THIRTEENTH SUNDAY after PENTECOST (22)
29th August 2004
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
....according to the New York Times, there’s a new book published in the United States every half an hour, and - wait for it - that’s just fiction. RR Bowker, the company that compiles the Books in Print database in the USA, has calculated that no fewer than 175,000 new titles were published in 2003. That’s one book roughly every 20 seconds. ....How many books do you read a year ? A hundred? Forty? Twenty-five? If you manage to read a book a week, which is good going, and perhaps a few extra on holiday, you would not, realistically, complete more than about 55 a year. In my experience, such serious readers prefer seriously good books. They will choose Toni Morrison before Plum Sykes. In other words, it is, once again, the preferences and limitations of the human race that keep the dizzying pace of technological change in check. Call me Dr Pangloss, but works of quality are the ones that endure. Sure, the book world is going to hell in a handcart, but the good news is that we can rely on the readers to keep it honest and, with a bit of luck, an appetite for good books will balance the temptations of trash.R. McCrum, Observer 22.8.04
A PRAYER FOR THE WEEK
O God, you have revealed yourself to us not only as Truth but as Beauty, restrain us from that rude and careless haste which disregards the manifold and incessant beauty of your creation, whereby you are revealing yourself to us: grant us the recollectedness whereby we may look on these manifest and unceasing revelations of the loveliness of your nature and, so looking upon these reflections of you, may begin to learn what your unveiled splendour must be, your formless beauty, of which all beauty of form is but a shadow.Gerald Heard
GOANNA OIL
Some years ago this old Tumbarumba drover gets a telegram to say his daughter in Wagga Wagga has just given birth to his first grandson. He decided he must pay her a visit, so gets out his old pushbike and sets off. The bike hasn’t been used in years and the front wheel squeaks with each revolution. “Only one thing to fix that,” he says to himself. “Gotta get myself some goanna oil.” So he props his bike against a gum tree, ambles off into the bush and comes back ten minutes later dragging a four foot goanna by the tail, which he cuts off. With a motion similar to wringing out a wet towel he squeezes the oil out of the goanna’s tail into the hub of his front wheel. Back in the saddle, the bike fairly takes off down the slight slope. What a difference! But now the slope gets steeper and the bike really rockets with the old feller hanging on for his life. They come to a bend halfway down the hill, he loses control, leaves the road and wakes up in Wagga Hospital with a fractured pelvis, two dislocated shoulders and three broken ribs. Upon his release three weeks later, having seen his daughter and grandson, he begins the long walk back in search of his bike. When he reaches the spot, he can’t see the bike anywhere....until he pushes back the brim of his Akubra to scratch his head. He looks up and there, way up in the tree, hanging from a branch, is the old bike. And would you believe it, that flamin’ front wheel’s still going around!
THIS, THAT
AND THE INCARNATION
Fr Andrew Neaum
With two sweet peas in bloom, blackbirds hesitantly beginning to test their vocal chords, sunny, springlike days and no funerals it has been a blessed week. Last Sunday afternoon, Margaret and I said farewell to Pippin and headed for Trinity College Chapel in Melbourne. There we heard Evensong sung as well as you will hear it in any church in the world. The Chapel Choir is unutterably superb, they sang a wonderful setting of the old Shaker song, “It is a Gift to be Simple”, a rousing Stanford setting of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, a lovely anthem by Palestrina and the Elizabethan Tomkins’ setting of the Responses. It moved me beyond measure. How I love the tradition of which I am a part! The sermon was by Andrew McGowan, who dazzled us when he came here for the Affirming Catholicism seminar. Trinity College Chapel, during university semesters, provides an oasis of superb Anglican worship at which any parched Christian soul is welcome to drink deeply. Evensong is sung on Sundays at 6.00pm.
