I was once a supporter of the State of Israel. No longer. I have long been troubled by the hardship imposed by Israel on the Palestinian people. I join the dismay at Israel's airstrike on the village of Qana, killing more that 56 people, mostly women and children. One word came to mind at once when I heard of the bombing: Guernica

Certainly Hezbollah's assaults on Israel are wrong and the Israelis have some entitlement to respond with force. It is one thing to hunt out and destroy launching sites for rockets and the guerrillas who threaten and murder Israelis; but it is quite another to destroy Lebanon's infrastructure and kill its children. This is merely revenge and retribution that will make Israel no safer. Israel wants the Lebanese government to rein in Hezbollah and control its southern border, yet hinders its capacity to do so. It would to do better to equip and work with the Lebanese army or police. The fragile Lebanese government has been crippled and its ability to restrain violence within its own borders weakened. Israel has blundered. Hezbollah is gaining in support. The appalling sights of dead children, flattened buildings and floods of refugees are reinvigorating terrorism and demanding the support of all Muslim nations.

An open letter from the Rt. Rev. Riah H. Abu El-Assal, Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, 26 July 2006.

Dear Friends,
For the past forty years we have been largely alone on this desert fighting a predator that not only has robbed us of all but a small piece of our historic homeland, but threatens the traditions and holy sites of Christianity. We are tired, weary, sick, and wounded. We need your help.

We have seen and we have been the recipients of the generosity of our American and British friends. We cherish the support of everyone throughout the world who stands with us in solidarity. Daily, I hear from many of them who express outrage at the arrogant and aggressive positions of President Bush, Secretary Rice, Senator Clinton, and Prime Minister Blair. I am saddened to realize just how much the deserved prestige of the United States and Britain has declined as a result of politicians who seem to devalue human life and suffering. And, I am disturbed that the Zionist Christian community is damaging America's image as never before.

Little more than a week ago, we were focused on the plight of the Palestinian people. In Gaza, four and five generations have been victims of Israeli racism, hate crimes, terror, violence, and murder. Garbage and sewage have created a likely outbreak of cholera as Israeli strategies create the collapse of infrastructures. There is no milk. Drinking water, food, and medicine are in serious short supply. Innocents are being killed and dying from lack of available emergency care. Children are paying the ultimate price. Even for those whose lives are spared, many of them are traumatized and will not grow to live useful lives. Commerce between the West Bank and Gaza has been halted and humanitarian aid barely trickles into some of the neediest in the world.

Movement of residents of the West Bank is difficult or impossible as "security measures" are heightened to break the backs of the Palestinian people and cut them off from their place of work, schools, hospitals, and families. It is family and community that has sustained these people during these hopeless times. For some, it is all that they had, but that too has been taken away with the continued building of the wall and check points. The strategy of ethnic cleansing on the part of the State of Israel continues.

This week, war broke out on the Lebanon-Israeli border (near Banyas where Jesus gave St. Peter the keys to heaven and earth). The Israeli government's disproportionate reaction to provocation was consistent with their opportunistic responses in which they destroy their perceived enemy.

In her recent article, "The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel," American, Kathleen Christison, a former CIA analyst says, "The state lashes out in a crazed effort, lacking any sense of proportion, to reassure itself of its strength." She continues, "A society that can brush off as unimportant an army officer's brutal murder of a thirteen year old girl on the claim that she threatened soldiers at a military post (one of nearly seven hundred Palestinian children murdered by Israelis since the Intifada began) is not a society with a conscience." The "situation" as it has come to be called, has deteriorated into a war without boundaries or limitations. It is a war with deadly potential beyond the imaginations of most civilized people.

As I write to you, I am preparing to leave with other bishops for Nablus with medical and other emergency supplies for five hundred families, and a pledge for one thousand families more.

On Saturday we will attempt to enter Gaza with medical aid for doctors and nurses in our hospital there who struggle to serve the injured, the sick, and the dying.

My plan is that I will be able to go to Lebanon next week--where we are presently without a resident priest--to bury the dead, and comfort the victims of war. Perhaps as others have you will ask, "What can I do?" Certainly we encourage and appreciate your prayers. That is important, but it is not enough. If you find that you can no longer look away, take up your cross. It takes courage as we were promised.

Write every elected official you know. Write to your news media. Speak to your congregation, friends, and colleagues about injustice and the threat of global war. If Syria, Iran, the United States, Great Britain, China and others enter into this war--the consequence is incalculable. Participate in rallies and forums. Find ways that you and your churches can participate in humanitarian relief efforts for the region. Contact us and let us know if you stand with us. I urge you not to be like a disciple watching from afar.

2 Corinthians 6.11: "We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians, our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return--I speak as to children--open wide your hearts also."

In, with, and through Christ,

Riah H. Abu El-Assal

Stephen Hough is a well-known concert pianist and also fine writer. He is interested in theology as well as music and his book The Bible as prayer will be published by Continuum in early 2007. A couple of pieces of his writing, reproduced on his website, are especially helpful to me. In 1983 Hough won the Naumburg International Piano Competition in New York. He describes it as the "best of times" for it opened the door at once to an international performing career; but it was also the "worst of times".

