Reprints of 2009 Services - Discussions

Service in Bayswater – 9th August 

Elder: Dr Peter Uhlherr
Music: Veronica Rutowicz

Hymns: Start – No. 127: Wir pflügen und wir streuen…, V.1,2
End – No. 36: God, you call for faithful service, V.3,4

Text: Matt. 6:1-4

Today’s text is from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel. It is written as though it were delivered by Jesus personally – Jesus himself is giving us a detailed explanation of his own teaching. The Sermon on the Mount contrasts the ritualistic practice of the law – as it was then current – with Jesus’s own emphasis on the spirit of the law – its original intent. This reminder of the law’s intent was deemed necessary by Jesus because worship had degenerated to an outward, public display.

Today’s text concerns Charity specifically, but is part of a broader context of how to practise religion in general.
Be careful not to make a show of your religion before men; if you do, no reward awaits you in your Father’s house in heaven.
Thus, when you do some act of charity, do not announce it with a flourish of trumpets, as the hypocrites do in synagogue and in the streets to win admiration from men. I tell you this: they have their reward already. No; when you do some act of charity, do not let your left hand know what your right is doing; your good deed must be secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.

When thinking about a text, I’ve always found it helpful to clarify my own understanding of key words or concepts – in this case Charity. The meaning, the usage of the word Charity has changed quite substantially in recent decades. Today it is almost exclusively associated with a very specific, specialised concept. I suspect that many younger people would know only that current meaning of charity, that of an institution or organisation that specialises in the collection and distribution of donations for the needy. Such organisations have proliferated, and we are all familiar with their regular and persistent approaches for support. This represents the modern meaning of charity.

Individual charity seems to be on the decline – perhaps we are all too busy – besides it is very easy to give money to charitable institutions – by post, phone, on-line. These organisations have gone out of their way to make the process as painless and hassle-free as possible. Certainly these professional charities are more effective and reach a much wider population, much further afield, than individual one-on-one charity ever could. So they are doing a remarkable job. This is the first and currently predominant meaning of the word charity – that is alms for those in need. It is the meaning of alms that today’s text is applying to the word charity

There is a second meaning of charity, probably its original meaning, much broader than the first, but including alms as a special case. This broader meaning is being forgotten through lack of use – that meaning is love of neighbour in the Christian sense. Charity equates exactly with Nächstenliebe. This sense of charity is hardly used today because of the very high likelihood of being totally misunderstood and taken as institutionalised alms.

Today’s text is not actually an exhortation to practise charity; rather it is advice on how to practise it. It is not obviously about the nature of charity so much as apparently about its rewards.

Typically for the Sermon on the Mount, it differentiates between two ways of obeying a commandment – it contrasts two practices. A public act of charity – like a ritual – is rewarded by public admiration and approval – there is no other benefit to the donor. Public admiration is his only reward. Clearly a needy recipient is helped – and surely this is desirable. Yet this action is deprecated by Jesus as though it were tarnished, and no longer charity. I believe the act probably still qualifies as alms but not as Nächstenliebe. We need to look more closely at the nature of charity, not the word, but the act. In contrast to the public act, Jesus clearly prefers – and advocates – anonymous charity – a ‘secret’ act. In the absence of public admiration, he promises a reward in heaven. But we all know atheists – non-believers – who regularly perform truly charitable acts and who certainly do not expect any reward from – to them – a non-existent God. Anonymous or secret charity as advocated by Jesus clearly also raises questions about the nature of charity – is it a purely religious act that God rewards? Who rewards the non-believer?

Because of these rewards – from peers on the one hand or from God on the other – we should consider also the motives for charity. Is love of neighbour – compassion, Nächstenliebe – possible if there is a reward, even one from God? Does this not imply at least some expectation, calculation of a future benefit or advantage? Surely the smallest, most fleeting thought of possible reward – of any kind, human or heavenly – has the potential to negate any act of charity. Reward can convert it into a deal, a transaction, an expectation of future benefit. Charity becomes selfish. Reward turns the apparent charitable act around and reflects it back onto the donor and his own desire for reward. In this regard, the anonymous, secret charity is no different from the advertised, public act, if it contains any expectation of a reward ‘in heaven’. In fact, it may be even worse because we are trying to curry favour not with the jury of our peers, but with the judge himself!

Clearly, it is unthinkable that Jesus could have intended any such meaning for his words in the text. Something is missing: whether public or secret (in private) does not seem to be the criterion by which an act of charity is to be judged. There is only one other short phrase in our text and, uncharacteristically for the Sermon on the Mount, it is somewhat enigmatic – to me at least; ‘don’t let your left hand know what your right is doing’. When I first read today’s text, I didn’t take much notice of this phrase, its meaning didn’t leap out at me; but I now think that it must, in fact, be the central and critical point that Jesus is trying to make. These few words must, by elimination of the rest, contain a definition of true charity; in fact Jesus’s definition of true love of neighbour – the nature of charity. I can only surmise that there must have been a proverbial saying current at the time that his audience was familiar with and understood; a proverb whose idiomatic meaning is no longer obvious to us today. But an explanation of the nature of charity must be contained in these words – “don’t let your left hand know what your right is doing”.

What controls manual activity? It is our conscious will. Hypothetically, if we could totally disconnect our two hands from each other’s influence – make them independent and autonomous – that would imply having to disconnect our conscious control of will over them. As far-fetched as it may sound, I am led to believe that this may be the meaning of Jesus’s words – cut the thinking process, the calculation, out of our charitable actions – make our actions spontaneous, unmotivated by our ego or will. I conclude that, within the spirit of the law as taught by Jesus, an act of true charity must be totally without personal motive. That makes rewards irrelevant; it excludes them from charity/love of neighbour. Whether the reward is from man or God is irrelevant. A recipient’s need is the motive; compassion is the driving force for our action. There is simply no room whatsoever for any self-interest. Performing a charitable act in secret, as in our text, is not simply in private, out of the public eye, but also out of contact with our own conscious, calculating will, our ego. Charity cannot indebt the recipient; it is not done to make the donor feel better – to generate a warm glow of satisfaction, neither in public nor in private. According to Jesus, that warm glow would be the sole reward.

Because I have had to make a rather long reach to get to this point, I looked for some reassurance from other texts. And I discovered quite a few that were concerned with attitude and motive in relation to the commandments, specifically charity in its broader sense. For example, in Matthew 25:35-41 the righteous and unrighteous are separated by God for judgment.

The righteous are invited by Jesus to enter the kingdom of heaven with the following words:

For when I was hungry, you gave me food; when thirsty, you gave me drink; when I was a stranger you took me into your home; when I was ill you came to my help. Then the righteous will reply, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and fed you, or thirsty and gave you drink, a stranger and took you home? When did we see you ill and come to visit you?’ And the judge will answer, ‘I tell you this: anything you did for one of my brothers here, however humble, you did for me.’

‘For me’ means because I asked you to through God’s commandments (not for Jesus personally). The righteous, who lived by the spirit of the law, as Jesus had asked – that is those who were charitable – are totally unaware of their deeds as charity; of course, they knew what they were doing, but they did not consciously perceive their actions as charity. They were all selfless acts.

On a number of occasions Jesus says that we must become like children if we are to enter the kingdom of heaven. For example in Matthew 18:2-4:

He called a child, set him in front of them, and said, ‘I tell you this: unless you turn round and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Let a man humble himself till he is like this child, and he will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me.

Again, this is related to unawareness. Charity emanates from compassion, feeling, intuition – and not from intellect, not from logical assessments and conscious, calculating decisions. Children live more by their innate natural impulses – by their feelings rather than by calculating intellect. Jesus tells us that we need child-like trust and faith in the benefit of the law. We do not need to understand it, or to explain how it works. We need only to believe that is does work.

Now we might argue that becoming like a child – simple, spontaneous, uncritical – is a backward step for someone capable of making considered judgment and following this with an appropriate action. Hence Jesus’s words humble himself. It is precisely a spontaneous, uncritical, selfless response to a need that constitutes charity. Charity is not based on a calculated assessment of a need.

Child-like is far from childish. Fantasy, make-believe, undisciplined imagination may be childish. The concept of an old man with a long white beard looking down from the clouds is childish. But a trust and faith in the effectiveness of Jesus’s teaching – that is child-like, not calculating why, who and how much.

That the commandments are to be obeyed in a child-like manner can even be read into the myth of Adam and Eve. They were created child-like and lived in harmony with the laws of nature – with God’s commandments. But then they were made aware of their power of will – of decision – and that led to the apple incident. The myth tells us that they discovered knowledge, i.e. intellect, analytical and reasoning abilities; they discovered their egos; they became self-conscious and self-aware. They awoke, both physically and intellectually. God, we are told, was distinctly displeased – perhaps because Adam and Eve jumped the gun – humanity may not have been quite ready for intellect and self-knowledge.

Besides, these attributes are entirely unnecessary to obey the laws of nature – the laws that God had established. God knew – obviously – that child-like faith and compassion could be easily overshadowed by intellect and self-awareness – by the ego – because that is what gives rise to weighing motives against outcomes and rewards. Once the self, the ego, becomes involved, it is very difficult to exclude it again or to suppress it, to bypass it and do something in secret from it. It is very difficult to restrict the influence of the ego to your left hand, so that the right hand is free to act compassionately in a child-like and charitable manner.

Ever since the time of Adam and Eve, humanity has had to be reminded regularly that charity – love of neighbour, Nächstenliebe – is driven only by the neighbour’s need, and not by any desire or consideration of our own.

This is easy to say and so very difficult to do.

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AGM Service in Bayswater on Sunday 18 October
Elder Mark Herrmann
Monika Herrmann – prelude (piano)

Good morning! I welcome you all to our Community Chapel, where we will shortly conduct the Temple Society Australia’s AGM, an important event in our organisation’s calendar. Traditionally, we begin our proceedings with a short period of contemplation.

Our text for today comes from the Old Testament, the book of Micah (Chapter 4, verses 1-8). The author’s name means who is like Jehovah? The word has the same derivation as Michael, which means who is like God? There are many Micahs in Scripture, but this one is identified as an inhabitant of Moresheth-gath, a place about thirty kilometres southwest of Jerusalem, near Lachish.

Micah was a younger contemporary of Isaiah, and his prophecy might be called a miniature Isaiah, or Isaiah in shorthand, since there are striking similarities.

Read text (Chapter 4, verses 1-8)

The differences between the conclusion to Chapter 3 and the beginning of Chapter 4 are so striking that many scholars believe they need to be read together, the author emphasising the contrasts between judgment and salvation. The prophecy of judgment (in 3:1-12: “Zion – the old name for Jerusalem – shall be ploughed as a field”) is on the ruling elite, such as political leaders, religious leaders and the false prophets in Jerusalem. But the vision of salvation (in 4:1-8: “Zion will be exalted”) reflects God ruling from Jerusalem. It stresses the return of the Israelite exiles and the restoration of Jerusalem to its former power. It shows the sharp contrast between the former Jerusalem ruled by the unjust and the later Jerusalem ruled by God: the unjust elites built Zion with bloodshed and iniquity, while a just God will build Zion with peace and hope.

Hymn - #1 verses 6 and 7 (relevant to text)

An internet commentary I read suggests the writing is pungent, confident and personal, adding “Micah was trenchant, touching, and tender. He was realistic and reportorial — he would have made a good war correspondent. There is an exquisite beauty about these passages, which combine God’s infinite tenderness with his judgments. There are several famous passages that are familiar to the average Christian. Through the gloom of impending judgment, Micah saw clearly the coming glory of the redemption of Israel.”

Our text speaks about peace for mankind, but also about salvation through following God’s path in the sense of a traditional Christianity. The humanist part of me wonders if the text is asking whether these things can only occur together – that is, you can’t have one without the other and they cannot be mutually exclusive.

Pick up any newspaper on any day and there will always be a liberal sprinkling of conflicts around the globe – and, sadly, here in Melbourne we are certainly not immune from such issues. Nightclub bashings, random acts of road rage, racial attacks on overseas students …

Late one night, at Flinders Street station on the Saturday before last, Nanne and I were waiting for a train home. We heard music from out on the street and joined a growing audience of passers-by witnessing an impromptu band performance from a group of young musicians. The musical beat and tone soon inspired a small group of Indian males (who had probably come from the Indian Festival in the adjacent Federation Square) to congregate and dance in front of the band. They were certainly enjoying themselves, as were we, watching them.

Nanne suggested the media should have been there to see and report on this more positive depiction of racial tolerance in our vibrant city. I agreed, although it would have been even better for some of the assembled onlookers to have joined the happy dancers.

Global peace and security, Peace between countries, Peace between peoples of different lands and cultures, Peace between neighbours, Peace within us …

A later verse in the Book of Micah (Chapter 6, verse 8) states “What he requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love and to live in humble fellowship with our God.”

Our text refers to people coming to Jerusalem from all over the world. This is particularly significant to Templers, given the founders of the Temple Society and their followers certainly planned for their migration to the Holy Land.

One internet writer comments that to mix all the gods (all the religions) is not the answer. The nations must serve the one real God and they must obey him. The writer further suggests the people of the time were waiting for God to perform his promises.

What then is our responsibility as a member of humanity? To me, as a Templer – a living building stone of God’s spiritual temple and a temple in whom God’s spirit lives – this reliance on something or someone else suggests a release of any initiative, sense of duty or obligation. It doesn’t therefore especially resonate with me.

Let us do our bit, too. Can we effect a change in society, its people and its thinking? Can we become more at peace, less selfish and more content with what we have? With faith and hope in our Community, and its future, I like to think so.

Let us pray

God help us to change. To change ourselves and to change our world. To know the need for it. To deal with the pain of it. To feel the joy of it. To undertake the journey without understanding the destination. The art of gentle revolution.
Amen

In closing and before we beginning our Community’s business for the day …
Hymn - #1 verses 9 and 10

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Tatura Service Sunday 30 August
Elder Mark Hermann

Good morning and welcome to this Country Victoria service in Tatura. Thank you to the Tatura-Rodney Masonic Lodge for making their facilities available to us today free of charge. Any collection from our service will therefore be directed back to them in appreciation, and as reimbursement for power and equipment usage. A vote of thanks also to Lilli Kuhnle for making the contacts and necessary arrangements for today.

We from the Temple Society Australia are here in late-August as a result of the previous and current German Consuls-General, Thomas Kessler and Dr Annemarie Schleich. The former pushed and the latter acquiesced in organising for this year’s Volkstrauertag (Remembrance Day) service to be trialled in Melbourne for reasons of access, promotion and possible appeal to a younger audience. Our service today should not be seen as an alternative, because the TSA is hosting the traditional November event at Bayswater anyway, but rather as recognition of the inherent and integral link our faith community has with this region.

My suggested format for today is (perhaps around 1:00pm and after our communal lunch here) to visit the former camp site, the German cemetery and the museum, before returning for afternoon tea and the return trip to Melbourne (perhaps around 4:00pm).

To formally begin, let us sing together One More Step – all 5 verses – hymn number 86 (no accompaniment).

“Standing at the limit of an endless ocean
stranded like a runaway, lost at sea
city on a rainy day down in the harbour
watching as the grey clouds shadow the bay
looking everywhere ‘cause I had to find you
this is not the way that I remember it here
anyone will tell you it’s a prisoner island
hidden in the summer for a million years

Great Southern Land, Great Southern Land …”
(Iva Davies front man of the band “Icehouse”)

In preparing for today – and given the relevance and circumstances of Tatura to the Templers and other Germans – this Australian songwriter’s lyrics from 1982 came to mind.

At the TSA discussion forum earlier this month – under the theme “Challenges and changes faced and overcome by the Temple Society” – I was one of three introductory speakers. My topic covered the forced, large-scale transportation from Palestine in 1941, internment at Tatura and post-war resettlement in Australia.

I asked whether the transportation was the most difficult challenge faced by the members of the Temple Society in its (to then) 80 years of history. Notwithstanding the complexities of measuring, and in fact comparing, different levels of adversity, it was a journey into the unknown and, in the end, a complete and final transition – there was no going back. But, at the forum, Renate Beilharz was quick to contest my assessment of this being the most difficult challenge, countering that the situation forced upon the internees could at least be faced together as a community. It could therefore be argued that the Templers, despite being adversely treated, were not threatened as a community.

My knowledge of the period of internment is confined to what I have read and heard. In my younger years, I remember the annual pilgrimage to Tatura in the family car. Although held in November, the day was usually very warm, often windy, and traipsing around the empty paddocks looking at remnant blocks of concrete and listening to debate about their former identity seemed somewhat pointless and merely gave sufficient time for a multitude of flies to arrive and annoy. It is safe to say that in my formative years I was no student of this particular aspect of Templer history.

Last week I asked my mum and dad many questions about the years they spent behind barbed wire, what they did, how they felt, how it shaped them and their future. In the process, I was also trying to better appreciate the altered lives of their parents, siblings, peers and other community members. Inserted into this service will be my composite pictures of the snippets of information, stories and impressions I gleaned. I hope it resonates in some fashion with those of you who shared this time of life and time of community. Please don’t take me to task over details, because I am deliberately applying fairly broad brushstrokes – mixing and matching.

“I am a young child and then a teenager – call me Helga or Helmut: I have arrived in this foreign country with my parents, brothers and sisters. I am confused as to why we are here. We had to leave Wilhelma very quickly and without knowing where we were going. To get here, the other side of the world, we travelled by train, a huge ship over the oceans and train again. This can’t be a holiday. At least I won’t have to practise piano for lessons with Fräulein Steller anymore!

All my friends are here with their families too. It is almost like our settlements and communities in Palestine have been moved to another country. I assume the barbed wire and watchtowers are because there is a war being fought. In fact, I saw Australian soldiers coming off “our ship” when we were preparing to board in Egypt. It’s strange, but Australians speak a different type of English to what we have learned.

Soon enough, we have school to go to. This keeps us occupied. We have little time to dwell on ourselves.

It is winter here and we left home in summer. The huts don’t offer much protection against the cold at night. I’m glad that Onkel Fritz and Tante Luise are also in our barrack. We are in this together. Meals are held in large dining areas with everyone else from the compound.

