Uniting Church in Australia National Dialogue with the Jewish community in Australia

Thursday 18 November 2010 was the date for the latest meeting of the regular dialogue between the Uniting Church and the Jewish Community in Australia. Six Uniting Church members and five Jewish participants met at the Emanuel Synagogue, in Woollahra, Sydney, for a day of sharing, discussing, and exploring. This is about the 30th dialogue since these meetings began in the early 1990s.

When the group met for the last dialogue, in April 2010, the key theme for discussion was ‘Exile’, and the afternoon session was devoted to the recently-issued international statement, A Time for Recommitment: building the new relationship between Jews and Christians. This particular dialogue, and the Uniting Church commitment to constructive interfaith relationships, is part of a long-standing commitment amongst churches throughout the world, to seek positive relations with neighbours of other faiths.

The morning theme at this November meeting was ‘Suffering’, and short papers were given from Jewish and Christian perspectives. Rabbi David Freeman shared a range of Jewish opinions and understandings relating to suffering; most often, he crystallised them in thought-provoking questions. How can meaning be found in the midst of tragedy and suffering? Must every event be attributed to the intention of the divine being? How might it help to envisage that we live in a world where random actions simply do happen? What would it mean to affirm that God is at work, not in the tragedy itself, but in the courage to face the issues raised by tragedy?

Rev Bob Faser offered a Christian reflection on three New Testament passages which canvassed the theme of suffering. Words attributed to Jesus in Matthew 5 and Luke 13 indicate that suffering is a universal experience, not simply targeted to ‘the bad’ and kept away from ‘the good’. In Romans 8, when Paul refers to the ‘groaning’ of creation, he uses a key Greek word three times, thereby indicating that God suffers alongside humans who suffer, and indeed creation itself also suffers in like fashion. This web of interrelationships strengthens our sense of the God who suffers with us in Jesus.

The ensuing discussion canvassed a wide range of theological, pastoral, and spiritual areas. It is a regular feature of these dialogues, that we converse in order to understand and explore (and not solely to convince or persuade).

The afternoon session was largely devoted to an opportunity for personal sharing by each member of the dialogue. This way of relating has been an important dimension of a number of meetings over recent years. The topic this time was ‘my favourite spiritual place’. Sure enough, from the 12 participants, no less than 25 different locations were identified!! Places of dramatic scenery in Chile, England, and Scotland; places of intense religious focus, such as a retreat monastery or the local synagogue; natural locations, sailing on the water, snorkelling in the water, listening to the waves beside the ocean; somewhat expected locations, in Jerusalem, beside the Sea of Galilee, and in the city of Sydney itself; perhaps unexpected places, such as the home vegetable garden, or the SCG, or Redfern Oval; and the location of ‘being with a spiritual person’, simply attending to them, and experiencing them fully.

Interfaith relations always take place within the larger context of social and political factors; of immediate concern to this group has been the recent call by Palestinian Christian leaders, in the Kairos Palestine statement, to boycott goods made in the territories occupied by Israel, and the subsequent discussion of this issue by the National Council of Churches in Australia. At the time of meeting, this was still a matter ‘under consideration’ and was being considered in discussions within the Uniting Church, and in wider ecumenical and interfaith discussions. The dialogue group determined that its next meeting, in May 2011, will focus on the range of the issues identified by the NCCA. Within the context of inter-faith relationships which are both respectful and enjoyable, the difficult issues involved in this dialogue will, it is hoped, receive careful and thoughtful consideration.

UCA co-convenor