My Dad, William Roy, would have turned 120 on his birthday, July 12. He was born in Goderich Street near Royal Perth Hospital in 1906. Dad was the sixth in his family, and two years later, twin girls, Pix and Kate, completed the family. To celebrate this anniversary, I hope you enjoy the story of his teenage years from 1914-1922.
Bill (Roy) Witham in 1938
In 1914, the drought in Western Australia was so severe that it became a benchmark for all subsequent dry years. ‘Not as bad as 1914,’ weather forecasters and farmers alike console themselves in dry years since.
1914 was the year when my grandparents, Walter Moltke and Annie Witham, bought a farm at Brookton, when young Bill was 8. (Dad was known as Bill as a child, but for all of his adult life, everyone called him Roy.) So he was Bill for the time of these events.)
By the end of 1914, the farm was a flop because of the drought (and also, maybe, because Walter Moltke had a lot to learn as a farmer), the Withams moved back to Swan View to resume their life as dairy farmers.
Walter Moltke and Granny Annie did quite well then, because they were able to sell milk and scones at the Blackboy Hill training camp.
Bill had two or three years more of schooling at Perth Boys’ School He left school at 12 or 13, and had a job as a messenger boy in Perth for a year or so. This involved taking the train into the city, which had then a population of about 200,000, and running messages around the central business district.
Young Bill must have had a yen for the bush, because he spent the next 2-4 years working for surveyors. There was a lot of survey activity in the last years of the war and on into the 1920s as Governments scrambled to make farmland available, especially for returned soldiers.
Bill’s first job was in the deep south-west, between Walpole, Manjimup and Augusta. The thick forest made surveys difficult. Surveyors used a theodolite to measure distance, but they were useless in the karri forests because you could rarely get a line of sight. Instead, they used a heavy chain, the length of which was exactly 22 yards, a ‘chain’.
The chain was fastened to a point in the bush and unrolled in as straight a line as possible. Measurement was from point to point. The chain was heavy and it took some manpower to unfurl the chain to its fullest extent. 10 square chain made an acre, so it was slow, often wet, work in the forests.
(Later in life, Bill excelled on the cricket pitch, his skill refined by knowing by muscle memory exactly how long the pitch was – 22 yards, that is, one chain.
Bill got used to camping and living in the bush.
The work in the southwest finished up. Bill thought he would like to work in a chain gang for another season and signed up for work in the central wheatbelt, somewhere around Merredin. I gather this did not last long. Bill hinted that the boss was violent, and returned to Perth.
As far as I know, this was Bill’s last job for pay, apart from helping in the Swan View dairy and orchard. He and his brother Alex joined with his father to apply for land to farm. Because they were not returning soldiers (Walter Moltke was too old to fight in World War 1 and William Roy and Alex too young), they were bumped down the priority list. Eventually, they took up 100 acres in Newdegate around 1922, eventually becoming successful farmers.
No doubt, Bill knew exactly how many square chains they were buying!
⛓The featured image of a chain gang at work was created by Brendan Witham using AI and is used with Brendan’s permission.
This is the Trinity, constantly at his work of love, creating us and his beautiful world, being present with us in the Temple, in the cosmos and in the deepest abysses, and whispering in our hearts that he will be always with us.
In the name of + God, Maker, Lover and Holy Spirit.
[You can listen to Ted preaching this sermon here]
There was once an evil and powerful king. Anyone who disagreed with him would be punished. Anyone who spoke up against him would likely be killed.
This king grew more powerful by conquering other cities and nations. His conquests had three phases. Firstly, he defeated the enemy by killing as many people as possible, sometimes thousands of human beings. Secondly, he obliterated their city and then captured its leaders. Thirdly, he deported all the remaining people to his teeming multicultural city and set them free.
This last phase was not as generous as it might sound. The defeated people would arrive in his city with nothing after a forced march of weeks or months. This meant they would be forced to eat the cheapest local food. They could not afford to eat their favourite dishes or according to their own food laws. They needed to learn the local language quickly, so they could bargain for food and necessities.
These captives had nowhere to return to because their city had been smashed to dust. They had no choice about any of these changes, so they quickly took on the culture of their new city – they became loyal (or frightened) citizens of the powerful king, making him richer and more powerful.
The children of the captives could improve themselves and the cleverest of them even became wealthy and powerful. One captive, whom the king named Belteshazzar, interpreted the king’s dream and became the king’s senior adviser, and he got the king to appoint three of his friends to senior positions in the king’s service.
These four young men were from Jerusalem.
They remembered how this ruthless king had destroyed every building in Jerusalem and most of all their beautiful temple. His soldiers had carried away the gold and sacred furnishings, especially the precious Ark of the Covenant. They remembered how this king had bound Jerusalem’s king, Zedekiah, and forced him to watch soldiers take a superhot brand and put out the eyes of all Zedekiah’s own sons. Then they had blinded Zedekiah in the same brutal way.
Belteshazzar’s real name was Daniel, and his story gives his name to the book in the Bible.
The powerful king decided to have a statue of himself built.
‘It will be the biggest, bestest, and most striking statue that anyone in the history of the world has seen,’ he said. And it was: five stories high and its two footprints the size of a room. Made of bronze and covered in gold, it was visible right across the city, glinting in the sunlight.
