My sermon for Epiphany 3 2004 Australia Day
Ken Whitelock
Neh 8.1-3, 5-6, 8-10,
Psalm 19
1 Cor 12.12-31
Luke 4.14-21
The Prime Minister's draft preamble, released on 23 March 1999:
With hope in God, the Commonwealth of Australia is constituted by the equal sovereignty of all its citizens.
The Australian nation is woven together of people from many ancestries and arrivals.
Our vast island continent has helped to shape the destiny of our Commonwealth and the spirit of its people.
Since time immemorial our land has been inhabited by Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who are honored for their ancient and continuing cultures.
In every generation immigrants have brought great enrichment to our nation’s life.
Australians are free to be proud of their country and heritage, free to realise themselves as individuals, and free to pursue their hopes and ideals.
We value excellence as well as fairness, independence as dearly as mateship. Australia’s democratic and federal system of government exists under law to preserve and protect all Australians in an equal dignity which may never be infringed by prejudice or fashion or ideology nor invoked against achievement.
In this spirit we, the Australian people, commit ourselves to this Constitution.
No, I didn’t write this in a fit of nationalistic fervor. This is the Prime Minister’s suggested preamble to the Australian constitution from 1999. It is, in places, a little utopian. It describes an Australia we’d like to say we have, but we don’t have. A few years ago It sparked much debate over what the preamble to our constitution should say. I found another suggested preamble from the same time, written with a tongue firmly planted in one cheek, which ended with the line “Boonie is a legend.” Perhaps that one might be a little more appropriate?
I guess it was in the midst of this utopian dreaming and the self-depreciating humor of the time that I began to wonder what the actual purpose of a preamble is. Why do we actually need one? So I looked up the word preamble in the dictionary. Here is what I found. There are several meanings.
Preamble can mean walking in front of something. It can mean an introductory statement for a law, a text that states the reason and intent of the law that follows. A preamble can also be an introductory fact or circumstance, especially one that is indicating what is to follow. In the light of these definitions then, I would say that the constitutional preamble gives the reason for the constitution, the purpose of the constitution and a picture of the circumstances from which it arose and to which it speaks. It sets the scene so to speak.
Much thought and discussion ensued in the community about what the preamble should say, spurred by different interpretations of who and what we are as Australians, and what we had done to be the nation we are. I think the argument is yet to be settled, because there are so many different views of who and what we are as a nation. There is not a unifying ideology as such. I guess it’s now with some committee or another for review and burial.
Now then, what has this to do with Jesus? What has this to do with the bible readings for today? I’ll read again this text that Jesus read aloud in the synagogue, this text taken from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah:
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I think this could be considered a preamble to the Gospel of our Lord. It sets the scene for the following revelations. It gives the reason and intent for Christ coming to this world, and gives us an idea of how Christ’s mission in the world should be interpreted. It states what the life and ministry of Jesus Christ was all about. It is what the Gospel of our Lord means. As such it should be an underlying statement of unity between churches and between Christians. It should also, I think, be part of the mission statement of every Church, or be a preamble to every mission statement and vision statement. In this we see the crux of our mission and purpose in the world. We are anointed with the Holy Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation to be bearers of the good news of Jesus Christ to the poor, not just the economically poor, but the spiritually poor, some of whom are very wealthy indeed. We are called to proclaim release of those captive to the things in life that cut us off from a good relationship with each other and with God. We are called to open the eyes of those who are blind to God and God’s love. We are called to free those who are oppressed by a lack of God’s love in the world and in their lives. We are called to proclaim that God loves us all, everyone of us, regardless of who we are and what we have done.
This is Jesus preamble. This is our preamble as a Church. Perhaps if we followed this preamble in our lives as much as we can, then the nation in which we live might become a little more like the utopia that the Prime Ministers preamble described. It would also be a lot more like the Kingdom Of God.
The Lord be with you.
