Second Sunday of Easter - 11 April 2021 - St Luke's Mosman ...
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We are a beacon of God’s light and hope welcoming all to our table of love and diversity.
Second Sunday of Easter — 11 April 2021
UNFURLINGS I
Find your stillpoint, dawn
of your belovedness; now
rise into new day.
Shape something simple
strong and beautiful; swallow’s
nest from mud and grass.
Does the rising sun
seek applause? Devote yourself
to your intention.
Start with whatever
is before you: light and stone,
chisel in your hand.
The practice is not
the thing; the thing is what the
practice reveals: Light!
Bring your unfurling
to the world each day: a sun-
flower opening.
Ian Adams, Unfurling (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2014), p. 4.
✜ READINGS FOR NEXT WEEK 18 APRIL 2021
Easter 3
Acts 3:12-20; Psalm 4; John 2:15-17, 3:1-6; Luke 24:36b-48
WELCOME
Acknowledgement of Country
Nganyi kaaditj Noongar moort kyen kaadak nidja boodja.
As we gather for worship, we acknowledge the Whadjuk Noongar people as the original custodians
of this land, and their ongoing relationship with it.
We acknowledge their leaders, past, present and emerging.
A very warm welcome to our service this morning, particularly if you are visiting
St Luke’s for the first time.
We hope you will join us for refreshments in the Alexandra Hall following today’s service and
please be most warmly welcome.
Children are welcome at all our services and there is a dedicated play area for younger children at
the front of the church with Worship Bulletins and pencils available. Children are invited to join
our Sunday School activities on the second Sunday of the month during school term time.
If you have any questions or particular needs, please speak to one of our friendly welcomers.
We invite you to share in a time of stillness and quiet before the service begins.
Our Parish Mission Statement
We are a beacon of God’s light and hope welcoming all to our table of love and diversity.
Donating to St Luke’s
As we move to a more cashless society, you are encouraged to give electronically. If you prefer to
give cash there is an offertory bowl at the rear of the church. Our bank account details are:
Name: Mosman Parish Council
BSB: 706-001
Account Number: 3000 3046
Reference: Direct Giving
Community Garden Op Shop
The St Luke’s Community Garden is a means to bring Our Op Shop is open Wednesday, Friday and
together members of the local community through Saturday 9:30am—1:00pm. We recycle quality
the invigorating and connecting activity of gardening donations of clothes for women, men and children;
and is a demonstration site for organic, sustainable, jewellery; homeware items; bric a brac; and books.
eco-friendly urban living. The Community Garden is Any excess donations are then sent to Clutterbugs
open to anyone who would like to become a General and other charity shops including The Salvation
Member or a Bed Holder. More details at Army and Save The Children.
www.stlukescommunitygarden.com.
PAGE 2FROM THE RECTOR
Think for a moment about a scar you have, and a word or two you might pick to describe the
circumstances that led to it. Perhaps words like ‘accident’ or ‘scary’ come to mind, or
‘embarrassed’ or ‘foolish,’ or even ‘reckless.’ But I doubt the word ‘glorious’ comes to mind.
Yet it is on the Second Sunday of Easter each year when we hear about the apostle Thomas and
his first encounter with the risen Lord. (I refuse to use the typical nickname for him: how would
you like to have an everlasting nickname based on the weakest and lowest moment of your life?)
Thomas requires the same visual proof the other apostles had of Christ’s resurrection and indeed
just a little bit more; we are all familiar with the narrative.
Christ’s resurrected and glorified body certainly could have been made completely whole again,
yet the wounds of the nails and spear persist, and Thomas is able to touch and feel them. “My
Lord and my God!” he cries. Christ is truly here a wounded healer—and beyond that, a teacher, a
friend, and a brother.
Liturgically, this attention to the ‘scars’ of Christ should call us to his humanity with his divinity,
and that we are invited to share with him, one day. We are encouraged to reflect not only on the
usual attributes of this day of trust and humility, but also of our kinship with Christ and the future
glory offered and promised to us. Ritually, today is a good reminder of the words said at the
breaking of the bread: “We break this bread to share in the body of Christ” and we do well to call
particular attention to this ritual moment often lost in most liturgies.
On M*A*S*H, Charles Emerson Winchester once famously said, “I do one thing at a time, I do it
very well, and then I move on.” Our liturgy, as the ‘work of the people,’ should take care with this
small but important moment: to see the breaking of the bread and to hear as the bread is broken.
