New Testament text, let’s now switch to the topic we are celebrating today: our mothers!
If I asked you when and where are you happiest, most of you would probably say: ‘at home, in the family’. I hope you will say that. Every family is a little microworld in which, for most of time, the lives of most of us take place. We spend much time in other places too, the sports team, our social group, at work or school or university, our ladies group, our adventure holiday, and so on. But each of these other situations is an extra, not our main life. We come home from each of these other activities, back to our families.
Naturally, families change over time. Small children first become conscious of their surroundings in the family home, where mother and older siblings are present and will always help when something is not right. Fathers are also there. But often fathers must go to work somewhere else for much of the day in which the child is awake. They may come home only in time to say goodnight to the child. Particularly in those modern families where mother goes to work too, children will also experience grandparents, day care and kindergarten taking the place of parents until the parents come home.
As children mature and go to school their world becomes larger. But the home remains the safe anchor point to which one can always return and relax, however stressful the other things are on any day. As we get older, our children leave home and create their own families with their own homes. We mothers and fathers then become grandparents and help out when the parents are busy. But whether we see the situation from the point of view of grandparents with their extended family and grandchildren, or from the point of view of parents with younger children and older grandparents, the concept of home remains. It is the safe place, that place where most of us will find peace. The family home is the one place where many of us can create our own kingdom of God with all the values Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount. And what is the stabilising centre of this family home? It is mother!
In my professional life as a biologist I taught animal breeding and animal behaviour. I have thought much about the evolution of life, whether in the wild nature, or on the farm where we bias evolution towards those animals that give us more meat, milk and wool. There are some important matters that have become clear to me later in life, before I retired from University and even since then. One is that male animals and female animals are often very different.
Nature has selected males to become optimum given that females exist, and females to become optimum given that males exist. In many species males differ noticeably from females because, with these differences, the two sexes utilise the resources of their environment more efficiently than if the males were exactly the same as the females. We humans share with many animal species the fact that females are distinctly different from males. Our bodies show this clearly. Men are bigger and heavier than women. Men’s voices are deeper than women’s voices. Women usually live longer than men. And women certainly think and behave differently from men. I think this fact has been known to people for thousands of years. But I also think that in the past most tribes and nations have sadly wasted the differences between men and women in the ways in which people have governed themselves. In many populations the social skills of women have been sadly neglected in the politics of government.
In the family we talked about before, the mother is the natural peacemaker. Until old age, the father is usually physically stronger than the mother. Men are also much more aggressive. The result is that in many families, poor decisions are forced on the family by father. This leads to unnecessary tension and stress. The sooner we men accept that our wives are as intelligent as we are, and often much more peaceful, the better off we will be. Most women put up with difficulties better than most men. I believe that intuitive decision-making by women is often more reasonable in difficult situations. Why is it that we men so often do not respect and utilise the many advantages in women’s behaviour, just because we insist that men are the decision makers in this household. Men have too often not allowed women to express their tendencies towards peace, forgiveness and mutually beneficial solutions. In many situations this has then made the lives of the people involved more difficult. For example, the religions in western and middle eastern nations have not allowed or been very slow to allow women to become leaders, particularly at the highest levels. Also, with rare exceptions, women have in the past been excluded from governing. To me it is very clear that many wars, even in our recent history, are due to the aggression of men who do not listen to the more reasonable advice from women. Where women have been successful, even today, they have often had to think and act like men and to suppress their female nature. What a huge waste of talent?
I think the inventor of the game of chess, sometime in the middle ages, had a deep knowledge of the behaviour of human nobility as it expressed itself then. The king behaves like a man grown fat through eating and drinking too much. He might be able to deal with a child-like pawn, but against all other pieces he has to hide behind others. In contrast, the queen has the combined powers of other powerful pieces representing the various other noble or ecclesiastical holders of power, and it is she who often brings victory.
I am fully aware that there are always exceptions to the generalities I have been talking about. Nevertheless, we can accept that what I have said is true in general. And further, as a result of evolution, women have become points of stability in many families. This has allowed such families to live peacefully and become successful. Mothers’ day, whatever its origins, has given us the opportunity to recognise and celebrate the tremendous importance of peaceful women, often the centre of successful families, in human life everywhere. We thank God for letting us appreciate this. All of us can strive to make more use of this wonderful resource in our society. Let us work towards giving women more opportunities to express their generally peaceful nature in making important decisions for the good of our modern society.
As individuals, each one of us should thank and celebrate her or his individual mother for what she has given us. Then we must think also of all other mothers working hard in so many families to create that environment which Jesus taught us to strive for in this life, which he called the kingdom of God. Long may our mothers live!
We finish with the Lord’s Prayer. If you can, please stand.
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins, As we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us when in temptation, And deliver us from evil.
For the Kingdom, the power and the Glory Are Yours forever.
Amen.
We conclude this service by singing the 3 verses of hymn Nr 94, Preiset den Schˆpfer. The text is by our German Temple Society member Erich Bergmann and the melody is familiar from other carols (Lobe den Herren).
Sing hymn.
Thanks to Krista for the music, and to all responsible for the flowers, and decoration of the chapel …
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Easter Sunday 16th April Bayswater Chapel 10.15
Elder: Renate Weber
Musician: Monika Strasser

Text. John 20: 1-18
Welcome! Happy Easter! Frohe Ostern!
Sing the first Hymn- Hymn 25 all 3 verses

See, hear, and know how the love of Jesus serves God’s eternal will. If we were in a traditional Christian church we could say to one another “The Lord is risen, let us rejoice!” I wanted this service to have a message and meaning without being too heavy for this joyous Sunday in the Christian Calendar. I hope I succeed! I know you all know the story of the Easter bunny and the connection to Spring in the northern hemisphere, how Easter falls in the Vernal Equinox and it celebrates the fertility and re-emergence of life after winter dormancy. Easter gets its name from the pagan Goddess, Eostre (Greek), or Oestre in Latin and there is even a suggestion that it could come from the Germanic Ost or East.
Jews celebrate “Passover” at about the same time as Easter falls. “Lambs were sacrificed at the Temple in Jerusalem and from this sacrifice comes the symbol of Jesus as the “Lamb of God, ” the final and perfect sacrifice” .
Jesus celebrated Passover with his disciples and from this comes the sharing of blessed bread and wine, the “communion” celebrated in many Churches. (Twelve of us had a wonderful Service and shared meal on Thursday at the Agape fest. Thank you Herta! )
The reading for today comes from John 20 1-18

20:1 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb.
20:2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him."
20:3 Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb.
20:4 The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.
20:5 He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in.
20:6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there,
20:7 and the cloth that had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.
20:8 Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;
20:9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.
20:10 Then the disciples returned to their homes.
20:11 But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb;
20:12 and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet.
20:13 They said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him."
20:14 When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.
20:15 Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?" Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away."
20:16 Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to him in Hebrew, "Rabbouni!" (Which means Teacher).
20:17 Jesus said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
20:18 Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, "I have seen the Lord"; and she told them that he had said these things to her.
I saw a sign outside a church a couple of weeks ago. “The Christmas tree becomes the cross at Easter.” The two biggest celebratory events in the Christian Calendar are Christmas and Easter and the empty tomb on Easter Sunday is probably the most significant event. Many churches hold their Sunday Service outside to signify the empty tomb and that Jesus has risen.