Fortbildungsschule – continuation training classes after formal school – continue for about four years. It means no more algebra and the opportunity for more useful things like cooking, sewing and pattern-making.

At 18, it is decided my tonsils need to come out. One of the other camps in the immediate area has a larger hospital. When I am admitted there are Frau Schwarz, Fräulein Weiss and Fräulein Rot all in attendance; Schwarz, Weiss and Rot – how ironic!

Our time on Saturdays is utilised by having to wash windows. What a waste of time; they’ll only get dirty again! I can see the need for and purpose in sweeping out the dining room regularly, although after every meal is surely overkill. There seems to be no shortage of community festivities celebrated mainly on Sundays. We do much folk-dancing and singing, which I enjoy. We also play many ball games, and sport in general. I even got a tennis racquet from the in-camp store for one of my birthdays.

Despite being taken out of my comfort zone, I don’t think I necessarily grew up more quickly; we were considerably sheltered from the big wide world that awaited us.”

Today’s text from our three-year roster comes from Romans Chapter 8, verses 31-39.

Paul’s Letter to the Romans was written to prepare the way for a visit Paul planned to make to the church at Rome. His plan was to work among the Christians there for a while and then, with their support, to go to Spain. He wrote to explain his understanding of the Christian faith and its practical implications for the lives of Christians. Paul states the theme of the letter as “The gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself; it is through faith, from beginning to end.”

Could it be argued that the Temple Society’s survival at Tatura and beyond was through faith: faith in the community and its people, faith in God?

READ TEXT

Accordingly to a Bible commentary I sourced, Paul makes two main points in our text which provide us with the key to the structure of his argument. In the beginning verses (31-34), the emphasis is on “no condemnation by God”. And in the latter verses (35-39), Paul stresses “no separation from God”. These are the final verses of Paul’s argument in Romans Chapters 5-8 dealing with the present and future networkings of justification by faith. The mood of the passage is that of confident praise. It is God-centred, with Paul speaking of a confidence and assurance based in God. The confidence and assurance is for Christians, for those who are in Christ. Paul is writing to Christians concerning the confidence they have in Christ. According to this particular author, no confidence or assurance is offered to the non-believer here or elsewhere in the Bible.

I generally struggle with Bible texts, sometimes the language, sometimes the content ... and sometimes both. Perhaps I need a new Bible! To me, this particular passage simply does not resonate and highlights a clear distinction between my own belief and how I envisage the traditional church to be represented. Faith being personal and individual, I can only describe it as I see it and how it relates to me. Clearly, others will have their own interpretations and belief. Naturally, I accept and respect this. I am reassured, however, that the Temple Society permits me my faith within its Christian framework.

Text such as “God’s giving of his son’s life for our salvation” and “God freely giving us everything else” do not sit comfortably with me and I cannot pretend otherwise. If my faith is to be measured by statements I find intangible and lacking in humanness, then I’m in a bit of a bind. “Nothing in all creation can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ Jesus our Lord!” I certainly have no difficulty with the Bible commentary indicating no condemnation by and no separation from God. But I need to have meaning and sense, ethereal concepts leaving me somewhat cold.

At this stage you may be wondering about my position on the Templer motto – Set your mind on God’s kingdom and his justice before everything else, and all the rest will come to you as well (Matthew 6:33). This also speaks of everything else coming to us, but the difference I see is the human element.

Earlier the commentator said “The gospel reveals how God puts people right with himself. What part is then left to us? I am comfortable with the notion of striving for the goal of God’s kingdom here in my time, but not that it will simply be granted or fall into my lap. That to me would be unsatisfying and a cop out.

“Now I am a young adult – call me Gertrud or Rolf: What has happened to us and our hopes and future plans? My thoughts of study and career are suddenly no longer available or feasible. We are rostered to help with many of the communal activities, nothing too onerous, and it also gives us time to play football. Between games we assist with meal preparations and some do some private study.

My older brother helped plant a supply vegetable garden and build a tennis court for the garrison outside the wire perimeter. Sometimes he and others are driven by truck to the lake to collect screenings. He also has toilet cleaning duty!

Fachschule – technical classes – allow me to learn some trades which subsequently prove valuable upon release from camp.

30-40 of us single men are transferred to Loveday in South Australia. Our families stay at Tatura, but I guess we have our independence. What choice do we have? We are asked to use the world game to engage the older men, but us “young guns” are deemed too good and are split into different teams. That doesn’t matter because we can still play.

When we are returned to Victoria, another men-only camp awaits, but not far from Waranga. Occasionally we are driven to the family camp for afternoon tea and some contact with our families.”

“The longest journey you will make is from your head to your heart. We are all on this journey.” (Gary Zukav)

And now from the discussion forum in Bayswater ...
Great Britain and France declaring war on the German Reich, on 03/09/1939, signified the beginning of the end of the Temple Society settlement work. Families were split and livelihoods were threatened. The family camp at Tatura provided insufficient room in the huts, and tents had to be erected. Even then, with families and individuals allocated to either, a small number of younger men found themselves sitting expectantly under trees with darkness approaching and the Australian guards having retired for the day!

The change in hemispheres (from north to south) must have brought with it a sense of dispossession, uncertainty, isolation and helplessness. One can’t help but feel that there were lost opportunities and many robbed of their ‘prime’ years. Vegetables were grown and the internees helped with road construction, drainage and pouring concrete blocks.

At war’s end and with Germany’s defeat, the Geneva Convention no longer applied to German prisoners of war and civilian internees. Despite the unfavourable news from Palestine, the internees held hopes for an early return to their settlements there – nobody contemplated remaining in Australia. However, when the High Commissioner for Palestine described the Germans as undesirable persons and precluded their return to the Holy Land, this all changed. Repatriation to Germany or remaining in Australia were the only choices. For the latter, the prospect that the Australian authorities would support the transfer of the internees’ assets from Palestine was held out – an inducement?

Upon release from camp, there existed pressure to establish a communal settlement, but this needed to be deferred until a decision as to whether Templers still in Palestine and in Germany would be allowed to settle here could be made. In September 1947, Wilhelm Eppinger wrote for the circular begun in the internment camp: “We must strive for the preservation and strengthening of our spiritual bond, because without it the community will not be able to survive into the future.”

I concluded my introduction to the discussion forum by stating that, over half a century later, I believe the continued presence, strength and community spirit of the Temple Society Australia serves as the best example of having faced and overcome challenges and change.

“Now I am an adult – call me Johannes (or, with respect, Herr Weller?) or Hildegard (Frau Beilharz?): When leaving Palestine I told everyone to take a good, long look because I feared we would not be coming back. Some took exception to my comments. I think we need to accept a new beginning in places and conditions unknown, because my experience and knowledge of Germany after World War I was extremely bleak.

The camp at Tatura is isolated, but in time the authorities are happy for us to arrange and control our activities within its borders. Much is instituted along similar lines and adapted to how it had been at home. The camp leaders are working hard to introduce some normality to this situation. Before long I have a cobbler’s workshop attached to our hut. It is fairly rudimentary but enables me to learn from Herr Schnerring in attending to the footwear needs of our people. The workshop also serves as a meeting place for many of the men of our compound during the course of the day.

I am not very mobile, but receive weekly supplies to bake for my family. My husband cuts wood for the ovens and boilers. Timber is also supplied to line the huts. He has more free time but has learnt to occupy himself with his peers. Naturally, we still have the responsibility of our young children who seem content.

I am not old – only just over 50 – in fact, no-one is really very old here. When this is over I will need to find means to support my family. I wonder what the future holds for our brave community. Even if we work together for the common good, will we be accepted given our German background and what are our prospects? Does the Government have a plan for us?”

Let us now sing together Song of Gratitude – 5 verses – hymn number 101 (again no accompaniment).

For those who can comfortably stand, let us pray:
Taken from Romans Chapter 8, verses 18-27 – ironically verses from just before today’s text, but adapted by Francis Macnab in his book “A Fine Word is Blowing”
We know that life brings its sufferings, but we live in hope of better things. Always we hold onto hope. We know that the whole universe seems to groan under the burden of its troubles and imperfections, but we hold onto the vision of being part of the splendour of God’s creation.

We know we are always waiting, waiting for a sense of finding the best of God’s life. If we cease to wait with anticipation, we abandon our essential hope. In waiting, we show the character of our endurance.

We are reminded that the Good Spirit that surrounds us holds us in our times of vulnerability. We know we would like to pray at those times, but we don’t know what to pray, but that Good Spirit searches the depths of our being even in its worst pain, and it connects us with the very strength of God.

Amen

END MUSIC (cassette tape) – Nobody Home – Instrumental from Pink Floyd – The Wall

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Church Service in Bentleigh 23 August.
Elder: Geoff McCallum
Pianist: Monika Strasser

Main Text: 1 Corinthians 13, 1-13.
(Themes major: Tolerance of others, projections of the mind, the importance of love, the unconscious, the interplay between psychology and religion.)

It is a pleasure to welcome you here today for this service. I often begin my introduction with season’s greetings however, as I have recently returned from a summer holiday in Europe, my season and yours may have been a bit different this year. Still, I am pleased to be home to Melbourne, winter or not.

Above all it is a pleasure to be part of a religious community where individuals can develop in a spiritual sense without fear of a religious hierarchy who act as thought police. It was partly to escape religious persecution that Christoff Hoffmann and others established the Temple Society one and a half centuries ago. With the common purpose of seeking God‘s truth, our strength comes from the shades of diversity which our members bring to the discussion and the worship.

Let us say together the Lord’s Prayer which Jesus taught the disciples and which our Templer forefathers said in Germany, in Palestine and in Tatura.

As I indicated, I recently visited Europe and spent some time in France. What a photogenic country France is! Nowadays you don’t need to wait for your photos to be processed, they are all there on your camera to be sorted. Paris, where we had the good fortune to spent part of our time, is a wonderful old city which was spared the bombing which destroyed the architectural heritage in much of Europe. The twentieth century was certainly a century of wars in Europe and yet it is marvellous how the nations of Europe have since recovered and re-grouped into the EU, a giant federation of ethnic diversity. It is a federation which leads the world in so many areas most notably the realistic approach to combating the latest war, the war against global warming. The Europeans lead the world in responding to this new challenge.

As I sped from Paris south towards Toulouse on the TGV bullet train, I passed many wind power generators but saw no smoke stacks although I did pass two nuclear power stations. It saddened me to reflect that Australia, with its abundant sunshine and wind, talks so much and acts so little by comparison.

We also visited South-East England where I had lived and worked 20 years ago. Due largely to government policy and in particular incentives to farmers to set land aside for wildlife corridors and re-forestation, England is noticeably greener and more treed than when I was there 20 years ago. England in summer is a joy to behold at any time, but now more so than ever. Coming from our dry continent in seems like the Garden of Eden.

Let us sing together a hymn of awakening which most of you will know, by Cat Stevens. Hymn 72, Morning has Broken.

(A word for the kids.)

As I said a few minutes ago, I have just come back from a big trip to England and Europe. Many people travel today, but Templers were in many ways the pioneers of travel. Their migration to Palestine in the middle of the nineteenth century was a very heroic journey in their quest to become even closer to God. Templers have remained travellers, voluntarily and sometimes involuntarily from that day to this.

Our trip to Europe was to visit places I had seen 20 years ago and some others as well. In Paris we visited some common and some uncommon sites. We did see the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triumph. But we did not always follow the main tourist paths. We even visited an out of the way pilgrims’ church called Church of our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. This little church honours the memory of a nun who the Catholics regard as a Saint who saw visions of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Catholic pilgrims from all over the world visit this church. Many attend church services. Others quietly pray. During our visit we had with us our little baby, Odette. Being a one year old, Odette gave a few calls, not really cries but more like words. Much to my surprise, some people stopped praying and made loud shushing sounds at me to quieten my baby. Stopping a baby making sounds is, of course, quite difficult to do, so I imagine they wanted me to leave. This unpleasant response by some of the church-goers reminded me of a passage in the bible which I will read to you.

Reading: Matthew 19: 14. Jesus and the disciples were walking towards Jerusalem.
They brought children to him to lay his hands on in prayer. The disciples tried to send them away but Jesus said, “Let the children come to me; do not try to stop them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” And he laid his hands on the children and went on his way.
Babies and little children were the same in Jesus’ time as they are now and they can be annoying from an adults point of view. Sometimes they cannot be stopped from making a noise or getting into trouble. Perhaps those people in the Paris church who shushed me needed to be reminded of what Jesus actually did and taught, which was love and tolerance.

It is important for adults to be tolerant of young children. Being too strict with children interferes with their development. But have you ever thought of it the other way around? Do you sometimes find adults annoying and difficult to tolerate? I bet you do. I bet you find even your parents annoying sometimes. Hands up anybody who never finds their parents annoying.

And as for your parents, they get annoyed from both sides. Annoyed by you kids and annoyed sometimes by their parents, Grandpa and Grandma, Oma and Opa or what ever your family calls them, who can sometimes be quite demanding and quite annoying too!

Despite the annoyance, I am sure you want to help your parents and they want to help you too. They are often right in what they tell you. Not always, but probably most times. And you should try not to get mad at them. Now with Oma and Opa, you can also be pretty sure they love you and want to help you. You may find them even more tolerant towards you that your parents. And having grown up a long time ago, there are a lot of interesting things they can teach you. Even when they don’t walk so well or are a bit forgetful.

One of the things which kids often find annoying about older people is that they seem to like quiet. The reason for this is that, with all the things that have happened to them in their lives, there really is a lot going on in old people’s heads. They need quiet on the outside because it is so busy on the inside. But even for kids quiet time is good and the more you have quite times the better the things in your head will become organised. The other reason why we should tolerate each other better is out of love for each other. Jesus and Paul, who brought the message of Jesus to the world and to us, emphasized love above all human values. Love is the deeper reason why we should treat each other well.

So today’s message is that we can all learn from Jesus’ example and try harder not only to put up with or tolerate each other but to learn from each other and to help each other. In that way we can make the world we live in a happier place.

(Kids retire) I spoke to the kids about the emphasis Paul put on love as a guiding principal in human relations.

I would like to turn to the main text for today; 1 Corinthians 13; 1-13. For anybody who does not know, this is a short quote from a long letter written by Paul to the Christian community in Corinth. Reading: 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith, so as to move mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have,
and if I deliver my body to be burned,
but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient,
love is kind;
love is not jealous or boastful;
it is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.

At weddings, this is sometimes where the reading stops. But there is more to it. It continues like this:

As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease;
as for knowledge, it will pass away.
For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect;
but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.

When I was a child, I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;
when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully,
even as I have been fully understood.
So faith, hope, love abide, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.

Paul’s letters are the earliest written records of Christian thinking. The last few verses do tell us some important things about Paul himself. The most obvious is the importance Paul placed on love. But there is more. Even although he underwent an enlightenment experience on the road to Damascus. Even though he changed from the most zealous persecutor of Christians to Jesus’ greatest apostle, his knowledge and understanding were, by his own admission, not perfect. His understanding of the spiritual essence of Jesus’ teaching, of all religious teaching, was imperfect or incomplete.

Our spiritual understanding is also imperfect. However much we study and pray and meditate it remains imperfect. Like Paul, ultimate understanding eludes us. If we do not realize this, we are practicing a very simplistic and literal form of religion.

Let us sing together the Templer Hymn, Hymn 1: Seek ye first of all God’s Kingdom. The first 2 and the last 2 verses. Verses 1,2, 9 and 10.

The story I told the kids about being shushed in the pilgrims church was true but it was only part of a bigger story. The church itself is dedicated to a young nun, Sister Catherine Laboire who, in 1830, saw three visions of Mary who told her to mint a medal encouraging believers to pray to her (Mary). The message on the medal is supposed to encourage prayer and in that way achieve world peace. Though this phenomenon of visions of the so-called Virgin Mary is a very Catholic thing, it is in some senses not totally dissimilar to the apparitions of Jesus after his crucifixion described in the gospels.

To the modern reader or thinker it is easy to dismiss the apparitions of Mary and the resurrected Jesus as projections of the mind. I recall one of our fellow elders postulating that the idea of a God separate from oneself is also a projection of the mind. Let us for the sake of the discussion accept the proposition that these experiences, vivid though they may be, and even God may indeed be projections of the mind. But if these are all projections of the mind., what then, are we to imagine, is the nature of the mind responsible for these projections? It is just too easy to attach a label like projection of the mind and use it to dismiss these concepts and phenomena as meaningless at worst, or fanciful at best. And yet they are integral to most religions and religious traditions. Can it all be nonsense?

My personal interest in this area was kindled a few years ago by a vivid dream much akin to a vision. I will come back to these so-called projections of the mind again shortly. But for a few moments let us take a different tack. Our view of the world is coloured as much as anything by our own age and stage of development. As you will no doubt realize, I stand before you as a man in his fifties. Although younger people may imagine the contrary, the fifties are for many people a time of considerable inner turbulence. Jesus who was crucified in his thirties is not known to have made any direct reference to this turbulence. In Jesus’ day many people probably did not live far into their fifties.

On the other hand, Peter O’Connor, a Melbourne Psychologist, has done considerable work on the thirties, forties and the fifties. It was Peter O’Connor who coined the term “Mid-life Crisis” for the late thirties and early forties, a time of crisis in terms of direction in life, career etc. To me his later work, described in his book, “Facing the Fifties”, is even more interesting. It deals with the turbulence of the Fifties and how it arises from the conscious mind being besieged by vivid memories of past experiences and of significant people, some of whom have since died. It is a time of awareness of loss and the inevitability of death.  O’Connor’s study was mainly with men and the situation for women in the fifties may well be quite different. I would not even go so far as to say that all men in their fifties share these experiences though I do believe that many do. And many men who discover O’Connor’s work can relate to what he describes and are helped by the way he explains the phenomena and how they will grow though the experience and come out the other side.

At this point, I would say that religion and psychology might well be thought of as overlapping spheres. Each contributes to the understanding of the human condition. They are not mutually exclusive ways of seeking to understand reality. If you want to know the details of O’Connor’s portrayal of the 50’s, you can buy the book but the point today is that much of the turbulence manifests as vivid dreams. Some of these dreams have more of an apparently religious content than others. My own vision-like dream to which I referred, was like this. I am not sure of the precise context within the dream. Perhaps I was dying, perhaps not. But I looked beside me and there stood Jesus. I was shocked and said these words which I remember clearly.

