THIRD SUNDAY after PENTECOST
17 June 2012
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
QUICKIES
We do not go in for philosophy in this country. We have our own system. It's called wondering.
Did you hear about the shrimp that went to the prawn's cocktail party? He pulled a mussel.
I asked the shop assistant what filling I should have in the duvet. She said: ‘Get down.' So I hit the flaming deck.
I like the Ten Commandments but I have a problem with the tenth. It should be - Thou shalt not covet they neighbour's ox, except in Scrabble.
HMMM...
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect. Jean Cocteau
THIS AND THAT (48)
Andrew Neaum
Doing statistical returns for the Diocese last week Diana noted how drastically the number of baptisms has fallen in this parish. In 1994 there were ninety, in 2011 twenty two. It is an indication of how peripheral to our society Christianity is becoming.
We can wring our hands and declare all to be lost, or we can look forward with relief and joy to the Church reverting to its pre-Constantine state. Marginal, vibrant, often heroic, less than respectable, closer-to-the-Gospel and to Jesus of Nazareth, attractively different.
The waters of hypocrisy or baptism?
Is it better not to bring a child to be baptized, than to bring it knowing full well that you are not going to keep the promises you make, or bring the child up practising the faith?
I have always thought that to attempt to dowse your child in the waters of your own hypocrisy and lies at the same time as in the sacramental waters of the font, is worse than not baptizing your child at all. Diana, however, when I read this column through to her stating that opinion demurred. She considers that the baptism of a child, no matter how dubious or dishonest the intentions of its parents, still opens up a tiny rivulet of Grace into the child's life that would not otherwise be there. A rivulet that later in life might facilitate, even if only marginally and rarely, a fuller immersion into the life of the family of God. She is probably right, though I put my opposite case with some passion and vigour.
It is important that I always read this column through to her. It not infrequently needs adjustment, revision and refinement.
Limbo
I was told of someone recently who refused to have his child baptized because of he stronly disagreed with the doctrines of "limbo" and "original sin" traditionally associated with baptism. Good for him for even knowing about such "doctrines".
However, the notion of "limbo" is not a part of Anglican teaching and even in the Roman Catholic Church has never been a required belief nor an official doctrine.
Its traditional connection to infant baptism is usually explained away these days. It is seen to be a speculative and charitable hypotheses, an attempt to reconcile compassion for deceased unbaptized infants and their parents, with too literal an understanding of certain passages of scripture. Like, for example, the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit....."
Interestingly the word "limbo" is derived from the Latin limbus, meaning "hem" or "border". The medieval Church's limbo being a sort of borderline heaven, a destination not of punishment but of happiness for those who are good, though not in possession of a passport to the full beatific vision granted in Heaven proper. It is mere speculation, like all pictures and images of the afterlife, but at its best it is charitable speculation and so not to be despised.
Original Sin
Original Sin is another matter. This is certainly a part of traditional Church teaching and it is one that I personally have never had much quarrel with.
Needless to say there are many different shades of meaning and levels of interpretation to the doctrine. I have never had much sympathy with or espoused the full blown "total depravity" interpretation of Augustine of Hippo, for example. However it is self evident to me that we have a tendency or bias to "self" rather than "other", that we are born into the world screaming and yelling only for what we want and need. We all of us have to be painstakingly taught by word, deed and example the grace of selflessness and love.
This is best and most completely achieved in loving, forgiving communities, of which two are paramount: the human family and God's family the Church.
The human family ideally provides relationships not only of maternal, paternal and filial love but also of friendship love in a wider circle of family friends and relations. This community of love, centred on the human family, helps guide and lead young ones away from their original selfishness to the love of others.
The rag tag and bobtail community
The rag tag and bobtail community that is the Church widens and broadens natural family love and relationships. It does so by offering to the baptised a very different, huge, dynamic and varied family that transcends time and geography and which includes the blessed Trinity and the hosts of heaven as well as many a local rat bag, simpleton and enemy.
To deny a child full and active membership of this latter family, centred on the local parish church, is to my mind deprivation of a very high order. I speak of what I know. My own life without the Church's part in it would be immeasurably poorer. It would have lost a dimension so wonderful I would not and could not be who I am.
Many "post-Christians" and rejecters of baptism and mother Church have discarded it too easily, carelessly and thoughtlessly. Sadly because they have not deeply loved their God and faith, they have let it go sooner than arguing, growing and developing their understanding of it.