This has been the hardest Service I have ever tackled. I have really had to challenge my beliefs and ideas
Easter as such is not mentioned in the bible and as most of you are aware it is the three days of Easter, the Good Friday the day of the crucifixion and Jesus’ death, followed on the Sunday with the discovery that the tomb was empty and the subsequent sighting of the “risen” Christ by Mary, the disciples, and the five hundred, that form the basis of the Christian faith. This made me think what makes a person a Christian? To take on that title that person must believe in Jesus Christ. For me, it runs easily off the tongue to say “I am a Templer “ what or who are they? A small community of independent Christians, with no dogmas or creeds. Me a Christian? What do I believe? If I call myself a Christian I must believe Christ was real in some way. Christianity began with Christ’s death. But since his death, we also celebrate his birth. I believe he was a special person who walked and lived on Earth; I can accept the crucifixion and that He was an unbelievably courageous person to have suffered on the cross the way it was described. I believe He gave us some exceptional advice on how to live, which was different from previous religious teachings. Think of all the stories we have heard over the years how he healed the sick, forgave criminals, raised the dead, loved children and even included women in his ministering.
Jesus’ coming fulfilled a number of old testament prophecies about a messiah, but many Israelites didn’t believe that Jesus was the right one. Jesus gave us a new commandment “that you love one another as I have loved you, by this shall all men know you are my disciples If you have love one for another.” (John 13: 34 -35)
What makes you a Christian? Do you often or ever think about why you call yourself a Christian? (Or do you like me call yourself a Templer?) Is it because you are a good person? Do you have a positive approach to life? Going to church makes you a Christian doesn’t it? Some people believe that receiving sacraments makes you Christian, others say you need to believe in God -but so do Jews and Muslims, so belief on its own makes no difference! Well then praying makes you Christian! But Hindus pray and Muslims pray 5 times a day!
I have discussions with my children about God, the Force, and the Supreme Being. Do you believe Jesus rose on the third day and appeared to his disciples? When I was younger I belonged to the Christian fellowship at school. We read the bible and believed we understood it. Christ was crucified and rose from the dead on Easter Sunday. He appeared along with angels. How wonderful! Now, I “speak” to God but don’t pray or talk to Christ. Yet it is the principles He taught and it is the principles that we as Templers try to achieve that I try to live my daily life by. Does that make me a Christian?
Dr Richard Hoffmann in his Easter article in the Templer Record March 1975 begins with, “Easter is the festival of Christ’s rising from the dead.” It is the most important festival in Christianity” The oldest report in which the question of the resurrection is dealt with, occurs when Paul explains it to answer a question from the people of Corinth. Paul explains that this event was foretold in the holy literature of Judaism, our reading also refers to that, “20:9 for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” The Jewish Christians needed only to convince themselves this was what happened in Jesus case. The Gentile Christians required factual proof of the resurrection because they had no background in the Jewish faith. Paul goes on to ask how this resurrection is to be understood. “He explains that the resurrection of Jesus was the basic fact of the new faith. There are examples in nature that can be used as an analogy to the resurrection. The kernel of wheat turns into a plant, the sun the moon and the stars all shine but give off a different light, human beings, cattle, fish and birds all have flesh, but different kinds of flesh. Resurrection must be similar, physical man has a “natural” body the risen man has a “spiritual” body. The physical body perishes through death the spiritual body appears in the resurrection carries the image of the natural body and is all the same something fundamentally different. More cannot be said about it because nothing more is known.”
Do I believe Jesus died for my sins and rose again so I will have life after death? I used to when I was young, now I am interested in Human Energy Fields. It is these energy fields we see depicted around the head of Christ and in paintings of Buddha. They are called astral lights. When we die, I think our bodies become an empty shell; the body no longer has a “spirit” I am just uncertain where that inner spark goes, when it no longer has a body to reside in.
Mary, who was a special woman in Jesus life, didn’t recognise his risen form when she went to the tomb to complete the funeral rites. She was worried that his body had been taken somewhere else as Joseph of Arimathea had asked permission of Pilate to grant the body private burial, thus rescuing it from two common burial grounds reserved for executed criminals. Jesus followers apparently had no involvement in this event. Joseph of Arimathea was the one who laid the body in a tomb cut out of rock and rolled the stone against the entrance, watched by the two Marys. It was lucky he had a spare tomb that was close enough to place the crucified Christ into while the Sabbath was observed. When the Sabbath was over Mary went with aromatic oils intending to anoint Jesus body. She saw the tomb was empty but much is made of the cloths left behind. Maybe this is to indicate the grave wasn’t robbed. Mary didn’t “recognise” Jesus until he spoke her name. Then she realised it was him. She went to touch him, a natural instinct for any one seeing their loved one again after witnessing them die such a terrible death. But Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
Of all the reading, this really resonated with me. I watched my lovely Winfried die. He really needed to be released from his suffering but I wanted to hold on to him. I didn’t want to let him go. I knew his last breath would be the end of our physical time on earth together. He took his final breath at 2am in the morning but we couldn’t say good-bye to his body until the sun rose and we felt we could let him go in body and spirit. Now more than six years after his death, I no longer expect him to appear “in spirit”, but I do remember him when I am by the ocean where his mortal remains were placed, and whenever I see an eagle over head soaring in the sky I think I am being watched over by him. I share that with you because many of us are afraid of death. How often I hear people say “if “I die, I am realistic enough to say “when” I die. I know we are terminal in our bodies on this earth. I sometimes wished I had complete trust and faith in the bible so I could believe I will exist in some way after my death. We don’t know if there is a life after death, whether we will all be “raised” on a final judgment day, but I am not going to wait around to find out! I am living each day to the best of my ability if I had to put it into Templer terms; I try to create God’s Kingdom on Earth by treating others and myself with respect, honesty, and courtesy.
I have celebrated Easter with three religious services. I acknowledge that Jesus teachings play a significant part in my life. I can also take a lesson from the resurrection. Hugh Mackay made a resonating point in an article called “Spiritual Resurrections”. “Success is not about being "successful" but about how we overcome the difficulties presented to us.”… "I wouldn't have wished this on myself or anyone else," a person in crisis will sometimes say, "but it's actually the best thing that's ever happened to me. It forced me to sort out my priorities and get my values straight. Now I know what's really important, and what isn't, and I might never have worked that out if I hadn't been through this."
“No one except a masochist seeks pain and trauma. No sane person lives in constant expectation of trouble. No one is going to greet the death of a spouse, or the diagnosis of a serious illness, or even the loss of a job with pleasure; few of us will even manage equanimity. But the truth that will come to us, after the initial shock, is that sadness is as authentic a part of life as happiness ... and every breath is a new possibility.”
I am going to home to share food with my family and yes we are going to have Easter eggs fights and look to see what the Easter bunny has hidden for us in the garden. It’s a simple approach but it makes me happy. I hope what ever you are planning to do today, makes you happy too!
If you are able, let us stand to pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, Today when we celebrate the resurrection of your son Jesus, who came to Earth to teach us a new way of living and loving another, we express our thanks for our family and friends and the Templer Community that allows and challenges us to think for ourselves. We give thanks for all the new beginnings we experience.
We give thanks that we are in country where we have the freedom to think and believe what we presume is right. We appreciate our beautiful autumn time when leaves turn red and the deciduous trees lose their leaves so that they can store up energy for a wonderful spring rebirth.
Let us remember those of our families and friends who are no longer physically with us and by doing this we know they live on in our hearts and minds.
We send good wishes to all those who are not feeling so well today and hope that the renewal of Easter time brings them comfort and joy
We ask these things in Jesus name who taught us to pray
Our father in Heaven
Hallowed be your name
Your Kingdom come
Your will be done on earth as in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive us our sins
As we forgive those who sin against us
Lead us when in temptation and deliver us from evil
For the Kingdom the power and the glory
Are yours forever. Amen

I have brought some tapers in today and those of you, who wish to, are invited to light a candle. It can be a memorial candle for some one who has died and you want to remember them, it can be a candle lit asking for enlightenment, it can be candle lit to celebrate the resurrection of Christ in the firm assurance that he rose from the dead. It can be to celebrate a success you have had, overcoming adversary. It can be a candle lit to celebrate a new beginning,

Monika will play some music and you can come up during that time.

Thank you to those who participated

Let us sing Hymn number 66 all 6 verses -I am the Lord of the Dance

I wish you all a Happy Easter. The donation from today’s service will go to the Baromea Sisters in Jerusalem, which I think is most appropriate. We will be staying with them during our time in Israel and they do much good with very limited means.

I understand that the Easter bunny has hidden some eggs in the fields for the little ones to seek and find. Enjoy your time with family and friends. Frohe Ostern

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Sermon: 19 March, 2006
Presenting Elder: Geoff McCallum.
Pianist: Elizabeth Wagner

It is a great pleasure to welcome you all here today.

I would like to begin with a reading from the book of Acts Chapter 9 verses 1 10 .(translated in the Revised English Version): The reading concerns Saul, the strict Jew, the Pharisee and lethal persecutor of the followers of Jesus:

Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the Lord disciples, went to the high priest and applied for letters to the synagogues in Damascus authorising him to arrest any followers of the New Way whom he found and bring them to Jerusalem. While he was on the road and nearing Damascus, suddenly a light from the sky flashed all around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying, aul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

He replied, ell me Lord, who you are. The voice answered, am Jesus whom you are persecuting.
Saul got up from the ground but when he opened his eyes he could not see. They led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. He was blind for three days and took no food or drink.

The New Testament Book of Acts was not written by Saul who was to become Paul and it is quite possible, likely even, that the author did not really understand what had happened to Saul to transform him from Saul, the Jesus movement worst enemy, to Paul, the greatest evangelist of Jesus teaching.

Blind? Was Saul blinded physically as the text literally states or was he blinded spiritually by the blinding realization that what he had been persecuting was the divine truth? We may never know. It certainly was a blinding revelation that caused Saul or Paul life to turn on its axis. Since the modern Christian churches owe their existence to this blinding light, we will come back to it.

HYMN No. 18 in the Templer Hymnbook. Cause me to Hear.
I bought myself a new Bible recently. It was not that there was anything wrong with the old one or the old ones that I had. One of my favorites is an old King James Bible which belonged to my grandmother. But I had become interested in the different translations and the effects that the translation had on the content.

My interest had been triggered by a program on SBS on the books of the New Testament, which I had felt was very biased. It seemed to begin with a particular theological point of view and work backwards to try and fit the Bible to this belief rather than looking at the original source and trying to develop understanding from that original source. For example, New Testament letters which did not fit with that narrow theological view were discredited and demeaned.

This led me to read up on the various translations of the Bible and to try and see which one would most accurately reflect the original. But what original?

As many of you may be aware what we know as the New Testament was brought together in the 4th centaury AD when Emperor Constantine of the Roman Empire became a convert to Christianity and sought to create a uniform system of belief which could be spread throughout the Empire. Prior to this there were various sects, denominations and branches of the Church all of which had somewhat different interpretations of the nature of Jesus’ mission and the message of the Holy Scriptures.

At their disposal they had a number of accounts of Jesus’ life and his teachings as well as copies of the letters of Paul and various other early Christian writings. To cut a very long story short, they deliberated on which scriptures were acceptable and which were not. As a result the New Testament as we know it through subsequent translations came into being as an entity.

We tend to assume when we pick up a New Testament that the so called Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were the first written records as they describe the life of Jesus. In fact the gospels we have today were complied several generations after Jesus death by putting together Jesus recorded teachings with an account of some of the events in Jesus life.

With my new Revised English Bible in my hand, probably the most accurate English translation of the Greek original texts available I began by reading Matthew. It is only a short book and doesn take very long to read.

When one reads Matthew Gospel the first thing which strikes you is that, although Jesus lived to be perhaps 32 or 33 years old and had a ministry lasting for 2 or 3 years, the events recounted in Matthew only amount to a week or two of that time. The teachings which seem to me the most useful content are concentrated together, interspersed with accounts of miracles.

The other thing one sees in the book of Matthew is a very Jewish perspective that this book gives and none of the quotations that Jesus gives in any way step outside the Jewish tradition.

