April 3, 2015 by marcuscurnow - 0 comments

Zombie Prayer of Confession

George Romero, the iconic founder of the zombie genre was once interviewed. In response to the question, “How long are you going to make zombie movies?”; he said something like… “As long as the American masses are swayed by the politics of fear and ignorance, responding like a mass of mindless zombies, consuming everything and all in their path, I’ll make zombie movies…”

Far from horror, zombies are about us!

“My stories are about humans and how they react, or fail to react or react stupidly. I’m pointing the finger at us, not at the zombies. I try to respect and sympathize with the zombies as much as possible.” – George Romero

One of my favourite zombie movies is Warm Bodies, a redemption story of humans and zombies at war. It’s about a weird, unlikely relationship between a woman and a man who has eaten the brains of her boyfriend and is consumed by memories of her. This relationship of love transforms both of them.

My favourite scence is where he rescues her from a zombie attack…

“Be Dead… Too much…”

It’s about being dead in order to stay alive.

Zombies are the ‘undead’. These are the unfortunates who have been zombified by disease. Their spirit is dead but their bodies continue to function: they are helplessly driven to seek the flesh and blood of others, reducing them, too, to the dreary existence of the undead. They are people in need of redemption but their only hope is to be allowed to die.

We who have been allowed to die in baptism have been redeemed from the world of the undead: we might style ourselves, to continue the metaphor, “the grateful dead.”

Today, as is our custom, we are invited to mark ourselves with the sign of death, the sign of the cross made with the waters of baptistry. In doing so we identify with the death of Jesus. Be Dead… to stay alive… (too much!?)

Today we too come eat the body and blood of Jesus, we too consume a meal of memory.

To live the life after death, emerging from the camoflauge of lives lived quietly in an unbelieving world to be seen for who we are, the firstfruits of an age to come, the beginning of a new humanity set free from anonymous, impersonal, death denying processes, to serve the living God.

Friends, the death and new life which is the peace of Christ be with you… and also with you.

April 7, 2013 by marcuscurnow - 0 comments

April 7th, Easter 2C Playlist @ Newmarket Baptist

C2W (Call 2 Worship) Nina Simone’s ‘Why? -The King of Love is Dead’

For Easter 2 we commenced our service, not with resurrection celebration, but by comparing the heartfelt cry of Nina Simone’s

“What will happen now that the King of Love is dead?”

on this day forty five years ago, three days after the assassination of Baptist preacher, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, with the cry of the women on the way to the’ tomb, three days after the death of Jesus,

“Who will roll away the Stone?” (Mark 16:3 )

We watched the video of her performing this song for the first time during the Westbury Music Fair on April 7th, 1968. The song was written by her bassist Gene Taylor upon learning of the death of Dr. King on April 4th.

You can listen to the full 12 minute version including extended commentary from Nina Simone capturing the emotion and power of that moment.

PoC (Prayer of Confession)

The Disciples Flee: A responsive reading based on Mark 14.51-52

(used previously for our Maundy Thursday, Tenebrae Liturgy)

Leader: (picking up the white garment)

A young man, wearing nothing but a linen garment, was following Jesus.

When they seized him, he fled naked, leaving his garment behind. (Disciple drops garment)

Disciple 1: (picking up the white garment)

The white linen, robe was the garment of an Israelite priest. Moses called for all Israelites to be priests to the Lord (Exod. 19:6), a calling reiterated by the apostle Paul for followers of Jesus (1 Pet. 2:9; Rev. 5:10).

We are called to put on Christ, to be priests, mediators between God and a broken world.

All: but we have left the garment and run off naked (Disciple drops garment)

Disciple 2: (picking up the white garment) In the Apocalypse of John, those who have died for the sake of the gospel of love are given a white robe, and are told to wait a little longer, until the number of the brothers and sisters who are to be killed as they have been is complete. (Revelation 6:11)

We are called to put on Christ, to join with this cloud of witnesses, to put our bodies on the line and follow the way of the cross in a violent world.

