Call to Worship:

(Psalm 62: 5 to 8 and 11):

Leader: “I depend on God alone; I put my hope in Him.

All: He alone protects and saves me; He is my defender,

Leader: On God rests my salvation,

All: My refuge is God.

Leader: Trust in God at all times, O People,

All: Pour out your hearts before Him and tell Him of all your troubles.

Leader: All power belongs to God,

All: And His love is unfailing.”

Leader: The author of this Psalm is writing of a peace of mind and of feelings of security, based not on Human effort, which is characterised by weakness and untrustworthiness, but based on a focus on God.  A troubled soul is stilled in the presence of God.  Anxieties are stilled by a confident assurance in the power of God to act and to comfort.  Tensions formed by looking inwards towards one’s concerns and problems are stilled by lifting one’s eyes outward and upward towards God.  (A Weiser p449, p450)

  God is the foundation and purpose of one’s life and existence.  For that reason, we have gathered here today for worship, to express our thanks and praise to God, our Lord and Saviour.

Prayer of Praise  

(from An Australian Prayer Book p225, The Book of Common Worship p298, The Book of Worship pp54 – 56, Opening Prayers p60, Prayers for God’s People Year B pp44 – 47) 

Leader:  All powerful and everlasting God, through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do nothing good without you, for you are the source of our strength and of sound teaching.  You call us to share in a life of freedom, of truth and of love.  Your Word summons us to faith.  Your Spirit transforms our lives.

    Our hearts are restless until they find comfort in you.  Our hopes are groundless unless they are anchored in you.  Our prayers are empty unless they are inspired by you. 

    We have so much to thank you for, loving God, your plan for each of us providing a purpose for our lives, your arms enfolding around us and protecting us, your power providing for us and sustaining us.  In adoring love and humble reverence may we yield ourselves to your service, so that your righteousness and peace may be known among all Nations, to your glory and honour.  Amen.

Hymn

Let Heaven and Earth Combine  TiS 305  AHB 229  (music starts 1min 15sec after commencement).

Prayer of Confession: 

(from An Australian Prayer Book p225, Invocations p63, The Book of Worship pp54 – 56, Opening Prayers p60, Prayers for God’s People Year B pp44 – 47) 

Leader: Merciful God, we come humbling ourselves before you, recalling our neglects and our shortcomings.  We recall your standards and acknowledge that we fall short in so many ways.

All: You are ever coming to us, yet we are ever turning away from us.  You seek for us to focus solely upon you, yet our minds wander to myriad things and our desires command our attention.  We seek your mercy and forgiveness.

Leader: You come beside us and ask us to follow you, yet we pause to consider the cost. 

All: There are so many Earthly attachments that hold us back from answering your call.  We seek your mercy and forgiveness.

Leader: You have great plans for us, yet we disregard your Will for what you intend for us to be and to do.

All: We are faithless and frivolous, yet you show great patience with us.  We seek your mercy and forgiveness.

Leader: Help us to yield to your love, to be the means to lead Humanity to unity and peace.  In purity of heart, may we receive the blessings of your light and life.

All: Cleanse us from all of our sins and restore us to a right relationship with yourself.  In your name we pray.  Amen.

Assurance of Forgiveness  (from Mark 1: 15b)  

Leader: Mark, in his Gospel, records the preaching of Jesus to turn away from our sins and to believe the Good News of the Kingdom of God.  We have confessed our sins before God.  We have expressed our faith in the redeeming and cleansing work of Jesus Christ.  We, therefore, have the assurance that God has heard us and that God has forgiven us.

All: Thanks be to God.

Sharing the Peace 

Leader: The Apostle Paul expresses this greeting to the church in Corinth; “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.”  (1 Corinthians 1: 3)

  In these times of restrictions and reservations regarding physical contact with others, we find new ways to share this peace within the Fellowship of God, to both those here with us today and those who are absent from our midst.

  So, with upraised hands, let us share together these words of Jesus:

  May the peace of God be with you.

All: And also with you.

Prayer for 26th January

Leader: We praise you, God of the Universe, for this Nation of ours, for its contrasts of landscape and climate, for its times of droughts and times of floods, for its times of abundance and beauty.  We praise you for the stability of its Governments, for the ready provision of education and health care and housing, and for basic and accepted freedoms to choose how we live and work and believe.