After Evensong we went to have dinner and to spend the night at Peter and Robyn French’s. Most of you will remember Peter as a lay parish worker here for a year, in the days of Fr John Howells and Fr John Gumbley. Later Peter was a deacon and curate with me at Wodonga for two years. Over an excellent curry we talked of many things, theology, books, Shepparton, Wodonga, bishops, priests, the future, a good evening. Peter is now Assistant Chaplain at Trinity and Robyn works as a Chaplain in a school while she puts the finishing touches on a thesis.
Wednesday’s Study Group in the Rectory is notable for animated conversation and laughter over food and wine, and for wide-ranging and sometimes fairly radical talk on matters to do with the Faith we follow and the Lord we love. During this week’s discussion I read an extract from a lecture by a particular guru of mine, John Austin Baker and I promised to make it available in print so here is a shortened version of it. It is to do with the doctrine of the Incarnation.
The Incarnation
.....For me, Jesus is God living a human life from conception to death, and through death to the completeness of resurrection existence. Or, since God is Trinity, that ought perhaps to be phrased more precisely to say that in Jesus we see in human terms the life of God. The relationship of Jesus of Nazareth to God as “Abba, Father” is the “enhumanising” (to render the Nicene Creed literally) of the eternal mutual love between the Father and the Son. The way in which the life of Jesus was created, shaped, guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit was the working out in the conditions of this world of the way the love at the heart of God has always flowed out to create, sustain and perfect all existence.
Springing from this doctrine I see six principal streams of insight and transformation, not all of which, it must be said, have been welcomed or developed or even recognised by the Church.
The first implication
First, by entering the human race God became kith and kin to every human soul, past, present and future. In the words of St Leo: “Herein lies the greatest of God’s gifts, that humankind may call God their Father and Christ their Brother.” The incarnation means that every human being is from the first moment of his or her existence a child of God and a brother or sister of his Son. We are all God’s family by his own initiative. It is pure grace. Faith is the moment in which we recognise that, because of Jesus, we already are God’s beloved children, and respond with gratitude and joy. Likewise baptism is (or should be) the sacramental act in which, on behalf of particular individuals, the church celebrates and acknowledges this prior adoption by God, and incorporates them into the community of faith.
The second implication
Second, we learn that in human nature even God can be his essential self. This has two major implications. One is for the potential of our own humanity. Whatever our technological cleverness, harsh experience tempts us to despair of our moral and spiritual possibilities. But if, while authentically one of us, even God could be true to his own moral character, those possibilities must be enough for all our needs. Moreover, this is true of men and women as human beings, not just as Christians. The Christian gospel is that God has healing and liberation for all the diseases and distortions of our imprisoned selves; but it also teaches us to look for goodness and wisdom in all human beings, Christian or not.
The other implication is that if God could be truly himself within the limitations of humanity, then the heart of what it means to be God cannot be such things as immortality or infallibility or cosmic power. It cannot even lie in awareness of one’s own divinity, for if Jesus had been conscious of being God he could never have been truly human. The heart of God’s being must be something we can share; and that is love, the love which surrenders self, and accepts limitation and suffering for the good of others. Here and nowhere else are we to look for the true image of God.
The third implication
Third, the particular historical circumstances of the incarnation show that God’s concern is with the whole life of the world, not just with some limited department called religion. “God so loved the world....”; “God was in Christ reconciling the world....” That was why God prepared a nation which had nothing corresponding to a Church. Israel believed that God’s law was for every aspect of life and work, and that community sprang from living all life in covenant with him. When, in Jesus, God shared our human life, it was in that setting that he did so.
The fourth implication
Fourth, by incarnation God enters into the whole range of human experience, including suffering, both mental and physical, and death itself. God’s eternal, divine relation to pain and evil is a mystery; but here we see him enduring them as we have to endure them within our own limited horizons: “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” Jesus did not undergo every type of suffering; no individual person can. But the very fact that here was God not just sympathising or even empathising with us in our agonies from outside, but sharing what it can be like for us, revolutionises our whole attitude to him. It does not solve the problem of pain and evil, but it does help us to trust where we cannot understand. And of all the gods on offer in the world the crucified Christ is the one of whom this is true.