In this they are like serial polygamists who divorce a wife because she has not remained as she was the day they married her. Instead of growing and deepening in love they are stunted in love. So too with post-Christians. Instead of maturing in faith and grace as believers, instead of reinterpreting, developing, deepening and delving into their faith and its expression, their understanding has stuck where it was when they were at Sunday School, or Confirmation Class. It is pathetic.
Skittishness in Katandra
I had to cram three funerals into last week. Monday was fine, there was only one scheduled and I already had it well prepared. I was able to tackle with relative peace of mind the Rectory garden and the complicated Clergy Roster for while I am away. The second funeral announced itself with a call out at quarter past four on Tuesday morning, and the third not much later in the day. However all three involved rewarding encounters with interesting and lovely people, and so were accommodated and accomplished with little angst.
Mercifully the previous week was a little less crowded. One of its highlights was the combined Guild Luncheon at Katandra. There a power failure was cheerfully and resourcefully overcome by irrepressible and doughty dames who laid on hot soup, excellent sandwiches and an array of sweets so splendid they put all fears of diabetes to flight. Best of all though was a skit by a group of the ladies prepared to dress themselves up and ham around as school children. They delighted by taking us back to simpler times, in an old community hall itself redolent of such times when entertainment had to be made rather than simply had at the push of a button. A great occasion, well supported and a breath of the past's refreshing air for us all. Well done.
Complex inferiority
One of the deans I worked with in Harare Cathedral was a loud, larger than life, super-confident, rude, know-all. When you got really to know him, he turned out to be a timorous wreck of a man, crying out for acceptance. He had been rejected as a newborn infant by his parents and so adopted. He was then rejected by his adoptive parents. Doubly rejected.
Most people put up a front. They declare themselves to be other than they are. A cheerful countenance too often hides great grief and sadness. A show of confidence frequently hides uncertainty and unsureness. The psychologist Alfred Adler bequeathed to the world the concept of the "inferiority complex". He maintained that a sense of inferiority classically manifests itself in superiority and bombast.
The dithering, indecisive J Alfred Prufrock of T S Eliot's famous poem, talks of there being time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet...... It is something we nearly all do. We are not what we seem.
Which, in many ways, is what makes human relationships fascinating. They are voyages of discovery. The person who says: "What you see is what you get," if he tells the truth, which usually he doesn't, is a bore, is not worth knowing, for there's nothing to discover.
Relationships often break up, however, when the voyage of discovery reveals at best, someone very ordinary and unremarkable, at worst, someone contemptible, cruel, crass or dishonest.
Celebrating the ordinary
One of the reasons that in writing, conversation and sermons I celebrate the ordinary and the unremarkable and attempt to find beauty and good and God in them, is because all relationships, be they with Church, or fellow human beings or even mere things, if they are to last, depend upon us celebrating ordinariness and unremarkableness. Everything, everyone, at bottom, when known, when possessed, is unremarkable, ordinary, unexciting, boring even. And yet is still, for those with the eyes to see, wonderful. That is, they are full of wonder, full of the divine. It is a matter of bread and wine, and yet Jesus too, you see.
Consider other people's vaunted success and happiness, as revealed in their Christmas circular letters, which, too often, as well as containing useful family news and keeping us up to date, are so full of successful family achievement and happiness, that they make us feel totally inadequate. They leave us depressed at all the failures and mess in our own life. Father with no promotion, and no prospect of it, disillusioned, simply coping, drinking rather too much beer. Mother hanging on to her sanity by the skin of her teeth, driven to distraction by rebellious, idle, intractable children. Kids addicted to videos, idleness and revolting company; rude and uncooperative.
From the outside, judged by the public front presented in circular letters and suchlike, other people's lives and families seem too good to be true. Our own too bad to be true.
The song still in them
The real truth lies in one's own family and life. The public front is usually just that, a front, a lie. As Henry Thoreau, the sage of Walden Pond remarked: "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."
The truth about the lives of others becomes publicly apparent and obvious only in the sudden eruption of crisis; divorce, separation, desertion, or even murder.
I overstate things, but for most of us there is a lot of misery and desperation in ordinary daily life. At times it seems all but to engulf us, begins to blow a gale. The waves start breaking into life's boat so that it is almost swamped.
Sanity, order, purpose, love, our religion, our Lord, are in the stern, head on a cushion asleep.
If we have any sense we wake them up and say: ‘Master, do you not care? We are going down!' And the master wakes up, rebukes the wind, and says to the sea, ‘Quiet now! Be calm!'
Sanity, order, purpose, love, our religion, our Lord, return. The wind drops. All is calm again. Our Lord says to us, ‘Why are you so frightened? How is it that you have no faith?' We respond with awe and say to one another, ‘Who can this be? Even the wind and the sea obey him.'
Would that it were quite so easy! Would that God and faith could so easily bring peace, calm and tranquillity. Would that there was no crucifixion. Would that the road was wide, winding and gentle, not strait and narrow.
But although it is indeed not that easy, sanity, order, purpose, love, our religion, our Lord, cannot be allowed to remain asleep on a cushion in the background of life if we are to cope at all adequately with the inevitable sad storms that erupt in life.
Wake up!
Faith isn't a tranquillizing sea-sick pill, it doesn't always ensure a smooth passage, but with the Lord sane and strong beside us, rather than asleep behind us, storms, if they are not always stilled and calmed, are all the better survived without shipwreck.
Life without the Lord, without the sanity of moral absolutes, and of obligations and duties willfully shouldered, without the primacy of sacrificial love, without reference to, dialogue with, and love of the Lord, without the love and support of the Christian community, is indeed too often a wild mess and storm of moral relativism, is purposeless, ruled by the ego, governed by greed, mammon, revenge, spite, hatred. Love is temporary and relative, the loved one discarded, aborted, put to death when useless. Life with out the Lord awake and active can all too easily be a wild, insane, frightening and desperate mess.
And so all the pious little cliches muttered by the simple minded, like ‘Say your prayers', know the Lord'..... ‘know your bible', ‘have faith'.... ‘take your Church family seriously'..... ‘sacrifice, come to Church very regularly'....don't be half-hearted'..... ‘believe', are all ways of saying the simple and profound truth that the disciples discovered in their boat in the storm: ‘Wake up, and properly wake up the Lord in the background of your life ........ Or, by God, you'll drown.'
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthday:
Joan McCann 22 June
Max Ralph 23 June
ARISE 255-YOUTH GROUP
Monday 18 June 5.30 - 7.30pm
The program, among other things doubtless, involves planning the Car Rally
FRIENDSHIP GROUP GAMES AFTERNOON
Tuesday 19 June 2pm
Come and join our Games Afternoon in the Narthex. Thanks in advance to Nancy Noonan and June McKellar for organising the teas.
PARISH COUNCIL
Wednesday 20 June 7.30pm
GUILD MEETING
Thursday 21 June afternoon
Please meet in the Church car park at 1.15pm if you need a ride or 1.30pm at Shepparton Art Gallery. We will have a short meeting and enjoy afternoon tea together at the end of the visit.
STUDY GROUP-MARCUS BORG
Thursdays 7.00-9.00pm for 6 weeks 21, 28 June & 5, 12, 19, 26 July
See the Notice Board for more details. The course will be led by Fr Rob Walley and considers the liberal Christian thinker and theologian, Marcus Borg.
OUTREACH DEADLINE
The deadline for contributions to the next edition of Outreach are due to Helen by 8th July so that we can have it out before Diana and Andrew depart on holidays. Please send contributions to hmalcolm@bigpond.com or via the church office.
A.B.M. RAFFLE
The persistence, tenacity and devotion of Nola Brewer in her role as our A.B.M. representative, without which our parish family would be a lot less interesting and colourful, has paid, as usual, huge dividends. The money raised from the raffle of June McKellar's lovely donated plate raised well over $600. The winner of the plate was Wyn Fehring. Well done Nola, congratulations Wyn.
FOR THE DIARY
Jun 18 Mon Arise 255-Youth Group 5.30pm
Jun 19 Tue Friendship Group 2pm
June 20 Wed Parish Council 7.30pm
June 21 Thur Guild (1.15pm) 1.30pm
June 21 Thur 1st Marcus Borg Study 7.00pm
June 30 Sat Garden Working Bee 9 am
July 8 Sun Deadline for Outreach
July 10 Tue Grief Support 7.30pm
July 15 Sun Confirmation
Oct 20 Sat 2012 Parish Fair and Garden Party
Oct 27 Sat Murchison Car Boot
REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
At the beginning of each month this list is cleared. Names need putting down again on the list in the narthex and signed in. No names to be listed without permission.
Dulcie Ackland, Hilary & Alan Akers, Heather Baker, Margaret Bakker, Liam Bognar, Peter Burgess, Betty Bush, Debra Davies, Blake Dyer, Michael Egan, Christina Furze, Frank Harder, Bruce Hodgson & family, Katherine Holt, Margaret Kidman, Elsie Lieschke, Judy Lloyd, Colin MacKenze, Joy Markey, Merle Maskell, Elvie McInnes Adrian Moule, Molly Olphert, Olive Paez, Bev Reither, Isabelle Richards, Ethel & George Rumble, Sandra Simonis, Heather Steen, Faye Warren, Amanda & Michael, Joyce & Ray, Kaye, Glenda.