  We accept the realities of our History, with its struggles in adversity, with its loss and grief, with its failures and neglect, with its inequality and poverty, with its injustices and abuses committed against peoples of different colours and races and cultures and creeds.

  We ask for your forgiveness of us, when by acts of commission or by our failure to act, we have contributed to the needs of others not being met, or we have contributed to the discrimination shown to another Human being who is equally valued and loved by you, or we have contributed to the acceptance of the presence of inequity and neglect when none should exist.

  We pray for the healing of our Nation, that you will eliminate any divisiveness and mistrust that divides us.  We pray that you will encourage those who have been wronged in the past and in the present to be moved to forgive the pain that they have experienced, to forgive the loss that they have suffered, to forgive the abuse that has been hurled at them, and to forgive the neglect and inequality that they have perceived coloured their life.

  We pray that paths of dialogue may open within and between our communities, dialogue that will lead to cooperation and the advancement for the Common Good, dialogue that will lead to the making of constructive and positive decisions towards the advancement of all peoples.

  Give us the courage to ensure that the realities of our past do not determine the realities of our future.  May we not seek to take upon ourselves the guilt for the sins of others in the past, especially the sins of the Church, but lead us instead, Lord God, to celebrate what we have and who we are, to accept that “we are all part of the story”, and to seek pathways for moving forward together as a Nation.  ( Home ‐ Australia Day )  

  So that we may together build a better future for our Nation, teach us to tolerate diversity, to respect all Cultures, and to care for our land and of our waters.  Help us to work towards a just sharing of the resources of our Nation and of the opportunities that it affords.  Give us a passionate commitment towards justice for all, and for structural and social change to improve the quality of life for all peoples in all communities, especially for the disadvantaged and the neglected.

  May your authority and love be the foundations upon which we walk together as one People who share this Nation of yours.  Bless us so that we might be a blessing to others.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

All: Amen.

[UCA Assembly Day of mourning 2021 Worship Resources and Anglican Defence force chaplains Australia Day worship resources 2014] 

Prayer for illumination

Leader: Let us share in this prayer for illumination as we read from the Word of God.

All: Holy and merciful God, through your Holy Spirit, instruct us that we might rightly understand the Word of Truth, and find ourselves as People who reflect the Living Word, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Readings

Jonah 3: 1 to 6 and 10

3: 1  Once again the LORD spoke to Jonah.  2  He said, “Go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to the people the message I have given you.”  3  So Jonah obeyed the LORD and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to walk through it.  4  Jonah started through the city, and after walking a whole day, he proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed!”

5  The People of Nineveh believed God’s message.  So they decided that everyone should fast, and all the people, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth to show that they had repented.

6  When the King of Nineveh heard about it, he got up from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat down in ashes.

10  God saw what they did; He saw that they had given up their wicked behaviour.  So He changed His mind and did not punish then as He said He would.

Reader: This is the Word of God.

All: Praise to you Almighty God.

Mark 1: 14 to 20

1: 14  After John had been put in prison, Jesus went to Galilee and preached the Good News from God.  15  “The right time has come,” he said,” and the Kingdom of God is near!  Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News!”

16  As Jesus walked along the shore of Lake Galilee, he saw two fishermen, Simon and his brother Andrew, catching fish in a net.  17  Jesus said to them, “Come with me, and I will teach you to catch people.”  18  At once they left their nets and went with him.

19  He went a little farther on and saw two other brothers, James and John, the sons of Zebedee.  They were in their boat getting their nets ready.  20  As soon as Jesus saw them, he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and went with Jesus.

Reader: This is the Gospel of our Lord.

All: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

Hymn

“On Jordan’s Banks the Baptist’s Cry” – TiS 270  AHB 199 

Sermon

“What happened at Nineveh?”

Screen 1 

At the local market

  The wife of Jonah, the Prophet, met a friend at the local market, who asked about her husband’s recent business trip to Assyria. 

“Well, funny you should ask,” Jonah’s wife replied, “because I was just talking to him on the phone last night.  He said he was having a ‘whale’ of a time, or words to that effect.  I couldn’t quite make it out because the line to Nineveh isn’t good at the best of time.” 

“Sounds fishy to me.”, the friend exclaimed. 

“Yes,” said Jonah’s wife, “the same thought came to me as well, because he was quite vague about the ‘porpoise’ for his going to Nineveh in the first place.”

