"This tough and tender space"
Rev Jennie Gordon reflects on the Uniting Church's Day of Mourning
January 19, 2024
Rev Jennie Gordon is part of the Shearwater Ministry Team (Cowes, Millowl, Phillip Island) in Victoria. This reflection was originally published in The Fig Tree Worship Resource – Jan 21st, 2024 – Day of Mourning
Readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10. & Mark 1:14-20
You are reading this, or hearing this, because God reached out to you and called you. You might think it was your idea, but it wasn’t. You have been called, and like Jonah maybe you said ‘No’, once, often, frequently, but here you are now and the fact that you have got this far probably means that somehow, somewhere, sometime, you said ‘Yes’ to the Spirit’s persistent/irresistible invitation. That might be a point in time you can clearly remember, or not. It doesn’t matter. Alongside the fishermen, you have been called.
"But time and again God calls me to step up ... to listen with my whole heart and respond out of love"
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Now, let’s be real, none of us feel that we are fully equipped to deal with life as a faithful follower of Jesus, we are just so ordinary! But that’s exactly why we are called. This outrageous God who breathes life and loved us enough to pitch a tent amongst us, calls ordinary people into this extraordinary, collective, subversive mission of love.
Jesus trusted that the people he called to form his band of followers would be equipped along the way, that they would learn from their misunderstandings, sufferings and failures and would continue to grow into a common people of hope, known for their love shown in truth, healing and justice.
Today we are invited by the Uniting Church into a Day of Mourning, to faithfully face the reality of the history of the colonisation of this land and the subsequent devastation to people, country, and culture because of this invasion. We are not separate from it, and it is not over.
As a descendant of the people who came and benefitted from the dispossession and destruction, I often feel fearfully unequipped to contribute in this tough and tender space. I often feel like Jonah; I just don’t want to go to that Nineveh. I’m afraid of putting a foot wrong, of making a mistake, of contributing more to the hurt than the healing. I’m also afraid of what it might cost. But time and again God calls me to step up. To make the journey. To listen with my whole heart and respond out of love, in hope.
After all, when Jonah finally did go and tell the folk of Nineveh what God wanted them to hear, all the people, ALL the people, great and small, put on garments of lament and mourning and ceased their usual lives of eating and drinking to focus on turning things around.
Oh. Oh, what might that look like?
The reading from Mark begins with a darkness; ‘After John was arrested’, After John was arrested, Jesus begins his ministry of proclaiming the Good News of God. There’s a chilling theme tune playing in the background here. It’s dangerous Good News; life-threateningly dangerous, right from the outset, because it threatens the power of greed and division. Jesus in not deterred by John’s arrest, although I imagine he was deeply troubled, but rather he steps out in mission and invites some ordinary fisherfolk along to help him.
The work of reconciling love needs people who are willing to say ‘Yes’, to leave behind old words and ways and to accompany the one who walks us through the valley of death to life.
Today as disciples of Jesus, as the Uniting Church, we are called into Covenant again as First and Second Peoples, by a God who trusts and equips us to walk together in faith, proclaiming the Good News. We say ‘Yes’ and follow, believing that we will learn from the horror of the past, from our misunderstandings and failures and will continue to grow into a people of hope, known for our love shown in truth, healing and justice.
May it be so, Amen.