It is worth reminding ourselves that the inclusion of Gentiles or non-Jews in the Christian movement was very much the result of Paul and his ministry which took him throughout the Roman Empire. This was a very controversial move not entirely welcomed by the heads of the Jesus movement back in Jerusalem, particularly Jesus brother James and to Peter the Apostle.

Paul met James and Peter on one or two occasions and they had quite heated discussions about the necessity or otherwise of having followers of the Jesus Movement convert to Judaism in terms of circumcision and adherence to the food rules governing Judaism. You can read of Paul difficulties in Jerusalem in his letter to the Galatians.

Peter eventually went to Rome where he was reported to have been executed. When Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and the Jews were scattered to the Diaspora, James and the Jerusalem community disappear. We then are the spiritual descendents of Paul who spread Jesus teaching through the Roman Empire, and in due course down through the ages to Martin Luther who was first a Catholic priest and then the major founder of the Protestant movement, Christoff Hoffmann and to us.

As modern day Christians we have inherited a religion which owes as much to Paul as to Jesus. But though the two men may not be seen as equivalent, there certainly are similarities. I read from Matthew Chapter 3, somewhat abridged.

John the Baptist, Jesus cousin, was preaching in the Judean wilderness proclaiming the message, epent for the Kingdom of Heaven is upon you. His clothing was a rough coat of camel hair and his food was locusts and wild honey. People flocked to hear him and hey were baptised by him in the River Jordan confessing their sins.

Jesus arrived at the Jordan and came to John to be baptised. John tried to dissuade him saying, t is I who need to be baptised by you. But he did baptise Jesus according to his wishes and o sooner had Jesus been baptised and come up out of the water than the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove to alight upon him and there came a voice from heaven saying, his is my beloved son in whom I take great delight.

Compare this for a moment with the account of Paul enlightenment on the road to Damascus with which we began the service. For Jesus we have the spirit descending like a dove and a voice from heaven, for Paul we have a blinding light and a voice from heaven.

If we were part of the Buddhist tradition we would readily recognise that both Jesus and Paul were men who had undergone an enlightenment experience. Many other men have had similar spiritual experiences including Mohamed. But the altered state brought about by enlightenment is rarely permanent in its absolute intensity, though its effect on the individual remains profound. For both Jesus and Paul their enlightenment experience was the seminal moment upon which their life turned, which lead to their subsequent mission of which we are the beneficiaries, or can be.

If both of these men were selflessly and fearlessly devoted to saving mankind from devotion to pursuits which arise from the ego, then in was the enlightenment experience which first lead them to overcome their own egos. If each overcame the fear of death which is such a great fear in most people lives, it was because they had gone beyond ambitions driven by the ego.

But what is the message or messages to us from Jesus and Paul, these two very different men who both experienced spiritual enlightenment.

The teachings of Jesus are peppered through the books of the New Testament and those scriptures which were excluded in the time of the Emperor Constantine. The word ospel means good news. What then is the message which makes the Gospels the so called books of Good news?

Clearly opinions vary which is one of the reasons why Christianity is so diverse or fragmented depending on your point of view. It seems to me that Jesus is telling us that we can each transcend the normal human state. He knew because he had done it. Asked a question about who can attain the kingdom of Heaven, or as we might state chieve enlightenment Jesus response is recorded in Matthew 18 verse 3-4:

He called a child, set him in front of him and said, ruly I tell you that unless you turn round and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven.
Achieving enlightenment, attaining the kingdom of heaven and is not the result of thought or study but of innocence. In modern terms of overcoming vanity and the ego. Put in the language of the bible, you too can achieve the kingdom of Heaven in your own life. You too can overcome the ego driven needs and fears. The desire to advance yourself in the world, to gain the respect of others, to acquire material possessions, and the fears of old age, illness and the inevitable death.

HYMN No. 1 in the Templer Hymnbook, all 10 verses were sung.

This understanding that what happened to transform Jesus and Paul was what the Buddhists call enlightenment seems to make a lot of sense and I think it helps explain how all human religions are based around a common spiritual experience. Belief in God, non-belief in god; these are just words and abstract ideas. Enlightenment is the experience of the divine at a deeper level beyond these words and ideas.

But I think that the way in which enlightenment as described relates more to the male state of being than the female. There are very few accounts of women undergoing enlightenment in this way.

Some of the non-canonical Gospels, those excluded from our New Testament, describe Mary Magdalene as Jesus favourite disciple and suggest that she was the most enlightened of the disciples though there is no reference to a Jesus/Paul enlightenment experience.

There are some very profound differences between women and men. Women do not have the same degree of ego development as men. Put another way, they are not as separated from their inner nature, their God nature if you like, as men.

From puberty onwards, women bodies provide constant reminders of their true physical nature. It is a very grounding experience. But women do undergo an enlightenment experience where the way they see the world is greatly changed. Where they become even more in touch with their inner nature, their divine and also their evolutionary purpose. It is an experience which can turn the most vain and selfish into the most selfless and self sacrificing. I am referring of course to childbirth.

For men, apart from those very few who have undergone enlightenment, religion is often a very abstract and detached thing. Theology, the study of God. For women, spirituality is more an experiential thing; their experience of their inner nature, their experience of the divine.

I think we should not conclude without saying together the Lord Prayer, a prayer taught by Jesus, a prayer to the God outside or the God within to remind you of how to try to live your life.

LORD PRAYER

Thank you all for coming and sharing this service. Thank you, Elizabeth, for playing for us today. There will be tea and coffee to follow. I would like to remind you that the Welfare and Distance Focus Group are holding a seminar on Living with Mental Illness at Bayswater on 20th May. Also, many of you know that I recently wrote a book on the characters of the New Testament. It is called, My Son the Messiah. It is fiction with a serious purpose. If anybody is interested, I have brought a few copies with me today.

I will conclude today service with a blessing derived from Paul expressed in the poetic language of the King James Version of the bible.

May the peace of God which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.

FOOTNOTES: During the coffee break a number of people discussed the content of the service giving rise to the following footnotes.

Similar accounts of Jesus baptism can be found in all four Gospels. I presented Matthew account and compared it to Paul road to Damascus experience in order to focus upon the enlightenment experience itself which is the ultimate spiritual experience and transcends religious traditions. I was not trying to suggest that baptism, as practices by most Christian churches today, has any particular spiritual, magical or mystical significance.

In endeavouring to explain how spirituality is more often an experiential thing for women than men I compared childbirth to enlightenment. For many women childbirth is an experience which transforms them fundamentally and as such has some similarity to the enlightenment experience. But women do not all have the same experience. For many it is not such a transformative experience as I may have suggested and for others it is, unfortunately, a negative experience.


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Sommerfest Service in Bayswater, 5 March
Elder: Alfred Klink, start 10:15
Music: Ingrid Lämmle-Ruff
Text of the Day : John 10: 31-39, ‘Jesus is accused of blasphemy’

Hymns: 31 ”Geh aus mein Herz und suche Freud...” verses 1, 2, 3 & 4. ; 47 “Ich singe dir mit Herz und Mund...” all eight verses.

Music
Welcome to the 2006 Templer Sommerfest. A special welcome to people who have come from afar, visitors from the country, from Interstate and from overseas. And an extra special welcome to anyone here for the first time. Is any one here for the first time? We Templers are a friendly group, but not very outgoing (as you may already have noticed) and stuck with old-fashioned Swabian hospitality, which means you are automatically considered to be part of the family, and family members, of course, look after themselves. Don’t they? So, just think of this as an extension of your home and you will do alright.
To begin let us sing together the hymn that over the years has become synonymous with our Sommerfest, symbolic of our attitude to life and our philosophy: ‘Geh aus mein Herz und suche Freud...’, number 31 in the red hymnbook, verses 1, 2, 3, & 4.

I, too, cannot and will not rest; / God’s work with which the Earth is blest, / arouse my admiration. /
I join the songs His creatures sing, / and let my thanks and praises ring / with heartfelt jubilation.

What a beautiful picture the hymn paints; a positive attitude and an acclamation of the wonders of nature and the joy of being alive. This beautiful poem of thanksgiving for the divine delights of summer, and of anticipation of the joys of Paradise, appeared in 1656. Gerhardt in this inspiring poem showed himself (like Luther 100 years earlier) a real lover of God's creation. He loved nature and admired its beauty.
Paul Gerhardt, the "sweet singer of Lutheranism" was born on March 12, 1607 in Gräfenhaim, near Wittenberg, Germany and lived during the religious wars of the 17th century. Trained to be a Lutheran pastor, he matriculated as a student at the University of Wittenberg, where Martin Luther had taught a century before, on January 2, in 1628. The whole of his youth and early manhood fell in the time of war. It must have been a period full of disappointment for him, when we find a man of his powers at the age of forty-five still only a private tutor and candidate for holy orders. However, in 1651, Gerhardt was appointed pastor at Mittenwald, near Berlin. Several of his hymns were published in 1653 in the Berlin Hymn Book, and in collections in Brandenburg and Saxony. They immediately became popular with people, and religion in the Germany of the seventeenth century found its purest and sweetest expression in those hymns of Paul Gerhardt. His poems were intended to be set to music and sung in church, or learnt by heart by the children at home, and as such constantly reveal the homeliness and simplicity, the deeply devout and quietly courageous spirit of the Lutheran pastor.
He is described to us as a man of middle height, of quiet but firm and cheerful bearing; while his preaching is said to have been very earnest and persuasive. Not only was his preaching full of Christian love and charity, he practised it as well by never turning a beggar from his door. His religion and his temperament alike made him cheerful, and none of the many disappointments in his life seem ever to have embittered his mood
As a poet he holds the highest place among the hymn-writers of Germany. His hymns seem to be the spontaneous outpouring of a heart that overflows with love, trust, and praise. At times it rises to a beauty and grace that give the impression of being unstudied, yet could hardly have been improved by art. His tenderness and fervour are genuine; his language is simple and pure. If sometimes it has a touch of homeliness, it never degenerates into vulgarism.
He is buried at the Paul-Gerhardt-Kirche, Lübben an der Spree, Germany.