“Lord, you standing by my shoulder all the time and I had not noticed.” Although it is a simple image and my words may seem quite simplistic, to me it was a real experience of something very significant, a closeness of the divine. It was a seminal moment of my life.

Let us take the discussion a little further. How might the sightings of Jesus after his crucifixion, the visions of Mary and my vision of Jesus relate to each other? How might people’s belief in a God relate to this, if at all? In search of the answer let us look again to psychology and beyond.

Psychology does not give us absolute truths but psychologists create models such as the unconscious, which are believed to bear some relationship to some deeper reality. Religion presents us with a system of metaphors which also are not truths themselves but represent a deeper level of reality. Although not all of psychology and psychiatry emphasize the unconscious, Freud and Jung certainly do. The unconscious is not a very difficult concept to relate to and most people accept the idea in so far as they understand it. In a psychological sense, you might think of the mind as an iceberg, only a small bit, the conscious, is readily accessible to us. The rest, the unconscious, is usually hidden. In terms of scale, I think that a better metaphor is that the conscious is a fingernail, while the unconscious is the rest of the body. Now I ask you, how much can you learn of the body by studying a fingernail?

Let us return to the idea of, projections of the mind. These projections of Mary and of Jesus, and to people of other religious traditions other deities, might well be thought of as projections of the massive unconscious. We become aware of them when they are projected onto the tiny part of the mind which is the conscious. They take on a specific form which relates to the context within which we live and the framework of our understanding. They take on a form which makes sense to the tiny conscious part of our minds. But their meaning is much deeper than this.

Paul, touched upon this idea when he wrote in the same letter which we read at the beginning of the service. Reading: 1 Corinthians 3: 16-17.

Surely you know that you are God’s temple where the spirit of God dwells. Anyone who destroys God’s temple will himself be destroyed by God because the temple of God is holy and you are that temple.

As Templers, this idea is familiar. It seems to fit quite nicely with psychological theory. Considering that we now have some idea of how powerful and extensive the unconscious is, it seems reasonable to imagine that these vivid dreams and visions and ideas such as our own personal idea of God do come from the deep unconscious. But all these ideas are imperfect models and metaphors for the underlying reality which Paul and which we fail to fully comprehend. Rather than thinking of the mind as an iceberg with the greater part under the water or unconscious or even the conscious being a fingernail and the body the unconscious, let us try another metaphor.

Suppose each of us is a leaf on a tree. As leaves we are individuals. We have a size and a shape. A colour and a metabolism. We come from a bud, become green, grow then turn red or orange, die and drop. But though each leaf may not know it, we are each part of a mighty tree. If each of us is a leaf and the unconscious is the rest of the tree, these projections of the mind, of the unconscious mind, acquire even more significance. The term, projection of the mind, which at first seemed to trivialize certain phenomena and ideas and even the idea of God, now enables us to see them as outward expressions of the deeper spiritual reality.

Those of you who have read Jung will readily realize that this fits in with his concept or metaphor of the collective unconscious. He imagined a level at which the unconscious of individuals is connected together. It is sometimes said that all significant religions of the world are dipping into the same pool of deeper spiritual reality. In these metaphors which I have presented, it is the deep pool within. God is not out there somewhere to be discovered but in there somewhere to be recognised.

And when we do have insights into the deeper reality they may come in the guise of familiar religious symbols and personages. Not because these are absolute truths of spiritual reality, but because these are living metaphors from a deeper reality which our conscious minds can relate to.

(This then is the key to understanding dreams visions and all concrete attempts to understand God.)

To some of you these ideas will be quite familiar. To others they may seem unfamiliar or even unhelpful. Because they are different from how Christianity is understood by a sizable majority, they may seem at odds with Christianity or Jesus’ teachings, but I do not think that this is so.

I return to the words of Paul to the Corinthians.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully,
even as I have been fully understood.
So faith, hope, love abide, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.

You and I, like Paul, may not fully grasp the deeper reality which Jesus grasped. To us, concepts of psychology may help to some extent. But if love is our guiding principal we are on the way to a realization of what our elders of old called the Kingdom of God in our lives. And an incomplete understanding should not deter us from trying to live a Christian life. Though Paul never met Jesus in the flesh, he none-the-less had a close personal bond with Jesus. It was a bond of understanding, of common purpose and of love. He had a strong sense of the presence of Jesus in his life, almost as if he were walking beside him. We also can share that sense of divine presence.

With this in mind, I would like us to sing a traditional hymn which you may or may not be familiar with. Hymn 45: I know where I’m going.

Life is a journey. It is a journey which is not fully understood by either psychology or organised religion even if the founders of those religions, such as Jesus, may have understood it. But we as individuals can also grow in our understanding. But our growth should never be at the expense of love. We may never achieve complete spiritual understanding in this life or we may reach it on our death beds. But the value of love as a guiding principal can never be over estimated.

As Templers we have an openness to ideas and interpretation. Ours is a community of like but not identical minds. We do not expect to agree with each other on every matter of theology. It was the principal of individual religious freedom which led the Temple Society to be formed in the first place. We should never lose sight of that.

I thank you all for attending today and especially Monika for playing for us and for those who prepared the flowers and the refreshments. I leave you with a simple blessing from Paul, the architect of Christian community life.

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

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Founding Day Service 21 June Bayswater
Elder Renate Beilharz

Welcome to today’s founding day service. During today’s reflection we will be contemplating the past to find lessons for the present and future.

The confirmands have joined us for today, to allow them to experience one of our regular religious service. 18 teenagers are taking part in the confirmation sessions being offered by the TSA. 13 confirmands participate in sessions in Melbourne, 5 NSW via the computer using an online virtual classroom. We are halfway through the classes which started in April, and will culminate in two confirmation services in September, one in Bayswater and the other in Meadowbank, Sydney. Confirmation is a community event, so it is appropriate to introduce the confirmands to you all, especially as they have had an input into today’s service.

Please meet the confirmation class of 2009:

Allyson Beilharz; Krista Brown; Ruby Bulach; Kathryn Cross; Krista Imberger; James Kemper; Brayden Murrihy; Tobian Roesner; Jay Ruff; Timothy Weller; Martin Wennagel; Emma Williamson; Hannah Williamson.

Not here today, from N.S.W, are: Michael Aberle; Anneliese and Dieter Hoffmann; Kirrily Simmer and Jacob Withey.

We will start the service with the Templer Hymn, written by Christoph Hoffmann, whose ideals and ideas led to the founding of the German Temple in 1861. Because the confirmation class has joined us for the service today, and for some of our confirmands this will be the first time they have heard the hymn, we ask that you sing the hymn in English. The Templer hymn is song number 1 in the hymnbook. We will sing verses 1, 4 and 9.

These words, written in 1855, contain ideas that are still valid today 154 years later. The most obvious example is the first line of the hymn Seek ye first of all God’s Kingdom. This line from the Bible was used over one and half centuries ago, and also appears on the wall of our modern chapel.

In the hymn, we sang the following words:
Our wishing and waiting bring small consolation
With vague speculations no victory is won.
Vague and sentimental feelings of devotion won’t help here.
Let us constantly be striving lasting truth to realise.

These lines highlight a theme of this hymn: that we are called to actively strive for our aims and objectives. We should not focus on wishing and waiting, not put all our energies into devotions, rather we must work towards achieving our truth, our goal. We must do, not just think.

Throughout its history, the people who are part of the Templer community have been focussed on an active, physical, outward expression of their faith.

In June every year, we celebrate Founding day, in recognition of 19^th and 20^th June 1861, when 64 men formally founded, or created, an independent religious society under the name of "German Temple" at the Templer settlement of Kirschenhardthof in Germany. This event took place 148 years ago, and is considered a key, pivotal episode in the history of the Templer community.

There are many more events, happenings and episodes in the history of the Temple Society which are worthy of remembrance. You could say its history is full of many foundings, some more spectacular than others, but all of them significant, all of them contributing to the rich tapestry that has been the communal life of the Templers, since the first people met to discuss the religious ideas of Christoph Hoffmann in the mid 1800s, and decided to act upon them.

A fortnight ago, during the long weekend, the confirmands were introduced to the history of the Temple Society. Their responses and opinions of what they learnt are valuable and insightful, and I will be using their contribution throughout today’s contemplation.

The confirmands learnt about the many times Templers had to start a new in building up their communities and properties.

The first community was created in Kirschardthof in Germany in 1856;Templer communities or settlements were formed in USA, Russia, Palestine and Africa between 1860s and early 1900s;

• The Templer settlements in Palestine had to be rebuilt after World War 1;
• World War II brought about new challenges, requiring re-organisation of community activities behind barded wire;
• After World War II, Templer communities in Australia were developed

Some of the terms the confirmands used to describe their impression of Templers throughout the past 150 years:

• They were resilient, kept on going, never giving up
• They were adaptable and resourceful
• They were brave and risk takers
• They were organised and made the best of the situations they found themselves in

All of these qualities could be used to describe the 64 men who signed a document on June 1861, declaring the formation of the German Temple. If they had left it at that, at the words, without follow up by actions, none of us would be sitting here today, sharing in our community, sharing our ideas and thoughts, there would be no Temple Society.

Today, everyone of us here is a beneficiary of the actions undertaken by generations of Templers. I worked out that there have been about six generations of Templers that led to this generation of confirmands sitting here. And I’m not talking about the fact that many here are descendents of Templers, but rather the contributions that these generations made to the social and economic life of their communities, which has given the Temple Society is meaning and purpose, and provided the impetus for its continued existence despite displacement due to two world wars, despite economic and physical hardships and despite its non-conformist religious viewpoint.

The confirmands were asked to complete these sentence starters:

Have a think about how you would respond to these, before I give you some of the confirmands answers

• The founding of the Temple Society has influenced my life because ...
• It offers guidance in religious beliefs and also a helping hand when needed
• We wouldn’t be here
• I have met lots of nice people

The founders of the Temple Society should be thanked for ....

• Creating a friendly and safe community made up of like-minded people
• Never giving up and continuing their unique views
• For being brave and taking risks
• For keeping the community spirit alive
• For being resourceful and committed

Because of the founding of the Temple Society, we have ....

• a loving community
• a place in history
• a place to meet (halls)
• a strong community and a non-dogmatic religion

Let’s take a break from words, and sing number 63. Love is not merely a word – very appropriate to what I’ve been talking about. This is a new-ish song for our community. We sang it earlier this year in Bayswater, so some of you may remember it. It has a few bits of tricky rhythm, but Sonia has agreed to lead us through the singing.

Song number 63, all three verses. Sonia will play it through once first, so we get used to the tune.

Our reading for today is a brief parable found in Matthew, that has to do with the theme deeds not words. It will be read by......

I love this parable for many reasons, not least because both sons have their flaws, neither is perfect, jumping up immediately to help the father, which, of course, would be the ideal reaction to the father’s request. Which son are you more like? The older son, who says yes, I’ll do it, but never gets around to it? Or are you more like younger son who says no, but then rethinks and goes to help after all? Or do you jump and help immediately or on the other end of the scale completely ignore the request for help?

I can identify with both of the sons, and have a bit of both of them in me. Like the younger son, many times I have said that I would do something, but due to a myriad of excuses, have never got around to acting upon my good intentions, which, in the end, achieves very little. This is the words not deeds attitude, which get nothing done.

There’s also a fair bit of the older son in me, too. I’m a pretty organised person, and don’t like change to my plans, It makes me edgy and tense. So if someone asks me to do something which doesn’t fit into my ideas and plans for the day, my first reaction is to say ‘No, I can’t do it’. It is only after time, when I have had a chance to consider and digested the request, and in my mind rearrange my plans, that I see that I can help the person and achieve my own goals.

The older son in the parable changed his mind, his attitude towards the task changed, which then led to action on his part, which gained him the approval of his father and, in the Bible, the chief priests and leaders. Words without actions are hollow and meaningless.

There is another side to this statement, which must be considered now. Actions without a purpose, thoughtless actions, can also be hollow and meaningless.

Christine Ruff made this point beautifully at the Family Service she held in Bentleigh last week, which also focussed on the history of the Temple Society. I’d like to quote her words towards the end. I’m sure that those who were at that service won’t mind hearing it again.

When contemplating the Templer history, it is easy to focus on the actions of the founding and subsequent generations of Templers, because actions are tangible and concrete, we can see, feel experience the results of actions. The underlying philosophy, thoughts and, dare I say it, words, are a lot harder to grasp, study and understand.

So what are the core beliefs of the Temple Society? What are the values and ideals which have provided the foundation upon which the community was built and held together through many challenges for over 150 years?

Let’s start with the words of the founding generation of the Temple Society. In June 1861 the 64 men signed a statement which included the following words:

The founding generation was a very religious, spiritual group of people, who had a strong, literal faith in the Bible, including the prophesies of the Old Testament. They believed that the social problems of the time could best be solved by forming a whole new social order, gathering the people of God together to create the Kingdom of God, preferably in Jerusalem. They wished to create the spiritual Temple of God, to work towards it, not just pray for it.

As we saw, even from the start, Templer faith was based on action, not just wishing and waiting, rather doing and planning. They believed that by creating Christian communities exemplary in faith and conduct, they would lead by example, and stop humanity’s slide into godlessness. In conjunction with a strong faith in God and the Bible, they believed firmly in education for all, to strengthen the mind in all aspects of learning, not just in religion, but also in the sciences, humanities, music and the arts.

While from very early on there was strong debate and discussion on religious and faith matters, what everyone seemed to agree on was the focus on community, on working together, individuals acting in ways to benefit the community as a whole, to create God’s Temple or God’s Kingdom here on earth.

Over time, the faith of the Templers changed, this was to be expected. If people are encouraged to study, to think for themselves, to discuss religious and faith issues, to understand science, it is natural that a groups’ faith and ideals would change with the development of a different understanding of the world.

In his recollections, Gottlieb Ruff, explained that the second generation of Templers in Palestine started reading the Bible ‘in a new light’, I assume that means they started reading it in a more critical manner, as opposed to the literal belief that earlier Templers had. He said there was no lack of interest in religious discussion amongst the second generation Templers.

Mr Ruff wrote the following of his own generation, the third generation to live in Palestine: one could perhaps say that the religious aspects were pushed into the background by economic and national issues. Of our generation, as of any other, it is true to say that ‘by their fruits you will know them’ (Matthew 7:16) Mr Ruff’s generation were the ones who lead the building of the Temple Society here in Australia.

The phrase Templer community took on a new meaning in Australia. It no longer meant living together in settlements, all depending upon each other for daily survival, working, playing and praying together. Instead, the community in Australia was a support for a group of people making their way in a new land, amongst an alien culture. The Temple Society Australia provided religious, social, financial and moral support for its members. For these refugees, for that is what the Templers were, the Temple Society provided an anchor for their new lives in Australia.

In 1961, on the 100^th anniversary of the Temple Society, the following statement was made about the purpose and faith of the Temple Society by the elder Wilhelm Eppinger ... we also believe what our fathers believed, when they said that the salvation of mankind...lies in following the will of God....it is brotherly love...sacrificing oneself to ensure that God’s will is effective in the human community...I believe we are working towards God’s kingdom and preaching Christianity through action...

So even in a new country, the same core ideas formed the basis of the faith for the Temple Society: actively working together to bring about God’s kingdom for the whole of humanity. There’s still that idea that Templers can be an example to others, in how to live according to God’ will.

While the context has changed, many core beliefs and values of the Temple Society have stayed the same. There will always be debates in the Temple Society on religious and social matters, on how to organise, develop and promote the group, but the fundamental foundations of our actions remain firm, that we try to live together, work together for the common good of all humanity, to bring about a peaceful, harmonious world for all. Using the language of the Bible, we seek to create the Kingdom of God.

Today’s Bible text gives an explanation of what this may mean. It is from Luke 17:20-21.

The Kingdom of God is neither a place nor a single event. The Kingdom of God is within us, and it is up to each of use to make it a focus for all our actions, to work towards a better world for all.

I’d like to finish up today’s reflection with a onr more sentence starter, and the confirmands’ responses.

• hard work, persistence and teamwork
• working together and being organised
• being independent and resilient
• Continuing their unique views.

Please stand for the Lord’s prayer, if you are able. It will be read by ????

To finish our contemplations today, we will sing number 65, Lord let me see. This song describes some the actions we can take every day to improve the world around us. Sonja will play the tune through once before we sing all five verses.

Thank you to everyone who helped with today’s service, not least the confirmands for their participation and ideas. Have a lovely Sunday.

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Sunday Service in Tanunda 14 June
Elder Mark Herrmann

Opening CD music – Beethoven CD piece (track 5)

It is indeed a great pleasure to be back here in South Australia, the Barossa Valley and Tanunda, in particular. I’m not exactly sure when the last time was; suffice it to say it was certainly many years ago. However, that this is my first visit as Temple Society Australia Regional Head I am positive. Apart from my fellow travellers, who I shall introduce shortly, I bring with me the greetings and best wishes of the Regional Council, the Elders and all your Community friends from Melbourne.

Martina Eaton has been our paid Community Care Worker since September 2008. She converted to full-time employment with the TSA in February of this year. Already, Martina has shown herself to be capable of filling the shoes of her predecessors, Helga Anderson and Dr Irene Bouzo. And coming from outside the TSA, with a background in community care, Martina brings a fresh and different perspective to the role.

Dot Ware (nee Hoffmann) is the leader of the Welfare & Distant Focus Group, a volunteer position she has held since the inception of the activity-based Focus Group structure in 2005. The very nature of this Focus Group is the reason that Dot wanted to engage directly with some of the members and friends distant from Melbourne. She works in close cooperation with and offers considerable support to Martina. Dot is also a wonderful volunteer for our German School in Bentleigh.

Christa Lingham (also nee Hoffmann and Dot’s younger sister) may well be familiar to you from her conducting of the funeral service for Thea Frank in Murray Bridge in 2007. She readily grasped this opportunity to re-connect with some of the contacts she made at that time. Christa has been a TSA Elder for several years, regularly leading services in Melbourne and at various Country Victoria settings. She also served on the Welfare & Distant Focus Group for two years. Christa lives in Rupanyup, near Horsham, and so is nearly as close to Adelaide as she is to Melbourne.