  The Book of Jonah is unique in the Prophetic Books of the Old Testament because the message delivered by God’s prophet to the People of a Nation is contained in only six words: “In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed.”  No warning is to be given to the People, just the judgement.  There is no indication that a reason for the judgement is to be included in the Prophet’s message to the People, although God does give his reasons to Jonah early in the account, “I am aware of how wicked its people are”, so we read God telling Jonah in Jonah 1: 2.  There is no indication that the name of the God giving the judgement is to be included in the Prophet’s message to the People of Nineveh.

  This Book concerns God’s direct intervention in the Life and the History of one of the greatest enemies of both the Nation of Israel and of the Nation of Judah, namely Assyria, a powerful and warlike nation to the north-east of Palestine.

Screen 2 

An outline of the once great city of Nineveh, capital of Assyria

  Nineveh was the principal city and capital of the Assyrian Empire, which, at its greatest extent, stretched from Babylonia in the east to Egypt in the west.  The city of Nineveh is described as having defensive walls 13 metres thick, 23 metres high, and wide enough for four chariots to drive around it side by side.  It was also surrounded by a moat some 25 metres wide in parts.  It was renowned for its broad Royal Boulevard and its opulent palaces and temples were adorned by elaborate frescoes and reliefs.

Screen 3 

The ruins of Nineveh today

  Yet, today, Nineveh is a wasteland, a pile of ruins, some of it under a pile of debris 14 metres high.  It is located under two mounds on the east side of the Tigris River, across from the modern city of Mosul in north west Iraq.

  Its demise was foretold by two Prophets of God writing in the mid-6^th century BCE.  The Prophet Nahum said that the future of Nineveh would be one of desolation and ruin  (Nahum 2: 10)  .  The Prophet Zephaniah said that God would make Nineveh a dry waste like a desert, where wild beasts would make their homes among the ruins lying about  (Zephaniah 2: 13 &14)  .  In 612BCE the Medes, in an alliance with the Scythians and the Babylonians, laid siege to the city, breached the defences, overran the defenders, deposed the King of the Assyrians, pulled down the city walls and burnt the city to the ground.  It is said that Alexander’s army, when they passed nearby four centuries later, found scant ruins to indicate where this great city had once stood.

  The Assyrians were known for their cruelty towards their prisoners and towards the peoples who they defeated.  The Prophet Zephaniah records God saying of his punishment of Nineveh, “this is what will happen to the city that is so proud of its own power and thinks it is safe, its people think that their city is the greatest on Earth”  (Zephaniah 3: 15)  .  The Prophet Nahum says that God decided to punish the Assyrians for the suffering they caused to the people of God, the Jews, “I will now end Assyria’s power of you”, he said to the people of Israel, “and break the chain that binds you.”  (Nahum 1: 13)  .

Screen 4 

Jonah proclaiming God’s intent to punish the people of Nineveh.

  Yet we know that this destruction could have been avoided.  Over a century earlier we read of God commanding his Prophet Jonah to go to the city to proclaim that God had decided to destroy the city because, as he states, “I am aware of how wicked its people are”  (Jonah 1: 2)  .  At first, Jonah heads west across the Mediterranean Sea to Spain in a vain attempt to avoid fulfilling God’s command.  However, he finally travels to the city, and proclaims God’s message to its residents, “In forty days Nineveh will be destroyed.” Jonah proclaims  (Jonah 3: 4)  .  To his amazement the King and all of the people of the city listen to his message, repent of their sin, and in a stark and clear sign of repentance fast, wear the rough and irritating sackcloth and sit in ashes for 40 days, signs of mourning and of sorrow for their actions.  And then we read this short yet amazing statement, “God saw what they did, he saw that they had given up their wicked behaviour.  God saw their response to His warning, so He did not punish them as He had said He would.”  (Jonah 3: 10) 