All :But we have left the garment and run off naked (Disciple drops garment)

Disciple 3: (picking up the white garment) The Apostle Paul states “For as many of you as have been baptised in Christ, have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:26-27).

In the tradition of Christ’s followers the initiation of new believers happens at Easter. Having passed through the waters of baptism the priest places the white “baptisimal alb” upon the disciple as an outward sign of their dignity as a new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).

We are called to put on Christ and live in the light out our baptism

All: but we have left the garment and run off naked. (Disciple drops garment)

MoW (Ministry of the Word)

The absolution came in the sermon from Barry Watson who preached on the three different ending’s of Mark’s story where the mourning women are met by a man clothed in a white garment (a re-clothing of the discipleship narrative from the arrest scene in Chapter 14). The man graciously invites them to recommence to story where it began, with Jesus in Galilee, with special mention given to Peter, the denier.

December 1, 2012 by marcuscurnow - 0 comments

Confession with Waleed Aly: Excising our Hearts, Child Abuse, Royal Commission

Two pieces of writing by Waleed Aly with images by Andrew Dyson shaped our Prayers of Confession in November.

Firstly in response to the Australian Government’s decision to excise the Australian mainland for migration purposes and secondly in response to the Australian Governments announcement of a Royal Comission into child abuse.

Both events raise deep feelings and responses within us and the words and images in the articles started what turned ,on both occasions, into an honest and open extended dialogue about the complexities of confession and the nature of truth, justice, words and actions, reconciliation and forgiveness in our lives and our society.

Our conversation shaped by Aly’s incisive words was important however I found simply using the powerful images as icons for contemplation, confession enough.

Our desperate concern for the wellbeing of asylum seekers begins only when they board boats and ends when we intercept them. It’s like we’re excising the rest of their lives from our humanitarian concern. And here the artifice of our whole political discourse becomes clear: the studied, confected compassion is as much a convenient fiction as the one that pretends Australia doesn’t exist.

Demanding laws that require priests to break the confessional seal sounds good. It sounds tough, uncompromising, common-sense. But it’s also the kind of thing you do when you don’t understand the problem you are trying to solve. That’s what we are witnessing here: irreligious people trying to address a religious problem with brute secular force. That might make perfect intuitive sense to the staunchly secular mind, but we need more than intuition and declarations of secular supremacy here. What matters is what works. And taking an axe to the confessional box won’t work. It might even make things worse…

You can’t legislate away people’s religious convictions, however much you might want to. And you can’t ignore them simply because you hold them in contempt. What matters here is the stuff outside the confessional box: the lame responses to abuse that seem calculated to protect paedophile priests rather than their victims; the legal manoeuvring to avoid paying compensation; the failure of police to follow through on investigations. These are the things we should be pursuing relentlessly. This should be the focus of our desire for justice. Let’s not dilute that by getting lost on some doctrinal excursion it’s clear we don’t understand.

– Waleed Aly “Choir of dissent off key on the sanctity of confession”, The Age, November 16, 2012.

October 4, 2012 by marcuscurnow - 0 comments

Last Sunday’s Playlist: Clean Sparkling White Melbourne

Last Sunday’s Playlist @ Newmarket Baptist

2nd September 2012, Ordinary Time 22B: Colour: Green

Greetings,

At this stage Sunday’s 10am gathering is central to our Rhythm of Prayer at Newmarket Baptist. As we can’t each be present every Sunday we like to share highlights from our ‘playlist’ in the hope that it may re-source you to better follow Jesus in your world…

PoC (Prayer of Confession):

Clean Project by Nic Lowe of 2006.

With the closing ceremony of the London Olympics and Paralympics in progress this years lectionary coincided with a similar theme from 2006 when I was working at Urban Seed:church and the Commonwealth Games were in Melbourne.

“This evening Urban Seed: church was competing with the Closing Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games so I went with it. For our Call to Worship we listened to the African drum rythyms of the Late Late Service’s “All the Earth is the Lords” (LLS4) and then quietened it down by singing “He is Lord” accapella. Every knee bowing and every tounge confessing that Jesus is Lord. I contrasted the once called Empire Games with that of the Roman Empire and bunting that appears all over Melbourne.

For our own bunting I used the wallpaper of the CLEAN exhibition that was part of the Next Wave festival that had run concurrently with the Commonwealth Games.

For the exhibition they wallpapered a big section of Hosier Lane, the Melbourne City laneway famous for its street art and now the home of Living Room, the medical service for homeless people that was first located at Urban Seed. Urban Seed’s Kate Allen was down Hosier Lane with Nick where a street artist was complaining about the wallpaper that had covered the graffiti during the Commonwealth Games. Nick told him to look more closely….the CLEAN wallpaper consists of athletes and cleaning products covering over lots of the “unclean” images of the city.

It’s a broader statement about what we lose or is covered over when we seek to “clean up” the city. For example the same week the State Govenment spend $60,000 to house homeless people in hotels during the Games they also spent $160,000 on flowers to line the streets.

Beyond the visuals the exhibition involved an “audio ambush” where speakers were ingeniously hidden in rubbish and the voices of homeless people etc. were contrasted with triumphant sounds of sporting success. The sounds were triggered as people walked up the alley way. Nic did some of recording at Urban Seed’s Credo Café of homeless people sharing a meal during the Games.

I juxtaposed CLEAN with the banner of the movie Dirty Filthy Love, a movie that takes a serious look at obsessive compulsive disorder in a light hearted way. There is a scene in the movie where the therapy group of pathological clean freaks wallow around in a field of mud as a cathartic act of liberation. (You can scroll to 32.45-35.30 on the video embedded below) I had always thought this scene would make a good basis for some kind of confessional prayer and the idea of sitting it alongside the themes and images of CLEAN was too hard to pass up.

MoW (Ministry of the Word)

Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23

“It’s not that clean and unclean does not exist and is not important in any culture. It’s just that Jesus redefines purity in terms of what comes out of a person in the qualities we demonstrate in relationships.”

– Sarah Dylan Bruer www.sarahlaughed.net

The other idea we explored is that the idea of purity as demonstrated by Jesus as being something fragile that is easily contaminated, is on the contrary contagious, the we can pass on in the way we live and bless others.

August 24, 2012 by marcuscurnow - 0 comments

Last Sunday’s Playlist: Asylum Seeker Psalms & “If you Eat, You’re In”

Last Sunday’s Playlist @ Newmarket Baptist

19th August 2012, Ordinary Time 20B: Colour: Green

Greetings,

C2W (Call to Worship):

Our Call to Worship was taken from this weeks Sunday Lectionary, Psalm 34, which for the purposes of reflection upon the week ‘s national and global events we dubbed “The Asylum Seeker Psalm” based on its traditional prefix,

‘Of David, when he feigned madness before Abimelech, so that he drove him out, and he went away.’

This is based on a story from 1 Sam. 21:10-15 where David sought refuge but instead found himself going from frying pan to fire.

We read the Psalm 34 singing the antiphon, ” I make my boast in the Lord, let the humble hear”, from Issac Everrets’ Emergent Psalter.

PoC (Prayer of Confession):

We considered theses two images above of aslyum seekers from the weekly news.

The first are “Boat People” travelling to Australia via Indonesia who’s plight has been influenced by the passing of legislation in the Australian Parliament reinstating the so called ‘Pacific Solution’. The second image is from protests in London where the Ecuadorian Government granted asylum to “Wikileaks” founder Julian Assange.