Our plan is that Martina, Dot and Christa can each speak a little more about their roles, and how they see themselves interacting with you good people, later over a cup of tea or coffee. There will also be the possibility of speaking with any one of us individually.

I would like to begin our service this afternoon with a short verse from playwright George Bernard Shaw entitled “This is the true joy”.

“This is the true joy in life, the being used up for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish, little clod of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake.

Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

I think that Mr Shaw recognises the true worth of and passion associated with community work, acting selflessly for a good cause to benefit our fellow human beings and to set the example for others to follow. I’m not sure about his references to ‘being used up’, which shouldn’t be taken too literally, but rather to keep contributing as much as one conveniently can.

Our text for today comes from the Letter of James, which was thought by the early church to have been written by the apostle James, the brother of Jesus, to a predominantly Jewish audience. Some think it could be the earliest of all the New Testament writings, with perhaps the exception of Galatians.

Reading from Chapter 2, Verses 14-18... Good News Bible

Coincidentally, I was allocated the same text for a Founding Day Service at Bentleigh three years ago. At that time I spoke about the sacrifices made by the founding generations in migrating to Palestine and tried to think about it, with great difficulty I might add, in today’s terms. Of interest, perhaps, is that the TSA is planning a seminar in early-August to consider the challenges and changes the Temple Society has faced and overcome. Significant incidents in our history (including the effects of the World Wars and the split between founders Georg David Hardegg and Christoph Hoffmann) will be outlined and questions – like were the challenges overcome and, if so, how? what changes were necessary? what part did belief play? did our belief change? – such questions will be posed and discussed. In trying to understand the motivation behind the actions of the founders, I reached a compromise by utilising words of Dr Richard Hoffmann written in 1972. He wrote and I paraphrase: “… we still believe that the way is for every individual to reflect on the meaning of Jesus Christ’s simple message and to strive to live according to it. Today – admittedly being from 37 years ago – we speak of creating and spreading a Christian attitude and community.”

My questions are not with the creating, but with the spreading. If our principles are deemed appealing and able to be personally applied, why haven’t more adherents from outside come on board? Is it that some are denied the opportunity of access? Sad, yet for a variety of reasons understandable. Is it that others either see no need to join – it would certainly 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 less than open and inclusive enough to outsiders?

In the end section of Part 1 of Occident and Orient – The Temple Society and its Settlements in the Holy Land – Christoph Hoffmann wrote: “This account of the history and 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).”

We therefore arrive back at that part of today’s Bible text.

Hymn #36 – God, you call for faithful service (4 verses)
I think George Bernard Shaw would have approved of the words and sentiments of this hymn!

‘I will show you my faith by my actions’. Similarly, I can reveal my identity and character – my ability to display compassion, provide support for others and engage as a true friend – by how I conduct myself in daily life, in a range of circumstances and situations.

Conscious of the fine work we do for our own, what does the Temple Society as a group of action contribute to the wider community? It is the task of us all to assess the community need and endeavour to react to it. It is what the Government does (I think!), it is what Society in general does – through the likes of the Salvation Army and Red Cross – and it should be what the Temple Society does. A ‘good’, recent example is the unparalleled support offered, at so many levels Australia-wide, to victims of the horrific Victorian bushfires in February. I like to think that we – the Temple Society – certainly played our part. But, this could be construed as an exceptional event. Collectively, do we regularly play our part and do our share in the wider community or, with our finite human resource base, are we fully consumed in serving ourselves internally?

As a relatively small Society, we conduct health-focussed seminars and community service information days, we offer German language classes, we allocate service collections to worthy causes, our aged care facilities serve as an outstanding model in catering for the care needs of many frail and elderly, we contribute to specific clothing and food appeals, we invite participation from local teenagers to our youth activities – for all functions, members of the wider community are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Do we do enough? That is always going to be difficult to gauge, because a sense of being able to do more constantly pervades. Naturally, we should also be mindful of the individual contributions made by members and friends in their own right. Often, living in distant environments without an immediate or direct Templer link, this creates opportunities for persons to lead by example and actively serve within their local community. These deeds and actions reflect what has shaped them, including relationships, the effects of school and work and perhaps religion, and also the impact of the wider culture in which they live.

According to Marcus Borg, active member of the Jesus Seminar, best-selling author and popular speaker who increasingly focuses on the topic of how to be a true Christian in the contemporary world, believes culture has a powerful effect on us. He writes, “Our culture bombards us with messages that shape our sense of who we are and what is worth valuing. In the United States, the central values of our culture are the ‘three A’s’: attractiveness, achievement and affluence.”

In stark contrast, Borg also makes reference to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s searching poem “Who Am I?” written in March 1946 while in a Nazi prison. Bonhoeffer, a young theologian of great promise, was martyred by the Nazis for his participation in a plot against the life of Adolf Hitler. In the challenging context of the Third Reich, Bonhoeffer clearly demonstrated that theological thought and personal life are connected. His writings have greatly influenced recent theological thought.

Who am I? They often tell me
I stepped from my cell’s confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
Like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly,
As though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bore the days of misfortune
Equally, smilingly, proudly,
Like one accustomed to win.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
Yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, O God, I am Thine!

Please stand for prayer if you can comfortably do so:
Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts become your words
Keep your words positive, because your words become your actions
Keep your actions positive, because your actions become your habits
Keep your habits positive, because your habits become your values
Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny

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 end 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

Closing CD music – Molter CD piece (track 14)

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Sunday Service, SS & Community Afternoon in Bentleigh, 24 May
Elder Christa Lingham

Welcome.

Our text is today is taken from Job Chapter 3 verses 20- 26

Why does God let me live when life is miserable and so bitter?
I keep longing for death more than I would seek a valuable treasure.
Nothing could make me happier than to be in the grave.
Why do I go on living when God has me surrounded and I can't see the road?
Moaning and groaning are my food and drink, and my worst fears have come true
I have no peace or rest- only troubles and worries

Some today’s service has been inspired by parts of two radio programs I accidently listened– both first aired on Radio National earlier this year.
Our first hymn is Trachtet Ruft – Hymn no 1 verses 1 &10

Job has shows a different view of God in the Old Testament than that has been shown previously. Job to me is about keeping faith in adverse times. Some call it the book to explain to us why bad things happen to good People. It comes from the notion that if we do everything and behave in the way God wants us to – then he will be good to us. The bad things or experiences we have are explained as being punishment for our sins. To be in keeping with the notion that bad things happen as punishment wrong doing or sin was expanded to thoughts as well as action (as in sinful thoughts.) It was the only way it made sense to many people (Well they always appeared o b living the correct way -so they must have bad thoughts).

But this reading depends on you view of God. Job – for me is all about keeping faith in the difficult and challenging times of our life. The recent bush fires – now over 100 days ago again challenges greatly the notion that all people who suffer loss, trauma and ill health have sinned against God

For the majority of the bible's history, the Bible was treated to be God's revealed words. It was the truth and all in it was absolute. It was the thought that one's salvation depended on knowing precisely 'this word of God' understanding it correctly and arranging one's life accordingly. The God portrayed in the earlier books in the Old Testament is a complex character - a vengeful, zealous God who, above all, demands ritual obedience, to also a forgiving God, who does not demand sacrifices, but makes moral demands, from a God who fairly rewards good people and punishes the bad, to one whose justice and love reaches beyond death.

As we read the bible the understanding that people of God changes over time. I was pondering this and the different concepts of people have of God from the vengeful god to the God of Love that we learn about from Jesus. In particular it was the concept of a vengeful God, a God of retribution that Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens have or (talk about) when they refute the possibility of their even being a God. The God they see is a vindictive, bloodthirsty God, and also the impossibility in a scientific age, to talk about a God that creates natural disasters as punishment and intervenes from outside the world.

This is a God – though I can’t clearly articulate what I feel about God – I couldn’t recognise and not one in whom I could believe. Unsurprisingly perhaps it is a God that is recognisable to those of more fundamental beliefs for whom the bible is the infallible word of God. In fact there are people who can describe god to you – down to the very last detail. It was then with these ambiguous thoughts – wondering how people can have this notion of god in a human when I heard an interview with the theologian Val Webb on her new book Like Catching Water in a Net: Human Attempts to Describe the Divine. I love the title of the book because I think it reflects the difficulty in describing what I feel God is and thus the basis for my faith.

Val Webb pointed out that in the two other religions based on the monotheistic God there is a prohibition on depicting the likeness of God. Both in the Jewish tradition and the Islamic faith – it is expressly forbidden. It is only in the Christian tradition that this was “forgotten”.

In the first appearance of God in Genesis he was a breath of wind and later to Moses he appeared as burning bush – in fact all through the bible – God may speak but he is never seen – you never see his face – in fact it saying you can never know God. In the story of Moses we have the worship of the golden Calf – remember when Moses returns with the ten commandments to find the people were worshiping the golden calf and how they were punished. God was to be an unknown – unseen being.

In Islam too – the tradition remains that God cannot be depicted, they get around this by using beautiful calligraphy and decorations in the mosque and they way in their art they use geometric designs and in the natural objects such as flowers and trees. These things again, represent the divine, in that it's the divine creator of nature and the divine creator of the universe geometrically and ordered universe. And of course the carefully crafted mistake – as no human can ever create anything perfect – that is Gods realm.

In our tradition of depicting God as a male human through art and literature it can actually limit our understanding of God. Jesus using the term Father too helps with this humanising or anthropomorphising of God. In the town where I live I often tease a retired minister with reflections of the interventionist God such as rain being a reward for faith – and always get told that that is bad theology. It is of course – because God is not man like. This actually limits us in our understanding of God – or ways of thinking about God. It automatically makes us want to believe or expect that God behaves in a human way. I don’t believe that there is a God out there that judges us and intervenes in our daily lives. I may talk that way at times – but as I keep getting told - it is bad theology. I noted before the term Father (or Mother if you want) also is difficult because of tending to regard as human – but as parents are not infallible – they make mistakes, they are sometimes not rational in their thought – so maybe we should not regard God as being infallible. The difficulty I always had is that if God was person there was no way he could keep up with all the demands and requests (often conflicting) that were being made. Just consider two warring nations both imploring and praying to God for victory. The closest I can get to perhaps describing my notion of God is to look at nature and the world. He is everywhere and in everything and that in the bible we may find perhaps a guide for how we should live. I would like to quote Val Webb on this – she was here responding to the challenge that there is no God:

“While Dawkins and Hitchens are justified in their challenges to a desert tribal God and
offended, medieval feudal Lord, the only alternative is not their “no-God-at-all” conclusion, but rather an openness to new ways to think and talk about the Something More in light of current knowledge and experience -- how the Sacred is evidenced (or not at all) within our world today. The Bible is a guide in this but not an eternal archetype into which all contemporary experience and knowledge must fit. When today’s questions demand different answers from those of Biblical times, such answers are not rebellion or heresy but an acknowledgement of contemporary encounters with - What inspired our ancestors in their day? The question is … can we live with such openness to the new? I can, because I can do no other. It is the way I live with everything else, an ongoing juggling of a few certain facts, constant new experiences, diverse opinions, and faith in many things, some scientifically verifiable and others not -- it is the adventure of being alive.”

Why does God let me live when life is miserable and so bitter?
I keep longing for death more than I would seek a valuable treasure.
Nothing could make me happier than to be in the grave.
Why do I go on living when God has me surrounded and I can't see the road?
Moaning and groaning are my food and drink, and my worst fears have come true
I have no peace or rest- only troubles and worries

The initial feeling I got from the text was that the suffering due to illness got too much and it was a plea for being allowed to die. The physical pain becomes too much to bear, the struggle for breath, when every moment only seems to taken up with clinging to life. It would be a real release to be allowed to die and leave the physical suffering behind.

We all have times when we find it difficult to cope with all that life brings. Remember Jesus' words on the cross as reported in Mark 15 33
"My God, my God why have you deserted me?"

However suffering and adversity is much broader that - there is the mental anguish that people experience in times stress and mental illness. Depression too, can make you feel that way. At its worst point everything can seem too hard to cope with and there seems to be no reason to keep living. Physically you may feel fine but again the way your mind works there is no way out - and again ending it all seems to be the only way out. It can by many be expressed as the longing for death - as the only way to achieve peace of mind

The text to me is not about why we have suffering in the world, but really our response to suffering and pain. Suffering does not fit within our idea of what may be moral or justice. Centuries of religious and secular thought have not been able to explain why people suffer – in particular why good people suffer. We need to find someone – or something to blame for our pain. Suffering is beyond human understanding. I don’t believe that God causes suffering – any more than I believe God sends natural disasters or illness to test us or to punish us. People do cause suffering to others for what appears to be good reasons to them (torture, war, etc). Why do people behave that way, I don’t know – not because of God I don’t ascribe human feelings or emotions to God – which is why I spent time on trying to express my view of God.

One early interpretation of Job (from a 12th century Jewish philosopher Maimonides) was that suffering occurs to loosen you grip on the material world and to make us more connected or focused on the spiritual world. Suffering is not actually punishment, but designed to make us reflect on our spiritual relationship with God. We need to get past the notion that God punishes us for doing something wrong and that we bring misfortune on ourselves. This is not easy for we are human and want an explanation of why the innocent suffer.

When you suffer you should remember that suffering does not mean that God’s love has been destroyed. But what is at the heart of the Book of Job is that no matter what is thrown at Job, no matter what affliction befell him, he did not give up his faith in God, he did not give up his belief that God loved him and knew him and cared for him - even though it made no sense intellectually. In his spirit and in his heart, he knew that God continued to love him. Job’s response was that with his faith in God that he would get through the suffering.

Centuries of reflection, theology and philosophy can only take us so far - in the end the meaning of suffering lies in the experience itself. One interpretation is that suffering is what makes us human. Suffering is a profound experience and one way of thinking about it is that it make life more meaningful – or may be not more meaningful but more alive (makes you feel more alive). In some circumstances where the suffering is short term or when there is a break you can feel more alive. It is almost if you appreciate life more. Often people will mention that trifling matters no longer annoy them, as in the scheme of things these are no longer important. i.e. noted before it takes the emphasis off the material parts of life and onto the more spiritual

It is impossible to explain why the innocent suffer, as much as we would like to. I think it important not to spend time talking about the why of suffering – but on our response to it. How to get through the difficult times is important. The response to suffering seems to range from complete loss of faith – the focus here is on why. For example a devout woman whose child is killed and then loses belief in God. She couldn’t understand why a God, who supposedly loved her, took her child and made her suffer. I wonder if this attitude does not come from how you view God – I was good, I believed in you, yet you made me suffer. That is not in our pact, so now I denounce my faith. Yet if we take the view that people cause the suffering to others – then there is no challenge to our faith. So it comes down to how we see our relationship with God. The above example can be made slightly different, in a former minister who loses a child in a terrorist attack and then renounces her faith because she believes she could not forgive the killers of her child and could not see how she could ever learn to forgive them. Both of these responses are legitimate responses to suffering. Forgiveness although it outside this discussion is something I believe we do for ourselves – to allow us to move on and lead constructive lives. If the suffering is brought on by another’s act (torture, murder etc) or even act we believe we did to ourselves (illness) then forgiveness of the other or ourselves may be necessary response to deal with the pain.

Responses to suffering vary greatly and it is amazing what some people do out of grief and suffering. Just the other day I heard an appeal by a lady who had lost her son, daughter in law and grandchildren in the recent Bushfires. Her response was that out of her suffering there had to be some good. So she has started a foundation in honour of her grandchildren to help the future young people of the community where they lived. It made me think how often the response of families to suffering is to start a foundation or cause to help others, so they do not necessarily have to go through what they had to – or to give some assistance to those people. There are numerous charitable trusts that have begun, for example McGrath Foundation, Alana and Madeline Foundation, Ilhan Food Allergy Foundation, because people need to feel that they are doing something to overcome their adversity or to help others.

Another response to suffering may be on a spiritual level. Havi Carel is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the West of England in Bristol; the author of a book entitled Illness and also has an incurable illness. Although not having a faith she mentions that dealing with the illness has had a spiritual response: I quote

But I do feel there is a spiritual response that is quite subtle. It's not that I felt I sort of developed a new dimension to my life, but it certainly makes you be more thoughtful, maybe pay more attention to smaller things, and maybe learn to cultivate a sense of wellbeing that isn't, obviously isn't physical wellbeing. And these are not actually just psychological, but is something I would call spiritual, so you feel you know your place in the world, you feel you're sort of attuned to what's happening to you, you feel more at peace with yourself - and that does certainly have a spiritual dimension to it that I don't think I paid much attention to before.

The responses to difficult times in our lives as seen above are varied and valid to those people. Once we get past the why me question – I don’t think we would be human if we didn’t have that response – we need to work out how to deal with it. And I have found in a difficult time dealing with illness of a child that I had to be careful how framed my response. Prayer is useful – and prayers have proven to assist and benefit those who have a faith base. But I found that how I prayed – do I pray for the return to health or do I pray for the strength to cope actually made me question how I saw God and what I expected from my belief in God. The answer for me was to pray for strength to cope. To find that bit extra within me to keep going. For each of us the answer is will be different.

I have a tale that explores response to adversity:

The questions to be asked by the story are:
Is my faith like a carrot that appears strong, but under adversity and suffering do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?

Is my faith like that of an egg - a bit fluid and malleable on the inside of a hard shell but when faced with tough times do I become hardened (dogmatic) and brittle, stiff - and may be no longer being able to believe. Do I look the same on the outside but with a stiff spirit and hardened heart?

Or is my faith like that of coffee beans and change with adversity and suffering and come out the other end with a stronger spirit and faith. If you are the like the coffee beans which actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that causes the pain. It means that when things are at the worst you get better and change the situation around you. When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest, can you find it within your faith to elevate yourself to another level?