Screen 5 

The response from the People of Nineveh to Jonah’s proclamation

  Matthew and Luke, in their Gospels, record an occasion when Jesus rebuked some Teachers of the Law and some Pharisees, for their ‘coldness’ towards him and their rejection of the offer of reconciliation with God that Jesus was preaching to them.  “What evil and godless people you are.” Jesus exclaimed, ”On the Judgement Day the People of Nineveh will stand up and accuse you, because they turned from their sins when they heard Jonah preach.”  (Matthew 12: 41 and Luke 11: 32)  With these words, Jesus is reinforcing the integrity of Jonah’s account of the amazing response the People of Nineveh displayed towards God, following their hearing the message that Jonah had preached.  Jesus was emphasising the genuineness of their repentance.  One writer states that all that the People of Nineveh were doing was performing an appeasement ritual to Jonah’s god, whom they felt that they unknowingly had somehow angered, with the intent of preventing this deity from acting upon the threat directed towards the city.  (J Walton, V Matthews & M Chavalas in The Bible Background commentary of the Old Testament p780)  But, I would contend that we can read Jonah’s account as it is written, that the People of Nineveh took Jonah’s message seriously and were genuinely terrified of the punishment that God had decreed would come upon them, because of their actions and attitudes towards others and, ultimately, towards God Himself.  (H Halley in Halley’s Bible Handbook p286) 

Beale and Carson, in their Commentary on the New Testament, remind us that God “never coerces belief”, for that would “override Human freedom, which the Bible consistently stresses is something that God values highly”.  (G Beale and D Carson in Commentary on the New Testament use of the Old Testament p46)  As such, their approach to Jonah’s account is that it is an account of the genuine conversion of the People of Nineveh following Jonah’s preaching, albeit a conversion that was only temporary in nature, given God’s later prophesies regarding the future destruction of the city and all that it stood for.  Just as importantly, we must remind ourselves that God cannot be deluded by rites and rituals performed with the sole purpose in mind of evading the punishment proclaimed by God, by hoping to redirect God’s focus and attention onto something else and, by doing so, hoping that God will forget to carry out what He had initially set out to accomplish.  When God chose not to destroy the city of Nineveh, it was not because He was being tricked into not doing so, it was because God intentionally chose not to do so.

  Why is this so significant?  It is because this small Old Testament Book records an instance where the population of a non-Jewish nation becomes aware of the reality of the one true Creator God, the God of the Israelites.  In doing so, they rejected the power and authority of their own gods that they had worshipped, to fall humbly before the God who rules over all peoples and is more powerful that any of their gods.  In doing so they call upon God’s mercy and seek His forgiveness.  It records an instance where God decided to intervene in the History of a non-Jewish Nation, to give them an opportunity to turn away from their sins, to repent of their past behaviour and their way of life, and to follow him as faithful children, the same opportunity that God offers to the Children of Israel.

  Some writers, though, have described the book of Jonah as having more to do with Jonah’s unwillingness to be a servant of God, and of God’s dealing with Jonah’s petulance and complaints.

Screen 6 

Jonah boarding a ship heading west to Spain instead of travelling east to Nineveh.

  As soon as Jonah received God’s command to go to Nineveh, he decided to set out in the opposite direction, “in order to get away from the Lord” so we read.  (Jonah 1: 3a)  Why did Jonah deliberately decide to disobey God?  Was it because of a misplaced nationalism or patriotism, thinking that if God’s message did not get to the Assyrians then God would carry out His decision to destroy the city, and, thereby, remove a serious threat to Israel’s security and prosperity?  (H Mears in What the Bible is all about p301 and R Jensen in The book of the Twelve p6)  Was it because of some deep-seated antagonism towards Assyrians as a People, possibly due to accounts that Jonah had heard of their raids across their shared borders, of their propensity to display cruelty towards his fellow Israelites, and of their theft and destruction of Israelite property and livestock?

Screen 7 

Jonah displaying his anger at God.

  And when he did go to Nineveh and did proclaim God’s message to the city’s inhabitants, Jonah was utterly dismayed, to the point of anger, when he observed their response.  “In knew that this is what you would do.”, Jonah protested.  “I knew that you are a loving and merciful God, always patient, always kind, and always ready to change your mind and not to punish.”  (Jonah 3: 2)  Here we gain the understanding that Jonah had come to Nineveh not so much to seek their repentance, but to announce their doom.  (H Halley in Halley’s Bible Handbook p287)  Jonah may have feared that, “with the sparing of Nineveh, the doom of his own Country in the future, at the hands of the Assyrians, was now sealed.  (R Jensen in The book of the Twelve p5) 