Or are we too absorbed with our heads in the Prayer Book, to make sure the priest says the right
words? In apostolic times, this breaking of the bread was quite simply the term by which the
Eucharist was known (cf. Luke 24:35). Our eucharistic table is what brings us in one moment to
Christ broken on the cross and to a foretaste of the eternal and heavenly banquet. We believe, as
we sing in the Agnus Dei accompanying the rite, that it is Christ broken on the cross that is the
ultimate sign of God’s mercy, and only with God in paradise will we know true and divine peace.
Jesus desires to share his life that is stronger than death with all people of all times and places,
and especially those who have doubts and require proofs. We do believe in life that is stronger
than death, in love that is stronger than evil, in light that is stronger than darkness. Jesus
appears to his closest friends—and to us—and shows them the nail-marks still present on his
hands and the wound where his side was lanced. In encountering the risen Lord, we receive the
full revelation of Jesus’ identity.
Alleluia! Christ is risen.
PAGE 3OUR SERVICE TODAY
Our service is in the yellow Easter service booklet.
Hymns are in the red hymn book Together in Song and on the printed insert.
The psalm is on a printed insert.
Opening Hymn 364 Christ Jesus lay in death’s strong bands
First Reading Acts 4:32-37
Psalm 133
Second Reading 1 John 1:1-2:2
Gradual Hymn Safe, locked inside that upper room
Gospel John 20:19-31
Offertory Hymn 363 My daughters and my sons hear tell
Closing Hymn You come to those behind close doors
Recessional Flourish for St Muredach, Adrian Vernon Fish (1956–)
For Your Contemplation
✜ Today we celebrate the Second Sunday of Easter. How are you continuing in the joy of the
Resurrection?
✜ In the first reading we hear that the early community of believers were all of “one heart and
soul.” Where in our parish is the community of one mind about issues or values? Where is
there division?
✜ The second reading from the first letter of John proclaims that “God is light.” At this moment
in your faith journey, where and how are you seeing God’s light? How do you reflect God’s
light?
✜ In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the disciples, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Where
are you being sent to share Jesus’ peace?
lord
do you want to remain the eternally unavailable one?
or do you grow with my prayer?
then reveal yourself also to the beggar beneath the undivided heavens
and to the stray mare under the shelter
be path be night
until walking in the light i fall into the snare SAID (Iranian, contemporary)
PAGE 4PRAYERS
Daughter of Jerusalem, sing and shout for joy,
for the Lord has risen. Alleluia.
Anglican Communion
The Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean.
Australia
The Diocese of Gippsland: Bishop Richard Treloar, Clergy and Laity.
Diocese
Diocese of Perth: Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy, Bishop Jeremy James and Bishop Kate Wilmot;
Parish of Balcatta—Hamersely: Rev’d Galal Bashir and people; Parish of Balga—Mirrabooka: Rev’d
Jon Cornish, Rev’d Timon Yanga, and people; Parish of Bassendean: Rev’d John Yates (Locum
Tenens), and people.
Province: Greenough Regional Prison, clergy and people; Oyster Harbour, clergy and people.
Partner Diocese, Eldoret: Chereber, clergy and people.
Parishes Seeking Appointment of Clergy
Applecross, Bassendean, Beaconsfield, Dianella, Floreat, Morley-Noranda, Scarborough, West
Perth.
Partner Parish of St Luke’s Kaptubei, Eldoret
Vicar Rev’d Jonah Tabut and the Parish as they share the Easter joy of the Resurrection.
Please Pray for
Benita, Alison, Barbara, Val, Maxine, Kim, the enduring COVID-19 pandemic, the sick, lonely,
homeless, refugees and asylum seekers.
Anniversaries of Death
Anthony Harley Lempiere Abbott
Prayer of the Week
Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life
of all who put their trust in him:
raise us, we pray, from the death of sin
to the life of righteousness;
that we may ever seek the things which are above,
where he reigns with you and the Holy Spirt,
one God, now and for ever. Amen.
