Did these at Pain in the Arts yesterday, thinking about next Sunday (Advent 2)’s lectionary reading from Luke 3:1-6:

This is an image Marcus put together for church at Footscray Baptist on Sunday:

I was reading the Revised Common Lectionary on Sunday with Luke getting all apocalyptic.  What with ” Son of Man coming on cloud”, “seas roaring, consider the trees… signs of the times etc.  With our hottest November since 1868 being announced it is hard not to think of leadership and authority as world leaders approach Copenhagen and confront the apocalypse that is climate change.

Mindful also this weekend of  the storm clouds brewing amongst the Australian Federal Liberal Opposition…

More from Marcus here.
(They also used my Branch of David animation.)

Last night at our Seeds dinner we had a discussion about why Advent is a time of waiting. Karen said it didn’t seem to make sense for us to spend Advent waiting for Christ’s birth, when we know that Christ has already been born, and it happened a long time ago. I think it makes more sense to think of Advent (which is the beginning of the church year) as a time to consider what has been disappointing about the previous year, and to look for signs of hope growing out of that disappointment. So more like a time of hopeful expectation than a time of waiting.

Yesterday morning I did a Bible walk with some folks from Mountview Uniting Church. One of the things they asked me was to tell them the story of someone I know from the street who’s had their life transformed. I said that I know a lot of people who’ve been able to make changes in their lives, but that change often takes a long time. I have friends who’ve quite heroin, and then ended up on it again, and then quit again for a while before they go back to using once again. (For most people it takes a number of attempts to quit before they can sustain themselves without heroin.) A number of people have been around for years and years, and are still struggling with the same problems.
That could be seen as disappointing. But I don’t know that it’s actually much different to any of the rest of us. I have a feeling that most of us struggle with the pretty much the same problems from our childhood and adolescent stages until the day we die. It’s just that some of us struggle with problems that are highly disapproved of and difficult to hide (such as homelessness or illicit drug dependency), whereas others struggle with things that aren’t considered as important – such as working too much or neglecting our families.
So I think it’s okay that people never stop struggling. We need to keep struggling. And we need to struggle together.

Tomorrow night I’ll be using this animation at Collins Street Baptist Church, for the first Sunday of Advent.

It is based on the lectionary reading from Jeremiah 33:14-16. Just before this section, Jeremiah has been talking about how God has allowed the Babylonians to destroy Israel, because of their evil. But he says they will have another chance:

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’(Jeremiah 33:14-16)

Jeremiah says that although God is disappointed in Israel, God is going to cause a new branch – a righteous branch – to grow out of the deceased King David. (I see King David as a reminder that the things and people that we put our hope in often disappoint us.) I was thinking, what are the things have been disappointing about the year that has just passed? I was also thinking, what it it we’re hoping and waiting for this Advent? The congregation will be invited to write or draw their disappointments on post-it notes, and stick them onto King David. They’ll also be able to write or draw their hope on a post-it  to stick on the young plant.

I mentioned a couple of days back that Advent starts on Sunday. Advent is the time in the church calendar when we await the birth of Jesus, which we remember on Christmas Day. Blythe Toll has put together some reflections for Advent (scripture readings, queries, video), which you can find here.

This Sunday will be the first Sunday of Advent, so I’ve been having a bit of a look at the lectionary readings. Jeremiah 33 talks about how Israel is pretty much doomed because of their evil. But then it goes on to talk about God causing ‘a righteous branch to spring up for David’. So I have been thinking about that a bit.

I’ve been thinking this afternoon how the scriptures often use images of plants struggling to live. Ezekiel writes about a vine trying to grow in Babylon. Jesus talks about a farmer planting seeds in difficult places. And Jeremiah talks about deceased dynasty growing a new shoot.
Just before I walked past one of the construction sites in our neighbourhood, where the developers have cut down a number of trees so that they can have space to build. I noticed that one of the tree stumps was growing shoots, which were sticking out from under the temporary barrier around the site.

Did this at Pain in the Arts on Wednesday:


Did this on the tram on Friday night:

I’d been doing a Bible walk with some young punks from Warragul Anglican Church, and I mentioned on Twitter that there was a little bird in the sanctuary and a big man in the laneway. Marcus asked whether the big man was ‘The one who is coming who is stronger…’

Saturday night Mehrin and I went out to visit Ray and Ben at their new house. On the way there we walked past a fish and chip shop, and there was a little old lady staring out at us through a little crack in the side gate, next to the shop:

So that is some of what I have been drawing in my notebook recently.

Since my post from Sunday I’ve been thinking a bit about how we pass judgement on those we view to be ‘racist’. I remember that not too long after I was accused by my teacher of being a racist, I myself became quite quick to point the finger at those I thought were racist – whether members of my family, kids at school or right wing politicians. The funny thing is, getting outraged about their racism didn’t seem to make a lot of difference. (More often it made the person I was angry with more determine to stick by their views.)
I have a friend (I’ll call him Harry) who sleeps out in Melbourne. He has been on the waiting list for public housing for years, and when asked what it takes to get housing, he says he thinks you need to be Asian. When I heard him say that, I immediately knew that it wasn’t appropriate for him to be saying things like that, and I quickly decided he was a racist.
There’s been a lot of talk in recent years about whether Australia is a racist country. Some have asserted that Australia most certainly is a racist country, and that we should be very ashamed of ourselves. My disagreement with this approach is not that I think we’re the most loving and accepting country in the world, but that I don’t think telling ourselves off for being so racist is going to do much to fix the problem. I also think that there’s more than just racism going on here. It’s complicated a bit by class differences.
Although my friend Harry and I may have both grown up in Australia, in European families, we haven’t had the same experience. While Harry grew up in a rural area, where there’s not a lot of work and people are struggling with drought, I grew up in the city where there is a lot of work, and I’ve only ever really struggled to get by because I’ve had the luxury of choosing to live simply. I’ve never had to worry too much about where I’m going to sleep the night. So it’s a lot easier for me not to be racist.
I believe it’s really important for us to make sure new immigrants feel welcome in Australia. (When friends complain about a particular ethnic group just keeping to themselves I usually suggest that we have to first make them feel welcome.) At the same time I think it’s quite ridiculous for me as quite a privileged white person to be demanding that my homeless white friend welcomes new immigrants, when he has no home to welcome them into. I think the inequality that already exists in Australia makes it difficult for us to welcome strangers.
What do you think? Am I just letting rednecks off the hook?