The Templer Choir, with Annette Wagner-Hesse directing, will now give its own rendition of the Gerhardt hymn we sang before, “Geh aus mein Herz und suche Freud...”

When you go outside a little later to enjoy the Templer Sommerfest, let your heart take in the wonders of God’s creation, try to carry the words and the melody with you and see the beauty of nature with the open eyes of Paul Gerhardt. Even I, who all my life strived to bring scientific awareness into the Templer religious philosophy, even I am on occasions like this touched by an involuntary longing for the simple, uncomplicated life, promised by old-fashioned Christianity and the Bible; ‘Ich singe mit wenn alles singt, und lasse was dem Höchsten klingt aus meinem Herzen rinnen’. Surely, the kingdom of God is made up of feelings like that. – I then have to consciously remind myself that this song was written, not in an idyllic pastoral Christian paradise, but during the thirty year war; a war waged in the name of religion and triggered by different interpretations of Christian religion; a time of unimaginable cruelty by Christian against Christian and inconceivable suffering. Gerhardt himself had a life-long struggle to mediate between the Lutherans and the Calvinists. And somewhat reluctantly I come back to reality. There must be more to achieving the elusive peace on Earth than preaching love of God and neighbour for another 2000 years. It needs a wider understanding. Religion without philosophy, without the love of wisdom, without an awareness of the world around us, can be like looking through a telescope; it lets you see selected parts of the sky in detail, but you lose perspective and a sense for the overall picture. We must remember that anything done locally will have wider repercussion. By focussing too much on religious love as a solution to your local problems you may at the same time create an us-and-them attitude. Like the warm light of a candle, which is best seen in a dark room, love is most effective in a hostile environment, and in fostering a need for love you may unwittingly open a door to fear, suspicion and envy. For me the solution lies not in setting my mind on the perfection of a biblical kingdom of God, but in a better understanding of evolution and the wider meaning of life. What would be the measure of such a meaning?
The Universe has no meaning. It can not have any meaning. Why not? Simply because to have a meaning implies that what happens within - and to - the Universe is important to something beyond the realm of our Universe. But if the Universe is all there is (as the name suggests), what would be the measure of that meaning? The cosmos, with its billions of galaxies as far as the eye can see, each with its own 100 billions of stars and probably billions of inhabited planets like the Earth, makes no sense, has no meaning – beyond that which it gives to itself. And the means to give itself a meaning, nature found in what is called evolution. Evolution brings into effect competition, the means for survival of the fittest and intelligence. Everything within this world is evolving, growing, adapting and changing. Everything! From Galaxies to stars to planets and to their living inhabitants and their understanding of Religion. With evolution everything that happens anywhere at any time is in some way affecting the future. It means that what I am doing here today is in some way shaping the world of tomorrow. That gives a meaning to me and what I do. To have a meaning, to be meaningful, you must play the game of evolution and do something that means something to someone else. You have to interact. Auf gut Schwäbisch ‘du kannscht net blos vor di na-lebe wie en Kartoffelstock’. Coming to think of it, even a potato plant in its symbiotic lifestyle produces potatoes for consumption by others.
What about a community? Can a community of people get to the stage where it has no meaning to the outside world? What if a community becomes self-centred, inward looking in the belief that it has the perfect vision? What if that community measures its performance only by legal compliance, financial viability and the satisfaction of its members? does not count the number of followers it attracts or cultivate interaction with the wider community? Can that community still have a meaning to the wider society? Will it still have an input into the evolution of humanity? Or will it be seen as irrelevant in the evolutionary struggle for meaningful survival?
The other day I read an article by Bishop Spong about the United Church of Canada. Officials of this Church have purchased a piece of land in a suburb of Toronto in order to start an experimental congregation. This entity will deliberately and self-consciously seek to develop a new model of what it means to be the church in the 21st century. It will be dedicated to theological openness, discussion and debate. It will seek to create worship forms and practices that do not force worshippers to say liturgical words that are meaningless or unbelievable. A goal for this new community will be a distinction between the experience of God and the explanation of that experience. The Bible, the Creeds and all church dogma and doctrine are in the last analysis only explanations, and every explanation of an experience is time-bound, time-warped and destined to be superseded. No Bible text can ever be inerrant, no pope ever be infallible and no creed eternally true. Today we can no longer believe in a God who, if we pray fervently enough, will break into the ordered world of natural cause and effect and accomplish a miracle for a divine purpose. This, Dr Spong goes on, will be a Church dedicated to listening to the questions of people rather than to pretending to know all the answers. It will be open to racial diversity and to differing expressions of religious truth. There will be no claim that there is only one way to journey into the mystery and wonder of God. The church will not require its members to remain childlike, but assist its people in the hard task of growing up into emotional maturity. It will seek to attract all those for whom the God of the traditional church is simply too small.
Will this community have a meaning to the population outside of itself? Will it attract new members and grow? Can it be the mustard seed from which a mighty tree grows? Will it have followers who will form more such communities to spread all over the world? Even without a Jerusalem?

Our text for today comes from the gospel of St John and highlights the danger any dogmatic belief can create if it not allowed to evolve, be it in God, scripture, truth or meaning. The book of John is one of the five Johannian books in the Bible. It is easily distinguished from the three Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, which focus more of Jesus' life. John in this work is concerned far more with the mystical relation of the Son to the Father. He essentially develops the concept of the Trinity.
After the prologue (1:1-5), the narrative of this gospel begins with verse 6, and consists of two parts. The first part (to chapter 12), called "the Book of Signs", contains the story of Jesus' public ministry from the time of his baptism by John the Baptist to its close. The second part (chapter 13-20), called "the Book of Glory", shows Jesus in his private life, his dialogues with his immediate followers, his sufferings and crucifixion and his appearances to the disciples after his resurrection. Chapter 21, the "appendix", recounts the death of the "beloved disciple".
So to our text, excerpts form chapter 10: 31 -39. Following Jesus’ blunt statement to the crowd ‘My father and I are one’ the Jews take up stones to stone him. At this Jesus said to them, ‘I have set before you many good deeds, for which of those would you stone me?’ The Jews replied, ‘we will not stone you for any good deed, but for blasphemy. You claim to be a god’. Jesus then replied, ‘is it not written in the scriptures that those to whom the word of God is delivered are called gods?. If I am not acting as my Father would, do not believe me. But if I am, then accept the evidence of my deeds, even if you do not believe me, so that you may recognise and know that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.’
This is a most amazing scene. They are standing there with stones at the ready to kill him, and he calmly tries to help them see their error. He appeals to them on the basis of their own experience and the Scriptures. His obscure reference to Psalm 82 in ‘those that receive the word of God...’ though, is just as much a condemnation of the judges for not exercising their responsibility faithfully. This is the central truth of his identity, emphasized throughout this Gospel. What he means by the title Son of God is not a denial of the truths of Scripture, but goes beyond anything the people had thought before. He is appealing to them to accept the evidence of their senses beyond the dogmatic belief, but to no avail. Again they try to seize him, but he escapes their grasp once more.
Interpreting the scriptures has been a favourite pastime of preachers for centuries; ever since the Bible became public property. And it will continue to do so. I see it not so much as a search for the truth but an attempt to match its meaning to our lives and times, a meaning which fits our currently prevailing philosophy and one each of us can believe. That was no different 400 years ago in Paul Gerhardt’s time. All interpretations are time bound and conditioned by the environment that created them. It has been said you will only experience the warm glow of Christianity if you are prepared to abandon the myths of the past and create one that befits your own level of understanding.

Let us now sing another of Paul Gerhardt’s simple and touching hymns, number 47 ‘Ich singe dir mit Herz und Mund...’ all eight verses.

As you now go out to enjoy the day’s activities, do share your thoughts with other people. Talk to them, especially if they are new to our environment. Remember you are a Templer, which means ‘to see every person as a temple in which God’s spirit dwells’. This means every person, the stranger, the volunteer, the players and the ball-boys, they are all your neighbours. So, go ahead, love your neighbour as yourself, for getting to know another human being is the most direct and rewarding God experience you can ever have.

Music

Thank you, Ingrid, for the music, thanks to the unseen hands that arranged the friendly flowers and thank you all for sharing this time with me. I wish you a happy and safe Sommerfest. ❑

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Bentleigh Presentation Service 25 February
Elder: Renate Beilharz

Welcome to today’s service. This service was advertised as a Presentation where we give thanks for the gift of children born into our community. While we have no new children to be presented to God and community today, I hope that we can have a relaxing, contemplative time together, giving and receiving thanks. I especially appreciate the fact that the choir decided to sing today anyway.

Two weeks ago, the Temple Society had a wonderful Youth Service, led by Renate Weber, and I have found myself continuing on the themes introduced there when preparing this service. I hope that you don’t mind this overlap, so to start I’d like to show again the PowerPoint that Renate, Nicholas and Ingrid presented at the end of the Youth Service.

To start we will sing song number 61 Let us rejoice together, all verses. Monika will play the tune through once before we join in.

Show Opferkass – Bentleigh and Bayswater
What are these? What does this word mean? – Opfer = Offering, donation
What are they for?
What happens to the money that goes in there?
- Donated to a charity (What is a charity?)
- Goes into a TSA fund called the Emergency Fund – for Templers who are in difficulty, and money could help them

I’ve got a short story about Jesus and what he said about offerings.

Why did he think the poor gave more than the rich lady?
What was it about how the offering was made that was important?
Message- when you give a gift, or make an offering, do it without showing off making a big deal.