PAGE 5PARISH NOTICES Congratulations to Archdeacon Onesimo Yugusuk Archdeacon Onesimo Yugusuk has been elected Bishop of the Diocese of Lomega in South Sudan. Onesimo came to Australia in 2009 having been ordained priest in the Anglican Church in Sudan. He volunteered to serve alongside The Rev’d Timon Yanga who was the priest of the Sudanese congregation in Yokine. Onesimo was subsequently licensed as Assistant Priest in the Sudanese Anglican Worshipping Community of Dianella and Malaga. Since 2015 Onesimo has served as Archdeacon for Sudanese Ministry; a position which has pastoral responsibility and offers support to Sudanese congregations within Diocese. Onesimo resigns as Priest-in-Charge of the Parish of Heathridge on 15 April and as Archdeacon to Sudanese Communities. Please keep Adn Onesimo and his wife The Rev’d Frida Lemi in your prayers. More details in the April Messenger at https://www.perth.anglican.org/news-and-events/messenger/april-2021. Resting in God: Christian Meditation Christian Meditation allows you to connect with the divine and nurture your soul. Thursday evenings commencing 15 April, 6:00-7:00pm at St David’s, 54 Simpson Street, Ardross; free. No experience is required. More details from Peregrin Campbell-Osgood via email at peregrin@applecross.perth.anglican.org. ‘An Introduction to Christian Meditation’ Saturday 17 April 10:00am-3:00pm The World Community for Christian Meditation WA invites you to come and learn about this ancient practice of prayer, in the Christian tradition, with presentations on the historical context, Scriptural underpinnings, the benefits, ‘how to meditate’ and periods of meditation. All are welcome—bring your own lunch. Books available for sale. Entry by donation to be held at Church of St Michael and All Angels, 46 George Way, Cannington. More information at christianmeditation@iinet.net.au. ANZAC Day with the Chapel Choir of St George’s College Join the Chapel Choir of St George’s College as they present their first Fauré Requiem on Sunday 25 April at 7:30pm at the Chapel of St George’s College, cost $30. With Stewart Smith at the organ, the Choir will commemorate ANZAC Day through the beauty of Fauré’s most famous work. Book Giveaway A number of copies of Sambell: A Man of the Word by Michael B Challen, West Anglican Way by A E Williams, and 150th celebrations CD titled ‘From the past we see the future’ are available from Naomi in Archives. Please contact Naomi on 9374 5627 to arrange collection. First Aid Officers If you have a current First Aid Certificate and are happy to provide First Aid when necessary, please forward a copy of your current certificate to the Parish Office. PAGE 6
TODAY’S REFLECTIONS
EASTER
Death, thou wast once an uncouth hideous thing,
Nothing but bones,
The sad effect of sadder grones,
Thy mouth wast open, but thou couldst not sing…
But since our Saviours death hast put some bloud
Into thy face;
Thou art grown fair and full of grace
Much in request, much sought for as a good.
For we do now behold thee gay and glad,
As at dooms-day;
When souls shall wear their new array,
And all thy bones with beauty shall be clad.
Poet and pastor George Herbert here [in his poem ‘Death’] dramatically portrays the
transformation wrought by the resurrection. A world dominated by something hideous,
epitomised in the skeletal death with its gaping songless mouth — a figure that could stand also
for oppression and sin, and all that dominates us by fear and prevents abundant life — is not
overcome but transformed. True, ‘putting blood into thy face’ suggests, among other things, that
Jesus has given the old enemy a bloody nose! But that very blood makes Death like the birth-
giver Mary, ‘fair and full of grace’ — the rhyme in the poem suggesting the notion of a death now
‘full of face,’ pulsing with life, and clad with end-of-time beauty.
Christ once dead, and now ‘clad’ in eternal life, wounded but beautiful, is what the disciples saw
in the days we celebrate in this long season of Easter. The most ancient feast-time of the Church
was ‘Pentecost,’ meaning the 50 days from Passover to the feast of Pentecost itself. It is a
continuing festival we mortals find it harder to keep, in many ways, than the 40 fast days of Lent.
But the 50 days fall into two unequal parts. For there is something distinctive about the 40 days
in which the risen Christ was described as a transformed but still bodily presence, manifest at
particular times and places. The 11 days from Ascension to Pentecost, in which Jesus had
ceased to be locatable in this way, but then came in a new way through the Spirit — merit a
separate [discussion].
