1 A SERVICE OF LAMENT WITH ASYLUM SEEKERS BANYULE NETWORK OF UNITING CHURCHES 31 ST AUGUST 2014 GATHERING RITES PRAYER OF INVOCATION - Margaret Johnson Come Creator Spirit, earth-maker and story-teller, breathe new life into our tired imaginations; give us eyes to see your artistry and ears to hear your truth. Come, Holy Spirit, come change our hearts. CALL TO WORSHIP MARGARET JOHNSON People of God, today we are gathered to cry out in lament with those sisters and brothers of ours who come to our country seeking asylum, but are met only with suspicion and cruelty. We are also gathered to confess our complicity in this cruelty and to call on the God of Jesus Christ for both forgiveness and the strength of God s Spirit, that we might find courage to act for change. Let us praise God with the first of our hymns. SONG: TiS 182 Bring many names GREETING AND WELCOME - MARGARET JOHNSON The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the holy Spirit be with you all. And also with you. Margaret shares some brief words of welcome. Come Spirit of Jesus, friend and comforter, breathe new life into our fatigued compassion; enlarge our love for all who are suffering, poor, or lost. Come, Holy Spirit, come change our hearts. Come Spirit of the church, muse of prophets and holy fire, breathe new life into our weary discipleship; make us poor again, that we may remember we are rich; give us your cross again, that we may remember your gift of life. Come Holy Spirit, come change our hearts. Great God of promise, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, accept the praise we offer in this place. By your neverfailing love, grant us the faith of our ancestors, who set out on the road to freedom without ever really knowing how difficult or deadly the path might turn out to be. Give us their courage, that we might turn to you for life and healing even when all the lights of the world
seem to have gone out. This we pray in Jesus name. Amen. LITURGY OF THE WORD OF GOD Why do you not open your mouth when women and young girls are excluded from school? Why do you not shout aloud in anger when boys are taught to mistreat their womenfolk? 2 SCRIPTURE READINGS JOB 1: 6-12 HELEN MCKINNON LUKE 20:41-44 GWENDA LUCAS REFLECTION MODERATOR DAN WOOTON SONG: TiS 689 Sorrowing Song LITANY OF LAMENTATION - Rev Sandy Brodine How long, O God, how long? How long will ordinary people be pressed into military service by one despot or the other, disposable chesspieces in the machines of power? How long will the wicked prosper while the poor are driven from their homes and their lands? How long, O God of justice, how long? Why are you silent, O God, why? Why do you turn the other way when people are raped, beaten or murdered, simply because they are filled with a sense of injustice, because they, not you, have the courage to open their mouths in righteous protest? Why are you silent, O God, why? Why do you not act, O God, why? When people must flee their jobs, their homes, their communities and countries, why do you not help them? Why, when people must cross dangerous borders in the dead of night, and starve for lack of food or drink, and scale mountains and ford rivers in the search for a safe place to stand, and fall down exhausted and despairing, and drown in the sea, why do you not reach out your hand to give them your strength? Why do you not act, O God, why? Why do you not destroy the wicked, O God, why?
3 When proud and haughty men destroy whole economies and countries, why do you let them? When rulers enrich themselves with sumptuous homes and luxury retreats, while their people starve and fear for what each new day will bring, why do you not punish them? Why do you not destroy all the evil governors who impoverish the poor and humiliate the intelligent and capable? Why do you not crush the corrupt officials and people smugglers, the sellers of dreams and of leaky boats, the cold politicians whose hearts have turned to stone, why do you not grind their bones into the dirt for what they have done? Why do you not destroy the wicked, O God, why? Where can we turn, if not to you, O God? Where can we turn? We recall how, in days of old, you plucked Noah and his family from a world of evil and injustice, and carried them in your ark through the Great Flood to the threshold of a new world, a new beginning, a future full of possibility. We recall how, hearing the cries of your people in slavery, you reached out to them in love. Sending your servants Moses and Miriam, you punished the Pharaoh for his oppression and led your free people through the waters of the Red Sea and of the Jordan to a new land, a land of promise, a country filled to overflowing with milk and with honey. Where can we turn, if not to you, O God? We recall, too, how you sent your Son to us, Jesus of Nazareth. When Herod sought his young life, his parents sought asylum in Egypt. Upon returning to his homeland, Jesus taught poverty and love to all who were rich and powerful, and faith filled with hope to all who were downtrodden or marginalised. When he was crucified by the powers of his time, you raised him to your side vindicating his righteous cause and destroying death s power for ever. In him we believe you came close to us, closer, even, than our thinking, our imagining, our feeling, our breathing, close enough to know our inhumanity one to another, even unto war, torture and murder, and yet overcome them all. For in Christ, we believe, you have set forth in us a new kind of humanity, a humanity that is able to quench fear
and cruelty with hospitable love, and heal the scars of terror by faith in your kindness, and create hope in us that will always and forever rise from the waters in which it drowns. Where can we turn, if not to you, O God? PRAYER OF CONFESSION Rev. Margie Dahl Drawing on the words of First Isaiah Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. 1 We confess before you, Lord God, the sins of our nation. We are a nation that calls evil good and good evil, that puts darkness for light and light for darkness, that puts bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 2 We have rejected our obligations, and called it strengthening our borders; we have punished the innocent, and said that we are saving them from drowning; we have listened to lies about queue jumpers and economic migrants,and yet been wise in our own eyes. TiS 736 v1 Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison We are a nation that has denied justice to the most desperate, making iniquitous decrees and writing oppressive statutes. 3 We have sought to deny our commitment to the Refugee Convention; called those seeking asylum illegal ; tried to rob them of a fair hearing and a right judgement. TiS 736 v2 Christe eleison, Christe eleison, Christe eleison We are a nation that stretches out our hands to God, calling on the name of the Lord in worship and in our public speech, yet our hands are full of blood. 4 We claim that we are the land of the fair go and of mateship, but we are afraid of those who are different, 4 1 Isaiah 6:5 2 Isaiah 5:20 3 Isaiah 10:1-2 4 Isaiah 1:15
scared that they will take our jobs and reduce our standard of living, while we live like those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is room in the land for no one but us. 5 TiS 736 v3 Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison, Kyrie eleison This is what God says to us: Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. 6 We are a nation that has the chance to repent, and to draw water from the wells of salvation. We are a people who may once again proclaim: Surely God is our salvation, we shall trust and will not be afraid. 7 Amen. DECLARATION OF FORGIVENESS - MARGIE DAHL Hear the voice of the God who formed you: Do not fear. I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. 8 Truly we are God s forgiven children returned from far away, called by name, recreated for the glory of God. Alleluia! Amen. THE PEACE - MARGIE DAHL Peace is God s gift to us. May we seek it constantly, speak it lovingly live it faithfully. The peace of the Lord be always with you. And also with you. STATEMENT FROM BANYULE NETWORK Discernment about our mission to Asylum Seekers Rev. Beth Hancock MISSIONAL RITES 5 5 Isaiah 5:8 6 Isaiah 1:16-17 7 Isaiah 12:2. 8 Isaiah 43:1.
6 LITANY OF COMMITMENT TO ASYLUM SEEKERS - REV BETH HANCOCK What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his people did not accept him. 9 So declares the Gospel according to John. With this Word from God resonating in our hearts, let us prayerfully commit ourselves to the cause of solidarity with, and justice for, asylum seekers. To the cause of that costly discipleship which calls on us to set aside our comfort zones and occupy the difficult space of prophetic truth, Lord, we commit ourselves. To the urgent matter of calling our nation and the world to account for its treatment of asylum seekers, and its complicity in the root causes of displacement and exile, Lord, we commit ourselves. To social and political action that bases itself in a recognition of the shared dignity of all human beings through their creation in the likeness and image of God, Lord we commit ourselves. Let us pray: To the Gospel command that we seek justice for those fleeing injustice, and provide safe haven for those escaping persecution, Lord, we commit ourselves. 9 John 1: 3b-5, 10-11 To the solidarity with others which speaks on behalf of those unable to speak on their own account, and which recognises Christ in the stranger at the gates, Lord we commit ourselves Lord God, your servant Benedict of Nursia commanded his followers to welcome the stranger with joyous love, for in the stranger we encounter
Christ and are ourselves welcomed into the Kingdom of God. 10 Your Church has always cared for those who journey, for we are ourselves a pilgrim people, wayfarers on the road of faith toward the promised goal of redemption and salvation in Christ. 11 Through the power of your Holy Spirit, grant that the hospitality of love may replace fear and suspicion, that generosity of purpose may replace mean-spirited opportunism, and that compassion for the suffering may replace dehumanising vilification. Lighting of Candles floated on Water LITANY CONCLUSION REV ROSEMARY CARTER Loving Lord, in this time and place we have lamented the injustices suffered by asylum seekers; we have confessed our complicity in this injustice; and we have committed ourselves to the cause of 10 Rule of Benedict Ch.53 11 UCA Basis of Union, para. 3 justice, healing, and renewal. Hear us, O God; make us accountable, and enable us to remember that in solidarity with asylum seekers, and in Christ s name, we declare: Lord, we commit ourselves to you. Amen. SONG: TiS 655 Jesus Christ is Waiting (announced by Rosemary) BLESSING AND DISMISSAL - Moderator Dan Wooton Go from this place a baptised people called by Christ to live out your vows in the midst of a conflicted and hurting world. May God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit fill you with a flame of love for all who are in need of refuge and healing. Go in peace to love and serve the Lord, In the name of Christ. Amen. RECESSIONAL HYMN: TiS 677 Christ s is the world in which we move 7
8 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Prayer of invocation and Litany of Lamentation were written by Garry Deverell. The Prayer of confession was written by Avril Hannah-Jones. The Litany of Mission was written by Brendan Byrne, inspired by the Rule of the Iona Community, the Rule of St Benedict, and the Basis of Union of the Uniting Church in Australia.