Children go off to do activity – making Offering boxes.

Text: Luke 21:1-4

With the help of interpretations in the children’s Bible, this short passage conjures up images in ones mind of fat rich men ostentatiously throwing handfuls of money into the treasury box, and on the other hand of a small, thin, old lady, timidly, placing her two coins into the offering box.

The implied message is that actions of giving and deeds of sacrifice are to be done quietly, with humility. The real value in an offering is not estimated by its apparent value, rather by the feeling of the heart. Genuine giving must come from the heart. A gift that is given for display loses most of its value. But a gift given out of love, with a spirit of generosity and sacrifice is invaluable.

We often talk about how words and talk without deeds or action are worthless. The motto of the secondary school I went to was Factis non verbis, Deeds not words. The Templer hymn has those lovely lines in the first verse Mit Wünschen und Warten sich selber vertrösten, mit Hoffen und meinen erkämpft sich kein Sieg Our wishing and waiting bring small consolation; With vague speculations no victory is won. The fourth verse also has the lines Keine schmeichelnden Gefühle sanfter Andacht helfen hier.Vague sentimental feelings of devotion won’t help here.
But the other side of the coin is also true. Actions of generosity, self-sacrifice, offerings shouldn’t be done for the wrong reasons, for reasons of self-glory.

There are many instances where Jesus talked about this:
This passage was referred to in the Youth Service, Jesus said in Matthew 6:1-4
"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Then there’s another time that Luke recorded Jesus as saying in 18:9-14
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.'
"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

In a while the choir will sing the spiritual, Lord, I want to be a Christian. The words of the first verse are Lord I want to be a Christian, in-a my heart. When I first sang this I felt that it was not right. I don’t want to be a Christian in my heart; I want to be a Christian in my actions. But after contemplation of today’s text, I can see that both the actions and the motivation, the feelings for the actions, must be done with a Christian outlook, done with love and humility.

The text focuses on the act of placing money into the offering box, of making an offering. It made me think about offerings. Who is it really for? Are the coins an offering to God or to men?
In the ancient Greek stories, the humans made sacrifices and offerings to the gods, because it was believed that gods needed these sacrifices; that these offering would influence the gods to act favourably towards them. The offerings and sacrifices were believed to make a direct difference to a human’s daily life.

But my perception of God is very different. I believe that God is the life force that keeps our world together. God is in everything, without God, there would be no world as we know it. We could translate that into old fashioned language and say God owns everything. God the power, the energy, the life force doesn’t need our offerings; it’s all God’s to begin with.

Our life is a gift from the Godly life force, and we can acknowledge this, by sharing and giving and making offerings. That is the way to give thanks for the gift of God in and around each one of us.

The Choir will now sing two songs: and It’s a gift, Lord, I want to be a Christian.

I’d like to now go back to the text, and tackle the theme that I have a lot more trouble with – the theme of money.

Here we have a Bible passage that basically says giving away everything you have is good. It certainly makes me question my level of giving. While I don’t necessarily feel really guilty, I do ask myself what is the right level of donation or charity, what is the unselfish, Christian way to go? What role should money and possessions play in our lives as people who are striving for the Kingdom of God in our everyday?

To explore these questions, I’d like to read from a sermon by Reverend Gary Paterson of the St Andrew’s Wesley United Church in Vancouver, Canada.

Jesus talked a lot about money, and about giving… following sound Biblical tradition… 38 parables, and sixteen of them about money or possessions… go count 'em; and 10 % of the gospels, that's one verse out of every 10, 288 verses in all, focused on money, and giving. You remember… "Be not anxious about your life, what you will eat or drink… or wear…"; "You cannot serve two masters; you cannot serve God and money."; "Sell everything you have, and give it to the poor, and follow me."; or "It is harder for a richer person to get into heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle." And that doesn't even include all those verses where Jesus talks about "loving your neighbour."

It makes sense, though, for there to be so much talk about money… money is important, such a significant means of expressing ourselves. Every time we send money out into the world, we are making a statement about our priorities, our values. With every dollar goes our energy, the power to make things happen; it is a statement of our intention. You know how it goes… "Put your money where your mouth is." Or, " Follow the money; always follow the money."

Money is a bit like nuclear energy… capable of doing amazing things, but dangerous, very dangerous. Without precautions and great care, too much "radiation" from either, can eat away at your innards, your very soul.

Jesus knew how important money was in our lives - it's one of the big details; and he wanted to offer a different way of living… a life of giving. Not for some heavenly reward, but for the very rightness of it… the recognition that your life is not just about you; giving, spending money for something, some one, some purpose beyond yourself, this makes you stronger, connected to a vision that is greater than your own pleasures. Giving is good for your soul - anything you can't give away possesses you. There is a freedom that comes in loosening our grip on money, on living with less worry, with sharing with others, with giving money away.
http://www.standrewswesleychurch.bc.ca/sermons/oct232005.htm

 

But I still have at the back of my mind the question – how much is enough to give away?

The Old Testament talks about tithing, which is to give 10% of your harvest, or income, to God, that is to the priesthood. In the New Testament gospels there is no direct mention made of how much is the right amount to give to charity or as an offering to God.

In Islam there are very clear guidelines, I’d like to read you this explanation:
An important principle of Islam is that everything belongs to God, and that wealth is therefore held by human beings in trust. The word zakah means both "purification" and "growth." Our possessions are purified by setting aside a proportion for those in need and for the society in general. Like the pruning of plants, this cutting back balances and encourages new growth.
Each Muslim calculates his or her own zakah individually. This involves the annual payment of a fortieth of one's capital, excluding such items as primary residence, car and professional tools.
An individual may also give as much as he or she pleases as sadaqa-h, and does so preferably in secret. Although this word can be translated as "voluntary charity" it has a wider meaning.
The Prophet said, "Even meeting your brother with a cheerful face is an act of charity." The Prophet also said: "Charity is a necessity for every Muslim." He was asked: "What if a person has nothing?" The Prophet replied: "He should work with his own hands for his benefit and then give something out of such earnings in charity." The Companions of the Prophet asked: "What if he is not able to work?" The Prophet said: "He should help the poor and needy." The Companions further asked: "What if he cannot do even that?" The Prophet said: "He should urge others to do good." The Companions said: "What if he lacks that also?" The Prophet said: "He should check himself from doing evil. That is also an act of charity."
http://www.islam101.com/dawah/pillars.html

I like this explanation; it is very clear as to what is required of a Muslim. It is easy to ensure that you do the right thing; you can just follow the guidelines and have a clear conscience that you have done the right thing. No questioning or need for feelings of guilt.

The TS does not make things that easy for us at all in that respect. If we look at the TSA annual contribution that members are asked to give, and the changes that have been made to its format, the decision of how much to give has been made harder and harder. In the 1950s the initial payment contributions for the TSA were set at 1% of your salary (presumably after tax) and $1 per thousand of the value of property owned. This reflected the attitude that those who had more wealth were expected to contribute more to the funding of the TSA.

I’m not sure when, but then the change to a set annual fee came in, with different amounts for various ‘groups ‘- retirees, families, youth etc. In 2004 the TSA membership voted to go to a non-set membership fee, where each individual decided how much to contribute. The flexibility was to allow for the differing circumstances our members find themselves in. With this flexibility comes individual responsibility. The onus has been put back on the individual to decide how much to pay each year. Not always an easy task.

But it means that the payment comes from the heart. The annual contribution is a conscious decision to donate this money to the TSA.

Our offerings work in the same way. We have these unobtrusive little boxes hanging at the exit doors, no plate is passed around and offering or donations aren’t even mentioned at most services. Money is placed in the boxes before or after the service without a fuss being made by anyone (other than the young children who pester their parents for coins to put in the box; I loved the sound of the money going in as a child.). The opfer, offering, is made as a gift from the heart, not for show, not for glory, but as an acknowledgement of the gifts we have, in a spirit of sharing.

This anonymity is even more emphasised, when we think about where the money, that is put into the boxes, goes. In the past few years, more and more of collections taken at our services are given to a targeted charity, such as the Boromäer Sisters in Jerusalem, or to the Very Special Kids Foundation, as a donation from the TSA. But often, the money collected at the service is placed into the TSA Notkasse – the TSA Emergency Fund. This fund is used for Templers who are in difficulty, usually financially. This fund is used solely at the discretion of the Regional Head, advised by the Business Manager or Care Worker. The idea is that no one else knows that this help has been made available, that it is done with complete confidentiality. Repayment to the Notkasse is not expected, though it has not been uncommon for persons who have been helped to repay the Notkasse once their difficulty is overcome.

We Templers have to give from the heart, as we have no knowledge of who the money will help and in what way, but nevertheless, we trust in God and in each other that the funds are used in service to others in need.

Please stand for the prayer of you are able to:
God,
We acknowledge the many gifts we have been given, and that all comes to us through you, the force that makes our lives possible. In gratitude we share the blessings we have been given, by making our offerings from the heart.
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name,
Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
As we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us when in temptation and deliver us from evil.
For the Kingdom, the power and the glory
Are yours forever.
Amen.

To finish let’s sing hymn number 80 O Gott du frommer Gott, O God thou faithful God. All five verses.
Before we listen to Monika’s postlude, I’d like to thank every one for the gift of listening. Thank you for the flowers, to the choir and to Monika for the music.
While Monika is playing, we are going to break with Templer tradition and the Sunday School children will pass around the offering boxes they have made. The money collected will go into the TSA Notkasse for the unsung, unacknowledged help that will be given to those in need.
 

