Sermon: Don’t accept injustice!

Posted on October 6, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
7th of October, 2018

Job 1:1 – 2:10

After spending the month of September making our slow way through the Letter of James, in October we’re going to go to the other end of the biblical canon and spend some time with the Book of Job. We might not be certain whether the Letter of James was actually written by Jesus’ brother James the Righteous, but we have some certainty about when, where, why and to whom it was written. We know none of those things about the Book of Job. We don’t know where it was written. We don’t know who wrote it. Commentators narrow its date to sometime between the seventh and the fourth centuries BC. We are fairly sure that Job is not intended to be a real person; the opening and closing parts of the book may be based on a traditional folk tale. What we can be certain of is that this is an absolutely amazing book and I hope that over the next four weeks you take the time to read all of it. I’ll let the scholars at the University of Nottingham introduce it. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Sermon: The church is called to pray

Posted on September 29, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
30th of September 2018

James 5:13-20

This week is the last in which we hear from the Letter of James, learning from his teaching about the true wisdom that comes from above, as opposed to the ‘earthly, unspiritual, devilish’ wisdom of the world. Two weeks ago James warned us about the dangers of our tongues. Now James tells us how to use our tongues well, in prayer. Whether we are unhappy, happy, or sick, James tells us to pray; however we may be feeling and whatever is happening to us, James says that prayer is the appropriate response. This is how we can guard our tongues and ensure that we don’t start a fire with them – by remembering that all our words are said in God’s hearing. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Sermon for Police Remembrance Sunday

Posted on September 22, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Police Remembrance Sunday 2018
Williamstown Uniting Church

James 3:1-4:3 7-8a

Today is the Sunday before National Police Remembrance Day, which is held every year on the 29th of September. This year is the thirtieth anniversary of the murders of Sergeant Gary Silk, of St Kilda Police, and Senior Constable Rod Miller, of Prahran Police, and the subsequent institution of Blue Ribbon Day. Today we remember all the police officers, state and federal, who serve the community, particularly those who have died on duty. We also remember those police officers whose deaths did not occur while they were on duty, but which happened as a result of it, officers who have died by suicide. We remember and honour them all, and commit ourselves to supporting police officers currently in service, those who have retired, and especially those who are living with PTSD as a result of their work.

Today we are also hearing the fourth of the five readings the lectionary gives us from the Letter of James. Last week we heard about the dangers of our tongues, the dreadful things they can say if we let them loose. As James wrote: ‘The tongue is like a spark … our tongues get out of control. They are restless and evil and always spreading deadly poison.’ He warned his readers that if we let our tongues run away with us, which I certainly am prone to do, ‘from the same mouth come[s] blessing and cursing’. James condemned this. After all, ‘does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs?’ If we curse people with the same mouth with which we bless God, we are as weirdly unnatural as a fig tree that grows olives. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sermon: We ALL make mistakes

Posted on September 15, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church

James 3:1-12

This past week another battle in Australia’s culture wars has broken out; and it went international. In the final of the USA Open Serena Williams was docked first a point and then a game for abusing the umpire. She protested that the umpire was being sexist. I have to admit that as someone with a hot temper myself I completely sympathise with Williams on this. Of course she shouldn’t have abused the umpire but, as Tracey Holmes has pointed out, in 2016 Nick Kyrgios said that the same umpire was biased and that the code violation awarded to him was ‘effing bullshit’ (although he didn’t say ‘effing’) and yet, unlike Williams, Kyrgios wasn’t docked a game. Holmes gave a few other instances of what seems to be sexism; male tennis players getting away with things for which Williams was penalised. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Letter to the Sunday Age

Posted on September 9, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

My letter was edited for space, so here is the full thing.

IMG_4143

‘Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father,’ says the letter attributed to James, the brother of Jesus, ‘is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world’.

No mention is made of the nationality, religion, or sexuality of the orphans and widows, only of their need. Denis Dragovic and Barney Zwartz are correct that protecting religious freedom won’t lead to discrimination – because the adherents of  pure and undefiled religions do not  want the right to discriminate.

To speak only of the church to which I belong, in early 2016 Uniting Aged Care proudly became the first faith-based aged care provider to be awarded a rainbow tick for its commitment to serving the LGBTIQ community. Earlier this year UnitingCare’s national director affirmed its non-discriminatory policy in employment, recruitment, and service to the Ruddock review into religious freedoms.