Rest in Peace:
Angelique Kolenaty, Bruce Parkinson, Rhonda McPherson.
Anniversaries:
Betty Norman (17), Aubrey Goodfellow, Graham Davey, Harold Rawlings (18), Ken McRae, John Burgess, Yvonne Gibbins (19), Arthur Halsey, Arthur Taylor, Georgia Morcom, Annie Donaldson, Eva Keem (20), Elsie Cloak, Florence Robinette, Robert Blackley (21), Joyce Rutherford, Maude Stone, Marjorie Malcolm, John Moore, Gladys King (22), Nancy McRae, Edna Inglis, Marjory Watts (23).
READINGS NEXT SUNDAY 24th June
1 Samuel 17:33-49, Psalm 9:9-20, 2 Corinthians 6:1-13
Duties for Sunday 17 June
Readers 8.30 Liz Gyles, John Wellman
Intercessor 8.30 Heather Pearson
Servers 8.30 Michelle, Beth, Soibahn
Euc. Assts 8.30 Heather Pearson, Joe Pearson
Sidespeople 8.30 Gwyn & Merv Cowland
Welcomer 8.30 Anita Saville , Shirley Dean
Welcome Table 8.30 Beverley Walsh, Diana Neaum
Tea 8.30 Barbara Schier
Readers 10.30 Mary Pearson, Joan McCann
Intercessor 10.30 Celebrant
Servers 10.30 Rick, Olivia, Oscar
Euc. Assts 10.30 Jenny Pleming & Joe Fernandez
Sidespeople 10.30 John Pleming, Beryl Black
Welcomers 10.30 Mitch Macheda, Irene Crawford
Welcome Table 10.30 Diana
Projector 10.30 Black Family
Children's Church Grace
Mowing none
Altar Linen -June Rosemary Mitchelmore
Monday Office Barbara Brown, Pat Gibson
Duties for Sunday 24 June
Readers 8.30 Gwyn Cowland, Pat Griffin
Intercessors 8.30 John Griffin
Servers 8.30 Michelle , Beth, Soibhan
Euc. Assts 8.30 Barbara Schier, John Griffin
Sidespeople 8.30 Trevor Batey, Norm Mitchelmore
Welcomer 8.30 Bev Ralph, Eileen Quaife
Welcome Table 8.30 Dorothy Cook
Tea 8.30 Val Bambrook
Readers 10.30 Aaron & Ryan Bhat
Intercessors 10.30 Nancy Noonan
Servers 10.30 Jenny, Ella Rohde, Nick Hammond
Euc. Assts 10.30 Linda Prosser, Joe Fernandez
Sidespeople 10.30 John Pleming, Irene Crawford
Welcomers 10.30 Frank Steen, Robert Gilbert
Welcome Table 10.30 Dorothy
Projector 10.30 Charlotte Brewer
Children's Church Mary
Mowing 30 June Merv & Beryl
Altar Linen -June Rosemary Mitchelmore
Monday Office Joyce Oxley & Bob Galt
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Sunday 17 June
5.30pm Evening Prayer- Lady Chapel
Monday18 June
(Rector's day off)
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.00pm Evening Prayer- Lady Chapel
5.30pm Arise 255- Youth group
Tuesday 19 June
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10-12pm Play Group - Roz's Room - Church Hall.
11.00am Shepp Aged Care
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Wednesday 20 June
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine's
4.00pm Banksia
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
7.30pm PCC
Thursday 21June
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
8.25am Narthex Breakfast
9.30am Tarcoola
11.00am Eucharist - Harmony
12.15pm Clergy Lunch
1.30pm Guild
4.00pm Confirmation Class - Juniors
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Choir Practice
7.00pm Study - Marcus Borg-Narthex
7.30pm Confirmation Class - Adults
Friday 22 June St Alban
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
8.25am Narthex Breakfast
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Saturday 23 June
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
Sunday 24 June 4th after Pentecost
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine's
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine's & Children's Church
12.15pm Orthodox Baptism
9.00am Rushworth- local
11.00am Murchison- local
8.45am Eucharist - St Luke's Dookie
10.30am Reserve Sacrament -St Mary's Katandra
5.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel