Before coming to Australia, I did some research. I watched “Neighbours” and drank a tin of Foster’s lager and was not impressed. I watched a video of Shane Warne’s greatest wickets and was impressed. I read a book by Bill Bryson about his travels in Australia which was funny and heart-warming. But he highlighted an issue I was aware of, tension between the First and Second Australians. He did not have an answer but felt the government needed to “do something, do more”. The Assembly of the Uniting Church has set aside this Sunday as a Day of Mourning. The purpose is to reflect upon the effects of invasion and colonisation on Australia’s First peoples and our identity as a nation. It seeks to remind us of the dispossession and violence against First Peoples and laments that as a church and as Second Peoples, we were, and remain, complicit. Today we are encouraged to stand together in remembering the truth of our history and of honouring the culture of Australia’s First Peoples.
Our reading is from the first letter of John where the author reminds us that God is love and those who abide in love, abide in God. He goes on to point out that “Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen”. In other words, God loves us and if we are to truly love God, we are to love others as God does. When we show others love, we are in fact showing them God’s love. Just as God made God’s love for us known in flesh and blood, so must we make God’s love for others known in what we do. It’s not enough for us to say we love people; we actually have to do it!
It’s fair to say I’m not the best qualified person to comment here. I wasn’t born in Australia and I haven’t studied Australian history in any detail. I cannot grasp all the implications of what has happened, but I’m fairly certain that a lot of harm has been done by not showing love as Christians are called to do. Stripping things back to basic human relationships, if we love someone, we will listen to their hurts and not seek to minimise or disregard them. If we love someone we will empathise with their pain, we will apologise for our part in continuing the hurt. If we love someone, we will take steps to ensure we do not repeat the hurts going forward. I’m not saying this is a solution, but I am saying it is what we are called to do as Christians. Doing this at least is doing something, doing more. May we commit to going forward together in harmony as the one people of God.