The Lutheran December 2022 Sneak Preview

TAKING JESUS’ LOVE to the streets

EDITORIAL

Editor Lisa McIntosh

p 08 8267 7300

m 0409 281 703

e lisa.mcintosh@lca.org.au

Executive Editor Linda Macqueen p 08 8267 7300

e linda.macqueen@lca.org.au

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LUTHERAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA

The Lutheran informs the members of the LCANZ about the church’s teaching, life, mission and people, helping them to grow in faith and commitment to Jesus Christ. The Lutheran also provides a forum for a range of opinions, which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editor or the policies of the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand.

Re-confirming a 50-year bond

On 5 November 1972, a class of 20 young Lutherans was confirmed at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, Murray Bridge, in South Australia. Almost 50 years later, nine of the class met up for a reunion lunch, with some attendees not having seen one another for five decades. One alumna, Carolyn Altus, even remembered to bring a copy of The Lutheran, which was just five years into its existence on the class’s confirmation day. Those who attended the reunion are, from left, Cathy Hamilton, Richard Gray, Sally Hermel, Lyn Davis, Carolyn Altus, Aston Schenscher, Pamela Elliott, Kate Spillane and Kathy Zeppel.

Send us a photograph featuring a recent copy of The Lutheran and it may appear on page 2 of a future issue and on our website at www.thelutheran.com.au

People like YOU bring love to life

Matheus Pilger

St Matthew Lutheran Church Hamilton NZ Goat dairy farmer

Most treasured Bible text: 1 Peter 4:10

‘Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.’

Anny Ferguson

St Johns Lutheran Church Unley Church, youth, and ministry worker

Most treasured Bible text: Matthew 5:16

‘In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.’

Gavan Scheiwe

St Peters Lutheran Church Warwick Qld Civil Engineer/Project Manager and treasurer at St Peters

Most treasured Bible text: Romans 15:7

‘Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.’

Let the light of someone you know shine through their photo being featured in The Lutheran and LCA Facebook. With their permission, send us a good quality photo, their name and details (congregation, occupation and most treasured text) and your contact details.

As we were preparing this edition, the Adelaide foothills where I live and other parts of South Australia were battered by what I will call (in deference to TV’s The Vicar of Dibley) The Great Storm of 2022.

More than 400,000 lightning strikes had hit South Australia overnight and there were warnings of gale-force winds and pounding rain. In the afternoon, a savage front raged across Adelaide, with our street in the firing line. Winds in excess of 100 kilometres per hour tore branches off large trees and hurled them like javelins into yards, verandahs and roofs. When I could see the trees through horizontally-driving rain, they were bent by lashing winds and water before shedding limbs in resignation. It looked like a typhoon.

A large tree in the gorge opposite our house snapped in half and, unsurprisingly, powerlines and other service infrastructure were damaged. Electricity was cut, internet connection gone, lights out, no hot water. Without a word of a pun, I felt powerless.

With the storm passed, chainsaws roared into life in our street. Ladders, tarpaulins and spare tiles appeared as neighbours helped one another remove branches from roofs and cover the breaches. Neighbours helping one another, often forgetting their own needs to do so. I reflected on God’s gift of community, and on his greatest gift to us as we go through this Advent season – the Christchild. We know the incarnation text well … the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14).

This neighbourhood scene reminded me about our calling as Christians – not to just know about God’s plan of salvation, not even just to share it with others, but also to be God’s hands and feet as we take Jesus’ love out with us to the streets, the cricket ground, bush track, school, shops, farm, office, café, theatre … or rooftop.

In this edition, we are privileged to share stories from our Lutheran family about stepping out of our homes and churches and taking God’s love for everyone with us as we go. I pray that you will be inspired by them, as I have been.

As this is the last edition for 2022, I would like to thank you, our readers, subscribers and group collectors for your loyalty. My gratitude goes, too, to our wonderful team – Linda Macqueen (executive editor), Elysia McEwen (graphic designer), columnists Helen Beringen and Bishop Paul Smith, proofreaders Lyall Kupke and Kathy Gaff, Olivia Harman in subscriptions and Trevor Bailey and all at Openbook Howden.