Trying to find that inner strength is the difficult part. It may makes us question the nature of our faith, but then it may give us the insight that with a slight twist, rethink or even deeper reflection that within ourselves we can become stronger. This is not necessarily a physical change but can be a mental change in outlook. It may be accepting the suffering and working through it. It can be with prayer and as I mentioned previously what you expect from the prayer that can be crucial. Prayer can be your own words, or it may be formal out varou prayer collections, or biblical sources such as the psalms or the Lords Prayer

This prayer is taken from a prayer collection for progressive Christians and may help. Please stand if you are able
O deep mystery, vital centre of our lives,
we know your presence is not called up by much speaking.
Rather may we honour your presentness
in the absence of noise,
in the promise of the morning,
in the dancing brightness of the sun?
We are struck in awe before the great mystery of the cosmos.
We are powerfully moved by a deep concern for our world
and our care for one another.
May ours be a faith that is more than words and ideals.
May ours be a faith of vitality and compassion.
(Silence)
We lament
that there are many people in the world who are burdened
by hunger and pain,
by sorrow and anxiety,
by violence and loss.
(Silence)
May they find comfort and peace,
and may their burdens be lifted from them
by our actions as peacemakers and doers of justice.
(Silence)
May we find it in ourselves today to work toward a better world?
May we make use of that energy to take part in the lifting of burdens?
May our gratitude find expression in the care of others, both near and far?
May we find ways to live and grow on the margins?
May we leave behind us a trail of encouragement and hope?
And having spoken much, perhaps too much...
Now without a word
we rest in your Eternal Presentness.
This is our prayer.
Followed by the Lord’s Prayer

The lesson of Job is really to let the faithful know that life will bring adversity, it is not a result of punishment, but continuing belief and faith in God will help you through it. Faith will allow you to change the way you look at the problem and in some way change it and be a stronger person. Through all adversity God is to be trusted and in this vision or faith the sufferer may find rest. It is also a lesson to all cynical unbelievers that disinterested service to God can help to live a higher life in spite of loss and suffering. Through this we may find our lives enriched, if not physically perhaps spiritually, twice over

We will with our last hymn is Befiel du deine Wege (Commit whatever grieves you) - hymn no15 verses 1, 2 and 7 and 8

References
Prayer - Rex AE Hunt - Prayers for Progressive Christians www.rexaehuntprogressive.com/prayer _collection
Radio National
Encounter – Ashes 8 March 2009
Religion Report - Val Webb 21 February 2009

Easter Sunday Service in Bentleigh 12 April 2009
Elder: Renate Beilharz
Pianist: Monika Strasser

Songs: Lord of the morning (88)
Ostern verkündet die Hoffnung (67)

First slide

Welcome to today’s Easter Sunday service. I have the privilege of leading you in today’s contemplation of an event in the Christian calendar which is redolent with imagery, symbolism, mythology, tradition and faith, most of it bound up with the themes of hope, new beginnings and new life.

Second slide

We will start with a new song out of our hymnbook called Lord of the Morning, song number 67.

Before we sing, I’d like to us to contemplate the word of the song. So please open to number 67, and follow the words as I read them to you.

Read verse 1
This verse sets the scene. It puts us into the present moment, into the now: the new morning, the new day and settling our minds into stillness, ready for contemplation.

Read verse 2
We are now experiencing the moment, the now, with all our senses, not just the physical sense of sight, but also our spiritual senses of our mind and soul.

Read verse 3
This is the asking, petitioning verse, asking to be shown and understand. This one is our prayer for the start of today’s contemplation.

Monika will play the simple tune to us once through first, and then we will sing all three verses.

I think everyone of us could list numerous symbols that have come to be synonymous with Easter. Some symbols have been used in pre-Christian eras, for example the egg as a symbol of fertility and new life. Other symbols are directly related to the Christian Easter story, like the Cross or the empty grave, about which we just sang. While others are a lot more recent, for example in Australia the Bilby has been introduced as an alternative to the Easter bunny.

For the children and young at heart I now have a story which introduces the bilby as an Easter symbol.

4- 22 slide Read The Smallest Bilby and the Easter games.

While this was just a story, it ends with a very relevant Easter message – ‘and there was a whole new wonderful beginning.’

(Sunday school children leave)

Turn off projector

Last service I held was here in Bentleigh at Christmas. You know, it doesn’t seem that long ago, I hardly feel as if I have settled into 2009, and it is already time to celebrate another key event in the Christian calendar – Easter.

The Christmas and Easter celebrations have many parallels, and, when contemplating today’s Easter service I found myself drawn back to similar themes and ideas I thought about at Christmas.

Christmas and Easter ‘book-end’ the earthly life of Jesus: his birth and his death. And for me, in both cases, the essential part of the Jesus’ life is not the start and the end, but his philosophy that he lived and taught during his years as an itinerant preacher.

In both cases, I have difficulty with a literal belief in the stories as we read them in the gospels, and find myself reading them using my logic, my experience and my sense to find a meaning or message in them that I can take into my daily life.

Both Easter and Christmas have traditions that link back to the pre-Christian era. In both cases the pagan rituals, which related to the cycle of the seasons, have been incorporated into the Christian celebrations which correspond with the time of year.

Both Easter and Christmas have generated more modern and secularised traditions, such as Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny. The number of new stories about these mythical characters is ever growing. We just heard one example of a story which evolved out a relatively new folk story, the Easter Bilby. The idea of an Easter Bilby grew out of the endangered status of this Australian mammal, and was used to generate fund for the Save the Bilby Fund. It has grown significantly, and while it has not overtaken the chocolate Easter bunny yet, it has gained quite a following in any families, including mine, where the Easter bilby graces our table, not the bunny.

Christmas is a time of gift giving, as is Easter, which is, of course, centred on eggs and chocolate, although the shops try very hard to encourage us to give other gifts at Easter as well. As a result of this, both events have become commercialised to encourage spending and consumerism, which according to Mr Rudd, is good for the economy, and just what we need to get us out of the current recession.

Individual families have their own traditions of what they do at Christmas and Easter. These re-occurring traditions give children, and adults, a sense of continuity and security. Like at Christmas, all of us have our annual traditions, which we like to maintain, at this time of year. Whether it be to hide eggs for children, decorate hard-boiled eggs, play games with eggs (Eier-rugeln is our family’s special event). Did anyone watch the short documentary on SBS on Friday evening called: Frohe Ostern. Happy Easter. This was about a group of German families who have been camping at Yarrawonga at the same place for 20 years, and the traditions which have developed over the years, which are being carried on by the second and third generations. The theme was very much about the upholding of customs, and the sense continuity it brings to all the participants.

Both Christmas and Easter are sensory celebrations. There are special foods to eat, smells associated with the celebrations, decorations to put up for our visual pleasure, sounds that we associate with each celebration.

At the last Christmas’ service, I encouraged everyone to approach Christmas with a child-like attitude, to enjoy the celebration of traditions. The same can be said of Easter. We should approach it with a child-like attitude, enjoy the moment, the sensation and celebrate life, after all that is what Easter is all about celebration of life.

But I won’t end today’s contemplation on that note. I think there is more to Easter than traditions and celebrations, than eggs, chocolate and good food and company. There is a depth to the Easter story which cannot be ignored, and must be considered. Easter touches on a core aspect of our humanity – our life and death and after-life. It is not just a topic dealt with by religions and faiths, but appears in popular culture – literature, motion pictures and music. In the next section of the service talk I’ll be quoting from various authors, musicians and even from a movie. These are all phrases that popped into my mind, while thinking about this service. It really surprised me how much the topic of life and death was reflected in these mediums.

Easter is a story of death and despair, of rebirth, renewal and hope. Easter Sunday is the day we continue our reflection on the last days of Jesus, begun with Good Friday where the focus was on his physical death on the cross at the command of the Jewish and Roman authorities in Rome.

Today’s Bible text tells a version of an empty grave found by Mary and some disciples, and the subsequent appearances of Jesus to Mary. I will now read John Chapter 20, verses 1-18 from the Good News Bible.

This is the resurrection story, a core tenet in most mainstream Christian denominations.

Whether you believe that Jesus resurrected bodily, or whether he came back as a spirit or ghost or that it as all a figment of the follower’s imagination or even hadn’t died in the first place, the perceived ‘resurrection’ event is significant as it gave his followers the hope they required to continue in Jesus’ footsteps, to ensure that the lessons they learnt at his feet did not disappear into history.

I’d like to read to you from a version of the Bible story, extracts from this book by Walter Wangerin, called The Book of God: the Bible as a novel. He writes vividly how he imagines the emotions of the key players in events after Jesus’ entombment on Friday.

These disciples of Jesus had no hope left. It was only during the subsequent weeks, with the various visitations or appearances of Jesus, that they developed the confidence to take over where Jesus left off, to teach as Jesus had taught. It is only through their belief in Jesus’ resurrection that we, 2000 years later have any knowledge of Jesus; none of Jesus’ teaching would have been passed down to us for contemplation. While we may not believe the mythology the church structure has woven around Jesus in those years, the core of the faith of Jesus, is still there for us to study and learn from.

Easter was a time of growing hope for the disciples. Our next song expands on this theme of hope. Unfortunately the words are only available in German, but the tune would be familiar to most. The text of the song, Ostern verkündet die Hoffnung. Easter announces hope, focuses on the hope that the Easter story gives everyone; in specific, the hope that life will always triumph over death. Through love and faith death can be overcome. We will now sing number 88, Ostern verkündet die Hoffnung.

This song was written by a Templer, Erich Bergman. He reflects his belief and those of many other Templers of his time. But, I personally have difficulty taking the words of this song literally. I do not believe that death can be overcome, nor do I want eternal life.

The first line of the song, Easter announces the hope for eternal life, really bothers me at face value. I do not want eternal life here in this world at this time. Of course, ideally I’d like my life to end when I am ready, but I need to know that there is an ending, a finish to this life I am in now. I need to know that at some stage my role in this life has to end. Why do I think this? To explain, I have to confess my fascination with fantasy novels. In any novel I have read, where there are some immortal characters, whether gods, elves or vampires, all of them get tired and lose interest in life, they lose the ability to have highs and lows, to get excited over events, they become blasé and bored, because they have experienced all. Stephenie Meyers, in Midnight Sun, has her immortal vampire character, Edmund, comment “I do not think that any member of my family would hesitate if we were offered a chance back – if she or he could trade immortality for mortality again ... we would trade anything to be human.” Arwen, in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, gives up her immortality to stay with the mortal man she loves. Life is about opposites, and about contrast, without sad time, you cannot appreciate happy times, without loss, you cannot appreciate gain, without death, you cannot appreciate life.

But the song probably does not refer to a literal eternal life in our current form or state. It more likely refers to some form of life after death, possibly a spiritual existence. What form that could take no one knows for sure, though many people have personal beliefs based on their own experience or their faith.

Every faith or religion has its own explanation of the purpose of life here on earth; each one tries to explain death and what happens to a person’s soul after death. Most religions teach that what will happen in the next life, whether you end up in a heaven or in a hell, or reincarnate as a higher or lower being, is dependent upon your behaviours in this life. So, according to organised religion, even in the afterlife, the essential element is how our current life has been lived.

My own thoughts or belief about death and life after death are still developing, but currently I have gut feeling that through death, I will get to become one with the God power, that my soul will merge with other souls, and become part of the power of the universe, God if you will, just as my body become part of the physical nature cycle, by returning to the earth. How much of my current life is retained or relevant after my death, I don’t know, but just in case, I will try to be good.

The seventies song, And when I die by Blood, Sweat and Tears comes to mind at this stage:
Swear there ain't no heaven and I pray there ain't no hell,
But I'll never know by living, only my dying will tell.
They also have the chorus line:
And when I die, and when I'm gone,
There'll be one child born
In this world to carry on,
to carry on.

This is the hope of Easter that after death comes growth, renewal and development. This fits in with another idea that is in my mind, that life, as we know it, depends on death, without it, growth and development cannot occur. If the leaders of our communities, our societies never grew old, then progress and change would not occur. It through change, that growth occurs.

This is seen in nature all around us. Without the dying of a day, another new day cannot begin. Without winter, spring cannot appear, nor can the bounty of an autumn harvest the passing of summer. Life will always triumph eventually over death, though maybe not in a form that we expect or even understand. The line from Star Trek, uttered by Captain Kirk kept coming into my mind when thinking about today’s service ‘It’s life Jim, but not as we know it.’ We really have no idea what other forms of ‘life’ may be awaiting us in the future.

A very real, current example of nature’s ability to renew itself, even if not is the same form as before, can be seen in the areas that have been devastated by bushfires. I have spent the last three years watching the regrowth of the bush at Mt Buller and in the Alpine country after the 2007 fires. In some areas where the fire killed all the trees completely, new types of vegetation have grown, not the trees that were there originally, but different natural vegetation, which now flourishes in areas where before it had no chance. In other areas, the trees themselves are starting to regrow, with many of them looking like they have a green fur, rather than branches, twigs and leaves, they have had a rebirth, but in a different shape than before.

It reminds me of the words of the Moody Blues song:
Listen to the tide slowly turning
Wash all our heartaches away
We're part of the fire that is burning
And from the ashes we can build another day

Turn on projector

Let us pray,

Dear God,
On this Easter Sunday we have reflected on the Easter message of hope, of regrowth and rebirth. On this day we celebrate of our existence and death and we celebrate the cycles of nature and existence.
We also remember all the people and communities who were affected by the bushfires earlier this year, and think of them as they slowly rebuild their lives, overcoming loss of family friends and property. We pray that they grow happy and content in the new life that they a creating for themselves, with the help of the wider community.

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed your name,
Your Kingdom come,
You will be done on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins,
As we for give 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.

The areas burnt this year in the Kinglake area are already beginning to show signs of life, even in the areas totally blackened by the hot fires. While Monika finished our service with music, I will show a few pictures my sister took last weekend.

Before we move off for morning tea, I would like to sincerely thank every one who helped prepare this service, by setting up the chairs, doing the flowers, helping me with the projector and preparing the morning tea. I also acknowledge the help, support and patience of my family: Tony, Ingrid, Lisa and Martin during my preparation of this service.

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Agape Service in Bayswater 9 April
Elder: Herta Uhlherr

Music: CDs and singing
Meal: Renate Weber (9 people present, some or our regulars were in Stuttgart)
CD – Deller: ‘Lamentations’ by John Tallis

Welcome to this evening’s celebration of the 3Gs – Gedenken – remembrance, Gebet – prayer, silent contemplation and music, and Gemeinschaft – experiencing fellowship in the spirit of agape, compassionate love, the foundation of all good human relations.
We’ll begin by listening to Be still, for the presence of the Lord is here, to settle into, hopefully, an awareness of Presence, shining light (glory), power…
CD – Aled Jones, ‘Higher’ – Tk. 9 (3:02 mins) Be still for the presence
Let us open our hearts and minds to experience the deeper dimension of spirit… and sing the simple chant-like psalm verse: Be still and know that I am God – No. 14 – focus on the words… we’ll sing the first verse three times – shut your eyes: where is the I AM … where is God?
Sing; No. 14 Be still and know that I am God

1. Remembrance – Gedenken
Our Agape gathering, like that which will take place in Stuttgart in a few hours’ time, goes right back to the early Christians. In Acts 2:42, Luke writes: ‘They met regularly to hear the apostles teach, and to share communal life, to break bread together and to pray’. They remembered their friend and Master, Jesus. Telling the story of his life and teachings again and again, with words, symbols and music, keeps the memory of it alive. And it helps illuminate the stories of our own individual lives, and it bonds us together, so it’s good that we still do it. Notice our olive branch symbol of peace, our connection to Palestine and to Jesus’ time.
Among the collection of teachings strung together in the Sermon on the Mount are the so-called Beatitudes (Matt.5): blessed are the poor in spirit, the kingdom of God is theirs, blessed are the gentle…, those that mourn, they will be consoled, the merciful, they shall be shown mercy… – eight ways of being or behaving that promote the kingdom of God that we are asked to ‘set our minds on before everything else.’ Let us recall this teaching with a short piece of music, whose refrain ties in with the theme of presence: Be still and know: when you gather in my name, I am with you.
CD – ‘Biscantora’ – Tk. 14 (1:53 mins) Amen, truly I say to you
(Show towel and basin) Imagine: We are gathered in the ‘upper room’ and Jesus has a towel round his waist; he’s crouching down washing our feet (– I feel embarrassed) and he’s telling us to do the same. How strange: our teacher, our Master, is behaving like our servant. He once said: ‘Blessed are you if you do these things’.
May we take care of one another tenderly, and receive another’s care of us graciously, and show our love for one another, so that everyone may know that we are his followers: gentle, peaceable, compassionate and patient – help us remember your example.

2. Prayer – Gebet
We know that Jesus often withdrew to pray – to draw strength from the divine Power within and around him (and us) – ‘I and the Father are one’. Do we take time to be still and to connect consciously with that Power? I know from my own experience that prayer, stillness, awareness, recalling our oneness with the unifying creative Power of the universe can empower us to carry on to do our best, to keep loving, to be patient and gentle, and do what needs doing. Most of us have had times of crisis when our prayers for guidance or relief have come out as screams., and when turmoil threatened to overwhelm us – we remember Jesus’s dark night of the soul in the Garden of Gethsemane, and that his friends, whom he had asked for support, fell asleep as he agonized a little way off. He had said, ‘stay here and keep watch with me, watch and pray’. – If we are OK at the moment, do we know of someone who urgently needs support?... Let us send them light, energy for their highest good – to uphold them, or to allow them to let go, whatever is best for their soul’s journey.
CD – Amici – Lux eterna Tk.9 (4:15) – may eternal light and peace be granted
Light tapers, pass on the light, place tapers in sandbox (They were reflected all around us.)
Wanting fervently what is best for another – regardless of the impact on what we want – is part of agape, of selfless, unconditional love, or – the ‘will of God’ whose essence is loving, uniting Energy.

‘Jedes Mal, wenn Liebe von dir auf einen anderen übergeht, dann strömt dein Segen auf ihn. In sich Liebe zu tragen, ist der größte Segen. Diese Liebe an alle Geschöpfe Gottes weiterzugeben, heißt Segen aussenden, Licht in die Finsternis bringen… wozu uns Gott bestimmte. Liebe allein hält alles im Leben zusammen. Wo immer der Strom der Liebe fließt, erleben wir den lebendigen Gott.’ (S. Jesudian, – condensed aus B. Hoffmann’s Agape 2000)

Every time you love someone – any of God’s creatures – you bless them. Carrying love in your heart is the greatest blessing, it brings light into darkness, which we are meant to do. It is love alone that holds everything together. Whenever the stream of love flows, we experience the living God. – Is that true for us?

As we listen to Ubi caritas et amor, think of where your love flows, … where love for you flows from, and imagine connections of divine light and joy around you… Send blessing and feel blessed; be happy and thankful.
CD – Ubi caritas et amor .. deus ibi est. Where there is love, there God is. ‘Voices of Silence’, Tk. 11, 2:28.
Before we move on to the next section, a little prayer from Leunig:
‘Love one another and you will be happy. It’s as simple and as difficult as that. There is no other way. Amen.’

3. Community – Gemeinschaft
As we heard earlier ‘Truly I say to you: when you gather in my name I am with you’. We welcome the spirit of Jesus and his example, and remember that eating a meal together nurtures community, tolerance and friendship. In almost all cultures, hospitality is/was considered a sacred duty; in the desert or the bush it’s a matter of survival that you offer any strangers or travellers at least a drink of water, or a cup of tea. Apart from helping them survive, it brought you news from the outside world, or from somewhere else. The Beilharz-Smythes come to mind, on their guided trip into the Jordanian Wadi Rum desert, where they were given very sweet tea by the Bedouins who asked had it rained in the mountains around Jerusalem (see April 2009 TR, page 20… Istanbulletin).
Eating together shows that you are willing to share – not just your food, but your time, your good experiences, your problems, perhaps. Maybe this explains why Agape meals were among the first events celebrated in the early Christian communities – the Christians felt isolated, different from the ‘normal’ citizens, persecuted – they needed the strength that community backing provides.
• We pray that we might speak and act with agape, goodwill, with cheerfulness and a peaceful heart.
• We pray that we may experience being cared for and valued, and that we can value and care for one another, respectfully and sensitively.
• We think of those who are not here, including our families… and the late Sigi Dreher, who loved coming to Agape, of those who need support and good thoughts, incl. Elisabeth W. and Blaichs and all bereaved families of those whom we have hurt, or who have hurt us…
• help us to forgive and be reconciled (In the Palestine Templer communities they held a Versöhnungsfest Agape).

Shortly we’ll share ‘bread and wine’, in remembrance of the Last Supper. Let us join hands for grace:
We give thanks that we can meet safely; we give thanks for this bread and this wine that symbolise our bond with our Master, Jesus, and all his friends. We ask for blessing on this meal – may it make us strong, loving and cheerful. Amen. (release hands).
Food is brought out, drink… Pass bread round and break off – Guten Appetit.
CD – Galway – Wings of Song
Conclusion – We have focussed on remembrance, on prayer, agape and community, and we’ve shared a meal. A sincere thankyou to Renate (Weber) for catering. My hope is that we have all been able to experience a sense of connection, of the unity that is part of a faith community, and of agape – may we carry it with us into our everyday lives.

Tomorrow, the Good Friday service is here at 10:15 (Renate W.), in Sydney at 10:30. The Easter service is at Bentleigh at 10:15 (Renate Beilharz), the bus is going and there’s an egg hunt.
We agreed to fax greetings to the Stuttgart Agape.
To close, we’ll hear the Irish Blessing Deep Peace.
CD – Aled ‘Higher’ – Tk. 2 (3:20 mins)
When we’ve cleaned up, may we all go forth with light and deep peace in our hearts. Meet again next year? Yes! Happy holy days.
We sang: Der Mond ist aufgegangen, because the full moon had risen.

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Mothers' Day Service in Bayswater, 10 May
Elder, Mark Herrmann

Introductory music – Krista Imberger

Good morning and welcome to you all, especially any first-time visitors, on this our Mother’s Day service, a day on which we pause to reflect in acknowledging the wonderful and character-building contributions made to our lives by our mums. I can still remember the Mother’s Day stalls of my primary school childhood. Armed with a small handful of (probably pre-decimal) coins, I would scour the tables of assorted goodies set up in the classrooms, corridors and breezeways for suitable bargains. I think soap featured prominently, sometimes wrapped in a face washer twisted into the shape of a bunny rabbit. What struck me only years later was that, not only were the stalls and items for sale organised by the school’s Mothers’ Club, but our own mum supplied the money for the purchases! I think our house was well stocked with face washers.

And I overheard Nanne on the telephone earlier this week declaring that (and these were her exact words) “Mother’s Day is over-rated”. Admittedly, I was only privy to one end of the conversation, but the message is pretty clear: Alastair, Nicholas, Monika – you’re off the hook!

As a male, motherhood is obviously an experience I will never have, but I noted the comment in the May Templer Record: “You are all a mother’s son.”

I would now like to share a story with the Sunday School children gathered here at the front. The book is called “Mummies are Amazing” and the pages will also be shown on the screen overhead. <PowerPoint>
Children to Sunday School room with Renate

Hymn #94 – Preiset den Schöpfer (Praise the Creator) – all 3 verses
We experience mother’s love as a wonder of God
Through which the maternal efforts allow a child to flourish
Our inner heart warms with gratitude as we speak our mother’s name

Text from Matthew 13:24-30 (with interpretation 36-43)
The Parable of the Weeds (read)

In subsequent Gospel verses, the disciples come to Jesus and ask what the parable means. Jesus answers, “The man who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world; the good seed is the people who belong to the Kingdom; the weeds are the people who belong to the Evil One; and the enemy who sowed the weeds is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvest workers are angels.”

This particular story appears only in Matthew’s Gospel. The parable of the weeds may have functioned in various ways at different stages of its transmission. Some elements which receive emphasis in the parable, for instance, receive almost no emphasis in the interpretation. The interpretation is unlikely to have accompanied the parable from the beginning, but it testifies to creative use of the story.

Thus in our worldly sphere we will engage with and be confronted by people we consider both good and bad. On what basis do we categorise these people, how will we distinguish between them and, more importantly, how will we respond to them? However we make our decision, is a ‘good’ person always ‘good’ and, similarly, does a ‘bad’ one always remain so? Once the weeds are identifiable, the servants – in the language used it suggests that they represent the disciples – they asked whether the weeds should be removed. Jesus instructs the servants to let the wheat and the weeds grow together, to avoid pulling out one with the other. It is not our place to judge, nor should we pass judgment, and potentially condemn, too quickly or too early.

In an earlier Bible story – the Parable of the Sower (1-9), in which the seeds (the message about the Kingdom) are spread for all to access – some seed had already fallen on good soil and germinated. The message is that the Kingdom is here, is growing and is open to all. All have the opportunity to germinate and bear good fruit.

A sense that there is an enemy marks many societies, religious and otherwise. It is almost as though we need an enemy, an other, against whom to define ourselves. This need will sometimes sustain images of enemies, even create enemies for survival. There’s ‘them’ and there’s ‘us’. The simpler, the better. But this is the stuff of prejudice. The church has ended up self-righteous and cruel in attempts to root out evil. In the church’s history terrible atrocities and abuses have been perpetuated. How many heretics were burned at the stake, drowned in the river or stretched on the rack in the name of God? And while such archaic practices may have ceased, the church can still be very heavy handed in dealing with faults amongst its people. Human beings often have a way of responding to evil with acts that produce more evil – think justice systems, capital punishment, war …

Our business is not defined by a reaction to evil, or to judge the way others lead their lives. We should be concerned for the good in ourselves, setting our mind on God’s Kingdom and always striving to act in accordance with the twin commandments of love. But to tolerate people with conflicting, perhaps even dangerous, attitudes and values is often far easier said than done. This does not mean, however, avoiding challenge and confrontation, but it does mean never ceasing to have compassion, never writing people off. Jesus must have been able to not only spot the wheat amongst the weeds, but to recognise the weed amongst the wheat and to inspire a change of heart and direction. It is certainly not easy to live with such openness and grace.

Robert Muller said: “To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.”

Hymn #116 – This is the day/Love life and live – 2 verses

To come back to Mother’s Day, I wonder if it’s possible to look at the text through the eyes of a mother. In raising a child, through thick and thin, does a mother recognise both wheat and weed at different times? And how does a mother generally react? Does she not listen, show compassion, educate and lead by example? With the good, and despite the bad, a mother is capable of maintaining a faith in her offspring.

One of the beauties of conducting a service such as this is the privilege it presents in being able to talk about what one wants. Yes, it’s an indulgence, but one that I won’t apologise for. When Alastair learned I was speaking today he was very quick to point out that I needed to talk about Omi (my mum), since I had done similarly for Omi Opa (my dad) at a Father’s Day service some years ago.

My mum, our Omi, is an amazing woman! At all ages, in all circumstances and at all stages of my life, I cannot remember a time she wasn’t approachable and prepared to listen and offer advice. Mothers appear capable of operating on a different time basis to the rest of us: they always seem to have enough of it to go around. Of course, this is often due to the self-sacrificing priorities they choose to employ. As a child, I guess we were fortunate to have mum at home with and for us. In 1960s suburban Melbourne this was the norm. Home was a happy place, everything seemingly running like clockwork and always ready and as it needed to be. Perhaps we were shielded from particular issues or just too wrapped up in our own worlds to notice anything difficult or different.

When I asked my siblings for their thoughts, impressions and memories of mum – what caused them to hold her in such high esteem – they both offered little! Initially I was disappointed, until I realised that I, too, was finding it difficult to accurately express, articulate and define. How come? It should have come easily. It should have come as naturally as mum herself took to motherhood. I think the answer lies in single-mindedness. We children never experienced anything other than naturalness, unconditional love and constant nurturing. It enveloped us and still surrounds us – how lucky are we?

Due to this constancy, there is of course a danger of taking it all for granted. It is clear that such devotion can never be adequately repaid. I guess the best I/we can do is to be as approachable and available to our children and, one day, grandchildren. Omi has a special and close relationship with each of her grandchildren.

When I think of Omi I think of naturalness – spontaneous genuineness, honesty, sincerity and openness – an inherent ability to be right (so full of commonsense) in the right way at the right time and in the right place. To my eyes, and I suspect those of my older brother and younger sister, it all seemed so effortless, but I think that discredits mum’s hard work. Yet, it all appeared – and still appears – to come so logically, unsurprisingly, intuitively and unassumingly.

A magnificent cook – making meals tasty for as long as I can remember – and a wonderful homemaker. Hardly surprising then that both Anita and Rob’s comments about Omi relate to food. Anita recalled restaurant visits when, having ordered our meals, mum after a defined period of time would make mock threats to the waitressing staff muttering loudly enough for only our ears “if we don’t get our meals next, I’ll drop this vase of flowers onto the floor” or “I’ll stand on my chair if we’re not served before that family that came in after us”. I say mock threats because they were never acted upon, she knowing full well that we – or dad – would simply not allow anything of this nature to happen for fear of acute embarrassment. Of course the innocuous activity kept us entertained and made the wait time pass more quickly and eventfully. The same tactic was successfully employed at the doctors, the dentists, in fact anywhere there were waiting rooms.

Rob didn’t waste too many words – it was almost dad-like in its brevity. He said, and I quote literally, “not much beats mum cooking me steak at midnight during study for my HSC”. Now, it must be said that my brother was greatly more enthusiastic about nourishment of his stomach than his brain at this stage of his studies. Thus Omi cleverly found a means of satisfying a hunger whilst steering her first-born to properly consider his schooling obligations. HSC – his steak was cooked!

We inherit much from our parents – from dad, I have good teeth, I believe a quiet reassurance and patient application, a fear of deep water, a love of rice and passion for tennis; from mum, I have premature grey hair, a capacity to laugh loud and often (including at oneself), a nervousness of being the focus of attention (!) and a zeal for keeping fit. Of course my enjoyment of certain forms of exercise doesn’t come close to mum’s junkie-like devotion to staying flexible, active, supple and energetic.

As a nursing sister and midwife, her hospital and medical stories are legendary. I’ve often thought there’s plenty of material for a book or four, something akin to the “Doctor in the House” series and just as funny. But, despite a difficulty in us separating fact from fiction and her liking for a modicum of exaggeration, it is clear these stories reflect a passion for caring, fostering, encouraging and, dare I say it, successfully serving an apprenticeship in motherhood.

Happy Omi Day!

Please stand, if it’s not too difficult, as we pray.
God be with the mother. As she carried her child may she carry her soul. As her child was born, may she give birth and life and form to her own, higher truth. As she nourished and protected her child, may she nourish and protect her inner life and her independence. For her soul shall be her most painful birth, her most difficult child and the dearest sister to her other children.
Amen

I would like to conclude this morning’s service with a short PowerPoint presentation (with CD background music – Handel’s Largo) containing images from the book simply entitled “thanks mum” for all our mothers.

Closing music – Krista Imberger
Sunday School children return with flower posies

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Good Friday Service 10 April in Bayswater
Elder: Renate Weber

Musician: Sonia Glenk
Hymns: 81 O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden: O sacred Head now wounded.
25 Easter Hymn
63 Love is not merely a word
Text; Matthew 27: 31-36 and Luke 23:26-26

Welcome to this Good Friday Service. This service has been my most challenging so far in my “Elder” life! Why? Because as I get older and more thoughtful, I challenge my beliefs, read more and try to develop my own interpretation on things.
Whenever it is appropriate, when I speak publicly I explain I am a member of the Temple Society Australia which is a progressive independent Christian community.
So I call myself a progressive Christian. What does that mean? I believe that Jesus existed and that I try to follow his teachings, and, I can interpret my religious beliefs so they sit comfortably with me. As a result this day, Good Friday, takes on a special significance.
Let us set the scene for this day by singing Hymn. 81 O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden: O sacred Head now wounded. Sonia will play it through once and then we will sing all the verses printed in the hymn book.
As I have been agonising over this service my mind wandered to many of the Good Friday services I have experienced. There are a couple which stand out! Two are from my MLC days. We had a charismatic Canadian chaplain and for the Year 8 Good Friday sermon we helped her cut out large red hearts and outlined a big cross on the floor of one of the school halls. She had three large horse shoe nails and a crown of thorns as well. The events of Good Friday were read out and she laid the thorn crown at the top of the cross and the three nails in the appropriate places on the cross.
She explained to the girls Christ had loved them so much that he died for them. They then gave their red hearts to Christ to thank him for their salvation. With this giving they were also forgiven for their sins.
Another powerful event occurred at our country campus the first Easter it was opened. We had an American minister /youth worker at the time and she got the handy man to fashion a life size cross. We walked the Stations of the Cross across the fields with girls taking it turns to read scripture and carry the cross. It was powerful and very moving. When we reached the top of the hill the cross was placed in the pre-dug hole and the Service continued with the Minster asking the students to hurl garbage at her to represent the taunting and cruelty that Christ suffered for our sins. Many of us had trouble throwing our rubbish at her even though we had been asked and given permission. It was too close to home after we had walked the cross up to the top of the hill and heard the Good Friday story. Many of those students became Christians and experienced a real connection with God during their 8 weeks stay! Some times actions speak much louder than words! Helga Jurgensen and I experienced a very dark and sombre evening service lit only with candles in the Cathedral Square in New Zealand and the congregation left very subdued and silent and I would have loved to have participated in the joyous celebration of Easter Sunday. I was also asked to be a part of the Glen Eira Association Good Friday service as The Way of the Cross was performed and it also moved me deeply.
So today I have decided we will do a version of “the way of the cross.” We will hear the set text but I have a few props.
Our reading is from two Gospels and we will begin with Matthew 27:26-31

This will be represented with a crown of thorns.
Then he, Pilate, released Barabbas unto them: and when he had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified. 27 Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. 28 And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. 29 And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! 30 And they spat upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. 31 And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him.
Have any of you felt publicly humiliated or watched some one being bullied? How hard is it for the victim to recover from that? Do we stand up for ourselves or if we are an onlooker do we defend some one who is being bullied or picked on? Do we walk away or do we join the pack and jeer and torment as well? In our country we are going through a violent time. Rival bikie gang members are killing one another. People are being bashed up at sports games. Boy friends are hitting their girlfriends in public places. We hear stories of brave people who have lost their lives or been seriously injured when they have stood up for what is right. Now we need to consider carefully before we go to any ones aid and this is a real shame. I think the Serenity prayer may well apply here. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Our reading continues from Luke 23 .
26As they led him away, they seized Simon from Cyrene, who was on his way in from the country, and put the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. 27A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. 28Jesus turned and said to them, "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. 29For the time will come when you will say, 'Blessed are the barren women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!' 30Then " 'they will say to the mountains, "Fall on us!" and to the hills, "Cover us!" 31For if men do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?"

Let us reflect for a moment on what we have just heard.
By now Jesus was already weak from his beatings and he needed help with the cross. Simon, a visitor to Jerusalem was plucked from the crowd. The women were weeping and wailing, but Jesus’ answer, fulfilling scriptural prophesy, was warning them that Jerusalem would be destroyed over the next 40 years. His statement regarding the green tree and the dry in verse 31 is a proverbial expression. “If they cut down a green tree to throw in the fire what will be done to those that are dry and deserve to be cut down?” He was warning the people that they would face much hardship and persecution.
Move to a pile of clothes and a pair of sandals
Our reading continues 32Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. 33When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. 34Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
Jesus even in his physically weak, half naked state is able to forgive those who are persecuting him and dividing up his clothes. What lesson can we learn from this? Have you ever felt naked and vulnerable in front of a group of people? Have you been accused or punished for doing something you didn’t do? How did you react? Were you able to forgive the people who slighted or punished you? It takes great courage and self determination to overcome challenges we face and forgive those who hurt us physically or damage us mentally or psychologically.
Three signs: INRI: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Wine and a sponge
35The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One."
36The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar 37and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself."
38There was a written notice above him, which read Jesus of Nazareth, KING OF THE JEWS.
Jesus was challenged to save himself. He had been seen performing miracles, why didn’t he save himself if he was the King of the Jews? The sour wine may have been a gift because he was thirsty or used to further cause him pain and suffering depending on which interpretation you read. Self preservation is probably our most primal endeavour and not many of us would be willing to risk our lives for the salvation of others.
39One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: "Aren't you the Christ? Save yourself and us!"
40But the other criminal rebuked him. "Don't you fear God," he said, "since you are under the same sentence? 41We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong."
42Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
43Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise."
I think Templer’s call this Paradise, the Kingdom of God. In the earlier days of Christianity it was believed there was a heaven up there. Now our knowledge tends to tell us there may not be an up there. No one has returned and told us categorically there is life after death. There are reports of afterlife experiences from people who have briefly had heart failure and “died” but there is no conclusive proof. This is where our faith comes in. What do you believe? What are you comfortable with? We all face the same choices the two criminals represent. Will we strive for a better life, acknowledge the mistakes we have made and the consequence of our action, ask for forgiveness, try to do better next time or will we put others down and continue on with our selfish existence?
A lighted candle
Jesus' Death 44It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last.
47The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, "Surely this was a righteous man." 48When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. 49But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.
Darkness fell for three hours. Was it a solar eclipse? We have all experienced dark times in our lives when we felt things will never be right again. Our surroundings and circumstances have overwhelmed us. We may have lost a loved one; we may be depressed, we can’t see our way. Then the curtain of the Temple is torn in two, what is hidden from us is revealed. We call on God, our spirit, our inner strength, to light our way out of the darkness, we seek help, to find a solution to what is dragging us down.
"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Jesus gave himself up to God. His earthly life had ended but his spirit that vibratory energy, that spark of divinity in each of us was given into God’s hands. People watching the crucifixion reacted differently. The Soldier thought Jesus was a righteous man. Some left after the spectacle was over, Jesus’ friends and followers stayed and watched.

The Easter Hymn 25 sums up all we have so far heard. We will sing all three verses.
A piece of linen and bottles of oil will adequately represent the burial
Jesus' Burial 50Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the Council, a good and upright man; 51who had not consented to their decision and action. He came from the Judean town of Arimathea and he was waiting for the kingdom of God. 52Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus' body. 53Then he took it down wrapped it in linen cloth and placed it in a tomb cut in the rock, one in which no one had yet been laid. 54It was Preparation Day, and the Sabbath was about to begin.
55The women who had come with Jesus from Galilee followed Joseph and saw the tomb and how his body was laid in it. 56Then they went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.
Joseph of Arimathea was a Council member who had not agreed with the condemnation and sentence heaped upon Jesus. He offered his tomb which was nearby, wrapped the body in linen and then everyone went home as the Sabbath, a day of rest, was about to begin.
In my research to create this service I read Jon Hoffman’s thoughts about Jesus Lives –What does this mean?
He felt “this statement is probably the shortest and most intelligible way of expressing the message Easter holds for us. In these words there is also a hint at the great miracle that is contained in each life”.
Jesus Lives –What does this mean? Life means being active somehow-even if unnoticed by people- to be active creatively” For me that means to be alive.
We can be active Christians following and applying Jesus’ teachings in our daily lives. We can believe the story of Good Friday, we can chose to believe what ever sits comfortably with in each one of us, but we need to commit to Jesus’ teachings and live by example, treating the people around us with respect, valuing them for who they are regardless of the colour of their skin, their outward appearance, where they live. I can’t believe non-Christians are all condemned to torment and hell. I can only live my life as I see fit, as my conscience tells me is right, and encourage others around me to do the same.
Let us sing Hymn 63 Love is not merely a word Liebe ist nicht nur ein Wort. All 3 verses Sonia will play it through slowly first.

Even in the darkest times there is hope. Last week I drove home from Mt Buller through Kinglake. The bushfire devastation is almost incomprehensible. On both sides of the highway the earth is scorched bare. Where pink heath once grew there is nothing. Then we see a tinge of green -the resilient gum trees are sending out fragile leaves to signal they are not dead, not totally destroyed. A little fringe of leaves erupts from the trunk of some of the trees. They look like they have a crew cut but they are still alive. So it is with Jesus message. It is important to revisit the crucifixion each year so we can appreciate the man who was Jesus and follow his teachings.
Let us finish with a prayer. God, Divine spirit, eternal life force, let us leave here today not sad that Jesus died but glad that we can try to live the message he gave us all those years ago. His message of love for one another, hope for the future, tolerance of those who are different, forgiveness for those who have wronged, help and hope for those who are in need. Let our eyes be opened so we may see the ways we can help others, let our ears be opened so we can hear the cries for help and the shouts of joy, help us to care for the earth and all its inhabitants 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

Thank you to all who have worked today to enhance the service -the flower arrangers. Sonia for playing for us and you the congregation for coming! The donations today should go to the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday appeal. On Sunday may you find Easter -a time when everything is new again!
Finish with “Panis Anglicus” by Cesar Franck

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Church Service 15th February, 2009, Bayswater.
(Themes major: Connectedness, Ecology, the Sabbath and its observance, the spiritual quest, Gospel of Thomas)
Designated Text: Mark 2; 23-28
Elder: Geoff McCallum
Pianist: Elisabeth Wagner

It is a pleasure to welcome you here today for this service. We meet in a difficult time, in the aftermath of the worst fires in Victoria’s history. It is never easy to leave your cares at the door of the chapel. It is particularly difficult to set aside the terrible images, the sad and heroic tales, of the fires. We cannot forget, nor should we. But it is part of a bigger problem.

My own house is in a very fire-prone location and whereas, up until last weekend, I thought it was defensible, I now think that it is not. Certainly not in conditions like last weekend. I have to re-think my entire fire strategy. I am very pre-occupied with the issue. But for children, it is normal and highly desirable to find some happiness and amusement even when the adults around us are deeply troubled. As adults it is important to make every effort not to let our troubles, real and serious though they may be, spoil the joy of childhood for our children.

Some of you will recall Hans Kirchner who died last year aged 101. During WW1 when he was about 10, his mother evacuated him and his brothers from Palestine ahead of the Allied advance, back to Bregenz in Austria. Their journey took them through Turkey and Eastern Europe sleeping on trains, in stations and churches. No doubt the poor mother was greatly stressed by the ordeal. Hans, on the other hand, thought the whole trip, "very interesting". Presumably his mother had succeeded admirably in letting little Hans, Rolf and Oscar continue to enjoy being kids despite being part or a massive upheaval.

The way kids experience childhood is not only important in itself, but has a profound influence on their personalities and their psychological make-up and coping skills in later life. We cannot fully shelter them from reality, but we must help them to have a full childhood. With that in mind, let us set the fires aside for a few moments and, without any sense of irony, join our children in a children’s hymn.

Hymn 6: All things Bright and Beautiful

(A word for the kids.)
My brother-in-law, Chris, is a pilot. Nowadays he flies helicopters our to the oil platforms in the Timor Sea but before that he spent 20 years in the Air Force. On one flight they were carrying a number of New Guineans when one of the plane's 2 engines caught fire. The passengers on the side of the aircraft where the burning engine was, were staring out the window at the burning engine looking very worried while those on the other side were laughing at their plight. "Ha! Ha! Your engine is on fire!!

I am sure none of you kids would be laughing! The point of this story is not that the New Guineans don’t or didn’t understand much about an aircraft, but that they did not understand that all the people on the plane were connected together. If the plane went down they all went down. As human beings we are all connected together. For one thing we are connected together by the fact that we share this planet earth. If the earth is damaged, we all suffer. But we are also connected at a deeper level. We are connected together by our human nature which we share and especially by our inner spiritual nature which we are often not aware of. In a sense we are all part of one spirit.

In every day life it is important to remember that we are all connected together and that we therefore need to look after each other. That is why many religions contain what is sometimes called the Golden Rule. Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself. Not as you are being treated. It is also why Jesus not only said that we should love our neighbours, our family etc, but he also said that we should love our enemies. Even though we may not be able to see how they are connected to us, they still are.

On TV, we have seen the stories from the bushfires. Many people suffered. Some died. We should think of those people and, when an opportunity arises, try to help them in practical ways. We should realize that we are connected to them quite deeply and that they are just like us. If one of the kids should turn up at your school, make sure you make him or her welcome. I am sure you will.

Before some of the children leave, I think it appropriate to take a few moments to quietly remember those who have been effected by the recent fires. We remember those whom we know personally such as Helmut and Ilse Beilharz. We remember others who have lost their homes and livelihoods. Those who have lost loved ones. Those who have died in frightening circumstances. Those who are suffering from burns and other physical and psychological injuries. We offer our thoughts and prayers that in time they may achieve peace through the love and support of family and friends.

MINUTE'S SILENCE

The Global Financial Crisis which has been unfolding over the last 12 months has reminded us that we are all connected together at a financial level.
Events like the bushfires and Global Warming, which is likely to make fires and other natural events more prevalent and more dramatic, remind us that we are connected together at a physical level. Not only to each other, but to the earth. We are not separate from the earth. We are part of the earth. It is not a resource for us to squander. Ultimately, we cannot benefit by damaging it..

We are a part of its complex ecosystem but our influence is disproportionate. The bushfires remind us that our influence, such as on global warming and land utilization, can be quite negative for the environment and that, as we are part of the earth’s ecosystem, we are not separated from damage to the ecosystem and we suffer when it is in distress. The survival of society, the human species and the health of the planet require us to change our ways as individuals, as societies and as a species. It promises to be a painful adjustment. It has hardly begun.

Though confronting, and in a sense new, Global Warming, and the Global Financial Crisis, are fairly concrete concepts even if they are complicated and difficult to predict and respond to. But are we perhaps connected together in more profound ways even than that? Like the New Guineans I was talking to the children about, we too may be connected to each other in ways we are not aware of.

Global warming and the Global Financial Crises bring into clear focus the fact that Western Society is based on a fundamentally unsustainable model. With that in mind, let us sing together the Templer Hymn, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.

Hymn 1: Templer Hymn

Today’s designated reading from our Templer calendar also points us in the direction of re-evaluating priorities. Even if the story itself comes from a different cultural setting.

Mark 2, 23-28. Reading from the Revised English Bible.

One Sabbath, Jesus was going through the cornfields and as they went along, his disciples began to pluck ears of corn.
The Pharisees said to him, “Why are they doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath?” He answered, “Have you never read what David did when he and his men were hungry and had nothing to eat? He went into the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the sacred bread, though no one gave it to his men.”
He also said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath: so the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”

This account of Jesus records him apparently being somewhat dismissive of the rules of conduct on the Sabbath. Or if not dismissive, then certainly not as obsessive in his observance as many others of his community. Let us explore this idea a little more deeply.

The first reference to the Sabbath pre-dates Moses and occurs in the creation myth recounted in Genesis where God creates the universe in 6 days. (Gen. 2: 2-3) On the seventh day, having finished all his work, God blessed the day and made it holy.

The rules governing observance of the Sabbath originate from the Ten Commandments which, from a Jewish perspective, constitute a Covenant with God. In return for their deliverance to the Promised Land, the Jewish people undertook to follow these commandments which Moses was believed to have received directly from God. Moses proclaimed the importance of observing the Sabbath with the commandment to, (Exod. 20: 8.11) remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy. We Christians call this the 8th Commandment of the 10. The keeping of the Sabbath holy is further developed by Moses in Exodus 31:15 where God reportedly tells Moses to make it a capital offence to break the Sabbath, ie. the punishment for breaking the Sabbath is death.

In Jesus’ day as now, observant Jews considered themselves to be forbidden to work on the Sabbath and the definition of work could and can be extreme (even turning on a light switch!). Hence the Pharisees’ criticism of Jesus for allowing his disciples to pick and eat corn on the Sabbath.. In Judaism many people still believe that the more literally and specifically you follow the commandments of Exodus and Leviticus, the Mosaic Law, the better a Jew you were and the better or more holy a person. Or at least, the more holy a person you will appear to others in your community.

Further reference to Jesus’ alternative point of view can be found in the Gospel of Thomas.
Th 6: 1-6. His disciples asked Jesus, “Do you want us to fast? How should we pray? Should we give charity? What diet should we observe?” Jesus replies, “Do not lie and do not do things that you hate, because all things are disclosed before heaven. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed and there is nothing covered that will remain undisclosed.”

I myself grew up in a Christian tradition strict in observance of the Sabbath. As a boy I could not play sport or work on a Sunday and my mother as a girl was not allowed to play or sing, except of course, hymns. In those days shops were not open on Sunday and there was very little commercial activity. You could not get a drink or a meal at a hotel unless you could prove that you were a traveller. Today the wheel has turned full circle. Although schools and most offices are closed on Sunday, the western Sabbath, many factories run 24/7 and most customer service industries work. Whilst this may be convenient for the public at large, it means that those working in such industries must work on Sunday. In many Australian cities, it can be difficult to distinguish Sunday from any other day.

It was a common feature of Jesus preaching that he de-emphasized this kind of absolutism characterised by extreme observance of the Sabbath and other rules. Instead Jesus emphasized other virtues, specifically love for one’s neighbour, even one’s enemy, as I mentioned to the kids. It is interesting to speculate on why he did this.

From the point of view of our 21st century Western Society with its many problems, better observance of the 8th Commandment, to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, would probably be healthier in affording us one day of rest and family time. Jesus did say in today’s text that the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath. I doubt if he ever envisaged the commercialization of the Sabbath which we see today when he defended his disciples for picking some corn. In the context of our times it is easy to make the case that greater observance of the Sabbath might be a good thing. Not to avoid committing a capital offence, but for psychological well-being. If, as many would today, you prefer to think of the Ten Commandments as the Ten Wise Teachings of Moses, then I would say that the wisdom of having a day away from commerce, business and trade, is a good thing for the human condition and in particular for psychological well-being..

But we are still left with the unanswered question of why Jesus challenged the strict observance of the Sabbath as recounted in today‘s reading from Mark. We need to remember that he was not advocating commercialization of the Sabbath or non-observance of the Sabbath, but simply not losing sight of the benefit of the Sabbath by obsessively following a hundred onerous requirements.

I think that Jesus may well have felt that the strict observance of the many obsessively constructed rules governing the Sabbath and other aspects of Jewish life were a distraction from a higher goal. That by setting oneself such high standards of observance one was distracting oneself from a more important search for the spiritual meaning of life which is much less easy to define and achieve. The search for oneness with God, for enlightenment, for spiritual awareness is not facilitated by the observance of a complex set of rules but by surrender of ones ego. It is facilitated by surrender to God, surrender to one’s inner god nature. It is achieved through simplicity not ostentation. It is an inner journey not a set of public practices.

Jesus, the Messiah, the enlightened one, wanted to get through to these obsessive, observant people, these Pharisees, these priests and over-zealous followers of the Law of Moses. He wanted them and by inference us, to understand that the true way was, in some senses, the simple or basic way. Not a way based on observance of a priestly hierarchy or a complex set of rules.

In seeking spiritual guidance, it is worth remembering that the New Testament which we have is not the entirety of Jesus teaching. It is a collection of some of the teachings of Jesus strung together with a narrative of his life to give it form. The four gospels represent some but not all of the holy scriptures which were in existence in the centuries immediately after Jesus’ death. It is a very useful account of his life with many challenging and enlightening teachings, but there may well be much that is missing, some deliberately excluded even.

I would like to quote again from the Gospel of Thomas. Unlike the 4 gospels with which we are more familiar, it is a collection of sayings. Some are familiar to us, others not. It does not provide a structured narrative of Jesus’ life.

Th 1. And Jesus said, “Who ever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death”.

Th 3: 4. When you know yourselves, then you will be known. (33) and you will understand that you are children of the living father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty and you are poverty.

Th 113: 1 - 4. His disciples said to him, “When will the kingdom come?” “ It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, “Look, here it is’ or’ Look there it is’. Rather the Father’s kingdom is spread out upon the earth but the people do not see it.”

It may be very satisfying to be ultra-observant, as an orthodox Jew, or as anybody who follows a strict religious routine. To set oneself goals for behaviour and to achieve them. To say to oneself as one gets up in the morning, I will follow all the rules today, and to say to oneself when one goes to bed, I did not put a foot wrong today. But Jesus calls to us to be guided by love and to have the courage to allow ourselves to be transformed by the experience. To see reality change before our eyes.

When we began this Saal (church service) I spoke to the children about connectedness. The belief in the separation of subject and object, of I and you, of mankind and nature, is as deeply ingrained in our consciousness as the concepts of up and down and of gravity. It seems like an absolute truth of reality. But might there not be another way to see the world, to see ourselves, another level of connectedness and another way to understand ourselves as individuals?

I told the children the story about the aircraft engine on fire. Here is a more adult version.

Imagine that there was God alone. He decided to make a play. Since he was the only one to play the parts in the play, he had to play them all. As the play became more complex and engaging, each character became so engrossed in the play that he forgot that he was being played by the same player. He came to believe that the part that he was playing was all that there was to him. He came to believe that rather than being a play, it was reality.

Perhaps this is a metaphor for ourselves. The quest for spiritual enlightenment then becomes the quest to find who we really are; not the part but the player. And in so doing, to understand the spiritual connectedness between us. There are many metaphors for enlightenment and the quest for it. Some of the other Gospels of Jesus, such as the Gospel of Thomas, contain unfamiliar metaphors, and what Zen Buddhists might call Kowans.. Puzzles to help us escape from our accepted, everyday view of life and to begin to plumb the greater depths of reality. The equivalent within Islam is the Sufi stories such as the tales of the eccentric Mullah Nasrudin.

You don’t need to become a Sufi or Buddhist monk or a Yogi to pursue the path towards spiritual enlightenment. But just following all the Laws of Moses is not enough. And following them obsessively is not the way to discover reality but, as Jesus may have intended us to infer to some degree from our reading from Mark, a distraction from the quest. Jesus trod the spiritual path. The (Canonical) New Testament contains some spiritual guidance, but to go deeper you have to read between the lines. It is helpful also to look at the scriptures which were excluded from the New Testament such as the Gospel of Thomas. At the end of the day, it may be a solitary journey but it is not a lonely path. All men of good will who seek the spiritual truth are fellow travellers on similar journeys.

We Templers meet together to help each other along the way. We gain cohesion from the books of Jesus’ teaching we read and from a shared history in belief and quest. Whether our own perspective and interest is spiritual in a deeper sense or more focussed on living a Christian life, we try to live by Jesus’ and more specifically Paul’s teachings about how to live in a Christian community. It is a defining characteristic of Templers that we are not bound by dogma or the need to follow certain rituals. (We are almost ritual phobic.) We do not have a hierarchy of priests telling us what we should think or do and we are free to find our own way to religious and spiritual understanding. What I say, what all the elders say, are opinions and interpretations with which it is by no means obligatory to indicate agreement.

