A SUNDAY MORNING IN EARLY SPRING

A Spring Sunday in September

 

September the eighth, the second Sunday in September, the liturgical season of Creation…… a special day at Church of All Nations, a Uniting Church in Carlton, in the inner city of Melbourne.

It so happens that our church building is under renovation and this fact, when applied to the season, led the worship planners to organize a service outdoors.

Picture the scene….a quintessential early Spring  morning, calm, warm, peaceful. Our church is physically part of the Carlton Housing Estate, the home of several thousand people, and the second Sunday is the time when we open the drop-in centre to welcome locals to a barbecue meal in the large room with double doors which opens directly on to the Estate.

Worship ….a table with a cross, a sand tray in which to receive our gleanings from the flower beds nearby, seagulls hovering about, a lovely paved setting partly shaded by the casuarinas, readings from scripture and modern poetry, the sounds of people gathering for the barbecue, a powerful yet gentle sense of being in and of the community of Carlton.

Part of the service was an invitation to turn our hands to the garden around the church building….so we set off, gathering gloves, spades, secateurs and black garbage bags for 20 minutes of gardening….not a break from worship but an expression of worship.

In my small group consisting of an historian, a former politician and a retired teacher, there was some lovely reflecting on weeds, cannas, vegetable gardens, old Methodist hymns, the discovery of an old set of car keys, rotten potatoes, and a warning from one of the locals to watch out for needles! Creation indeed!

Returning to the worship space, now joined by still more seagulls, we sang, unaccompanied, that beautiful hymn of Shirley Murray’s

Let there be greening,
birth from the burning,
water that blesses and air that is sweet,
health in God's garden,
hope in God's children,
regeneration that peace will complete.

                                                          [Together in Song   668] 

We have been using a small resource booklet on Creation, produced within the congregation, and one of the extracts was included in our Church bulletin, an appropriate thought to ponder for the day…..

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pick blackberries.
                                   
                                           Elizabeth Barrett Browning