To begin with, I had very few concertos in my repertoire--maybe six or seven. What would I do when it was the eighth which was requested? Learn it, of course! But when in one season I had to learn seven new concertos and keep as many older ones on the boil too my mind began seriously to spin out of control. "Tiredness can kill: take a break" is wise advice, but once this car is up and running it can be very hard to pull over to the lay-by and rest a while. The temptation to continue driving can be overwhelming
[. . .]
I became terribly tired--always tired. I was forever hurtling backwards and forwards across the Atlantic and learning repertoire became a chore--works which had thrilled me were now like heavy burdens on my back. I was like someone whose garden tree had produced a few admired, succulent pears and was now faced with planting a whole orchard. How could I not just learn the notes of all this music but make it my own, wear it, live it? And if this season's recital was well-received what would I play next season? "Lovely programme idea, but we really need some Schubert . . . I'm afraid we had too much Liszt last season, do you play any Scriabin? . . . It's too much unusual repertoire . . . it's too much standard repertoire . . . so and so has just cancelled in Los Angeles tomorrow, do you play the Beethoven 4th? . . . Ms. Connie Ductor has asked for you in Tokyo. Can you learn d'Issey Nantes' Concertino for Piano and Brass? Rehearsals start in three weeks".

I sat by a hotel pool one glorious afternoon in Singapore sipping a cool drink and wondered why I was not enjoying all of this. Only a couple of years before it was what I really wanted to do and things were going well. This poolside reflection was a very low moment for me but was also an important point of realization that no 'best of times' which relied on some 'thing' to support it could be guaranteed to last. I would only really find joy in my music if I was not expecting the music itself to provide me with joy. If I could stand back from it then I could see it in perspective, a partner in rather than a provider of happiness. That moment between the Monday of depression and the Tuesday of serenity was the point at which best and worst could be seen as two sides of the same tapestry: one knotted and tangled, the other smooth and ordered but stitched by the same hand and part of the same design. It was also a Catholic moment, when I dipped my toe tentatively back into a faith which put things into an even bigger context. Times have been better since.

 

Problems Playing the Piano?
[. . .]
Psychological problems probably account for the vast majority of difficulties or discouragements for a musician at every stage of their careers, and most of these should be avoidable. So often it boils down to inflated or distorted egos: the excessive desire to be admired, successful, or praised. There's a sense in which these desires contain perfectly natural reflexes for us as human beings, both sheer survival techniques and also a matter of common sense and mental stability. But there's also the potential here for enormous strain and self-destruction. If we walk on to the stage, or into a lesson, with an excessive hunger for approval or adulation we stifle something inside us. Aside from any moral or cultural distaste one might have for boastful, egotistical people, such self-absorption rarely makes sense from a purely practical standpoint. It's like driving on the highway and looking too closely at the car in the next lane--the lack of perspective is dizzying and dangerous. Or like seeing reality in a mirror--observing ourselves only through the eyes of others and their approval or lack of it. The great pianist, Egon Petri, once said that we would never be nervous if we were humble. It's not a matter of not caring, or of being a shrinking violet, but of practical mental health.

This is a battle with the self which is never completely won, and each defeat can be a further source of discouragement! I'm certainly far from victory and constantly have to remind myself again and again of these issues. But that bad masterclass, that failed audition, that vicious review, that memory lapse can pass us by unscathed if we can try to transcend the debris of our wounded egos. Whatever musical talent we have, whether great or modest, will flourish better in the larger garden of ultimate reality than in the cramped plant-pots of our own small worlds. To reach beyond ourselves in achievement is an ambition which can best be achieved by looking beyond our 'selves'. That is after all what 'ecstasy' means, to stand outside: not as an 'outsider' but as one passionately involved, with a perspective that's as large as the reality it aims to contemplate. (April 2005)

I came across Stephen Hough's writing through an extract in the The Tablet (29 Apr 06), from "An equal music", a chapter of The Way We Are Now (ed. Ben Summerskill) also published by Continuum.

The first message of explicit negativity I heard towards being gay came from my religious beliefs as I entered my teenage years in an evangelical Church. The teaching was that something growing within me (which was me) was disgusting and must be kept quiet, cured, squashed, punished . . anything will do.
[. . .]
I became a Catholic at the age of 19 and the teaching on homosexuality remained the same, although being unmarried now became a respectable, even glamorous option.
[. . .]
It was when reading Pope John Paul II's famous book Love and Responsibility, published in 1960 when he was an auxiliary bishop in Krakow, that I first began to think again about this issue. You cannot offer such a radiant and dazzling vision of love and human relationships to your readers, and then exclude those who happen to have "green eyes". Once you have affirmed, as he did controversially and courageously for a Catholic bishop of his time, the sacredness of the human body and its self-gift in the sexual act, you have opened a floodgate of recognition for all who have both bodies to reverence and "selves" to give.

"It is not good that the man should be alone," said God in the opening chapters of the Bible and of human history--the one blemish in an otherwise unblemished world, where everything was "very good". Such an affirmation of companionship at the beginning of time is fresh and inspiring still; and, combined with new discoveries about sexual orientation in the natural world, it opens up a radical challenge to previously confident assessments of the morality of gay relationships.

To share a life of intimacy with another is the way the vast majority of men and women, regardless of their gender preference, are meant to live whole and holy lives. Such relationships are about more than making babies. They are about making love, because to do so is to be fully human, with sensitive, "musical" hearts attuned to vibrations that animals may hear but only men and women can hold. Celibacy is of value only as an affirmation of what is renounced--the best given up freely because it is the best gift one can give. If celibacy is not rare, and a totally free donation, it has the whiff of something slightly perverse about it--literally "contrary to nature".

We are subject to natural law as part of creation, but we are also able to contemplate it and relish it. It is the great epiphany of reality: what is actually there, not what we would like to be there, or what our forebears have told us is there. It can be full of surprises, and it has no favourites. The one who claims natural law as an ally in arguing for the sanctity of life might end up finding it an annoying foe in a discussion on homosexuality.

When the world in which we live tells a different story from what we were taught, we eventually have to break free. It isn't so much that law changes, but that the Church (from St Paul onwards) simply has not had the vocabulary to discuss an issue it neither named nor understood. (The idea that a person could actually be homosexual, rather than a badly behaved heterosexual, has been accepted by the Church only in the past 30 years or so.)

Law is living and flexible: always growing, adapting, changing shape; never abandoning its roots but never rigid either. Christ not only boiled theology down to the simple statement, "God is love", he also distilled the complex religious laws of his time to love of that same God and of neighbour as oneself. The spiritual liberty and simplicity that resulted from this new, unified vision led, in theory at least, to the breaking down of the divisive barriers between men and women, slave and free, Jew and Gentile. It is tragic that it took Christians at least 1,900 years even to begin to explore or live this freedom in practice. The prison gates were open but we remained inside, either cowering in the corner or standing with arms outstretched, blocking the exit. Both responses came from fear, and both were betrayals of the Christian message.

Ultimately the only real argument against homosexual equality is a belief that God has told us it is wrong. All the other reasons given (destruction of the family, seduction of the young, unnatural behaviour, a genetic disorder like alcoholism) are attempts to find a common, secular currency to barter for what is an a priori, religious judgement. But the coins are fake and are being rendered obsolete by common sense and daily experience.

Actually I believe that the religious arguments are wrong too, and that, as with slavery, the Churches will have to re-evaluate their teaching on this issue--but that's for another chapter, indeed another book. That re-evaluation will probably take decades, but in the meantime the Churches cannot expect gay non-Christians in a secular world to abstain from sexual relationships from their teenage years up to the end of their lives [. . .]

AngliCORD is appealing for emergency help for Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. The hospital is a vital institution of the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem, and led by Palestinian Christian Suhalia Tarazi.

Serious food, water, fuel, and power shortages are devastating for Palestinian families in the Gaza strip, as conflict deepens the humanitarian crisis. AngliCORD's long term partner in Gaza, the Al Ahli Arab Hospital, is seriously affected by a lack of power, medical supplies and food. Al Ahli needs money to run the hospital generator, after the bombing of Gaza's power plant. The hospital's emergency, critical care and burns units are treating men, women, and children injured by bombs and artillery fire. Food packages are being provided to families with malnourished children.

Donations are needed urgently to provide essential medial care, food for malnourished children, and support for trauma recovery programs in Gaza. Please respond to this humanitarian emergency. Donate online.

UN chief Kofi Annan has appealed for urgent action to alleviate the desperate humanitarian situation of the civilian population of Gaza. More than half of the 1.4 million people of Gaza depend on food aid; bread, milk, sugar, rice, and beans are all in short supply, mainly due to frequent border closures.

Read more about the hospital here and here.

In church a couple of Sundays ago, our Rector, the Rev'd Rebecca Newland, showed the children this picture that she had painted. They were quick to say what was wrong with it! Rebecca's point was that God is relaxed about the fact that we make mistakes. This was helpful to me, as I was recovering from the embarrassment of a large mistake (details later, perhaps).



This house is certainly on an unsure foundation!

Here's most of Rebecca's homily.

Pentecost 5B: 2 Samuel 5:1-5, 9-10, Psalm 48, 2 Corinthians 12:2-10, Mark 6:1-13

In the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen

Hands up all who have failed at something? [I put up my hand.] Hands up all those who have set out to achieve something and have had to give up? [Again, I raised my hand] Hands up all those who have broken a promise? [Once more, my hand went up.] Hands up all those who think the Christian way of life is impossibly idealistic and no one can really live up to it? [Not sure]. There is no way around it. Failure is as common as sunrises and the fear of failure is like a disease in our minds and memories. We can have one bad failure and we can never attempt the task again. [. . . ]

God does call us into a way of life, a way of being, into a life beyond what we can imagine. Many people confuse Christianity with a type of religious humanism. As if it was all about being a good person, doing the right thing, helping others and then going to heaven. Yet the gospel is about a Kingdom--about a new reality, a way of life that demands everything of us. It's a way of life that transforms all regions of our hearts, minds and actions. That is the Kingdom of God.

We receive the Kingdom, we enter it and we are called to share Jesus' message in announcing it. The twelve Apostles in today's Gospel were called and sent by Jesus to announce his Kingdom--but what a sad and sorry lot. These blokes in Mark's gospel are always only on the way to understanding, always vowing and trying to follow but they have repeated failures. This mob is quite inadequate as messengers/disciples -- but Jesus uses them anyway. Flawed as they are he sends them. They are not sent because they have amazing skills and abilities. Jesus chooses them despite their failures. And God chooses us despite our failures. In fact he keeps choosing us even when we keep failing. Just think of that--God chooses us, over and over again! How can he do that? How can he possibly think this is an efficient way of doing things?

Well I guess God's ways are not our ways! So what does this Gospel passage tell us about God's ways? What is it about God's choosing that can help us overcome our failures and weaknesses?

The first clue is the example of Jesus himself. He experiences a major failure in his hometown. "He could do no deed of power there" (6:5) and was "amazed at their unbelief" (6:6). So how does he handle this? Well he accepts the rejection in his stride, he leaves behind the people who have rejected him, and continues his ministry elsewhere -- "he went among the villages teaching" (6:6). He simply gets on with it. W.C. Fields once famously said, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then give up. There is no use being a damn fool about it." However we are called to be fools for Christ. Jesus shows the way--get on with it and keep going. Maybe we need to change the detail, maybe we need to do things in a different way, but the underpinning idea is to remain faithful to the life to which Jesus calls us.

Another key point is that Jesus sends the apostles out in pairs, "two by two" (6:7). He does not send them out alone. Indeed none of our ministry is done alone. We have a community of people to share the burden and the task with--a bunch of people to encourage and build us up. I have read that Jesus did not found a religion or a doctrine, he founded a community.

It's a flawed and frustrating community, yet it is the place where we are called to journey together, supporting each other as we try and live in the way of Christ. If we look at the stories of the first disciples in the Acts of the Apostles, they always worked in pairs and groups. A lone Christian is an oxymoron.

And the last point I want to talk about from this passage is the need to travel light. Jesus orders the apostles to "take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread; no bag, no money in their belts" (6:8). They were to take the bare essentials. This is as much about an attitude of mind as it is about material encumbrances. We can all be heavily weighted down by what we think is essential in life, even the Christian life. Maybe we are weighed down by fears, a sense of not being worthy, maybe we have some false humility. Maybe we are weighed down by a fear of failure. Maybe we are encumbered with a list of "shoulds", "maybes" and "only whens" Jesus encourages us to unburden ourselves and become free agents--free agents for the Gospel.

If we are honest people we know we make mistakes, we know we can fail easily at what we do. As C.S Lewis said we live in the shadow lands--the shadow lands of fear and failure. We know too that living out the Christian message in real and viable ways takes guts and courage. The call of the disciples we have been considering is sandwiched between two stories of rejected prophets: Jesus rejected by his hometown people (vv. 1-6a) and then John the Baptist killed by king Herod (vv. 14-29). It is not an easy road. Standing up for what you believe to be true, standing up for what you believe to be right is neither safe nor easy. But God does not ask us to succeed. He asks us only to be faithful.

Jesus as always gives us the clues about God's way in all this: keep going and don't give up, travel with friends and travel light. But maybe you are not convinced. Maybe that doesn't seem enough. Perhaps we think that will not get us over the line or maybe even nowhere near it. I'd like to leave one final word to St. Paul, who I suspect often liked to have the final word!

When Paul is writing to the church in Corinth we hear him defending himself against critics. In his discussion of visions and boasting, his hardships and problems he tells how three times he begged God to remove his 'thorn in the flesh'. We do not know what this 'thorn in the flesh' was. We don't know whether it was a mental problem, a physical disability, or a problem to do with other people. What ever it was, it was something he did not want to deal with. The answer he received was this "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (12:9). It does not matter what our weaknesses, our fears, our issues are, God's grace is enough. Just let that sink in . . . God's grace is sufficient. You are enough, just as you are, for God's good purposes to be fulfilled. We have only to say yes, to go where we are sent, to love God and others, to proclaim the message of God's redeeming love and peace, just as we are, fears, failings, weaknesses, doubts and all.

As we gather around the Lord's table to celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus may we leave behind us all that weighs us down. May we kneel and stand with our brothers and sisters in Christ, pilgrims and partners on the way. May we trust that we have been truly called, as it says in our Baptism service to "Confess Christ crucified and proclaim his resurrection", may we never give up, may we "finish the race and keep the faith" and may we come to the table trusting in the absolute sufficiency of God's grace. Amen.

It is indeed natural to us to wish and to plan, and it is merciful in the Lord to disappoint our plans, and to cross our wishes. For we cannot be safe, much less happy, but in proportion as we are weaned from our own wills, and made simply desirous of being directed by His guidance. This truth (when we are enlightened by His Word) is sufficiently familiar to the judgement; but we seldom learn to reduce it into practice without being trained a while in the school of disappointment. The schemes we form look so plausible and convenient that when they are broken we are ready to say, What a pity! We try again, and with no better success; we are grieved, and perhaps angry, and plan another, and so on; at length, in a course of time, experience and observation begin to convince us that we are not more able than we are worthy to choose aright for ourselves. Then the Lord's invitation to cast our cares upon Him, and His promise to take care of us, appear valuable; and when we have done planning, His plan in our favour gradually opens, and He does more and better for us than we could either ask or think. I can hardly recollect a single plan of mine, of which I have not since seen reason to be satisfied that, had it taken place in season and circumstance just as I proposed, it would, humanly speaking, have proved my ruin; or at least it would have deprived me of the greater good the Lord had designed for me. We judge of things by their present appearance, but the Lord sees them in their consequences; if we could do so likewise, we should be perfectly of His mind; but as we cannot, it is an unspeakable mercy that He will manage for us, whether we are pleased with His management or not; and it is spoken of as one of His heaviest judgements, when He gives any person or people up to the way of their own hearts, and to walk after their own counsels.

John Newton. Two letters to Miss P----. Cardiphonia (1781)

Before our Sunday church service this morning, two members of Falun Gong in Australia visited on our Rector. Falun Gong, the quasi-religious movement outlawed in China, says that thousands of their imprisoned members have been murdered and their organs taken supply a trade in transplants. The visitors asked our priest to pass some information to us -- which she did.

It has been known for some time and even partly acknowledged that the organs of criminals executed in China have been take for transplants, though a new July 2006 law is purported to make this illegal.

But now reports emerge of a new horror. On 24 March 06, for example, The Washington Times reported that a Chinese journalist had uncovered a secret detention center in northern China that is being used by a hospital to harvest human organs for sale to domestic and international buyers. A Mr Jin Zhong (a pseudonym) discovered that secret medical work was being done at the Liaoning Provincial Thrombosis Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, in Shenyang, in northeastern China. An underground prison beneath the hospital is allegedly holding up to 6,000 Falun Gong members,whose organs are being systematically harvested, and sold to people, from both China and abroad, who need medical organ transplants. Mr. Jin said bodies of the prisoners were burned in the boiler room of the hospital and that boiler room workers had taken jewelry and watches from the dead and sold them. He said he has provided information about the organ harvesting to U.S. government officials, including members of Congress.