We asked people to imagine the words of the Psalm in the mouths of those depicted in the images. How would we hear the Psalm if we were in their shoes? The descriptions of David feigning madness and the warnings of predicted mental illness for boat people who face mandatory and possible indefinite detention was sobering and people were invited to respond by voicing or writing their own confession.

One offering reflected a protest banner outside the the Ecuadorian Embassy stating “In the Kingdom of Lies the Truth is Treason” and how it might lead us to confession of complicity in our own failings of honesty, courage and hospitality, both personal and collective.

We noted that for the Psalmist the terror and fear of foes was meaningfully surpassed by a greater fear (awe and reverence) for God. We prayed this for ourselves and others. The Assurance of Forgiveness was based upon verse 4, 5, 7 and 22 of the Psalm.

4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me,

and delivered me from all my fears.

5 Look to him, and be radiant;

so your faces shall never be ashamed.

7 The angel of the LORD encamps around

those who fear him, and delivers them.

22 The LORD redeems the life of his servants;

none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

And so I declare to you, that in Jesus Christ,

your sins are forgiven.

Thanks be to God.

MoW (Ministry of the Word) :

“The will to live life differently can start in some of the most unusual places” – Pam Warhurst

We compared the word of Jesus in this weeks Lectionary Gospel reading John 6:51-58

Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.

with the motto of the Incredible Edible “Propaganda” gardening project in Todmorden in Northern England.

IF YOU EAT, YOU’RE IN!

The video above explains in part why we have re-worked the garden at the front of our church building and are investing our vision of renewal in local connections through our People’s Pantry & Table Projects in Flemington.

Together we considered how the ‘feeding ministry’ of Jesus in passages such as John 6 might relate to this contemporary call to conversion by Pam Warhurst and become something more profoundly sacred for each of us in our lives and neighourhood relationships?

“Can you find a unifying language, that cuts across age and income and culture that will help people themselves find a new way of living? See spaces around them differently? Think about the resource they use differently? Interact differently? Can we find that language and then can we replicate those actions? The answer would appear to be yes and the language would appear to be FOOD!” – Pam Warhurst

Much Grace & Peace,

Marcus

August 4, 2012 by marcuscurnow - 0 comments

Last Sunday’s Playlist: London Olympics

Last Sunday’s Playlist @ Newmarket Baptist

29th July 2012, Ordinary Time 17B: Colour: Green

Greetings,

At this stage Sunday’s 10am gathering is central to our Rhythm of Prayer at Newmarket Baptist. As we cant each be present every Sunday we like to share highlights from our ‘playlist’ in the hope that it may re-source you to better follow Jesus in your world…

C2W (Call to Worship):

With the Olympics Opening Ceremony having just completed we reflected upon the Olympics as a religious event. The role of an Opening Ceremony is to express something of the best ideals and hopes of humanity. In this instance I was impressed ( blown away!) with the contrast of a traditional Christan hymn and stunning modern choreography in the tribute to those who died in the London 7/7 terrorist bombings (video here).

Written by a man on his death bed, “Abide with Me” has a powerful cultural sporting relevance being sung regularly at FA Cup Final’s in England.

Together we thought about the hope of the gospel’s promise of life in the face of death and sung the old hymn together… not quite the production values of Danny Boyle but powerful nonetheless!

PoC (Prayer of Confession):

We reflected upon the other side of the Olympics… The difference between the narratives of the God’s of Olympus… “Higher, Faster, Stronger” and those of Jesus of Nazarteth in the Beatitudes “Lower, Slower, Meeker”!? We had a moment to think about things we didn’t like about the Olympics which included advertising and the behaviour as well as treatment of athletes who hadn’t met ours or others expectations.

In what ways has striving for “Higher, Faster, Stronger” in our lives actually disfigured our humanity, hurting ourselves and others. What are the areas in our lives we may be avoid the call or the necessity to go “Lower, Slower, Meeker?”

Michael Leunig captured the same idea beautifully later in the week… “Slower, Deeper, Wiser” here

Much Grace
Marcus