This is perhaps the point of deepest divide from other faiths. On the one hand there are those who, in Karl Rahner’s words, “have seen through their tears the everlasting stars of love and peace because in their faith they knew, ‘he, the eternal meaning of the world, the Word, has wept with me, he too has drunk of the chalice’.” On the other, we have those like the Muslim who said to me: “I could never respect a God who allowed men to treat him like that.”
The fifth implication
Which brings us to the fifth consideration, God’s making himself vulnerable to us, and his response to the suffering we inflicted on him - and still inflict through our sabotage of the possibilities of good in his world, our addictions to the perversions of evil. What that response is we see in the return of the Crucified on the first Easter Day with the greeting of “Peace!” Faith in the incarnation assures us, as the ambiguities of history never could, that nothing we can do to reject God or to harm his purposes will lessen his loving will of forgiveness toward us. Ultimate judgement may well turn on whether pride and self-engrossment can accept that forgiveness; but the offer will be made.
The sixth implication
Sixth, in the resurrection of the incarnate Son we catch a glimpse of God’s possibilities for the material order. Today we are increasingly aware of our humanity as the field of a constant interaction between body and spirit. Easter holds out the promise that, where human life has been lived in openness to the divine will of love, the body itself can be transformed to share in the divine glory; and why should not some similar principle apply to the whole creation? Were humankind to fulfil its calling as God’s stewards of the earth, extending his kind of love to all creatures, who can say what transformation of Nature might be possible, both now and in that new world of which Easter was a foreshowing?
Recapitulation
.............To review our six themes: do we acknowledge all humankind as God’s children? Do we look expectantly for wisdom and goodness in non-Christians? Have we not specialised in religion rather than in the needs of the world? Do we imitate God’s vulnerability by our forgiveness, by our being alongside the poor and sinful and rejected? Is concern for the creation, both animals and the environment, a mark of the Church?......
VEGETABLE CREATION
According to the ancient Greeks, cabbages originally sprang from Zeus’ sweat. In March 1990, the Arabic characters for “Allah” were reportedly found inside aubergines in Nottingham and Leicester by devout Muslims. Some 5000 pilgrims travelled from all over the English Midlands to see these curious vegetables.
VIGIL EUCHARIST NEXT WEEK
The Vigil Eucharist, which takes place on Saturday nights at 6.00pm, will take place next Saturday, the 4th September, at St Mary’s Katandra, not at St Augustine’s, please note.
CONGRATULATIONS
Congratulations to Heather Pearson who celebrates her birthday today the 29th August and to Kate and John Horder who celebrate their wedding anniversary on Saturday 4th September.
PRAYER LIST
Because we pray the prayer list every day and it is usually a long list we need to ensure that it is up to date. This being so we will be starting it from scratch again next week. So please put down again the names of those for whom you wish prayers to be said as well as listed in the pew sheet for private prayer. Please sign for and date each name and ensure you have the person’s permission. If permission is unobtainable then simply put down the Christian Name, but also date and sign such names too.
NAME TAGS
The name tags on the board are there to be used, please do so. Those of us who suffer from a poor memory for names find them very useful.
WORKING BEE
Thanks to those who came to the Garden Working Bee and to Margaret Neaum for her refreshments.
PARISH FAIR
Thank you to those who turned up for the Parish Fair meeting on Wednesday - a good job was done in enveloping raffle books and a brief letter for most folk on the roll. Please pick up the one addressed to you, and to any friends or acquaintances not present, to save us the expense of posting them.
A.G.M. TENNIS CLUB
The AGM of St Augustine’s Tennis Club occurs at 7.30pm on Tuesday 31st, in the Supper Room.
DUTIES FOR THE 29th August 2004
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carole Henderson, Joan Harder
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maureen Cormican, Jenny Pleming
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beth, Stephen, Debbie
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jenny Pleming
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Carole Henderson, Heather Fitzgerald
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bev Condon, Christine Evans
Intercessors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Celebrant,Hilder Lidgard
Welcoming 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shirley Dean, Bev Reither
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Pleming, Jenny Pleming
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Max Ralph, Bev Ralph
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charlotte Brewer, Nola Brewer
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Cecily McDonald
Mowing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Norm Mitchelmore, Lawrie Tinning
DUTIES FOR THE 5th September
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gwyn Cowland, Pat Griffin
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hilder Lidgard, Christine Jones
Servers 8,30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Michelle, Rachel, Emma
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joan McCann
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bev Condon, John Griffin
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Maureen Cormican, Carole Henderson
Intercessors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Margaret Neaum, Joan McCann
Welcoming 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beryl Goodfellow, Cecily McDonald
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jill Waterson, Nola Brewer
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Norm Mitchelmore, Joy Campbell
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Pleming, Jenny Pleming
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gwyn Cowland
Mowing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .nil
FOR PRAYER
Thomas Bakker, Liam Bognar, Douglas Burns, Rita Esam, Neil Feldtman, Kevin Fitzgerald, Richard Goodfellow, David Green, John Green, Ron Hall, Jean Hastie, Margaret Kelley, Joyce Maloney, Margaret Noble, Richard Pearson, Ray Prosser, Raymond Read, Isabelle Richards, Margaret Robinson, Rodger Saville, Peter and Eva Swindells, Laurie Tindal, May Wallace, Brian Ward, Malcolm Waterson, Michael, Leanne & Cameron, Glenda, Genevieve, Geoff, Jenny & Daryl, Darren, Judy & Kian, Elizabeth, Faith, Michael, Toby, Wendy, Albert.
Anniversary of Death
George Young, Ron Euling 30th, Ian Osbrough Sept. 1st, Marjorie Maxwell 2nd.
IMPORTANT DATES
Sept. 3rd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Playgroup 10am
Sept. 3rd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dookie Guild
Sept 4th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quarterly Garden Working Bee 9.30
Sept 7th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Baptism Preparation 7.30
Sept 11th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding
Sept. 11th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Father Andrew starts holidays
Sept 15th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parish Council Meeting
Sept 17 -18th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Synod
Oct 3rd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St Francistide Pet Blessing
Oct 16th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 3.00pm
Oct 23rd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding 3.00pm
Oct 24th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Confirmation
Nov 6th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 3.30pm
Nov 13th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 2.30pm
Nov 13th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Parish Fair
Nov 21st . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bishop’s Visit
Dec 4th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quarterly Garden Working Bee
Dec 5th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding 1.30pm
Dec 18th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding 1.30pm
Mar 5th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quarterly Garden Working Bee
Jun 4th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Quarterly Garden Working Bee
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday August 30th
(Fr Andrew’s day off)
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Evening Prayer
Tuesday August 31st John Bunyan
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Evening Prayer
2.00pm Wangaratta Meeting
7.30pm Tennis Club AGM
Wednesday September 1st
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
1.30pm Hakea Lodge
6.30pm Study Group
7.30pm Prayer Support Group - Chapel
Thursday September 2nd Martyrs of New Guinea
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.00pm Confirmation Preparation-Library
5.30pm Evening Prayer
7.30pm Choir Practice
Friday September 3rd Gregory the Great
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Dookie Guild
5.30pm Evening Prayer
Saturday September 4th
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.30am Garden Working Bee
5.30pm Evening Prayer
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist at KATANDRA
Sunday September 5th
8.00am Mattins - Lady Chapel
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine’s
9.00am Eucharist- St. Luke’s Dookie
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine’s /Baptisms
10.45am Eucharist -Katandra West
5.30pm Evening Prayer - St Augustine’s