CTV.ca says that a report this month by Canadian MP David Kilgour has supported accusations that China is harvesting the vital organs of imprisoned Falun Gong dissidentd. "They take both kidneys, then the heart and the skin and the corneas and the liver, and your body is then thrown in the incinerator. . . . I don't think anyone can have any doubt that this unbelievable practice is continuing," Kilgour said of his findings. China, of course, denies the allegations. The UN and Amnesty International are also investigating, but neither considers that it has enough solid evidence to reach the same conclusion.

The Laogai Research Foundation is a non-profit organization that compiles information about the Laogai--China's network of forced labor camps. (The word Laogai comes from the expression Laodong Gaizao or "reform through labor".")

The Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CPIFG) has members of many faiths and none and provides a well ordered, comprehensive compilation of evidence and reports. It explains:

For thousands of years, the Chinese have engaged in body, mind and spiritual practices loosely known as "qigong," whose purpose is to improve one's health and cultivate one's virtue. Tai chi, the martial arts and yoga emanated from this rich tradition and Lao Zi and Confucius are examples of its teachers. Falun Gong is one of these body, mind and spiritual practices. Like its kin, it consists of five gentle exercises, and meditation. Falun Gong is based on the principles of Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance. Those who practice, regularly find it to bring them better health, reduced stress, inner peace, a deepened sense of morality and a state of selflessness and inner balance.

See also: Falun Dafa, Global Rescue, Uphold Justice and Falun Gong Human Rights.

I would find this practice unsatisfactory as a religion, but as a form of meditation and exercise it seems harmless enough and probably beneficial. I have no idea whether Falun Gong could be obssesive or what we have come to call a cult. I am a registered organ donor. I am glad that when, in God's good time, I am dead, others may benefit from the use of my body.

What is certain is that, if the allegations about organ harvesting in China are even partly true, they point to a new and especially horrible evil.

It's an agony that the seemingly trivial question of homosexuality once again brings deep division to much loved church. The Age speculates that "the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) has moved a step closer to splitting with conservative leaders who have resolved to form their own assembly."

A meeting this week in Brisbane of members of the Reforming Alliance and Evangelical Members within the UCA produced a charter and resolved to form an Assembly of Confessing Congregations (ACC). Reverend Stephen Estherby, who is on the ACC's steering body, said the new group would fulfil the doctrinal responsibilities which he believed had been neglected or had become dysfunctional in the UCA. "We are not saying we are going to totally disengage at this stage, we have to see how this is going to work itself out. But you could say the relationship is not working and we are looking at some sort of separation but it is not at that divorce stage yet. We've come to the point where we are saying, we have had enough. [. . .] It's not just issues of sexuality, all of the church's teaching needs to be measured by scripture. [. . .] This action has been necessary because of the refusal of the national Assembly to affirm the traditional teaching and practice of the Uniting Church. [. . .] For us, the Assembly of Confessing Congregations represents the hope of a new beginning and a way in which we can remain associated with the UCA with integrity."

A few days ago the Uniting Church of Australia's General Assembly decided against trying to reach consensus at present on a policy about homosexual people in positions of ministry and leadership. Members of its 11th Assembly meeting in Brisbane agreed they were "not of one mind" on the issue of accepting into ministry people who were living in a committed same-gender sexual relationships. Below is the text of a resolution passed 173-48 (78.3%) in a formal vote.

Uniting Church President, Rev. Gregor Henderson said Assembly members recognised this was an important issue for many members of the Church but that after lengthy discussions and spiritual discernment they had been unable to reach agreement as to whether the Assembly should further exercise determining responsibility on this issue and adopt a single policy to apply across the entire church.

"I am grateful for the gracious and respectful way that members of the Assembly addressed this issue. We were also deeply moved by the response of the Aboriginal arm of the church which, despite opposing the current practice, committed itself to remain within the fellowship of the Uniting Church. Our discussions over the last few days remind us that we have a range of deeply held convictions in our church on this issue and that we are not of the same mind at this time. Notwithstanding the hopes of many in the church, the Assembly resolved that it was unable to exercise further its determining authority in this matter.

"We have prayerfully sought to discern God's will on this matter and I believe we have reached a position of integrity at this time that allows us to live in unity with our diversity. The decision of the Assembly today recognises that there are a range of understandings about this issue.

"This decision re-affirms that congregations and presbyteries will continue to be the place where decisions around the ordination and placement of those living in committed same-gender relationships are made. Congregations who are unable, in all good conscience, to receive such a minister will not be compelled to do so. The resolution also calls the church to respect the decision of a congregation indicating its willingness to consider calling a minister in a committed same-gender relationship."

Sexuality and leadership in the Uniting Church of Australia

The Assembly resolved:

Preamble

In the struggle to be the Uniting Church in Australia, we affirm that our unity is our oneness in Jesus Christ; we acknowledge a variety of theological perspectives and biblical understandings which we maintain in tension within our life as a church, recognising that variety is a gift to the Church which allows most people to find a spiritual home amongst our many congregations and faith communities.

1. To acknowledge and lament that even though the decision of the 10th Assembly regarding Sexuality and Leadership (Assembly Minute 03.12.04, varied by Assembly Standing Committee Minute 03.69.03) was made prayerfully and in good faith and according to UCA polity, it was a catalyst for the deep concern and disquiet present in some parts of the UCA.

[Commonly known as "Proposal 84", this decision left with presbyteries the authority to decide about a minister living in a committed same-gender relationship.]