If you woke this morning full of life and with no real worries,
You are more blessed than many others
If you have never experienced the danger of war, the loneliness of prison, or hunger
You are better off than 500 million other people in this world
If you can go to church, or the Temple or practise your belief without prejudice
You are more blessed than 3 million other people on this planet
If your basic needs are being met
You are richer tan 75% of others
If you have something put aside for a rainy day
You are part of the 10% richest in the entire world population
If you have experience your parents growing old together
You are unusually lucky
If you wear a smile on your face and are grateful for every little thing
You are blessed because the majority of people could be this way, but choose not to be
If you can hold someone’s hand, put your arm around them or give them a pat on the shoulder
Be joyful because you won’t ever feel alone
If you can read this message you are doubly blessed
Firstly someone has shared this with you, and secondly you are richer than 2 billion others who can’t read
Think of your blessings and share them with others, so they also become aware of what they have

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Opening music A Prayer chosen by Jessica Blackwell.

Welcome to day’s youth service. It is always hard to get the young ones involved because their lives are so filled with other important things but we have tried to put together a service for you today that will hopefully give you something to think about and also something to enjoy.
A lot of you have made new beginnings this year -hands up those who have just started Kindergarten, primary school, high school, who is off to uni? Why do we go to all these places? (Ask congregation) We go to meet new friends, to have fun, to get out of mum’s hair, but basically we go to learn new things. How do we learn? (Ask congregation) By listening, watching, practicing, by writing things down, from the TV over the radio and Internet. That is a good cue for me to welcome Sebastian Haenel because he is here to learn about us! I’ll ask him to say hello and introduce himself.
Has any one just learnt to drive? How did you do that? By physically driving the car but before you are allowed to do that you pass a test to make sure you know the road rules. When we undertake or face new beginnings in a new environment we need to learn the rules. It is really important to learn the rules of any thing we undertake, as it makes our lives easier and sometimes safer. We learn the “rules” for many different things by many different processes.
Would we use the same way to learn to kick or catch a ball as we would to learn about the bible? Probably not! We all learn differently as well and so it is important we provide many different ways of gathering information. One way to help people learn is to read a story. We are going to hear the story of the “Die Stern Taler” first.
The “Sterntaler” (Star Money) Read by Riannon Berkeley
Based on the story from the Brothers Grimm
Once upon time there was a little girl whose mother and father were dead, and she was all alone. She was so poor that she didn’t have a space to live in, or a bed to sleep on. Eventually all she had left was the clothes on her body and a piece of bread in her hand.
But she was a good, pious person. Because the entire world had abandoned her she placed her trust in God and went into the fields. Here she meet a poor old man, he asked “please give me something to eat, I am so hungry”
She gave him her whole piece of bread saying, “May God bless you” and continued on her way.
Then she met a child who was shivering and crying, “My head is so cold, please give me something to cover it with.” The little girl took off her cap and gave it to the child. Further on her journey she met another child who was freezing, as she had no top to wear. The little girl took off her top and gave it to the freezing child. A little further still a child begged for her skirt, she also gave this away freely. As it was getting dark she found herself in the forest and another child asked her for her singlet. The little girl, who was very good and pious, thought to her self, it is nearly dark, no one will see me. As she stood there with no more worldly possessions, the stars began falling down from heaven. When they landed they were all gold coins. Even though she had just given away her singlet off her back, she now wore a beautiful fine linen dress. She gathered up the skirt and collected the gold coins in to it, and was rich for the rest of her life.
Let us sing the first Hymn. That we may love. Hymn 107 all 5 verses. (We can also learn from songs!!) Our reading today is from the Old Testament.
Lisa Beilharz will read it for us.
EXODUS 22:21-27
21 Don’t mistreat or abuse foreigners who live among you, remember you were foreigners in Egypt.
Don’t mistreat widows or orphans. If you do they will beg for my help, and I will come to their rescue. In fact I will get so angry that I will kill your men and make widows of their wives and orphans of their children.
Don’t charge interest when you lend money to any of my people who are in need. Before sunset you must return any coat taken as security for a loan because that is the only cover the poor have when they sleep at night. I am a merciful God and when they call to me I will come to help them.
Thank you Lisa.
Can you understand why I chose to share Stern Taler with you? Are there any similarities between the two reading? What is the major difference in the approach of the two? The Stern Taler story tells of a generous person who was rewarded for her kind spirit, where as Exodus is very stern and threatening.
Sunday school may now leave.
What is the book of Exodus? When and for whom was it written? We don’t have many texts from the Old Testament in our table of lessons because we are Christians and as such follow the teachings that Jesus preached. But it is always good to realise that Jesus was brought up a Jew and such the Old Testament played a significant role in his religious, moral and social upbringing. The book of Exodus is the second book of the Old Testament and tells about the departure of the people of Israel from Egypt where they had been slaves. Moses is the central figure and the Ten Commandments are listed in this book. We are asked to discuss how we can lighten the burden of the disadvantaged and how we are expected to behave towards people who are less fortunate than we are. Jevan Bouzo is going share his ideas with us.
Jevan Bouzo’s contribution to the Youth Service 12/2/06
I want to talk to you today about some experiences I have had over the last couple of years. As I talk about parts to today’s text, I am going to use soccer to help you understand what I mean. Hopefully this will help most of you but if you don’t know much about soccer, then you’re going to have pay even more attention to work out why I am suddenly talking about who has the ball.

I started playing outdoor soccer at the beginning of last year but previously I had played a couple of games the year before to help out a friend when they needed players and I went to a couple of training sessions.

At the first one I went to we did some running and then the coach says, “OK everyone get into groups of about four.” Well everyone starts getting into their groups and I see three guys forming together and I thought “Oh yeah they need one more,” so I said “I guess I’ll go with you guys?” and this bloke, his name was Steve, he turns around and says, “Get your own group.”

I was just standing there thinking… “OK…. I wasn’t expecting that.” It was then that another guy who was already in a group of four calls me over and says I should join his group. We just made do with five and the other guys stayed in a group of three.

Anyway the season ended and I had made friends with most of the guys who played there. Steve, on the other hand, had gone overseas for six months and it didn’t really bother me. Then the following year the season started and I was going to have a permanent spot in the team. At the first training session Steve comes back from holiday and turns up to train. Once again we are told to get into groups of four and I was in a group with two others.

He looks over at me and I think I’ll fix you! “Find your own group mate!” And I take off and train in a group of three. Afterwards I thought maybe I should have just let him join in, maybe I was a bit too harsh. But no I reassured myself I did the right thing! I gave him a taste of his own medicine.

Well, the next week at training we were told to get into pairs. Everyone pairs off and I am left standing next to Steve. He looks at me and says, “Looks like it’s me and you …”

We spoke a bit while we were training and since that day Steve is one of my best mates.

I didn’t think much of it at the time but now that I look back on it I wonder how lucky it was that we ended up bothering to talk to one another rather than being idiots. I also think about how many great friends I might miss out on having because of something like that.

Since then every time a new guy comes to soccer I quickly go and say hello and introduce him to some of the other guys but usually not Steve because I know he doesn’t like new people.

Often we don’t realise it, but as you saw, we are confronted with situations like this every day and I try to make it as simple as possible. Just always try and help out without being rude.

A big issue arising today in society is racial prejudice. With the Internet, mobile phones and the fact that it is so easy to travel, the world is not longer divided by borders or oceans. We are becoming one global nation. But we are moving very fast and people don’t always keep up. Australia is made up of so many people from all around the world and it is sometimes easy to treat people differently because of their origin- because they are foreigners.

But what is a foreigner?
The dictionary says:
1. One who is from a foreign country or place.
2. One who is from outside a particular group or community; an outsider.
A person coming from another country or into a new community: alien, newcomer, outsider, or stranger.

A stranger... that brings to mind something different than a foreigner.

Why? Because you can have a Chinese stranger, or a Lebanese stranger or even an Australian stranger.

Look, I am not going to stand here and say to you, everyone is a great person and you have to be friends with everyone. I know people that I just can’t stand. I don’t get on with them, but when I see them I just say hello, how have you been, and be on my way.

What I am trying to say is, don’t dismiss someone or put someone down because of where they come from. Whether they are Chinese or Greek or American or anything, give them a go first and if it doesn’t work., don’t put them down.

Don’t see the foreigner, see the stranger.

You see, the world is like a soccer field. When you’re playing, all you think about is getting a goal. You want to win, you want to succeed. There are people from all over the world on field. I play soccer with guys from Lebanon, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Canada, Norway, Holland, China, Cambodia, England, Greece, Cyprus, Italy and more. Now when I am running down the field with the ball, everyone is watching me because I have what they want. When I come up against an opponent I don’t see the Italian guy, or the Dutch guy trying to steal the ball or the Cambodian calling for a pass. I just see teammates and sometimes strangers from the other team. I can’t tell how good at soccer they are from their nationality or the number on their shirt. I have to give them a go first to find out and they have to do the same with me. Because if they are foreign to me, then I am just as foreign to them.

And it’s the same in life.

I know, sometimes giving someone a go or helping someone out can seem like too much work or too awkward but we should try and challenge ourselves to do it rather than take the easy way out and walk away.

One last thing I want to touch on is our individual reasoning for doing what we do.
We can choose not to put people down and to help them without asking for anything in return. It’s good to be compassionate and cooperative. But why should we? What drives us to do so?

Is it part of our nature or upbringing? Is it because your conscience tells you to or is it because the Bible says you should?

Honestly I don’t have a solid answer. I believe everyone does so for their own reasons. Some can believe that they are making a difference to the world by helping out a neighbour.

For me… I believe that life is more comfortable with some degree of harmony and cooperation. I don’t believe that if I am compassionate the world will turn compassionate because the reality is it won’t. What drives me? I believe that if I do the right thing, if I do favours for a neighbour, that I will create a more comfortable environment for myself and those around me that I care about. I don’t want to make the world peaceful, cooperative and compassionate but if I can just make it work with the people that live in my street and my close friends then I will create a good place to be in my tiny corner of the world.

I believe that every one of you here today can do the same.

That’s right, I believe in you!

When I say this people often ask me why I think it’s so easy to do the right thing when you come to that fork in the road and I just tell them:-

Sometimes your have to stop letting everything get so complicated. Just listen to the voice in your head. Your conscience is what guides you down the right path and if you make the wrong choice it’s not as bad as it may seem because it’s what you do later to fix that mistake that really counts.

How will Australia fare as a multicultural society in the future? I am hoping we can continue to be tolerant of others and accept differences and value diversity to add to the richness of life in this wonderful land of ours.
“Don’t mistreat widows or orphans. If you do they will beg for my help, and I will come to their rescue. In fact I will get so angry that I will kill your men and make widows of their wives and orphans of their children. This is the statement by a vengeful punishing God, along the lines of an eye for eye. There are currently people in the world behaving exactly in this way, today. Jesus’ teaching was different; He preached the twin commandments we are familiar with
Jessica Blackwell will read Matthew 22: 34-46
“When the Pharisees had heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they came together and one of them, a teacher of law, tried to trap him with a question. Teacher he asked what is the greatest commandment in the Law?
Jesus answered “Love the Lord with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment.
The second most important commandment is like this, “Love your neighbour as you love yourself”. The whole Law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Does it matter what we do as an individual? Can what we do make a difference? I think and firmly believe every one of us on this earth is important and every thing we do has a consequence. If we give to others it should be to maintain their dignity, not for us to grandstand how virtuous we are. The bible actually advises not to let the right hand know what the left is doing in this context.
I am also an optimist and I will finish this service with a thought provoking presentation, which was sent to me last week from Germany by my stepsister.
Nicholas Herrmann will ask the question and Ingrid Beilharz will reply (PowerPoint Presentation 10 slides)
1. If you awoke this morning full of life and with no real worries
you are more blessed than many others.
2. If you have never experienced the danger of war, the loneliness of prison or hunger
you are better off than 500 million other people
3.if you can go to church or the Temple or can practice your belief with out prejudice
you are more blessed than 3 million other people
4.If all your basic needs are met
you are richer than 75% of others
5.If you have some thing put aside for a rainy day (savings)
you are part of the 10% richest in the entire world population
6. If you have experienced your parents growing old together
you are unusually lucky
7.If you wear a smile on your face and you are grateful for every little thing
you are blessed because the majority of people could be this way, but chose not to be
8. If you can hold someone’s hand, put your arm around them or give them a slap on the shoulder
be joyful, because you won't ever feel alone.
9. If you can read this message you are doubly blessed.
Firstly some one has shared this with you and secondly you are more richly blessed than 2 million other people, who can't read
10 Think of your blessings and share them with others so that they become aware of all they have. The congregation then turned to some near them and shared a blessing.
Let us stand together and pray. I will say a short prayer and then Thomas Blackwell will read out the Lord’s Prayer, please fell free to join in.

Dear God,
We give thanks for being lucky enough to live in Australia, to be part of this wonderful Templer community, for our health, for our wealth, our friends and for the fact that most of us know where our next meal is coming from. Let us reflect for a moment on people who are less fortunate than we are as individuals, as families or as a community and think about how we could help them. If we are asked to give, let it be generously and freely with no strings attached, often the best gift we can give is our time. Let us remember Jesus twin commandments as we say the Lord’s Prayer together.
Our father in Heaven
Hallowed be your name
Your Kingdom come
Your will be done on earth as in heaven
Give us today our daily bread
Forgive us our sins
As we forgive those who sin against us
Lead us when in temptation and deliver us from evil
For the Kingdom the power and the glory
Are yours forever. Amen
Let us sing the final hymn God you call for faithful service Hymn 36
All 4 verses

Thank you to all who participated to Ingrid for the flowers and you are now invited to Coffee and cake in the hall. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.
Jevan chose to play El Divo and Celine Dion

SAAL : CV Phillip Island: 5-2-2006.
Elder: Rolf Beilharz Music: CD for introduction and end
(Are there non-Templer visitors? If yes, special welcome.)
Welcome to the first service for 2006 in the TSA, for younger Templers. I say younger Templers, because there has already been a service at the Tabulam and Templer Homes for the Aged. Thank you for coming. As you complete your summer holidays and face the start of the new work and school year ahead, I hope to stimulate you to think a little bit about everyday life and the role religion plays for us in modern Australia.

Let’s sing the hymn Brighten the corner where you are. Although we have no accompanying music, the hymn is easy enough to sing a capella.

Sing hymn all verses

Our text for today is Matthew ch. 4: verses 1 to 11. I’ll put it in context by reading the part just before it and a few more verses behind it:

Read the text starting at Ch. 3. Our text is the first part of ch.4. I’ll read on to the end of verse 17.

The rest of chapter 4 describes Jesus gathering the first of his disciples. The next three chapters, 5,6 and 7, are the Sermon on the Mount, in which Matthew has assembled wisdom which is likely to have come fairly directly from the teachings of Jesus. What I have read together with the Sermon on the Mount contain much of what we Templers think are the important points of the Christian religion as we understand Christianity. In chapter 6, the verses 25 to 33 contain the motto the Templer founders chose as the best biblical summary of what the Templer religion is. I’ll just read these verses.

Read verses 25 to 33.

Life is more than worrying about the needs of the body. Generally these needs will be readily satisfied and we should not worry about particular details. It is much more important to think about creating the kingdom of God here on earth. Because, if we achieve that, then all the needs of the body in earthly life (the economics of living) will be resolved to the satisfaction of all of us anyway. What about our text? My simplest explanation is that Jesus knew he had talents. The baptism by John caused him to think deeply about how he should use his talents, for his own gain, or for the good of all. He chose the latter and started to tell people that they could enter the kingdom of God.

You have every right to ask ‘What is the relevance of these ancient scriptures to modern life’? How can these old scriptures be relevant to our modern complex and very complicated lives? That is my topic for today.

First, you should ask: ‘How do we know whether the biblical stories are true?’ Were they just fables, thought up by the writers to teach morality. Morality stories are what collectors of old fairytales and modern writers of children’s books have published to teach children the behaviour expected of them as they grow up. Such fairy tales express wishful thinking about a world, which would be nice, but which many of us think will never be achieved. We are too cynical and take as given that, in real life, there are always crooks taking selfish advantage of the good other people do.

I believe that you are close to the truth if you think of scriptures as morality stories that can’t really be true. This is because we now know much more than the biblical writers about how the universe works and about life on earth. The science of 2000 years ago was hopelessly bad compared with what we know now. But, the scriptures contain much wisdom about humans and this wisdom comes in morality stories. Human nature has not changed much in the last 3000 years. Note that Jesus himself used exaggerated parables, to illustrate how people should behave. He did not expect his listeners to think of these parables as something that really happened.

Second, what do we really know about Jesus? Was there such a person? And was he really the special son of God?

Nine years ago, I was fortunate enough to stumble on a book called ‘Honest to Jesus’. I had earlier read a book called ‘Honest to God’ by an English bishop, who had questioned whether God existed, or what we could mean by the word God as the creator of the Universe. At the time “Honest to God’ created quite a stir. Its German translation was called ‘Gott ist tot’ (God is dead). Hence, the name ‘Honest to Jesus’ immediately suggested that here was an interesting book about Jesus. I was not disappointed.

It turns out to be a book summarising what modern theology knows about Jesus. Theology is the field of study in which theologians from many Christian denominations and Judaism, and historians from many backgrounds have studied what actually happened and how people have understood God and how the earth (and the Universe) came into being. We could say, it is the study of how religions grew and changed to help people understand the world and its creator better. Nowadays, science is studying many of the fields that were initially part of theology. And science does not see itself as part of religion. But up until 500 years ago there was no science separate from theology. In that past, theology included how people understood the workings of the world. Now physics, chemistry, biology, psychology and so on explain to us how the world works. The important point is that theology includes the history of the times since the earliest scriptures were written. And the findings of theology are the product of scholars from all religions working in this field, not merely what one religion claims. What does theology tell us about Jesus?

The author of the book is Robert Funk. He has also founded a group of historians and theologians, called the Jesus seminar, to study particularly the life of Jesus and his teachings. This group points out that most Christians have a very false picture of the life of Jesus. Funk’s book tries to dismantle this false picture so that the true picture can be built up. Funk has found that knowing the true picture of Jesus is very liberating. To understand the life of Jesus requires knowing that Jesus was born and reared in Nazareth. He taught wisdom mainly in Galilee and was crucified when he visited Jerusalem. After the death of Jesus, this actual life, about which we know few details, was joined to a growing Jewish belief in the coming of a messiah. This messiah was foretold in earlier scriptures as, being raised up to God in heaven after his death, and setting up the kingdom of God on earth in a second coming. Funk’s chapter 2 describes the changing story about Jesus. It begins like this.

‘Christianity as we know it did not originate with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was not the first Christian. Tradition has it that Peter, the leader of an inner circle of three followers of Jesus, was the first to identify Jesus as the expected messiah. Incipient Christianity was formed around the conviction that Jesus had been exalted to God’s right hand at his death and would return as the heavenly son of Adam to sit in cosmic judgment at the end of the age. His first coming was to be followed by the second coming. From that relatively modest beginning, Jesus was gradually elevated to godhood in the second and third centuries. But Christianity took its definitive form – the form defined by the emperor and church councilors as ‘orthodox’ – in the fourth century with the creation of the first creeds and canons.’

This definition of orthodox Christianity occurred at the Council of Nicea in the year 325. No one has ever considered the apostles Peter and Paul, and the bishops and emperor Constantine at the council of Nicea, to be anything other than ordinary humans each with their own political motivations. Thus, the teaching that Jesus is the Christ (the Greek word for messiah) is plainly the thinking of ordinary people. Who can guarantee that this particular set of thoughts is more true than any other person’s belief?

