On 23rd June 2024 the buildings in which the Landsborough Uniting (and previously Presbyterian) Church had met since 1904 were closed, prepared for sale. The congregation would continue to meet in the Anglican Church’s buildings in Landsborough. This is the sermon from the final service.

John 17:1-21; 2 Corinthians 5:17-19; Revelation 21:3-6a,

Behold, I am making all things new,/My words are trustworthy and true,/I am beginning and the end,/I have the humble as my friend…

So sings the first few lines of a song taught to me in my pre-teens at Blackburn Baptist Church in Melbourne. My sources tell me it was written by John Williams who was one of the key musicians there at the time, (and we are talking the early 1980s); these same sources which tell me that this song was a BBC internal song, so I won’t find music or lyrics in any contemporary Christian resource book for us to sing together this afternoon. Nonetheless, the words hold particular meaning for us today as we celebrate a new beginning, beginning our celebration with an ending.

In our reading from Revelation 21:6, the glorified Jesus describes himself as the Alpha and the Omega, the aie and the zet, the beginning and the end; and if we had read on we would hear him say that he is the source for meeting our every need, including those necessary for survival. The one…seated on the throne is saviour and judge, crushing injustice and restoring the broken with acts that give life. Not only is God the Son eternal and everlasting, always present and always active, he is attentive to us and our lives even as he sits enthroned in the new kingdom, the home of God…among mortals (Revelation 21:3). This is the one who journeys with us from this end, this Omega, this zet, the full stop in this building and who meets us down the road with the new beginning for us and for Landsborough, an Alpha, an aie, the capital letter of the next paragraph.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 and a passage we have been hearing about in Stawell and Pomonal at Church Council meetings we hear two messages about life in Christ from the one sentence. Listen to the way in which various English translations pick up what is happening in Greek. In The New Revised Standard Version we read So, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! whereas in The New Living Translation we read This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! Do you hear a varied emphasis there? In one way there is a new life, the old person has been replaced by the new person, everything is fresh and different. In the other way it is the whole of creation that is changed, not just the person. Of course it is the same message with a different emphasis from the translators; one team is more person-centred, the other team more universal, but I like the nuance for us today. Has everything changed in Landsborough, or are things the same (or similar) but we have a fresh perspective on what was always there? Perhaps it only looks different because we are looking differently.

From when today’s change was mooted by Presbytery and the community at Landsborough, until today, it has consistently been said that the Uniting Church is not closing down in Landsborough; we are simply selling a building. The church is continuing, the congregation is continuing, and the words you will hear later from Scott will make that distinction clear. There is a future for the Church in Landsborough, and the future of Landsborough has the Church in it. That the Protestants and Anglicans in town will henceforth share the building owned by the Anglican Communion follows the activity of the community where Anglicans and Uniting Church people are already meeting together from house to house as Acts 2:46 says. Wherever church is happening on any given Sunday, the Christians show up in Burke Street. Now with the generosity and love of the Anglicans there will be one house for one community, even as the liturgies (and the alcohol content of the chalice) alternate week-to-week.

In his final hours with his friends, Jesus prayed to The Father, all mine are yours and all yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them….I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. (John 17:10, 20) In agreeing to sharing a house the UCA and Anglican communities will be one, even as they are a “they”, a plural, and that house is the sole property of the diocese. Today is not a day when the Anglicans enter into Union with the local Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregationalist churches as happened between those three on this day in 1977; neither are the local Wesleyans returning to Canterbury (or at least Ballarat). Yet let us not underestimate how the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church is acting in unity with its one head, Jesus Christ our Lord, to glorify him so as to speak with one voice, that others will believe in him through our word. The communion is already happening, with UC people worshipping up the road already and Anglicans here; today we deepen that relationship of the members of the body a closer one in a more formal sense, and we give glory to our God for this marvellous thing.

Behold, I am making all things new,/My words are trustworthy and true,/I am beginning and the end,/I have the humble as my friend…

In humility and faith we receive the friendship of the one who makes all things new, for the glory of God and for the building up of God’s people gathering at Landsborough.

Amen.