Get the Word

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:16:01 +1100

I saw the Word this morning. I saw it on Bourke Street. As I moved along with the morning crowd, isolated, all eyes down, a man on crutches lost his footing and fell to the ground. Immediately, instinctively, all eyes up, we rushed to his aid. One man leapt from the back of a taxi, another dismounted her bike. Good neighbours hovered over him, expressing comfort and concern. One minute a crowd of individuals intent on somewhere else, the next minute people touching, holding, and present.

The Word shows up in unexpected places. As I continued on to my somewhere else, I remembered Paul Mitchell’s captivating poem, Get the Word:

“In the beginning was the word
and the word was with God
then a bag snatcher snatched it
laughed and carried it along a laneway
climbed a cyclone fence
pursued by the constabulary
then dropped the word
in an empty playground.

Now the word was with the law
who took it to the station.

But they took their eyes off it.
The word slipped out the window
said itself down a wall
I can I will I am
finding my way to God.

Overhearing was a priest
who dragged it off to seminary
bound it up in leather
shone a torch in its face
said Show the way to God.

The tortured word was honest
but struggled with its bindings
tried to free itself from paper
it was stamped upon
the imprisoned word of God cried.

Let me off these pages
I can show the way to love
the one I had with Dad
when he spoke me I spoke him
and when that phrase was in the air
it was both of us as well.

The priest took the word to council
who took it to a committee who slapped it
on the table of a busy bishop
who fenced it from intruders.

But he was knocked clean over
by that scheming snatcher
who took the word and threw it
all over the speaking earth.”

Paul Mitchell, Minorphysics, Brisbane: Interactive Press, 2003, 28.

opera in the kingdom

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 12:54:19 +1100

Just last week a friend sent me a link to an extraordinary video clip on youtube. In the midst of the busy Central Market in València, Spain, singers from a local opera company—dressed as storeholders and shoppers—begin the most captivating performance of Verdi's La Traviata. As one by one their voices emerge from the crowd, the stunned delight of the unsuspecting audience is priceless. Before long, the champagne is flowing and the performers are dancing with the crowd. The tears, the laughter, the looks of sheer delight … it’s magic.

At a time when opera is understood by many as elitist, inaccessible and culturally arcane, when most people would never darken the door of an opera house, these performers take opera to the people. They successfully strip it of all the accoutrements that create distance and take it directly into the marketplace. And they are met with wide-eyed delight. Importantly, they do so without compromising the essence of opera’s beauty. They don’t dumb it down but open it up in ways people can access, understand, even participate in.

What a stunning metaphor for the church’s role in living and announcing the good news of God. An inspiring picture of the challenge we face as an institution commonly disregarded as irrelevant, distant from the concerns and preoccupations of ordinary people. It’s a wonderful picture of joy, generosity and invitation: come, sing, dance with us, for the kingdom of God is here!

Watch it and be inspired!

Kara Vs Martha

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 16:11:46 +1100

My dear friend Kara, pastor of the Lake Nokomis Presbyterian Church in St Paul Minnesota, has written a beautiful reflection on the nature of hospitality in the everyday. With the spectre of Martha Stewart hovering at her shoulder, Kara describes her discovery that real hospitality has little to do with performance and perfection and so much to do with what’s real and ordinary: ‘Flavor is in the chaos, the humanity and the humor,’ she writes.

‘Hospitality isn’t at all about Martha’s perfect details. It is much deeper, much more elemental and powerful than that. It is opening ourselves, our lives, our very being to others, authentically, mutually. And we can do this because God welcomes us to the table, turning strangers into friends, drawing us into the life of generosity and love that exists within the Trinity.’

It’s worth reading in full. Thank you Kara.

mission in suburbia

Sat, 6 Mar 2010 09:41:10 +1100

Early last year I was privileged to give the annual Tinsley Institute Lecture at Morling College in Sydney. Entitled ‘A Mortgage, a Motor-Mower and a Mission: Following Jesus into Suburbia’, the lecture was subsequently published by GIA.

A number of people have requested access to it here on the site. I have finally got around to uploading a PDF version. My apologies for the delay. You can access it on my writing page or, even better, click here. Let me know if it’s useful.

the table of God

Fri, 5 Mar 2010 21:53:45 +1100

Once installed last Sunday as the pastor of Collins Street, the very first thing I got to do was to lead the church at the table ... the breaking of bread and sharing of wine. I am glad that’s where it began.

For me, there is no better image of salvation than of a table prepared by God. It is a place of open invitation where all estrangement disappears. It’s a place of extraordinary intimacy but never exclusivity, one of challenge but never judgement; a shared table of healing, sustenance and hope. What’s more, as people of that table we are called to beckon the stranger with the same open hospitality that draws us.

Thanks to a tip from my friend Geoff, I’ve appreciated this short video clip made of Diana Butler Bass. She’s the author of the inspiring book Christianity for the Rest of Us. It’s worth a look.

my new neighbourhood

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:08:02 +1100

This weekend begins a new chapter for me. On Sunday morning I am ‘inducted’ as Senior Minister of the Collins Street Baptist Church. Inducted? My dictionary tries to be reassuring: ‘a formal introduction of a member of the clergy into possession of a benefice.’ A benefice? ‘A permanent church appointment, typically that of a rector or vicar, for which property and income are provided in respect of pastoral duties.’ Hmm ... not altogether untrue I suppose, but sounding a bit more like the vicar’s tenure in an 18th century English village that what I have in mind.

I reckon I prefer to think of it in terms of relocating to a new neighbourhood. I pull out the old suitcase and carefully pack in who I am, what I’ve learned and what I hope for, tuck in a few uncertainties and fears at the edges, and at the last minute throw in some overly grand visions scribbled on the back of an envelope. And then, dressed self consciously in a fancy new suit and polished shoes, I board the tram and head for my new home. I sit awkwardly with my suitcase between my knees and stare out the window. Along the journey there are moments of expectation and others of mild panic: ‘oh gosh, what have I done?’

But then, when the time is right, I get off the tram and stand, slightly bewildered, on the corner of my new street. It’s all so different to the last place, different people, strange sights and sounds. And then I see my house, looking just as grand as it did in the pictures, with a small huddle of familiar faces waiting out front, looking expectantly and warmly in my direction. This is my new family. I’m home.

The truth is, it will take a while to feel normal. Settling in can’t be rushed. It takes time to know a new household and neighbourhood in the same way you knew the ones before. And while I’d be dishonest to say I am excited ( I don’t do excited very well), I am really pleased. I’ve packed my suitcase with a deep sense that this is right. The time is right, the opportunity is right, and the neigbourhood couldn’t be better!

Neighbourhood gets a plug

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 11:08:33 +1100

It was great to see initiatives in neighbourhood community building get a plug in the Sunday Age this weekend. Michael Green’s piece in Domain was a terrific snapshot of some of the creative ways people are organising for a greater sense of connection and cooperation in their streets and cul-de-sacs. They included:

• Sharehood: a social networking website that encourages neighbourhoods to put together on-line database of things and services to borrow and lend.
• Sustainability Street: a local neighbourhood program that gets people together to talk about ways they can live more sustainably and cooperatively.
• Community Gardens: at last count there were in excess of 75 neighbourhood garden in operation around the suburbs of Melbourne.
• Transition Towns: a grass-roots eco-development movement that began in the UK. It’s a network of locals committed to remaking their neighbourhood into a food-producing, low-energy, low-emissions and tight-knit community. There’s now 27 registered communities here in Oz.

The article also highlights the work of Village Well, a place-making consultancy that operates here in Melbourne, helping neighbourhoods to reclaim their space and community. Here’s their top ten ways of being neighbourly:

1. Say hello to your neighbours when you pass.
2. Organise a neighbourhood potluck lunch, dinner or picnic in the street.
3. Plant a community herb garden on your nature strip.
4. Organise a neighbourhood swap: share and exchange clothes, produce from the garden, plants, books and skills.
5. Organise a neighbourhood ‘salon’: share music, food and stories.
6. Install a seat on your nature strip for neighbours to sit and chat.
7. Organise a neighbourhood street party.
8. Do some street beautification or community art.
9. Create a community garden or green area.
10. Put a free table on your nature strip and give away food, books, furniture and bric-a-brac.

It’s not exactly rocket science, is it? But the cool thing is that I’ve met people all around Melbourne who actually do these things ... and they work!

A capital read

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 16:07:53 +1100

I’ve just finished reading Kristin Otto’s Capital, a terrific book that takes a look at Melbourne during its brief period as the national capital of Australia. Ok, so it’s not riveting subject matter to one and all, but I reckon it’s great!

Otto begins on New Year’s Day 1901 at the birth of the Commonwealth and ends in 1927 when the Federal Parliament packed its bags and headed to Canberra. Its an eclectic gathering of stories, but nicely tied together. The result is an entertainingly coherent narrative that moves along at good pace and reads easily.

First and foremost it’s a story of people. Otto favours the power brokers, the influencers and celebrities: the Prime Ministers, from Barton to Bruce; Australia's first international megastar Nellie Melba; the queen of cosmetics Helena Rubinstein; wealthy socialite and philanthropist Janet, Lady Clarke; confectioner Mac Robertson with his white factories and matching suits; engineer and war hero John Monash; founder of the city's beloved department store, Sidney Myer; writer and poet C.J. Dennis; and Murdoch the newspaper mogul. But interwoven with these are glimpses into the life of ordinary Melburnians, where they lived, what they were reading, how they shopped and what they did with their spare time.

It's also a story of places; the grand Exhibition Building, host to the opening of Australia's first Parliament; the Coles Book Arcade, the world's largest book store; the city's Public Library, an engineering feat; the instantly successful Luna Park; the Burley-Griffin's Cafe Australia, 'perhaps the most beautiful cafe in the world;' and the Flemington race track, home to the city's obsession, the Melbourne Cup.

And its a story of events, many of them life changing: the birth of a nation; the death of a beloved Queen and the enthronement of a King; and of course the War in which a third of a million Australian men volunteered to fight. In a country of less that five million, the sacrifice was defining and its impact upon this city extraordinary.

All in all, for those who love this city it’s a fascinating read and a good reminder that our hometown story is as captivating as any other.