PAGE 7CUSTOMS SACRED AND SECULAR In the Orthodox churches the whole season has a much more distinctive flavour than in the West, as distinctive as Orthodox Lent. The repeated Easter hymn, greeting and other verses throughout the season impart an overwhelming sense of pristine joy. Fasting and kneeling are forbidden in this time, which becomes a kind of perpetual Sunday. And the week immediately following Easter has a special joy. It is known as ‘Bright Week’ because the newly baptised used to continue wearing their white baptismal robes throughout it. In the West the sense of Easter is not so great, but that is not through lack of liturgical resources. The Easter candle continues to burn in the centre of the church throughout the 50 days. The ‘alleluia’ returns with exuberance, punctuating many Easter hymns and most of the greetings between priest and people. Anglicans inherit from their Book of Common Prayer the series of Pauline quotes known as the Easter Anthems which introduces Morning Prayer throughout the season; Methodists now use it as an optional replacement for the Gloria. Ancient tradition replaces the Old Testament Sunday readings with readings from the Acts of the Apostles, but the Anglican lectionary provides the interesting option of reading from Acts in the place of the Epistle, and hearing again the Old Testament readings set for the Easter Vigil. From Latin America recently has spread the custom of keeping Stations of the Resurrection on the analogy of the Stations of the Cross… MYSTAGOGY The Easter season was for a time (and once again in the Catholic Church) the period for ‘mystagogy;’ when the newly baptised learnt to receive with joy and understanding the sacrament of Christ’s risen presence. This dimension remains one of the strong undercurrents of the season. Not only new Christians, but all of us find the events of Holy Week overwhelming; Easter offers us time to assimilate them afresh and reorientate our lives in whatever way is necessary. There are perhaps two kinds of difficulty people face as they strive to integrate their lives with the gospel and the Christian community. There are issues of self-integration, and issues of integration of ourselves with others and with God. Some people may have achieved a great harmony between their personal goals and their understanding of the Gospels, but in a manner that has left untouched deep-rooted habits and complexes that can be very resistant to those goals and the general intention and direction of their life. This can happen with ‘twice-born’ Christians who have in a very definite crisis positively assented to Christ with their whole conscious self, but remain haunted by resistant demons they cannot understand. Theirs is a struggle to achieve greater autonomy, and to live less by inner compulsions and outward fears, including the fear of a judgemental God. For such people, Lent and Passiontide can be crucial times. We have seen how the first part of Lent involves the kind of radical Christ-oriented renunciation associated with desert and Ignatian PAGE 8
spirituality, which involve the struggle to discern and do battle with our inner ‘demons.’ Then the
later part of Lent and Passiontide involve handing ourselves over to the healing that comes from
Christ handed over and crucified.
Other Christians, however, may have achieved greater integration within, and feel fundamentally
autonomous and ‘in control’ of themselves, and yet not be leading lives that are very well
integrated with the faith they profess. Such people may be very coherent and clear, with their
emotions well sorted out, but there may be great gulfs in the way they relate their life to the
gospel. This is often the case with ‘once-born’ Christians, those who have grown up with the faith
in an emotionally balanced way, but have yet seriously to notice ways in which their well-ordered
lives accord with worldly principles rather than the gospel of Christ. The struggle here is to move
from hypocrisy — a mismatch between what one believes and proclaims and how one lives —
and grow from self-reliant autonomy into greater reliance on the love of God and the Christian
community.
The ‘mystagogy’ of Easter, it seems to me, is ultimately — for people of every kind — about this
second struggle to grow from autonomous self-sufficiency into deeper faith, trust and love. It
was like that for the disciples. Their journey through Holy Week was a lonely and individual
purgation, but after Easter Jesus draws them back to himself and the new community. We see
Mary’s despair, Thomas’s doubt and Peter’s betrayal, caringly addressed by a love that is stronger
than they are; and I cannot doubt that even Judas’ suicide could not put himself out of range of
such love. In Easter we all know that we are loved with a love that has proven ‘stronger than
death.’ We have nothing ultimately to fear from the accusers and Satans of this world, who would
like to shame and demoralise us; or from death itself. The task for us is — by deepening our
sense of and reliance on Christ’s risen presence in the sacraments and elsewhere — to learn to
love with that same love that is stronger than death.
As Lent led us from the active struggle against sin to the receptive healing of wounds, so Easter
leads us from the active learning of the various partial forms of love to a receiving of a fuller love
bestowed, pentecostally, from beyond.
Ross Thompson, Spirituality in Season: Growing through the Christian Year
(Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2008), pp. 126, 127, 128-29.
THE BOOK OF THE RESURRECTION
It was, at the beginning, a very simple claim, ‘I have seen the Lord.’
Mary Magdalene was the first to say those words in the dawn of that first Easter Day. Then they
were said by the apostles to Thomas, later that night. ‘We have seen the Lord.’ Later still it was St
Paul, speaking of his encounter on the Damascus road: ‘I have seen the Lord.’
It was, of course, an absurd claim from the start, an offence and a scandal. At Athens, when St
Paul preached to them of the risen Christ, they laughed him out of court. Everyone knows dead
men don’t come to life. Yet what else can you say when you are confronted with an experience so
profound that it changes your life? Even when threatened, even when imprisoned and tortured
PAGE 9and put to death, they could not deny the Easter truth. They had no choice; they had to speak of
what they had seen and heard, so utterly convinced were they that God had raised Jesus from
the dead. As for Paul, ‘If Christ has not been raised,’ he wrote, ‘then our preaching is in vain, and
your faith also is in vain.’
A scandal and an offence it may be, but we are not asked to believe nonsense. We are not asked
to leave our minds at home on Easter Day. We are asked to think more deeply and to look afresh
at the evidence daily before our eyes of the creative power of God: to understand a little better
than we do the scale and the detail and the purpose of his creation. Thank God the world has
never been short of men and women who combine a rational and intelligent pursuit of truth with
a sense of wonder: people who perceive there is a mystery about our living and our dying and
that it is foolish to limit the power of God. And when we are faced with the central mystery of the
Christian faith — the belief in the resurrection — then we are asked to use both our God-given
brains and our God-given sense of wonder…
And it is within this context of wonder at God’s creative power and purpose that we have to see
the resurrection. For we are asked to accept with the eye of faith that there was born a man so
entirely open to God that after his death those who knew him could only say that God was in him
as in no other man, both in his life and in his death and in what followed it. We are asked to
accept with the eye of faith that our creator, who makes each of su a thing of flesh and spirit, is
able to hold us in a relationship with himself that is changed but not ended by the death of the
body…
I can only bear witness on Easter Day that I am a Christian because I believe in the power of the
living God. I believe that he has called me out of nothingness into life, and that he has the power
to call me out of death into new life.
And most of all I believe that when we Christians meet together to read the gospel story and to
break bread in the Eucharist, it is not to honour a good man dead these two thousand years but
to celebrate the presence in our midst of our risen Lord. And that is why…men and women out of
every nation, in every human condition…are greeting each other with the old familiar words:
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Michael Mayne, Alleluia is Our Song: Reflections on Easter and Pentecost,
(Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2018), pp. 3-6.
PAGE 10THE WOUNDS
[Thomas] may have felt excluded: the experience of being in a minority of one is not affirming
and the testimony of everyone to something you have missed can be irritating to say the least.
Faith flourishes in community; without community it can falter. Thomas may well have
reprimanded himself that he had missed such an important event. Yet when Jesus appears he
does not pursue the need for the proof that he had so boldly stated he required. In response to
the risen Christ he makes a profound confession of faith in the divinity of the master: ‘My Lord
and my God!’ Thomas may have been wounded by his exclusion, but his apparently macabre
demand to see proof of Christ’s journey through death by touching the wounds inflicted by his
suffering all come to nothing when he actually encounters his risen master.
Gill Ambrose, Peter Craig-Wild, Diane Craven and Peter Moger, Together for a Season:
All-age seasonal resources for Lent, Holy Week and Easter
(London: Church House Publishing, 2007), pp. 201-02.
The spiritual life is not a specialised part
of daily life. Everything you do is your
spiritual life. It is only a matter of how
consciously you do these ordinary things,
how attentive you are to the opportunities
they offer for growth, for enjoyment, and
how mindfully, how selflessly, how
compassionately you perform them.
Laurence Freeman OSB
We pray for
BRODY DIGBY BURNHAM
baptised today
his parents Sasha and Christopher Burnham,
and godparents Ester Zar and Cameron Furney.
PAGE 11THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 12 April 8:30am Morning Prayer
10:30am Mosman Park/Freshwater
Aged Care Communion
Services
5:00pm Evening Prayer
7:30pm Parish Council
Wednesday 14 April 8:30am Morning Prayer
10:00am Eucharist
5:00pm Evening Prayer
Thursday 15 April 8:30am Morning Prayer
5:00pm Evening Prayer
Friday 16 April 8:30am Morning Prayer
5.00pm Evening Prayer
Sunday 18 April 7:30am Said Eucharist
9.30am Sung Eucharist
5:00pm Choral Evensong
20 Monument Street, Mosman Park WA 6012 | +61 8 9384 0108
stlukemosmanpark@gmail.com | www.stlukemosmanpark.perth.anglican.org
Rector Fr Matthew Smedley | 0412 468 522
rectorstlukemosmanpark@gmail.com
Parish Office Administrator Amanda Mills-Ghani
Tuesday/Friday 9:00am–1:00pm, Wednesday 9:00am–5:00pm
Wardens Rod Dale, Bridget Faye AM, Gwen Speirs
Synod Representatives James Jegasothy, Andrew Reynolds
Parish Council Angela Beeton, Anna Goodes Adrian Momber, Kate Stanford
Organists Rosemary Cassidy, Don Cook
Op Shop Ruth Hogarth, Coordinator
PAGE 12 Wednesday, Friday, Saturday 9:30am–1:00pmYou can also read