Lets us pray together the prayer which Jesus taught and which has been followed by our forefathers.

Lord’s Prayer

As Templers we have an openness to ideas and interpretation. Ours is a community of like but not identical minds. We do not expect to agree with each other on every matter of theology. If we did, we would ossify.

Before closing this service, I remind you that the collection today will be going to the Red Cross Bush Fire Relief Fund. There is also a condolences book which you may sign to register your solidarity with those more directly effected by the fires.

I thank you all for attending today and especially Elisabeth for playing for us and for those who prepared the flowers and the refreshments. I leave you with a simple blessing from Paul, the architect of Christian community life: May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.

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Presentation Service 22 February in Bentleigh
Elder, Mark Herrmann

Opening music – Monika Strasser (“Weißt du, wieviel Sternlein stehen”)

<Children welcome to attend Sunday School; they will be joining us later for the Presentation ceremony>

Good morning and welcome to all, particularly any visitors; my name is Mark Herrmann, an Elder of the Temple Society Australia. Today we are confronted by contrasting emotions – on the one hand, the enduring horror of the Victorian bushfires and, on the other, the unbridled joy brought by young children and their exuberances. Yet, beginning with selected verses of Dorothea Mackellar’s well-known poem, where she speaks of both the beauty and the terror of our land, we witness coexisting and juxtaposing conditions which, paradoxically, offer similarities to our conflicting emotions.

My Country
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die –
But when the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold –
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land –
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand –
Though earth holds much splendour,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

As floodwaters to the north begin to recede, we continue to hope for much-needed rain to renourish and replenish our parched, blackened earth.
This morning’s service will comprise words from me and others, musical contributions from Monika Strasser, the Templer Choir and your singing, and the presentation of our two young children, Amelie and Joshua. As Joshua’s mum Renate Hoffmann wished, I hope over the next hour or so to reflect on community spirit at this time of tragedy amidst life’s joys.

On this National Day of Mourning to honour the victims and to recognise the courage and tireless efforts of emergency service workers, in circumstances created by the horrific bushfires and in their aftermath, we are united and our definitions of friendship and community become much broader. As last week at Geoff McCallum’s service in Bayswater, the collection today will be directed to the Bushfire Relief Appeal (boxes on the exit doors leading to the foyer, where a memorial book is placed should you wish to sign it).

In the Temple Society we place maximum emphasis on our sense of community. In fire-affected regions throughout Victoria – and not forgetting flood-ravaged Queensland – the events of the past weeks have brought this same focus to the fore. Elements of trust, strength, unity, sacrifice and support are present and provide a source of hope for the future.

This community perspective is similarly reflected in our Presentation service today. The parents of our two special children present them before God and the community, and we, in turn, undertake to offer our support, care, encouragement and assistance in the children’s growth, as required. These actions from both quarters demonstrate a level of community involvement, a sense of belonging, mutual respect and responsibility, an admiration of the positive power of love, all enveloped in an atmosphere of absolute trust and confidence, essential elements which fashion the basis of our Community life. As I have tended to say, once or twice, “Share in our Community, for together we achieve.”

What is community spirit? And does it really only manifest itself in how we react in times of tragedy and adversity to family, friends and strangers alike? I like to believe it is present always, but that through western society’s general self-interest and self-centredness we unfortunately allow it to take a back-seat somewhat too readily.

The occasion of Presentation is a joyous one within our Community. We should not feel guilty about this. It is a sign that life continues here, there and everywhere and in no way diminishes our empathy or support for those who have suffered extreme loss. In the same way that life generally offers both sad and happy occasions, negative and positive experiences, times of isolation (or remoteness) and inclusion (or closeness), we can welcome these children and reflect on the value and precious nature of life itself.

In the eyes of children there is innocence and there is always a future. Can we focus on them as a vision of hope for the individuals, families, communities and townships looking to rebuild? Through our TSA-Online message service we have stated that, as a community ourselves, we stand prepared to assist in the rebuilding and creation of new life within devastated rural communities.

Amelie Jule Sydenham (born 30/11/2007) is the daughter and first child of Colin Sydenham and Kirrily nee Weber; Joshua Harrison Lu (born 06/07/2008) is the second son of Julian Lu and Renate Hoffmann, and a brother to 7-year-old Daniel. This is a day for our two infants and their families, with their friends and within the warmth of our Community.

<Collect Sunday School children for Presentation ceremony>

Hymn 1 – #61 – Let us rejoice together (all 3 verses) – remain seated

I now invite Kirrily, Colin and Amelie, together with Renate, Julian, Daniel and Joshua to the stage for our uncomplicated Presentation ceremony.

Blessing and handing over of certificate for each

May the Lord bless you and take care of you;
May the Lord be kind and gracious to you;
May the Lord’s love and peace be with you.
Amen

May the Lord bless you and keep you,
May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you,
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Amen

Prayer offered by Renate Weber (as another TSA Elder and, more importantly, loving Oma of Amelie) – remain seated, due to length

On this bittersweet National Day of Mourning and the day we are celebrating the Presentation of two of our precious children, let us take time to reflect about these events.

Our hearts go out to all those who have lost loved ones, their homes, their community in the recent tragic bushfires. We can only guess the agony they are going through and wish them strength, courage, patience and a strong belief that things will get better. Australia grieves with them and we gathered here today send them peace and love.

For our two families and their children we welcome them into our community and thank them for letting us share in their joy. As a community may we all have the tolerance and the ability to support these families in any way we can – be it through a welcoming smile, a helping hand or an enquiry after their well-being. May we all work together in harmony to create God’s kingdom on earth and may we always try to treat others as we would like to be treated!

Let us wish the parents the serenity, courage and wisdom to support their children in all their undertakings as they grow to adulthood. May they be excellent role models as they nurture, teach and watch their children grow. There will be hard times, but may they be few and easily resolved. In these children lies the future of our planet – may we treat it and them with respect.

Let us finish with a quote from Deepak Chopra: “We ask you to join with us and with God to help create a world of peace, harmony, laughter and love that is worthy of our beloved children.”

Amen

Thank you Renate.

Choir piece (Annette Wagner-Hesse): Praise the Lord – trumpet voluntary – Henry Purcell

<Sunday School children return to classroom>
Our text for today comes from the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 21, Verses 1-4:

As Jesus looked up and saw rich people dropping their gifts into the chest of the temple treasury, he noticed a poor widow putting in two tiny coins. ‘I tell you this,’ he said: ‘this poor woman has given more than any of them; for those others who have given had more than enough, but she, with less than enough, has given all she had to live on.’

The widow’s offering is well known for its example of sacrificial giving. No doubt the widow’s generosity is praiseworthy, and her willingness to give out of her extreme poverty challenges every tight-fisted Christian today. Yet it is hard to imagine that Jesus intended every widow to give all she had to live on, given the fact that widows in the ancient world were the poorest of the poor, and that the temple was an adorned and magnificent building.

There is a link to the three previous Bible verses, in which Jesus rebukes the attitudes of the Scribes, the religious leaders of his day. There are a number of points of contact including the powerless being contrasted against the powerful. Thus, there is every possibility that the widow’s offering is an illustration of Jesus’ teaching against the wealthy religious leaders.

In the words of a New Testament scholar, the Scribes “enjoyed being treated as persons of status, as though they were wealthy benefactors.” Without a husband representing them, widows had the most vulnerable status within the society. They were the defenceless and were often impoverished. The rich gave out of their abundance, but the poor widow gave to the temple treasury everything she had. In light of this it is not surprising that immediately afterwards Jesus announced the upcoming destruction of the temple.

A Bible commentary I read asks <and I quote> “whether, in our busyness to grow ourselves and our churches, we have perhaps forgotten those who struggle financially in our midst. In our enthusiasm, to organise the most lively worship services, run programs to meet our targets and develop the best children programs, often we neglect those in special care. That is, we don’t have time for those in the too-hard-basket: the low-income single parent households, the chronically sick who cannot get to church meetings, the mentally ill, the new migrants, the refugees, etc. Yes, we refer them to special welfare organisations or church departments, but in doing so we practically tell Christians not to get personally involved with the very people God cares for most.” <end of quote>

I think we can all relate to this at some level and to some extent. Perhaps we need to assess our ability to act justly, love mercy and live humbly.

Another commentary insists <and I quote> “the incident is not a condemnation of those who were rich; rather it is a recognition of the significance of what is offered by the poor. Real worth and value have to be measured in a specific way, if it is to be measured with integrity and in spiritual truth. Jesus has a different calculator from the ones we use to add up the amount we give. It is not the amount, but the generosity of heart that is the acid test.” <end of quote> The writer suggests three ways of measuring an offering: by the cost to the giver, by the practicality of the gift and in the presence of God.

So, how much and what do we give? Generally I have a strong opposition to what has become standard practice with letters from charities: boxes to tick for fixed donation amounts – $20, $50, $100 … Is this designed to prick our conscience if we want to ‘only’ donate $5? I have a real aversion to these letters, arguing that I should not only be allowed to decide whether I want to donate, but also who to, how much and in what way.

In the wider community we are heavily reliant on volunteer contributions through a general sense of community. Whether through our children’s kindergartens or schools, through service clubs like Rotary or Lions, through volunteering at the local library or for meals on wheels, through membership of a particular sporting club or organisation … it could even be through the Temple Society.

This partly explains why the TSA abandoned the notion of membership contributions – being at suggested rates for couples, singles, pensioners, young people etc, which people largely felt they had to observe – to be replaced with a self-determining system. Members, themselves, are thereby entrusted to nominate the level of annual contribution they would like to make, that they feel comfortable making, and that they feel appropriate to their own and the Temple Society’s circumstances. Although it is in line with my aforesaid position on charity letters, believe me when I say that this was not actually part of my thinking when it was proposed! Rather, I wanted the financial contribution to be seen in the same light as voluntary contributions in other areas within our Community – attendance at working bees and maintenance of our facilities, active service on committees (Focus Groups), leading youth camps, setting up the chairs, arranging the flowers, providing the music for and even conducting our religious services, helping at community events such as Sommerfest and Sonnwendfeier, volunteering at our aged care facility and so much more – where we are grateful for every level of contribution, determined at the donor’s discretion.

Let me again turn to our young families and the challenges of raising children. For some light-heartedness I would like to share an extract from an article which appeared in the Good Weekend magazine of The Melbourne Age some years ago. Under the heading “Because I say so …” the author, Richard Guilliatt, writes:

“It was the Purple Pig Incident …”

On a more serious note I’d now like to ask Kirrily Sydenham to read a verse simply entitled “Children” she and Colin suggested for our service today. To put it in context, Kirrily also wrote to me that they “strongly believe in nurturing children with understanding, respect, tolerance and, most of all, love. It is through parents sharing and practising these qualities that children grow to embody them. We are about meeting the child at their point of need and current stage of development, and not projecting on them that they are little adults who can rationalise and lie, as they are not; they are growing children living in the moment and responding with emotional honesty to the best of their ability.”

Children (author unknown)
If a child lives with criticism
They learn to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility
They learn to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule
They learn to be shy.
If a child lives with shame
They learn to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance
They learn to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement
They learn confidence.
If a child lives with praise
They learn to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness
They learn justice.
If a child lives with security
They learn to have faith.
If a child lives with approval
They learn to like themselves.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship
They learn to find love in the world.
If a child lives with parents who have a living soul
They learn to live with the presence of soul in them.

Thank you Kirrily.

Hymn 2 – #122 – We share the joy (all 3 verses) – remain seated

In his imitable style, Michael Leunig expresses thanks for our friends in prayer as follows:

We give thanks for our friends.
Our dear friends.
We anger each other.
We fail each other.
We share this sad earth, this tender life, this precious time.
Such richness. Such wildness.
Together we are blown about.
Together we are dragged along.
All this delight.
All this suffering.
All this forgiving life.
We hold it together.
Amen

In my mind, Leunig has basically described part of what we strive for in our Community.

Choir piece (Annette Wagner-Hesse): An Irish Blessing

May God – whether and however perceived – hold you in the palm of his hand – it certainly projects a safe and comforting image

There will be coffee and tea available in the foyer at the conclusion of our service. To finish, I have picked a song penned by Neil Finn and others in memory of his close friend and band-mate Paul Hester. The track “Silent House” (#9) comes from the poignantly titled Crowded House album “Time on Earth”. Although the circumstances are very different, I offer it in the spirit of community as a mark of respect to David and Marlene Sebald, lost in the bushfires at Marysville, son and daughter-in-law of our Community member Ursula Sebald, and simultaneously as a pledge to Amelie and Joshua for their future lives.

Let us carry it on and let us try to connect: may the events of recent weeks remind us of and allow us to focus on what is important. The lyrics are on the sheets distributed with the hymnbooks.

Thank-you for listening.

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New Year's Eve Service in Bayswater
Elder, Mark Herrmann

Opening music – Veronica Rutowicz

We have almost arrived at the end of another year – 2008 – already eight years (some would say nine) since the turn of the century and the end of the second millennium. What shape do we find ourselves in? Financially, the world markets are battling, economists and forecasters providing their analysis and predictions; within Australian society, our indigenous people have been apologised to by the Prime Minister, but what has really changed?; acts of terrorism and war continue to be played out across the globe … Are we personally satisfied and content? The end of any given year is often a time for contemplation and reflection. We look back and remember the good times and the happy occasions, balancing them against those which have left us sad, dispirited and, perhaps, grief-stricken. Any extended period will surely contain a mixture of circumstances and related emotions. How are we travelling?

Hymn 1 - #19 Count your blessings (3 verses)

In the Temple Society, we traditionally use the occasion of the calendar year’s end to mention and remember those whose life journeys have either ended or begun within the last 12 months.
<Lists of deaths and births (by month) for 2008>

Text – Psalm 90: 1-12 “Man’s fragile life”
Recite from Francis Macnab’s “Fine Wind is Blowing”
A modern interpretation: the equivalent in a standard Bible, particularly the verses at the end of and beyond our selected text, speaks of a black and white relationship with God; anger and power, fury and fear, despite the reference to constant love.

This text is not dissimilar to that allocated to my brief period of contemplation which preceded the TSA AGM in October. There, from the Letter of James, we were reminded of the uncertainty of our lives. And, again here, the psalmist refers to the briefness of our life-span and seeks direction for our purpose.

Our time is so important to us; we like to think we are very important. To me, this smacks of a selfish attitude and how we tend to think of ourselves first and others later, if at all. I wonder how the likes of Fred Hollows, Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi viewed the concept of self-importance. I believe one of our constant challenges is to lead a more selfless existence. Within the operations of the Temple Society – where we strive to work cooperatively with like-minded people for the benefit of the community – a framework with which to actively love God with all your being and to love your neighbour as yourself exists.

In the text, the psalmist asks God to help us to see what His purpose for us is. I interpret this as testing us to make the most of our time on earth, which although of an indeterminate and unknown length is certainly finite. We all have abilities and talents that are ours to do with as we see fit. We can choose to function beyond the narrow, short-term, individual view by making an effort to think and act with a broader, lasting, more community-oriented perspective. Of course, such an altruistic outlook needs to be tempered and conducted so as not to risk one’s own health and wellbeing.

Set alongside our days of suffering the doorways that will lead us to the gift of gladness. Our first hymn suggested we count our many blessings. Life, although partly conventional and foreseeable, is certainly not totally predictable and inevitable. There will always be the unexpected – expect the unexpected – the surprising and the unpredictable. If not ourselves, we all know of someone who has suffered and experienced difficulties in their life. These painful times pass, sometimes assisted through the strength and conviction of our faith, but often we are changed by the event and its process. To some extent, these occasions define us.

Show us and our future generations some signs of your good presence; help us to have a strong sense of purpose in all we do. I see signs of Godly presence in humankind, in our conduct and actions, and not through supernatural or interventionist means. The Temple Society sees the Kingdom of God (Francis Macnab would say ‘God’s way’), not as a cataclysm coming at the end of time, but as a continuing development in which we are expected to participate now. This is something I am comfortable with and can relate to and work towards, although I believe it sets us apart from the mainstream Christian churches. Realistically, I guess it doesn’t matter: whatever results in making us a better person is good for us all – the surrounding community of now and the future.

Instrumental CD music – Eagles “I dreamed there was no war” (track 2)

Letter in today’s Age – “So what’s the solution?”
As tragic as the recurring cycle of violence [Israeli/Palestinian conflict] is the inevitability of the inane letters of condemnation and justification by supporters of each side. Save your futile justifications and start proposing ways both parties can work together for a better future. Determining right and wrong brings us to the same destructive point – thinking of a constructive way to step forward is empowering. Anybody willing to walk this kind of talk?

PowerPoint – “The Wise Way”
(dear Reader, click on the link above and enjoy "The Wise Way" slide show. I found it beautiful and true. ak)

With the end of a year, comes the beginning of the next one – it’s inevitable. The talk will soon resort to New Year’s resolutions. The promise of change is a wonderful thing; we have the opportunity and are all capable of it, but my experience is that change through forced circumstances has more chance of success than something self-imposed. Those life factors effectively under our own control appear less receptive to change – strange, but perhaps a human condition. [Personal example of losing weight: self/put off; doctor/diet] At least when confronted by change through circumstances not entirely of our own making, we are challenged to adapt to whatever cards have been dealt us. As a new day comes, help us to find time and inclination to sing songs of joy. Open our eyes to the delightful things of life.

Hymn 2 - #36 “God, you call for faithful service” (4 verses)

Prayer – from the Common Dreams conference held in Sydney in August 2007 – Susi

We have a dream, a common dream
Where the sacredness of creation is honoured
Where all people are treated with respect
Where the land is tended with love The great oceans are whole and healthy
The air is clear and clean
And the world is at peace
We share a dream – a common dream

May our common dreams transform us
May our common dreams empower us
May common dreams for peace be a common reality
Amen

Closing music – Neil Young “This Old Guitar” – CD (track 8) – project words – DVD (chapter 9)

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