2. To express its regret that following the 10th Assembly there were some faithful ministers and members of the church who believed that because of the decision of the 10th Assembly regarding Sexuality and Leadership (Assembly Minute 03.12.04, varied by Assembly Standing Committee Minute 03.69.03) they had no option but to withdraw from the Uniting Church altogether.

3. To express its regret that faithful Christian gay and lesbian people, on whose lives the Assembly deliberations have impacted, have continued to experience pain in our church.

4. To declare that the matter of Sexuality and Leadership is at heart a matter of faith and concerns our humanity in Christ.

The 11th Assembly

5. To acknowledge:

a) that Assembly members are not of one mind regarding the issue of the acceptance into the specified ministries of those living in committed same-gender relationships; and
b) that some members of the Assembly adhere to traditional teaching and practice of Reformed and Evangelical churches in this matter, while others who also adhere to the Reformed and Evangelical tradition believe that God may be leading this tradition to a different understanding and practice;
and therefore, notwithstanding the hopes of many in the Church, the 11th Assembly, having prayerfully sought to discern God's will and after much deliberation, is not prepared to exercise further its determining responsibility in this matter.

The Next Steps

6. Pursuant to clauses 38 of the Constitution, to advise Synods and Presbyteries;

a) that congregations who resolve that they are unable in conscience to receive into ministry placement a person living in a committed same-gender relationship, shall not be compelled to do so; and
b) to respect the decision of a congregation indicating its willingness to consider calling a minister in a committed same-gender relationship.

7. To encourage Congregations:

a) to be aware that within many Congregations there is a diversity of belief on matters of sexuality and leadership and that some members do not feel free to express their beliefs;
b) to become safe communities where people may hold diverse beliefs on these matters and work together as the Body of Christ; and
c) to recognise that the possibility of living with difference is a gift which Christ offers to the world.

8. To encourage the whole church:
a) to commit itself to continue to grapple with the implications of the gospel of God's grace for our humanity, the church's life, and participation in God's mission in the world;
b) to call on all members of the church who hold different views to work at living together in peace as members of the Body of Christ; and
c) to hope, pray and work for that common mind in faith which is Jesus Christ's gift and will.

9. To request the Assembly Working Group on Doctrine to engage in further work that assists the Church in our ongoing consideration of the theological diversity of the Church on this issue and to authorise the Assembly Standing Committee to determine the terms of reference for such work.

10. To acknowledge:

(a) that the Uniting Church is committed "to bear witness to that unity which is both Christ's gift and will for the Church"; and
(b) that Christ continues to feed us with word and sacrament as we wait on God's living Word;
and to call the Uniting Church to re-commit itself to its primary purpose of "worship, witness and service" (Quotes are from the Basis of Union, Paragraph 1).

11. To request that the President consult with the Moderators in relation to a pastoral letter to the whole church.

Note: The contents of the pastoral letter may include (a) the matters referred to in the preamble (b) the contents of this resolution (c) a reflection of the nature and spirit of the 11th Assembly discussions and contributions from the UAICC and Multicultural congregations (d) the longing of the 11th Assembly for the day when those Christians who in conscience left congregations are reconciled with those Christians who remain within the UCA, and that we may unite in faith, hope and love.

It's impossible to escape sport in this country and, after a while, you get to think that maybe it would be OK to at least notionally support a team or two. These are my allegiances. The oldest is to Hawthorn. I remember sitting as a little boy on my grandfather's veranda, listening with my grandfather and uncle to a radio broadcast of a Hawthorn game. I think it may have been the first semi-final of the 1957 season, when Hawthorn 10-11-71 defeated Carlton 6-12-48 on 31 August. As I was born close to Hawthorn, I decided to be a supporter! But I don't think I ever got to go to a game, as we lived a very long way from the city.

There are so many competitions; most interesting are cricket and soccer (international football).

	The Hawks (Australian Football League)
	Sydney FC (A League soccer.)
	The ACT Brumbies (Super 14 rugby)
	Melbourne Storm (National Rugby League)
	Canberra Capitals (Womens National Basketball League)
	The Bushrangers (Victoria's state cricket team)
	The Australian Cricket team
	The Socceroos
	The Kookaburras and the Hockeyroos.
	Australia's Davis Cup team.

The The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age report that the Uniting Church of Australia, Australia's third largest church, faces rebellion after conservatives yesterday lost their battle to exclude practising gays from the ministry. This is a cut-and-paste from the three reports.

The Uniting Church's national assembly, meeting in Brisbane, has admitted the church is "not of one mind" and unable to resolve divisions. Its failure to decide affirms the status quo, adopted in 2003, which upholds the autonomy of local presbyteries to appoint clergy who are practising homosexuals.

An overwhelming majority of Uniting Church delegates - about three-quarters of the 250 gathered in Brisbane for the first general debate about sexuality and ministry since 2003 - voted against a proposal for a national policy that could ban gay ministers. Under the 2003 assembly's Resolution 84, it is up to regional bodies, or presbyteries, to decide whether to appoint gay ministers, which means the church has no national policy on the issue.

"They have agreed to disagree and leave it at that," said a source from the assembly. The Australian understands only about eight delegates voted for a proposal to develop a national policy on gay clergy that would overrule decisions made on a presbytery or regional level.

Conservative responses

Stephen Estherby, spokesman for the evangelical network EMU, said he failed to see how the statement would help the church move beyond existing confusion and distress. "I believe that the direction you are taking will only set us up for three more years of controversy, misunderstanding, despair and decline." he said. "We are not going to operate within the existing structures of the church."

Addressing 40 evangelicals gathered for a prayer vigil outside the assembly, the chairman of the conservative Reforming Alliance, Dr Max Champion, said the effect of no decision was support for the ordination of homosexual clergy. Although indigenous members objected to homosexual clergy on biblical grounds, they remained "willing to live within the fellowship and diversity of the church".