  But, there is more to Jonah’s attitude towards the People of Nineveh than just his fears.  To be sure, Jonah shared with God a condemnation of the unrighteousness of the People.  Just as certain is the knowledge that Jonah did not share God’s mercy towards the People of Nineveh following their change of heart.  Jonah is challenging God, directly questioning God, “Why should you have pity on Nineveh?”  God, in response, challenges Jonah’s lack of mercy towards them.  God seeks to draw Jonah’s attention to Jonah’s sense of “religious exclusiveness”.  God seeks to show Jonah that he displays the very selfishness, the same moral and religious blindness, and the unrighteousness with which Jonah paints the People of Nineveh.  These are the sins through which Jonah brings God’s condemnation upon himself.  (D Robinson in Jonah in The New Bible Commentary p751) 

  We must be aware of today’s Jonah’s, those who seek to store up their feelings of past and present hurts and grievances, and their constant recollecting of past and present neglect and discrimination, but who are, in reality, refusing to affirm that, though God does and will seek justice for all, God also seeks to show mercy to all who repent.

  We do see, though, that Jonah had a fair understanding of God, for how could God not seek to relate to all people in the same manner as He sought to relate to the Israelites, that is, with patience and kindness and mercy and love, for that is the very nature of God.

  Roy Jensen writes in his Commentary on Jonah, that “Out of God’s attitude of mercy, as clearly illustrated in Jonah’s account, all the activities of God proceed.  God cannot be untrue to this central fact of his nature.  That is why Peter writes:

“The lord is unwilling that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”  (2 Peter3: 9) 

This Book of Jonah, Roy Jensen continues, surely says to all who know their Lord, to put away their exclusiveness and prejudice and go to the Ninevehs of our day with God’s message of warning. And why?  Because God has said, “Should not I have pity on them?”  (Jonah 4: 11)  (R Jensen in The book of the Twelve p6) 

Screen 8 

“Jonah,” said God, “how much more then should I have pity on Nineveh?”  Jonah 4: 11 (GNB)

  Gerhard von Rad, in his Commentary on the 12 Minor Prophets, writes that the “hero” of Jonah’s account was never going to be the Prophet himself, but rather, God.  God is glorified, not through His Prophet, but despite his Prophet, despite Jonah’s initial disobedient refusal to go to Nineveh, and, then, despite of Jonah’s stubborn grudging of God’s display of mercy towards those whom Jonah perceives as ‘undeserving heathens’.  All that Jonah does not do cannot impede God’s mercy, for God’s saving work is accomplished in spite of the impediments that Jonah places in the way.  (G von Rad in The Message of the Prophets p256)  This leads to the realisation that God’s redemptive plans embrace “the whole World of Nations”.  As such, it is a warning to us, if, because of our prejudice towards other races of nations, or our aloofness towards God’s Will for other races and nation, by our words and actions, we should seek to compromise the work of God in the World.  (G von Rad in The Message of the Prophets p257) 

  Here, at Nineveh, we have a record of the power of God’s words, the power to move people to consider and to question the reality of the World that they had drawn up for themselves; the power to reveal to people the error of their ways and of the truth of the God who created the Heavens and the Earth; the truth of the God who calls to them to “come and follow me”.

  This is the same message about which we have read in the today’s Gospel passage. 

Screen 9 

“Come with me,” Jesus said to them, “and I will teach you to catch people.”  Mark 1: 17 (GNB)  

  Jesus is saying the same words to the people that he chose as his Disciples, that God, through Jonah, said to the people of Nineveh, “come with me” or “follow me” as the RSV reads.  The Disciples were not so much accompanying Jesus on his travels, but following Jesus; being disciplined by him, being taught by him, being shown what true discipleship was and what it entailed, being shown the hardships that were sometimes the ‘reward’ for discipleship.

  To what do we listen?  Do we listen to the voice of Jesus to come and to follow?  Like the people of Nineveh, are our eyes open to the call of God and our minds open to receive God’s truth?  Or are we, like Jonah, too afraid to follow God’s call and, instead, seek a way out?  We read that as soon as the people of Nineveh heard Jonah’s message they responded by repenting of their sins.  We read that as soon as Peter and Andrew and James and John heard the call from Jesus, they responded by leaving all that was of value to them and followed.  How do we respond?  Do we pause to consider the cost, or do we give up all for God?

  The message that Jesus spoke as he travelled throughout Galilee is as true today as it was then, “The Kingdom of God is near, turn away from your sins and believe the Good News.”  (Mark 1: 15)  What is sad about the history of the Assyrians is that at one point in their history they did listen to God and had accepted his message.  It is obvious that, later, they forgot what Jonah had said, they couldn’t maintain their faith, and they returned to their old ways, thereby earning the condemnation of God and deserving of his punishment.

  What direction are we going to take?  Let us not be like the people of Nineveh that forgot God.  Instead let us be like those fishermen on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, and drop all to faithfully follow when Jesus says, “come with me”.  Amen.

Hymn

“All My hope in God in Founded” – TiS 560  AHB 465 

Offering

Offering Prayer  (from Amish Prayers p39, p41, Prayers for the Seasons of God’s People Year B p46) 

Leader: Loving God, we give you thanks for your generosity and graciousness towards us.  In gratitude we offer our gifts to you, for the work of your Church, so that those living in darkness may hear the Gospel and respond to your grace and mercy.  To your glory we pray.  Amen.

Prayers for Others

Leader: Let us bring our cares and our concerns before God.

  Almighty God, we pray for us, your Church, that we may hear your call to be salt for the Earth, to be instruments of your love, to be faithful witnesses to our families, our co-workers, and our communities of your message of forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with you.  May we manifest in how we think and in what we do and say, the values and virtues of Christian Discipleship.

  We pray for greater openness to your written Word so that we may allow it to penetrate our hearts and to motivate us to serve you.  May we take the time to read, to ponder and to pray with the Scriptures so that we may deepen our relationship with you and take on the mind and heart of Christ.

  We pray for Christian Unity, that you will heal the wounds and misunderstandings of the past, lead all who proclaim you as Lord to offer a more united witness to the Gospel, and to offer greater service towards our suffering and vulnerable neighbours.

  We pray for all who are ill, particularly for those with the Coronavirus: that you will heal the sick, protect the vulnerable from diseases, strengthen healthcare workers, and to make all vaccines effective.

  We pray for all who are alienated or disconnected from you, that your Holy Spirit will redirect their hearts to the life and wholeness that can only be found in a personal relationship with you.

  We pray for greater care for the Earth and its resources, that you will guide us in being good stewards of your gifts to us and in properly managing what we have so that future generations can enjoy them.

  We pray for our Governments, that you will inspire their clear understanding of current issues and guide them in addressing the economic, healthcare, and safety concerns of our Society.

  We pray for all who have experienced persecution and discrimination for their faith, that you will give them the strength to remain faithful and that you will protect them from further harm.

Copyright © 2021. Joe Milner. All rights reserved.<br> Permission is hereby granted to reproduce for personal or parish use.

  And, now, let us pray together the prayer that Jesus taught his Disciples to pray.

The Lord’s Prayer

All: Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be your name,

  your kingdom come, your will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

  Give us today our daily bread.

  Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

  Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil,

  For the Kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, now and for ever.  Amen.

Hymn

“Jesus Calls O’er the Tumult” – TiS 589  AHB 505 

Benediction and Blessing   

Leader: Celebrate and demonstrate the unity that we share in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Commit yourselves to worship, to witness and to serve as one People under God, until God’s promised reconciliation of all Creation is complete.

[UCA Assembly Day of mourning 2021 Worship Resources]

And may the blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be upon you and remain with you always.  Amen.

Benediction Song

From “May the grace of our lord Jesus Christ”  Scripture in Song  volume 2  number 42 (247)

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

And the love of God our Father,

And the fellowship, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you,

For evermore, for evermore, for evermore.  Amen.

At Aiden’s Parish Community

(based in 2 Corinthians 13: 14)

Acknowledgements for Sermon Screen Images

Screen 1 – htpps://pixabay.com

Screen 2 – Diagram in article on Nineveh by D J Wiseman in IVP The Illustrated Bible Dictionary Pt 2, p1091

Screen 3 – Reader’s Digest Story of the Bible World by N B Keyes, p89

Screen 4 – The Book of Jonah by P Spier, Hodder and Stoughton, p23

Screen 5 – as above, p25

Screen 6 – as above, p6

Screen 7 – as above, p26

Screen 8 – as above, p31

Screen 9 – Illustration by L Police in My Very Own Bible by B Fletcher, Candle Books, p63

Cooper, William (1861–1941)

by Diane Barwick

This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8, (MUP), 1981

William Cooper declared Australia Day to be a Day of Mourning in 1938.

William Cooper (1861?-1941), Aboriginal leader, was born in Yorta Yorta tribal territory about the junction of the Murray and Goulburn rivers, fifth of the eight children of Kitty Lewis; his father was James Cooper, labourer. The Atkinson/Cooper family, with Kitty’s mother Maria, settled at the Mologa Mission established in 1874 by Daniel Matthews. William was one of many workers forcibly retained by the Moira and Ulupna station managers, and was later sent to the Melbourne home of Sir John O’Shanassy as coachman. He worked as shearer and handyman for pastoral employers for much of his life, because the Maloga Mission and the near-by government-funded Cummeragunja (Cumeroogunga) Aboriginal Station required able-bodied men to earn wages to support their dependents.

The last of his family to be converted to Christianity, Cooper settled at Maloga in 1884, where he married on 17 June the orphaned Yorta Yorta woman Annie Clarendon Murri; she died in 1889, survived by one of their two children. Six more were born of his second marriage, at the Nathalia Methodist parsonage on 31 March 1893 to Agnes Hamilton (d.1910), who was born at Swan Hill and reared at Coranderrk Aboriginal Station near Melbourne. Their daughter Amy (Mrs Henry Charles) became matron of the first Aboriginal hostel established in Melbourne in 1959; their son Dan died in World War I; another son Lynch was a champion runner, winner of the 1928 Stawell Gift and the 1929 World Sprint; Gillison, born in 1898, was employed by Victorian Railways all his working life. There was no issue of his third marriage, at Nathalia on 4 August 1928 to Mrs Sarah Nelson, née McCrae, of Wahgunyah and Coranderrk.

Cooper had attended adult literacy classes; he read widely and wrote a good letter. His family connexions and membership of the Australian Workers’ Union made him a spokesman for the dispersed communities of central Victoria and western New South Wales who were ineligible for any aid during the 1920s drought and the 1930s Depression. But officials ignored his complaints. In 1933, undeterred by age and deafness, he left Cummeragunja to become eligible for the old-age pension, his only income for a campaign which lasted until his death: as secretary of the Australian Aborigines’ League, formed by the Melbourne Aboriginal community, he circulated a petition seeking direct representation in parliament, enfranchisement and land rights. He led the first Aboriginal deputation to a Commonwealth minister on 23 February 1935, and with members of the Aborigines’ Progressive Association, formed in Sydney in 1937, led the first deputation to a prime minister (to ask for Federal control of Aboriginal affairs) on 31 January 1938. Although Commonwealth and three State authorities had refused co-operation, he had collected 1814 signatures from Aborigines all over Australia by October 1937; but in March 1938 the Commonwealth declined to forward his petition to King George VI or seek the constitutional amendment necessary to legislate for Aborigines or form an Aboriginal constituency.

Bitterly disappointed, Cooper spent his last years vainly protesting State government alienation of Cummeragunja, Coranderrk and other reserves, still citing the rights of Maoris and Canadian Indians as an example for Australia. In November 1940 he retired to Barmah. He died, aged 80, on 29 March 1941 at Mooroopna, Victoria, survived by his third wife and six children. His grave is at Cummeragunja; his main achievement was the establishment of a ‘National Aborigines Day’, first celebrated in 1940.

Select Bibliography

D. Matthews, Annual Report of the Maloga Mission School (Echuca, 1876-95, copy ML)

M. T. Clark, Pastor Doug (Melbourne, 1965)

D. E. Barwick, ‘Coranderrk and Cumeroogunga …’, T. S. Epstein and D. H. Penny (eds), Opportunity and Response (London, 1972)

Argus (Melbourne), 5 Dec 1934, 29 Sept 1935, 26 Oct, 3, 13 Nov, 17, 24 Dec 1937, 17 Jan 1938, 29 Nov 1940, 1 Apr 1941

Courier Mail (Brisbane), 6 Nov 1937

D. Matthews papers (State Library of New South Wales).

Citation details

Diane Barwick, ‘Cooper, William (1861–1941)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cooper-william-5773/text9787, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 24 January 2020.

