Commencing with a verse of “I am, You are, We are Australian”
I came from the dreamtime from the dusty red soil plains.
I am the ancient heart, the keeper of the flame.
I stood upon the rocky shores, I watched the Tall Ships come.
For 40,000 years I’ve been the first Australian.
Our indigenous people, the first Australians, were here for a long time before any of us came along. They are perhaps the oldest group of people still living on our earth. Their stewardship of this country goes back over 40,000 years, whereas we’ve only been here a couple of hundred. They have been here two hundred times two hundred – which is a long time. No wonder when such an ancient people are confronted by Western civilisation – then there is no recipe for an easy convergence of the two, as we have seen recently.
I spent two years in Darwin with the army, and many times I travelled to Kakadu National Park and I loved the area around the township of Jabiru. There was Ubirr Rock where Crocodile Dundee made his famous statement “This is my backyard”, Nourlangie Rock – an enormous overhang, where the archaeological digs have shown that families had been using that place for shelter from the storms and cooking meals for forty millennia, Arnhem land, the rivers, the crocodiles, – it is a place of real beauty. As Australians we can celebrate that our heritage is more than just the last two hundred years
I came upon the prison ship bound down by iron chains.
I cleared the land, endured the lash and waited for the rains.
I’m a settler, I’m a farmer’s wife on a dry and barren run.
A convict then a free man I became Australian.
I’m a daughter of a digger who sought the mother lode.
The girl became a woman on the long and dusty road.
I’m a child of the depression, I saw the good times come.
I’m a bushy, I’m a battler, I am Australian.
In the Gospel there is a man with an unclean spirit – what was this ailment? – we don’t know. But he was bound down – not by iron chains, but by chains of evil, or perhaps some mental illness which was often mistakenly thought of as an evil spirit in those days. Whatever it was, Jesus broke through those chains. He sets the man free from what was oppressing him. We have just sung how the convict became a free man, and in the Gospel Jesus gives this man in the synagogue freedom from that which was binding him. 
As followers of Jesus, and as good Australians we must follow in his ministry of setting free – perhaps not in such a spectacular way. But we can release people from the chains of loneliness thorough friendship, from the chains of shame through forgiveness, from the chains of alienation through acceptance of their differentness, and from the chains of meaninglessness by challenging them to generosity and the care of others.
Like the digger who sought his golden fortune looking for the mother lode, we can help people find their own goldenness, not stuck in a lump of quartz, but inside themselves. The golden beauty of God’s love, acceptance and forgiveness. The priceless wealth of sharing, generosity and community. The shining beauty of sharing the Good News together with friends who share the same zeal and love of the Lord and who come together in their churches and communities to support each other in their ministry to others.
Dorothea Mackella puts into verse a love for the rugged hardness of land and life in Australia, a love of the sunburnt country, ragged mountain ranges, droughts and flooding rains. She sees a reality with different eyes and is able to paint a new meaning to this reality which changes it from harshness to beauty. The Gospel can change a person’s harshness into beauty, can give the harshness new meaning, can bring light where there was darkness, hope where there was despair and life where there was emptiness. The child of the depression can see the good times come, the good times that are a gift for eternity when we share the good news.
We are one, but we are many and from all the lands on earth we come.
We share a dream and sing with one voice. I am, you are, we are Australian.
Australians certainly come from all the lands on earth. When I was growing up there was Chinese food and then pizza. Today there is a plethora of tastes and foods and experiences out there for anyone and everyone to sample. We are s very multi-cultural people. Do we share a dream? Do we sing with one voice? Maybe these words are more a dream for the future than a present day reality. Jesus too dreamed this dream. At the last supper he prayed for all his disciples – including you and me– I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. Jesus’ prayer, his dream hasn’t come true yet, but we are working at it, and the dream contained in this chorus is also something we are working at.
I’m a teller of stories I’m a singer of songs.
I am Albert Namatjira and I paint the ghostly gums.
I’m Clancy on his horse, I’m Ned Kelly on the Run.
I’m the one who waltzed Matilda, I am Australian.
Telling Stories, Singing songs. Do we tell the good news of the Jesus story through our words and actions? Are we Gospel tellers by the lives that we lead. Are our lives a song of praise that will draw people to the Lord, a song that people will enjoy and want to join in the singing. And like Albert Namatjira can we add colour to the world around us, can we add colour to people’s lives, or do we wait for others to paint the hues of meaning and goodness.
Ned Kelly, and the one who waltzed matilda, – well sometimes the world makes heroes of those who don’t lead the best lives. Some of our national heroes are not necessarily good role models, the sheep stealer from Waltzing Matilda, or the Ned Kellys – the modern day bush-rangers whose stark independent individualism seems to thrive in in today’s liberal society.
The first reading says that God will raise up a prophet from among the people. We celebrate those who have been our prophets in the past, but we look for those who will be the prophets of tomorrow – who will stand up and proclaim God’s word to a selfish, disinterested and dog eat dog world, the world of modern day bush-rangers. Australian society needs prophets who will speak God’s word that challenges comfortableness and complacency. A word that challenges openness and generosity to those in need of a place to live, a word that decries the inequality between those who have and those who have not. We ask God to send them all, the prophets, the story tellers, the singers and the artists to form the Australia of tomorrow in the light of the Gospel.
I’m the hot wind from the desert I’m the black soil of the plains.
I’m the mountains and the valleys I’m the drought and flooding rain.
I am the Rock, I am the Sky, the rivers when they run.
The Spirit of this great land, I am Australian.
We are one, but we are many
and from all the lands on earth we come.
We share a dream and sing with one voice.
I am, you are, we are Australian.
May the hot wind of the Spirit’s love blow over, around and through us.
May our lives be the fertile black soil that is ready to bring forth life in abundance.
May the flooding rains of God’s love transform the desert of our hearts into gardens of colour, new life and beauty.
May we be Rocks of courage, speaking God’s prophetic word to a society that needs to learn Gospel values.
May God’s Spirit and the Spirit of this great land be One and the same, bringing healing for generosity and deliverance from selfishness and greed.
May we share the dream of Jesus and sing with one voice be, sharing the same dream of unity that the world may know that God sent Jesus and his way is Good News for those who will listen
May the words “I am Australian” be synonymous with the words “I am a teller of the Gospel story, I’m a singer of songs of God’s praise, and I’m the painter of colourful hues into the lives of God’s people”
(Show video “I am Australian”)
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