Reverend Keith Garner, superintendent of Wesley Mission, said those in committed homosexual relationships were welcome in the church but were not "appropriate for church leadership". "The prolonged debate over same-sex relationships and church leadership is deflecting the Uniting Church from its core mission and ministry."

Conservatives are to meet on Wednesday to consider options. These include walking out, or staying put but dissociating themselves from the leadership structure.

Liberal responses

The Revd Ian Pearson, minister of Pitt Street Uniting Church and NSW leader of gay advocacy group Uniting Network, said the future of the church lay in the explicit acknowledgement of gays and lesbians called to church leadership. He told The Age "We want more to happen, and it will one day, but not at this assembly." He said the 2003 decision had been bad for gays. "In the three years since it came in, there has not been one gay or lesbian candidate for ordination because now the church can ask questions about sexuality."

Presidential admonitions

Canberra minister Gregor Henderson, installed as 11th president of the Uniting Church during the Assembly, said he was distressed at the way disagreements had descended to personal denigration and abuse, and urged an end to name-calling and divisive attitudes. He rebuked members of his church for "shameful behaviour not worthy of Christians" in their deep divisions over gay clergy.

"This is not the way of Christ," he said last night. "That is not an occasion for celebration or praise, it is a matter of loss, failure and sadness." He also criticised the more than 20,000 members who signed a petition after the 2003 assembly in Melbourne, which cleared the way for churches to appoint ministers living in same-sex relationships, and said the language of the petition was "unfortunately over the top".

As its 12th and first full-time President, to take office in 2009 the Uniting Church has chosen Alister Macrae, a leading advocate for gay and lesbian Christians.

Mr Macrae said the church could be a multicultural role model for the wider community. He said the sexuality debate and presenting the Christian message in a postmodern culture were the most immediate challenges.

"It is not true that the Uniting Church is weak on doctrine. We are a credal, confessional church, but where we can accept disagreement about faith kicks in a little earlier," he said.

In his Presidential address to the General Synod of the Church of England, Archbishop Sentamu reflects on his experience of the recent General Convention of the Episcopal Church. He notes that much that was good, gracious and godly was done at the Convention, but criticises the failure of an overly complex legislative process to give a clear response to Windsor. Citing (Philippians 4:5), he calls for gracious magnanimity to be manifest to all. He says that:

The person who is immoderate (akribodikaios) is the person who stands up for the last title of their legal rights; but the person who is graciously magnanimous (epieikes) knows that there are times when a thing may be legally completely justified and yet morally completely wrong.

True, but the person who is immoderate is also the person who insists that the law enforce their own view of what is moral, while the person who is graciously magnanimous knows that there are times when disagreement about morality requires that we allow people to act according to conscience. Indeed something may be moral even though illegal and vice versa. Thus Archbishop Sentamu says:

The person who is forbearing (epieikes) knows when to relax the law under the compulsion of a force that is higher and greater than law. They know the time when to stand on their rights would unquestionably be legal, and would just as unquestionably be completely unchristian.

This also cuts both ways. We may say that for the sake of morality and forbearance, gay people should not insist on legal equality. But we could just as readily say that for the sake of a higher morality of love, acceptance, peace and tolerance, others should not insist on law that prevents people in same-sex relationships from fulfil their ministries.

Consequently, a plea for graciousness of itself does not get us very far. It merely changes the language of the debate, causing us to argue as to what is gracious.

Though preferring 'orthodoxy' (itself a loaded term), in effect Archbishop Sentamu calls for a middle path. But on 'issues' of homosexuality there is no middle path available. Either gay and lesbian people may be ordained (and consecrated as bishops), or they may not. Either faithful monogamous same-sex couples may live together as part of a Christian community that celebrates their relationships, or they may not. The Episcopal Church's General Convention failed with respect to homosexuality because it tried to take a middle path where none exists. But I would not attribute blame to that failure, as it merely reflected confusion in the church as a whole.

If there is no middle path, we are obliged to decide whether the conservatives or the progressives should be required to tolerate a situation they do not like. Archbishop Sentamu, by his advocacy of Windsor, seems to prefer complete constraint on the part of the progressives, though I may be wrong on this. But if we were to take a stance that inflicts the least pain, we would allow blessing of same-sex relationships, for to do so harms no-one while prohibition causes pain to the people refused. We would be cautious in consecrating as bishops people living in same-sex relationships, unless it was very clear that most people under their oversight agreed and that alternative oversight were available to the others. Would this not offer the 'gracious magnanimity' that scripture enjoins?

See also interesting comments on the Archbishop of York's address by Tony Clavier and Mark Harris.

Meanwhile, the General Synod of the Church of England has agreed in principle that women may be bishops. Bishops voted 31-9 (76%) in favour, clergy 134-42 (78%) and the laity 123-68 (64%). The resolution was:

That this Synod welcome and affirm the view of the majority of the House of Bishops that admitting women to the episcopate in the Church of England is consonant with the faith of the Church as the Church of England has received it and would be a proper development in proclaiming afresh in this generation the grace and truth of Christ.

Ruth Gledhill reports that the online discussion group COIN has been debating whether the required two-thirds majority (127 votes in favour) will be present in the house of the laity when the final legislation comes before the synod.

In the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, legislation allowing appointment of women bishops narrowly failed in a secret ballot when last considered in late 2004. The proposal was passed by the house of bishops 17-6 (73% in favour) but failed in the houses of clergy 63-43 (59%) and the laity 67-39 (63%). It is difficult to see how a measure could pass, as the largest diocese opposed, Sydney, is growing in its representation in General Synod. Much work is being done, especially in the Appellate Tribunal, to try to decide whether women bishops may legally be appointed without changes to legislation being made by General Synod.

Lord Christ, help us to have the courage and humility to name our burdens and lay them down so that we are light to walk across the water to where you beckon us.

Our pride, armouring us, hardening us, making us defend our dignity by belittling others;
we name it and we lay it down.

The memory of hurts and insults, driving us to lash out, to strike back;
we name it and we lay it down.

Our antagonism against those whose actions, differences, presence, threaten our comfort or security;
we name it and we lay it down.

Our fear, of unsolved questions, of the unknown, of fear itself;
we name it and we lay it down.

We do not need these burdens, but we have grown used to carrying them, have forgotten what it is like to be light. Beckon us to lightness of being, for you show us it is not unbearable. Only so can we close the distance. Only so can we walk upon the water.

It is so. Blessed are you, Lord Christ, who makes heavy burdens light.

-- Katby Galloway (Iona Community)

With an Italy v. France final, the World Cup has become a bore. The early rounds were intriguing, but the finalists have been selected by cheating.

Maybe this superb Canadian athlete, Alexandre Despatie, should be recruited for the French football team. He's cute, speaks French and is a world-class diver.

France advanced to the final after defeating Portugal 1-0, not in the run of play, but by yet another arbitrary match-deciding penalty. Zidane skilfully converted the penalty after Uruguayan referee Larrionda adjudged that Carvalho had fouled Henry. Carvalho had slipped as he tried to win the ball and Henry took advantage of his flailing leg, by going over after contact. One report declared that "The dark arts of diving, play-acting and intimidating the officials were all on display."

Nobody's fooled by the diving (except the referee); thus Michelle Kauffman in the Miami Herald 27 Jun. 2006, writing about the earlier Australia v. Italy match.

What happened in Kaiserslautern on Monday . . . was disgusting. That film clip, which is very real, clearly shows Italian player Fabio Grosso taking a dive Greg Louganis would be proud of, tumbling over the prostrate Australian defender Lucas Neill in the penalty box, just as time is about to expire at 0-0.

Grosso crumpled into the fetal position, and peeked out to see if referee Luis Medina Cantalejo bit. He did. A few seconds later, Francisco Totti lined up a penalty kick, scored, and Italy advanced to the quarterfinals. Australia got a long plane ride home, and four years to wonder what would have happened had they played extra time.

It was the latest -- and perhaps most blatant -- example of unpunished cheating going on at this World Cup. For, what else is diving if not cheating? A player who is barely touched launches himself at the ground, feigns injury, and tries to con the referee into a penalty kick or free kick. Often times, he is carried off on a stretcher, at which point he takes a swig of water, brushes off his shorts, and rejoins the game at full speed. It has been going on for decades now, and it is still just as wrong.

Thus CW Nevius in the San Francisio Chronicle, 1 Jul 06

Millions of Americans are watching World Cup soccer this year. But what are they seeing from some of the best players in the world? Flopping, diving and yelling at the referee.

Is this really what we wanted our young soccer players to learn? . . . On Monday, Italy and Australia battled through a thrilling match for some 95 minutes. Just as the game was about to go to overtime, an Italian player stumbled in the box -- the area around the goal -- and executed a world-class flop, going down as if he'd stepped on a high-voltage wire. A penalty kick was awarded, Italy converted the shot, and the Australians lost 1-0.

Eurosport reports that Franz Beckenbauer president of the German organising committee for the World Cup, has called for a summit meeting of players, coaches and referees in "an attempt to put an end to the play-acting which has blighted this summer's tournament in Germany."

Beckenbauer, president of the German organising committee, said he has had enough of players and coaches trying to cheat their way to victory by trying to con officials. "I think it is time to get the players, the coaches and the referees around the table and try to find some sort of solution to this problem. None of us in the game wants these incidents. The players are seeking to gain an unfair advantage and attempt to exploit every situation.

The referees are there to correct this kind of misconduct, but the players do not make it easy for the referees. If I was a referee I would also show the yellow card to any player who signalled to the ref with an imaginary card to get an opponent booked. That is also cheating."

Last night, we attended an enjoyable performance of highlights from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, presented by CAMRA -- the Canberra Academy of Music and Related Arts. The singing and acting were excellent in this 'semi-staged' version and it was a lot of fun.

Cast:
Figaro: Peter Laurence
Susanna: Sheena Smith
Cherubino: Alison Knight
Countess: Tanuja Doss
Count: Paul Cambridge
Marcellina: Leila Fetter
Dr Bartolo: Robert Orr
Babarina: Madeleine Rowland
Barbarina's friend: Odette Upstill
Don Curzio: Wicbe terBals
Director of Music and Pianist: Colin Forbes
Vocal coach and facilitator: Patricia Whitbread
(Paul Cambridge and Wicbe terBals are from other studios but joined CAMRA for this presentation.)

In 2005, several singers from this cast met together on Saturday afternoons and workshopped scenes from the Marriage of Figaro. They decided take their project a little further and present a performance of highlights. A semi-staged version added enjoyment. The students -- amateur and professional and various ages -- were responsible for most of the production.

As well as some excellent singing, I much enjoyed Colin's fine piano accompaniment. Marriage of Figaro is well suited to presentation by small forces as a 'chamber opera'.

Most of the performance was in English, though a few arias were done in Italian. The Cherubino character added some amusing narration to keep the audience in touch with the convoluted and fast moving plot, in place of pages of recitative. This device also allowed some minor roles to be left out.

CAMRA is so encouraged by what the students have achieved that it will present the Marriage of Figaro in full next year.