What I find fascinating is that most theology scholars from all Christian churches agree that these changes of dogma took place as orthodox Christianity was defined. However, this information rarely reaches the people sitting in the pews in church. We Templers each have the freedom to search for the truth, however unorthodox it might turn out to be. This is truly a liberating characteristic and we must not forget this. Our friends form other churches, which we meet for example in the Knox Interfaith Network, may not be as free to move away from orthodox Christianity as readily as we can. Clearly we must respect individual members of every faith. But we Templers sometimes have to do a bit of explaining why we call ourselves Christian even if we lie outside the orthodox definition of Christianity.

I believe it is truly liberating for us Templers to follow the studies of what is really known about Jesus. Christoph Hoffmann, one of our founders had effectively reached this way of thinking in the middle of the 19th century. He said that the most important thing that matters in Christianity is for us to strive to make the world a better place. He used the biblical terminology ‘strive above all for the kingdom of God, on earth,’ as then everything else will sort itself out appropriately.

Today I want to draw your attention to the fact that the trend towards orthodoxy in Christianity is already seen in the New Testament (the Holy Scripture of Christianity). Theologians agree that Mark is the earliest of the four gospels, then Matthew and Luke, fairly close together, and then John a long time later. If you read the gospels in this order, you cannot help but notice systematic changes.

Mark has no details about the birth of Jesus. He tells us about John the baptist at the river Jordan, then Jesus being baptised by John and then Jesus being tempted by Satan for forty days in the desert. After that angels tended to his needs. The next verse is; After John had been arrested, Jesus came into Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: ‘The time has arrived; the kingdom of God is upon you. Repent and believe the Gospel’.

Both Matthew and Luke have details about the birth of Jesus and what happened after that. The details are different. In Matthew’s gospel the family of baby Jesus went to Egypt to escape Herod’s killing of all babies under 2 years of age and they remained there several years. In Luke, the family went from Nazareth to Bethlehem for Jesus’ birth and proceeded every year to go to Jerusalem for the Passover festival.

In John there are again no birth details, but the story has advanced so far that details are not necessary. Just read the first 14 verses in Chapter 1. The Word, which became Jesus, was already there when God made the world. Verse 14 summarises the situation: ‘So the Word became flesh; he made his home among us and we saw his glory, such as befits the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.’

If you compare the stories about the death of Jesus you can also find an increasing amount of detail as time has passed from Mark to John. What does this trend over time mean? To me it means that we cannot maintain that the words of the bible are literally true, dictated by God. The sooner we stop thinking of the bible as literally true, the better. Because the freedom from details allows us to search and find the real wisdom in the bible. This real wisdom does not depend on details being true. This is also what Funk’s book is doing.

One other book I read over the Christmas period is ‘The Trial of the Templars’ by Malcolm Barber. This book is a historical study of the Templars, about which others often ask us whether we are related to them. Information comes from Papal, church and royal archives available to historians and theologians and in of the work of other historians on the history of the crusades to the Holy Land and the Europe of the 12th and 13th centuries. This is a part of history which was not part of my education, so I was pleased to learn history as well as something about the Templars.

The Temple was a military religious Order, founded in the Holy Land in 1119 to protect pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, which had been captured from the Moslems in 1099. Templars were responsible to the Pope. It became a very successful Order with much property mainly in France, but also in many other parts of Europe as well as in Cyprus and the Holy Land. However, the Christian settlers of the east were driven out of Palestine in 1291 and the Templars lost the main reason for their existence.

There had been difficulties between the pope and other powerful figures in the religious and worldly government of Christianity. The Christian King Philip IV of France arrested the Templars in France in the early hours of Friday 13th October 1307 and charged them with heresy and depraved practices including homosexuality and idol worship. Pope Clement V, to whom the Templars were responsible, and King Philip IV, were involved in a power struggle about the fate of the Templars. And many of them were burned as heretics. I don’t want to bore you with details. I merely want to tell you one thing, which is relevant to Christianity in the middle ages. And that is the power of torture, and how torture was employed to maintain Christianity free of heresies. I’ll read a few quotes, which will make my points.

From the last paragraph of Chapter 1; The Participants. The quotation summarises the background.
‘... The French monarchy needed specie [that is, finances]... ; the papacy, although still an essential element in the political structure and religious life of western Christendom, was, under Clement V, seemingly a pliant instrument; while the Order of the Temple, closely linked to both of them, seemed to have outlived its usefulness. At the same time, the means to accomplish a spoliation of the Temple were at hand in the form of the Inquisition, developed by the papacy, but in France controlled by the monarchy. The spread of heresy had been one of the major issues of the thirteenth century, and the conversion of the Temple’s unpopularity into “heretical depravity’ was a task for which the counsellors of Philip the Fair [the French King] were well suited. The trial of the Templars grew out of the conjunction of these circumstances.’

The last paragraph of Chapter 7: The Charges, summarises other circumstances.
‘Magic, sorcery and witchcraft were part both of the popular heritage and of the contemporary intellectual structure, and as a consequence the charges outlined above would strike a response at all levels of society. The attribution of these beliefs to the Templers was a deliberate and successful attempt to vilify them and to ruin their reputation, but perhaps in the final analysis it was only partly conscious, for both Philip’s lawyers and Clement’s inquisitors were themselves part of the age and in some way or another imbued with its ideas and traditions.’

Chapters 2 to 6 had dealt with the situation in France. Here torture was used on the arrested Templars until they confessed that the depraved conduct they were charged with was in fact occurring in the Order. These confessions were collected as the evidence against the Order. Some of the Templars were heard by a commission set up by pope Clement. These were freer to speak and they denied that the Order ever did the depraved behaviours. Several hundred Templers denied heresies. Then the French King succeeded in having about 50 Templars in his control burned as heretics. The pope’s commissioners were urged also to use torture on those Templars who had denied heresies and about a quarter of them also confessed to heresy. In other countries where Templers were tried, the general outcome was that Templars were not heretics. The last paragraph of Chapter 8: The Trial of Templars in other Countries, sheds light on what Malcolm Barber thinks.
‘... On a narrower front, the weakness of the proof and the dependence upon torture to secure the condemnation of the Templars is clearly demonstrated and must form an important part of any discussion concerning the veracity or otherwise of the charges laid against the Order by the French king.’
In plain words: the French king obtained confessions of heresy by torturing his victims. Where torture was not used Templers were not found to be heretic or evil.

Malcolm Barber’s conclusion has this last paragraph from which I’ll read excerpts.
‘The trial of the Templars can be explained in terms of factors external to the Order, rather than through any of its internal failings: ... However, ... the social context of the trial should not be ignored. Contemporaries believed that the devil was constantly seeking to spread corruption throughout Christian society, and, by attacking weak points in the structure, aimed to break down its functional unity. The task of the faithful was to be ever vigilant to this threat and when these evil activities were exposed, ruthlessly to cut out the canker, lest the whole be threatened. The arguments used against the Templars during the trial both play upon and reflect these fears. ... at the Council of Vienne Guillaume Le Maire had seen the course of action against the Order, paraphrasing Matthew 5 and 18, ‘If your right eye or right limb offend you, cut them off and throw them away. For it is better that one of your limbs should be destroyed than the whole body.’ The trial cannot therefore be viewed in the conventional sense of a test of guilt or innocence, but as a medieval tragedy in which society, by creating the circumstances which enabled the government of Philip IV to act as it did, crushed the life from an Order which it had once been proud to raise up.’

It took me a while to think myself into the circumstances of Europe in the middle ages. I don’t think I would have liked to live then. It seems so wrong to me that, to nobly defend the orthodox form of Christianity, one must kill off all those thinking differently. This is one reason why science had to have a clean break from religion. And to think that our Christian religion used torture to make people confess what the torturers wanted, and then to use the confession against them, this is clearly wrong! What does that tell us about what is going on in the present among the governments of Australia’s allies. I’ll stop this train of thought here as I don’t want to make political statements in a service. But let’s not close our eyes to what we and our allies are doing.

Back to our topic. Where is the wisdom that will allow us to make the world a better place? The real Jesus preached that we people should strive to achieve the kingdom of God on earth. He told us to pray to God - Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Is this a call to action in our modern daily life? Please do read the Sermon on the Mount, not for its details, but for its wisdom. Don’t worry about the detail that no one is likely to hit you on one cheek just so that you can offer him the other one also. But do notice that unless one of Israel and the Palestinians can stop retaliating for each bombing by the other side there will be no peace in their land. The wisdom is to see the bigger picture. We cannot win peace by military action if that suppresses our enemies. We, each individual and each country, must change ourselves to see the other as a friend. Then we can start to move towards a better world. As individuals, our role is to be helpful to other individuals. Then we will be able at least to ‘Brighten the corner where we are’.

I believe it will be good for Christianity to return to the picture of the real Jesus. He clearly taught common sense wisdom about people. The Sermon on the Mount offers examples. This wisdom is timeless. To have peace in our modern world we must work towards all nations, and all people, changing themselves to strive for peace. As individuals we can brighten our own corner. As citizens of a country we can elect representatives who are prepared to work for peace, and against corruption and all those hidden practices preventing equality and harmony among people. If we succeed we will create an earth with which the creator of the universe, however you picture her, him or it, would be pleased. To me that is the vision Jesus proclaimed. In the words of 2000 years ago he called it the kingdom of God, for which we were to strive above everything else.

Let’s pray

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
Your Kingdom come,
Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
As we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us when in temptation
And deliver us from evil.
For the Kingdom, the power and the Glory
Are Yours forever. Amen.

My best wishes to you all for the year 2006. May the year 2006 be successful and rewarding for each of you. I also wish that you all get home safely.

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