This article has been amended since its original publication. View Original

This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 8, (MUP), 1981

© Copyright Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2006-2020

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cooper-william-5773

William Cooper (seated left) with members of his family, circa 1910 (image courtesy of : the Koorie Heritage Trust)

William Cooper (centre) with the founding members of the Australian Aborigines League at the opening in Northcote, perhaps in 1934. Other prominent members of the league included William Cooper’s nephew and fellow Cummeragunga exile Doug Nicholls, as well as Shadrack James and Marge Tucker (image courtesy of: the Koorie Heritage Trust)

William Cooper

A leader of leaders

William Cooper was a mobilising force in the early fight for Indigenous rights. His measured political lobbying in the 1930s was an important precursor to the more radical rights movement that followed. Cooper believed that Aboriginal people should be represented in Parliament, an outcome he continued to pursue despite disheartening results in his lifetime.

Born in 1861, Cooper spent most of his life near the junction of the Murray and Goulburn rivers, in the Yorta Yorta nation of his mother. He lived on missions and state-funded reserves in New South Wales and Victoria, including the Maloca Mission, where he met his first wife, and the Cummeragunja Mission, where he moved shortly after its establishment in 1886.

Typical of the government-run reserves of the day, the freedoms of the Aboriginal families who lived at Cummeragunja were severely restricted. However, they did enjoy a period of relative prosperity, being allowed to farm their own allotments. Cooper married a woman named Agnes after the death of his first wife and lived with her and their six children.

From 1908, the independence afforded to Cummeragunja residents was gradually eroded. The New South Wales Aborigines Protection Board cut investment and repossessed farmland. Defiantly, Cooper, along with several other men, confronted the reserve’s Board-appointed manager in protest of these policies. As a result, he was expelled from Cummeragunja.

Cooper began to balance farm work with politics, spurred on by the poverty and inequality that surrounded him. He joined the Australian Workers’ Union and represented Aboriginal workers in western New South Wales and central Victoria. He championed remote communities that were denied aid during drought and the Depression. He learnt basic literacy. He also briefly returned to Cummeragunja.

In 1933, Cooper relocated to Melbourne with his third wife Sarah. While ostensibly a move to allow Cooper to claim the old age pension – denied to those living on Aboriginal reserves – a quiet retirement was not on the cards for the indefatigable 70-year-old. Cooper became a prominent figure among Melbourne’s small Aboriginal community, which, from its base in the suburb of Fitzroy, was to emerge as a political force in the fight for Aboriginal rights in Victoria.

One of Cooper’s most famous campaigns was a petition to King George V. Its primary demand was for the right to propose a Member of Parliament who directly represented Aboriginal people. Between 1934 and 1937, Cooper obtained 1,814 signatures from around the country. Unfortunately, on a constitutional technicality, the Commonwealth Government refused to pass the petition to the King.

In 1936, Cooper, along with others, established the Australian Aborigines’ League. In doing so he formalised the actions of a group of ex-Cummeragunja residents who had been working together for several years. It was the first advocacy organisation with an entirely Aboriginal membership and the predecessor to the Victorian Aborigines Advancement League, into which it was eventually incorporated.

With Cooper as secretary, the League’s approach was to use existing democratic channels to achieve positive outcomes for Indigenous Australians. Although success was limited, they did influence a decision by the Commonwealth Government in 1937 to hold a conference to discuss the formation of a national policy on Aborigines.

Cooper held an ‘Aboriginal Day of Mourning’ on 26 January 1938. It coincided the 150th anniversary of the landing of the First Fleet and raised awareness of what this meant for the Indigenous population. The day evolved into a National Aborigines Day, or Aboriginal Sunday, first observed in 1940 on the weekend before Australia Day. Today, the celebrations of NAIDOC Week have their roots in Cooper’s original day of remembrance.

Cooper closely followed civil rights movements around the world, including those of the Maoris of New Zealand and Native Americans. He often drew comparisons when campaigning for change in Australia. His compassion extended beyond the suffering of his own people. In 1938, he lodged a personal protest against the treatment of European Jews in Nazi Germany, walking from his home in Footscray to the German consulate in South Melbourne. It was one of the first protests in the world against the actions of the Nazis. In 2010, this was formally acknowledged with an education memorial, established in Cooper’s honour at a Jerusalem museum.

William Cooper died in 1941, years before much that he fought for was finally achieved. But Cooper’s Australian Aborigines’ League, and the publicity it generated, marked an important turning point. Cooper inspired and mentored a new generation of leaders – people like Sir Doug Nicholls – who would go on to break down barriers. Described as a man ahead of his time, Cooper’s unwavering belief that Aboriginal people could and should control their own destiny would become a powerful motivator as the 20th century progressed.