The Lutheran will be different next year, as we trial a move to six editions to make our churchwide magazine more sustainable in the face of increasing production costs and diminishing church membership and subscriber numbers. We will reduce subscription costs along with this change. We ask for your understanding and look forward to your continued support. (See page 9 for more information.)

Have a safe, joyful and blessed Christmas,

Special features

Life in all its fullness

Locals get vocal on wellbeing

Schools on the march for refugee kids

Taking Jesus’ love to the streets

Regulars

Because we bear your name: Bishop Paul’s letter

Dwelling in God’s word Go and Grow Church@home Going GREYT! The inside story Directory Sudoku Your voice Prayer calendars

Our cover: Members of Emmanuel Lutheran Fellowship were part of an ecumenical group in taking Jesus’ message of love to the streets in the Carnival of Flowers Grand Central Floral Parade in Toowoomba, Queensland.

Photo: Dr Mark Bennett

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that the following pages may contain images of people who have died.

Because we bear your name

Nativity plays have been part of our Christian communities for centuries, as we annually dramatise the Christmas gospel with a simple retelling of the story of the manger. This tradition of retelling shows a deep appreciation of the human soul and of God’s gracious heart towards humankind.

We human beings need story. We tell stories. We watch stories on big and small screens, sometimes ‘bingeing’ on them. We read stories to our children from an early age. We create stories. When someone has died, we gather to tell their story. We are stories.

A master storyteller and faithful Christian, J.R.R. Tolkien has become famous in our modern era, through blockbuster movies based on his stories in the Lord of the Rings series. Tolkien understood the significance of story and had studied the history of northern European medieval storytelling, particularly in the colourful Viking sagas. Tolkien wrote how a story can capture your breath, lift the heart, or even give a person a glimpse of joy. Stories can transform us in our deepest soul.

Central to all that Tolkein cherished and celebrated about story, was the greatest story of all. As a Christian, throughout his life in England, he knew the story of God’s plan of salvation in Jesus Christ. God enters our world in a Bethlehem stable with angels and shepherds, through a young woman who has no proper place to deliver her baby.

This one born in the manger grows to adulthood and takes on sin, death and the power of the Devil for us. At the point in his story, when he dies on Calvary’s mountain, when even his followers despair, Jesus rises from the grave. These are great turning points in the story of Jesus Christ, which change human history and change us forever.

There were those shepherds who watched their flocks at night, outside of Bethlehem who were ushered into this story, when the angelic proclamation declared to them, that the Saviour had been born, who is Christ the Lord. These farmhands were so transformed by this turning point in history and in their own lives, that they left their flocks and hurried, in the dark with all its hazards and uncertainties, to see for themselves, ‘this thing that has

BISHOP PAUL’S LETTER

taken place, which the Lord has made known to us’. Then, when they had seen for themselves the Lord of the manger, they ‘made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them’. They told the story.

And today, we have the wonderful tradition of nativity plays, to tell the story to each new generation. This is the story of God’s gracious heart for the people of the world. May every carol you hear played in coming weeks, be a reminder to join with the shepherds in telling the story, in the face of uncertainties and amid all kinds of opposition. Then on the festival of Christmas Day, we will gather to hear the story and to personally receive this story continued. The one enfleshed and found in the manger declares himself fully present in the holy meal of bread and wine where we will receive grace upon grace.

English Poet Laureate John Betjeman wrote this Christmas good news into a profound poem from 1954, simply entitled, ‘Christmas’, ‘And is it true, this most tremendous tale of all, Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue, A Baby in an ox’s stall?

The Maker of the stars and sea Become a Child on earth for me?

‘And is it true? For if it is, no loving fingers tying strings Around those tissued fripperies, The sweet and silly Christmas things, Bath salts and inexpensive scent And hideous tie so kindly meant, ‘No love that in a family dwells, no carolling in frosty air, Nor all the steeple-shaking bells Can with this single Truth compare –That God was man in Palestine And lives today in Bread and Wine?’

In Christ,

Paul

Lord Jesus, we belong to you, you live in us, we live in you; we live and work for you –because we bear your name

WE HAVE THE WONDERFUL TRADITION OF NATIVITY PLAYS ... THIS IS THE STORY OF GOD’S GRACIOUS HEART FOR THE WORLD.

REV PAUL SMITH Bishop, Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand