Reflection: Why I support Marriage Equality

Posted on August 11, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

This is based on a letter I wrote to several Victorian senators asking them to support marriage equality when a Bill on the topic finally makes it to the Senate. Initially I wasn’t going to share this letter at all; then I was only going to share it with Friends on Facebook. Despite having done it quite often over the last twenty years, a couple of times on national television, I hate ‘coming out’. It makes me sick to my stomach. I am always afraid that people will reject me, and especially afraid that people will reject my ministry and no longer allow me to pastor them, if they know that I belong in that very complicated LGBTIQ acronym. (I claim the B and the Q.) I do not have a partner and am not planning to ever have a partner, so it is easy for me to stay quiet. But today silence feels like cowardice. And if me being open about who I am can help even one young person feel better about who they are, then it’s worth it. Without amazing lesbian and bisexual Uniting Church women like Dorothy McRae-McMahon and so many others I would not be here. I want to follow their examples and live with courage.

I am bisexual. Acknowledging that was an important part of my recovery when I was diagnosed with clinical depression at the age of twenty-two, in 1995. I express my sexuality through a commitment to celibacy. My family, friends and church all find that a little odd; the Uniting Church in Australia does not have a tradition of ministers choosing to live a celibate life in order to better serve God. Nevertheless that is how I identify sexually, as a celibate bisexual. Continue reading →

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‘The Sickness Unto Death’, by Anne Sexton

Posted on July 28, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Source: ‘The Sickness Unto Death’, by Anne Sexton

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Sermon: Against Domestic Violence

Posted on July 22, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Domestic Violence
Williamstown Uniting Church, 23rd of July 2017

I’m not going to preach today. We were going to continue with Paul’s letter to the Romans, but earlier this week an article on Christianity and domestic violence was published by the ABC. It was written by Julia Baird and Hayley Gleeson, based on twelve months of investigation that included interviews with survivors of domestic violence, counsellors, priests, psychologists and researchers from a range of Christian denominations, and it was extremely troubling. Discussing domestic violence may be painful and difficult for some people, and I’m very sorry, but I think it’s an essential issue for the church.

The article on Christianity and domestic violence was the second in a series on religion and domestic violence; the first looked at Islam and was titled ‘Exposing the darkness within’. I remember hearing about that first one, but I must admit that I didn’t read it. No matter how appalled I am by domestic violence, an article about domestic violence in Islam didn’t seem immediately relevant to me. But when the reference to an article about Christianity and domestic violence appeared in social media I quickly clicked on the link to it and searched for the word ‘Uniting’. There’s only one reference to the Uniting Church, this sentence: ‘Queensland academic Dr Lynne Baker’s 2010 book, Counselling Christian Women on How to Deal with Domestic Violence, cites a study of Anglican, Catholic and Uniting churches in Brisbane that found 22 per cent of perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse go to church regularly.’ Once I’d read that one reference I went back to the beginning of the article and read slowly and carefully and extremely sadly. Continue reading →

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Sermon: We can live out love

Posted on July 15, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
16th of July, 2017

Romans 8:1-11

Finally, we have an optimistic Apostle. After last week’s lament: ‘I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do,’ and the warning from two weeks’ ago against being the slaves of sin, which leads to death, now we have Paul rejoicing that we’ve been set free from the law of sin and of death. Everything that we could not do by ourselves has been done for us by God. Last week’s reading ended with Paul writing: ‘with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin’. This week begins with: ‘there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’. Left to ourselves we cannot achieve righteousness through our own actions, but as Paul reminded us in last week’s reading, we are not left to ourselves. God did not leave us alone and floundering. In Jesus Christ God entered into creation and joined us in our humanity, and in the Spirit God is still with us, around us and between us and within us. We are never alone. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Jesus is not a life coach

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
The Fifth Sunday of Pentecost, 9th of July 2017

Romans 7:15-25a

Sometimes I read the writings of the Apostle Paul and all I can say in response to them is: ‘Yes!’ Sometimes Paul just seems to get it – and today is one of those days. When Paul writes: ‘I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate,’ and ‘For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do,’ all I can do is nod my head in sad agreement. Paul is absolutely right. And he wasn’t alone in saying this. In this part of his letter to the Romans Paul is echoing something that was a commonplace in the ancient world. The Roman poet Ovid wrote the most famous version of it: ‘I see the better way and I approve it; but I follow the worse.’ It’s apparently part of what it means to be human. We know what we should do; but we don’t do it. We want to be good and obey God’s law, but we find that we can’t. It’s a universal problem. Continue reading →

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Sermon: For Asta and Matthew’s Wedding

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

I love taking wedding services. As I explain in this sermon, I see God in the love of every couple who make vows to each other. But I take a particular joy in the weddings of people I know well. Asta grew up in the Williamstown Uniting Church. One of the past ministers, Bill Lidgett, joined me for the service, blessed Asta and Matthew, and prayed for them. It was an absolutely wonderful day, and I’d like to thank them both for giving me the privilege of being their celebrant.

Sermon for the Wedding of Asta and Matthew
8th of July, 2017

John 15:9-17

Today is a joyous celebration for us all, including the church. Asta grew up within this church community, and so the community delights in witnessing her marriage to Matthew. I personally am extremely glad that as I marry them I now remember Matthew’s name; when Asta introduced him to me several years’ ago she described him as: ‘This is my … person’ and that’s how I labelled him in my head: he was ‘Asta’s person’. It took until the preparations for this wedding before I could convince my memory to replace ‘Asta’s person’ with ‘Matthew’. Now that that’s happened I feel some added joy, and a lot of relief, as I take part in today’s service.   Continue reading →

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Sermon: Holy and Perfect

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
2nd of July, 2017

Romans 6:12-23

Today and for the next eleven weeks the liturgy takes us through the second part of Paul’s letter to the Romans. This is the single most important letter in the New Testament, and it’s quite complex and controversial, so to make all our lives easier I’m going to start with a video from the University of Nottingham, in which Professor Richard Bell introduces us to Romans. Continue reading →

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Sermon: Don’t mention the Trinity!

Posted on June 11, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
Trinity Sunday, the 11th of June 2017

2 Corinthians 13:11-13
Matthew 28:16-20

As I say on this Sunday every year: today is Trinity Sunday; be afraid, be very afraid. Ben Myers, who teaches theology at the United Theological College in Sydney, put together a series of tweets this week that he titled ‘How to combat Trinitarian heresies. Because heresy is meh’. Here are a few of the sixty-odd points that he tweeted.

Ben Myers 7

Continue reading →

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Sermon: Merited and unmerited suffering

Posted on May 28, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
The Seventh Sunday of Easter, 28th of May 2017

First Letter of Peter

This past Thursday, forty days after Easter Sunday, was the feast of the Ascension. The Orthodox Mission that worships in the old Methodist Sunday School is named ‘Holy Ascension’ and they had a special service on Thursday morning. I attended the service at the invitation of Father Kyril.

The Orthodox do serious worship! The service went for two and a half hours. There are very few chairs in an Orthodox service, so most of those two and a half hours I was standing – I did occasionally sit down on one of the chairs set aside for the elderly – and by the end of the service my legs were aching. (I can only imagine how you would react if I tried to lead you in a two and a half hour service during which you couldn’t sit down! It’s not an experiment that I’ll be trying any time soon.) The Orthodox also have a reverence for their clergy that I found disconcerting. Bishop George was greeted by children throwing flowers in his path, and by people kissing his hands.

Everything was beautiful. I have some vestment envy when we have joint services with the Anglicans, but Anglican vestments are nothing when compared with those of the Orthodox. The liturgy is long and repetitive and sung and glorious. During the service people move around and occasionally talk to each other – I got to practice both my Russian and my Australian Sign Language, and if it wasn’t for my aching legs I could have wanted it to last longer, because it took me right away from my everyday life and into a realm of communion with God. Continue reading →

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Sermon: In which Avril confesses to proclaiming a ‘nice’ God

Posted on May 21, 2017 by Avril Hannah-Jones

Sermon for Williamstown Uniting Church
The Sixth Sunday of Easter, 21st of May 2017

Acts 17:22-31

One of the things that I do not feel I do well, either as a Christian or as a minister, is evangelism – sharing the good news of Jesus Christ in such a way that other people want to explore Christianity and make their own response in faith and love. I say, only half-jokingly, that my particular gift isn’t to encourage people to see Christianity as true; it’s to encourage people to see Christians as ‘nice’. I’ve had people I’ve met when speaking outside the church say that to me: ‘You make the church sound nice’; ‘If I did believe in God, I’d believe in your God’. My brother tells me that I fail as an evangelist because of that ‘niceness’. When he’s teasing me, he suggests that I should instead preach hellfire and damnation, and tell people that if they don’t become Christian they’ll spend an afterlife in eternal torment. It’s a genre of preaching known as ‘dangling them over the pit’. The trouble is, I can’t reconcile that with my experience of a God of limitless love. I can’t preach eternal damnation with any integrity. Nor would I do any better with my brother’s other suggestion for marketing the church, which is to preach the Prosperity Gospel and tell people that becoming Christian will make them rich. Continue reading →

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