The submission of the national Assembly of the Uniting Church to that same review said: ’Fundamental to the Uniting Church’s approach to its own religious freedoms is that such freedoms are never to be self-serving, but rather ought to be directed toward the Church’s continuing commitment to seeking human flourishing and wholeness within a healthy, diverse society’.

At a time when far-right extremists claim that discrimination against Muslims is not racist because Islam is not a race there is no doubt that religious belief should be a protected attribute under anti-discrimination legislation. Sadly the arguments made by secular commentators too often focus on the ‘right’ of religious people to discriminate against others, rather than our right to be protected from discrimination.

Was that hypothetically homophobic Christian baker to be found in Australia, they would undoubtedly be following the advice of the Apostle Paul and baking same-sex couples the  most beautiful wedding cakes, thus heaping burning coals on their so-called ‘enemies’ heads.

 

Posted in Political Activism, Random Musings | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Sermon: Faith that is alive

Posted on September 8, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
9 September 2018

James 2:1-10, 14-17

We are in our second week of reading through the Letter attributed to Jesus’ brother, James the Righteous, leader of the church in Jerusalem. Remember last week, when we saw academics from the University of Nottingham describe Martin Luther’s abhorrence of this letter? Today we come to my favourite part of the letter, and the part that I think, more than any other, made Martin Luther fume: ‘What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.’ Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

(Not A) Sermon: Beginning the Letter of James

Posted on September 1, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
2nd of September, Pentecost 15

James 1:17-27

For the next month we are going to be reading our way through the Letter of James, attributed to James, the brother of Jesus, and addressed to ‘the twelve tribes in the Dispersion,’ otherwise the Jewish diaspora throughout the Roman Empire. We first hear of James in the Gospels according to Mark and Matthew, when people are scoffing at the idea of Jesus being anyone special. ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?’ (Matt 13:55, also Mark 6:3)

VLUU L200 / Samsung L200 Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Reflection: Notes from 20 years of the Uniting Church’s sexuality debate

Posted on August 31, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

2018
When a Korean-speaking minister implies that people like me should be exorcised, I console myself that something is being lost in translation. Not that ‘exorcise’ is said; the English translation instead uses the modern euphemism ‘deliverance’. ‘[S]ame gender relationships are the subject … not of blessings, but ultimately of deliverance’ says the translator and the Assembly listens respectfully as it is implied that there is something demonic about LGBTIQ people.

2000
While researching my PhD on ‘the sexuality debate in the Uniting Church, 1977-2000’ I am given access to all 8000 responses of the Assembly Task Group on Sexuality’s 1996 Interim Report on Sexuality. A few are so homophobic that after reading them I vomit. In order to read the responses without making myself sick I lug the boxes over to the History Department’s postgraduate room, so that as I read I’m surrounded by the sort of supportive community the Church is failing to be. Continue reading →

Posted in Reflection | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Reflection: Marriage for Eureka Street

Posted on August 26, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

I wrote something for Eureka Street. You can read it here. Enjoy.

Posted in Reflection | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Sermon: Aren’t there times when you just want to punch Hitler?

Posted on August 25, 2018 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
26 August 2018, Pentecost 12

Ephesians 6:10-20

There are times when I not only accept violence; I absolutely applaud it. I’m a collector of comic books; a watcher of sci-fi television and films; a reader of fantasy and crime novels. I have no problem with Captain America punching Hitler, or Buffy staking vampires, or any of the residents of Narnia or Middle-Earth using swords and arrows. I cheer when Luke Skywalker blows up the Death Star. In certain genres and for certain purposes I am extremely comfortable with violence. But for me those genres don’t include scripture, and those purposes don’t include the revelation and worship of God.

Captain America

We all know that connecting religion and war is profoundly dangerous. It can lead to crusades and military jihads; to the demonisation of opponents; to the justification of war crimes committed in the name of God. I can remember the shock and fear I felt watching an ABC documentary that screened in 2000, so well within my adult life, about the bashing of gay men in Townsville.  One young man said, ‘I’m a Catholic. It’s meant to be a woman with a man, not a man with a man. That’s sick. That’s hitting material’.[1] So it won’t surprise you that I vastly prefer those parts of the Bible that oppose violence. Luckily, there are lots of them. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus told the people: ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also’. (Matthew 5:38-39) Paul advised the Romans: ‘Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them … Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.’ (Romans 12:14, 17-18.) Christians celebrate the coming of Christ as the Prince of Peace, giving himself up to death rather than allowing his disciples to defend him with swords. Continue reading →

Posted in Sermons | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment