Assembly '97 News Home page Documents next story		A pilgrim people, under God Kim Cain, Perth, July 10, 1997 — Dr Vicky Balabanski has been taking members of the Eighth Assembly on a journey. A journey through the Old and New Testaments with the ‘pilgrim people’. It’s a pilgrimage as old as Moses. Like any good pilgrim, Dr Balabanski began with the exodus, Moses leading the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. (Ex.15:19-27) But this was a new look at the scenery on the way. Assembly members discovered in the first Bible study that the very pilgrimage begun by Moses indicated some "different discoveries" about God: that God’s favour didn’t necessarily reside with those who had the most military or social power. In being delivered through the waters of the Red Sea the people found that they were in fact signifying a victory over conflict and chaos; that’s what the sea symbolises in Old Testament imagery. A third discovery , said Dr. Balablinski, is "what the Israelites found about themselves". In travelling through territory unknown to them, they discern that "the experience of salvation which they shared necessitated that they move into the unknown with each other. "There was no going back". They had become a community. But in moving forward they discovered the need to celebrate ("Miriam’s song"), they faced questions of leadership (Moses wasn’t even a qualified Jew as he hadn’t been circumcised)and somewhat amazingly that "even chaos can work for God’s purposes". For Dr Balabinski the people of the pilgrimage reflect the situation of the church. "We struggle with the nexus between success and God’s favour." "For better or worse, we who have experienced God’s gracious calling into new possibilities in the formation of the Uniting Church we need to move into the unknown with each other." Dr Balabanski led her people through more new territory on the second day of her Biblical discovery, this time travelling with some women on the way: Rachel, Ruth, Naomi and Mary. By moving with these women, Assembly heard how God continued to bless, fulfil and use those who were outside the boundaries of current social acceptance. At the end of the story of Ruth, we hear of how a son is born to Ruth and Boaz , called Obed. Yet it is by way of an unlikely match. "A foreign woman goes and lies with someone other than the ‘next of kin’ on the threshing floor, which in those days was the site for fertility rites "From this union, God’s anointed son - King David - is descended!" For tour guide Balabanski, this was God working beyond the boundaries. God was "choosing to work out God’s good purposes for the world via someone who stood outside the boundaries in terms or race, kinship and even the sexual mores of the day". The third day’s journey took Assembly members through the wilderness with Jesus; the time of temptation. This dangerous trek, Dr Balabanski said, was Jesus’ own exodus. And surprises were found along the way. Assembly heard that Jesus discovered what "being ministered to by God might mean". Literally , the angels "deaconed" him, that is they waited on him, served him. It was Jesus, who as result of his journey and being himself fed in his wilderness that he was then able to feed others in their wilderness . His ministry came as result of first being ministered to by God. That’s what he had to learn. The second surprise for those looking in on Jesus’ journey was the shock that those wild beasts who were in the wilderness with him, were there as part of God’s creation, and for a special purpose. Here, Assembly members encountered some of Dr. Balabanski’s own journey of discovery. The wild beasts were "initially frightening and dangerous". "But when I explored a little further, I discovered that God has particular care of wild beasts. Yes, they were mentioned in Genesis, and declared good. God remembered them on the ark, and in the days after Noah God made a covenant with him and them. In the Levitical law, Dr Balabanski found that the Sabbath year was for the rest of the land, the poor and the wild beasts. "Here the fate of the poor and the wild beast are linked, both marginal but both under God’s care. "The very existence of creatures that are not deemed useful is an expression of God’s creativity," she said. Jesus’s journey culminated in his return to Galilee, the proclaiming of the reign of God. Dr. Balabanski said, "Mark’s brief account hints that Jesus understood this reign as fulfilling the biblical traditions of a reign reconciling all creation.’ Dr. Balabanski warned her fellow travellers, "If our Kingdom vision, our vision of the reign of God, has room only for ourselves as participants, only the church, or those who think like we do, then our vision is too small." Beginning a journey is a dangerous thing. Even for Dr. Balabanski. When asked to speak at the assembly she was told to pick her own subject. Facing the challenge ahead and aware of the ground breaking territory that church was moving into she read, for the first time, the Basis of Union. She set out on her own pilgrimage, and discovered the pilgrim people. Today’s study will conclude with more journeying with Jesus. Watch out for some more unexpected landmarks to be passed and viewed in a new light. Dr Balabanski said yesterday she was negotiating the publication of the studies, and should be available in six to eight weeks time.

"The Uniting Church affirms that it belongs to the people of GOD on the way to the promised end." Basis of Union, Revised edition published 1992