Every year the Uniting Church marks a Day of Mourning to reflect on the dispossession of Australia’s First Peoples and the ongoing injustices faced by First Nations people in this land.
For the millions of Second Peoples in this country—those whose ancestors arrived on this continent from 1788 onwards—it is a day to lament that we were and remain complicit with the invasion and colonisation of the country, with the massacres of First Peoples that took place in so many locations across the continent, and with the continuing marginalisation and oppression of First Peoples in so many communities.
The observance of a Day of Mourning was endorsed in 2018 by the 15th Assembly of the Uniting Church, arising from a request of the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress (UAICC). At that same Assembly, an affirmation of the sovereignty of the First Peoples was also made.
As an expression of the Uniting Church’s commitment to justice and truth-telling, we keep the Sunday before Australia Day as a Day of Mourning. Today across Australia, people in many Uniting Church Congregations are reflecting on the effects of invasion and colonisation on First Peoples.
In the resources prepared for this day, the President of the Assembly, Rev. Sharon Hollis, and the Interim National Chair Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, the Rev. Mark Kickett, state: “In marking a day of mourning, we hear the call of Jesus to a love one another. We live into our covenant relationship to stand together with, and listen to the wisdom of First Nations people in their struggle for justice. We affirm the sovereignty of First Peoples and honour their culture and their connection to country.”
See https://uniting.church/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Day-of-Mourning-2022-FINAL_2_web.pdf
The President and National Chair continue, “We reaffirm our understanding that First Peoples encountered the Creator God long before colonisation. We confess and seek forgiveness for the dispossession and violence against First Peoples, we lament our part, and we recommit to justice and truth-telling.” This echoes the words now embedded within the Constitution of the church, in a Revised Preamble which was adopted at the Church’s 12th Assembly in 2009 and subsequently endorsed by the Synods and Presbyteries throughout 2010.
See https://assembly.uca.org.au/images/stories/covenanting/PreamblePoster-web.pdf
The resources prepared for worship on this day include an expanded Acknowledgement which also draws on words in the Revised Preamble: We acknowledge that the First Peoples had already encountered the Creator God before the arrival of the colonisers; the Spirit was already in the land revealing God to the people through law, custom and ceremony. We acknowledge that the same love and grace that was finally and fully revealed in Jesus Christ sustained the First Peoples and gave them particular insights into God’s ways; and so we rejoice in the reconciling purposes of God found in the good news about Jesus Christ.
In a section known as “Truth-Telling and an Invitation”, the Congregation is invited to reflect: “In a nation, now called Australia, where is truth-telling not always told? To know mourning is to truly know injustice—a struggle for justice. We seek guidance from ancient wisdom of past and present, to hold this mourning in our hearts and minds, to honour, to pay respect, to know, to appreciate and to act on injustice. Layers of mourning unfold in the stories not told.”
At the conclusion of the service, again drawing on the Covenant relationship that the Uniting Church has with the United Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, the resources offer this word of mission to conclude worship, and to shape the witness and service of those who have shared in these services:
People of God, go from here to live out the covenant into which we, the First and Second Peoples of this land, have entered with one another. Confront and challenge injustice wherever you see it. Act justly yourselves and insist that others do the same. Rejoice in the richness of our diverse cultures and learn from them. Celebrate and demonstrate the unity we share in Jesus our Lord. Commit to worship, witness and serve as one people under God, until God’s promised reconciliation of all creation is complete.
See also https://johntsquires.com/2018/08/10/the-sovereignty-of-the-first-peoples-of-australia/
An Informed Faith 