As Daniel tells the story:
When [everyone was] standing before the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, 4 the herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, 5 that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. 6 Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.” 7 Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshipped the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. [Daniel 3:3b-7 NRSV)
The three young men still carried in their hearts the commandment of their God from their old city,
You shall have no other gods before me. 4 ‘You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God…’
[Exodus 3:5a NRSV]
So, the three young men did not bow down and worship. Someone denounced them to the king, someone dobbed them in. The king called for Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego and told them what he had heard. He said to them,
‘Now if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and the entire symphony orchestra, you should fall down and worship the statue that I have made. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?’ [Daniel 3:15]
But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego said they could not obey.
17 ‘If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.’ [Daniel 3:17]
This answer threw the king into a rage.
He ordered the fire to be made seven times hotter than usual. The soldiers shovelled on more wood, napalm, tar and brushwood. The flames streamed up 49 cubits – seven times seven cubits or 30 metres high in our measure. It was so hot that several of the guards who threw the three Judeans into the fire were instantly burned to death. That king just shrugged. Who cares? Just as long as Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego paid for their insolence.
Icon by Toros Roisin
The three young men did not burn. They walked about in the flames. Unharmed. The fire did not touch them. it didn’t even burn their clothes. The king in amazement watched them walking about. They were even singing the Canticle from which we recited this morning. And the king was sure that he could see a fourth person in the fire, and, he said, this fourth person ‘had the appearance of a god.’ So the king called them and the three came out of the furnace alive with not even the smell of smoke on them.
The king was impressed. Anyone who doesn’t respect the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, watch out! he said. Impressed, maybe, but he was hardly a convert.
I remember reading about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego when I was 9 or 10 in my Church Mailbag Sunday School and I thought it was an adventure story. Now when I read it, I realise it is a horror story. It tells of the way a cruel and powerful king distorts and destroys everyone’s lives.
Even as a child, I wondered whether I would have the courage to keep faith with my beliefs in the face of tyranny, or whether I would deny God. Now I still wonder the same, but I understand more why people do take the frightened way out to protect their families or their own lives; though it is not easy, because we live in Daniel’s world today.
Several thousand Iranians have been murdered in a meaningless war in the last few weeks. 75,000 (or more) killed in Gaza since the horrific events of October 7, 2023, less than three years ago. The leaders of countries targeted and imprisoned or murdered. Whole cities flattened. And millions around the world finding it hard to pay for essential items because that king in Washington considers the suffering of others irrelevant to his own objectives. And that, too, is killing thousands as it forces the poor into deeper hunger and bleaker cold.
Many people in the US today confront the quandary that confronted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego nearly three thousand years ago – whether to bow down and worship or to stand up for justice and truth. And in other countries. And it could happen here in Australia too.
So those three Jews ask us the same question: what would we do? What does God’s love require of us?
+++
But there’s another question for us as Christians thinking about this story this morning.
Who was that fourth person in the fiery furnace?
Was it an angel?
Was it Daniel?
Was it one of the patriarchs from Israel’s past, Moses, perhaps or Elijah?
Was it God?
My conclusion is that it was Jesus Christ himself. Not as Jesus of Nazareth, but Jesus the Son of God, who was begotten by the Father before creation. The Son of God cares so much for people that when they are in the deepest, most awful situation possible, he comes to us in the horror and fear as a person with us.
Early manuscript of the Benedicite
The three young Judeans sang the Canticle, the Benedicite, part of which we recited this morning.
In their song, they blessed God in the holy temple of his glory, they blessed God who dwells on the cherubim and who looks into the abysses, and they blessed God in his kingdom and in the whole cosmos. (Daniel 3:53-56]
God cares about the abysses, the deepest places. Christ comes to us as a fellow human being, one of us, even though he is God, and strengthens us to get through even the worst of our difficulties.
All of us know these deepest places. When a friendship or love relationship goes wrong; when we are seriously sick or in chronic pain; when we are unbearably lonely. We’ve all been there – and probably more importantly, we know others who are there now.
This, for me is the central meaning of the Trinity. God who created the world, who created us, loves us so much that He sends His Son to give us courage to live. It is not enough for God to love us in the abstract; God sends God’s strength in the way that will be best for us and mean the most to us, in human form.
We know the power of the touch of a family member when we are grieving: Christ with us to comfort. We might have experienced the lash of a good friend’s tongue warning to stop doing something spectacularly stupid. Christ with us in truth.
Last week near the beach at Rockingham, I saw where a homeless person had set up their bed and blankets near the main door of a shop, in a corner out of the south wind and the early morning sun. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a Christian in the shop who allowed them to be there. But it wouldn’t matter if it was a non-believer, or a Muslim or a Sikh, that kindness was Christ present in that protection.
Our little dog Lottie hovers near me with concern in her eyes when I am in severe pain or breathlessness. She too is God incarnate.
And sometimes the powerful spiritual presence of Jesus himself, who loves us eternally. We treasure the awe in our hearts as we share in this Holy Eucharist. We cultivate his presence by daily prayer and regular immersion in the Scriptures.
The invitation for us is this: knowing in our heads that God our loving Father is always present to us in human form, in the form of Jesus Christ the Son of God, we are invited to recognise in our hearts his presence, his comfort, his strengthening, his guidance. And to help us recognise the Son of God, God sends Holy Spirit to remind us of God’s loving presence.
This is the answer to evil. This is the answer to the wars, the cruelty, the indifference of kings. The compassionate presence of Christ with us, and, living in Christ, we too are Christ’s eyes, and hands, and feet.
This is the Trinity, constantly at his work of love, creating us and his beautiful world, being present with us in the Temple, in the cosmos and in the deepest abysses, and whispering in our hearts that he will be always with us.
We bless the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who is worthy to be praised and glorified forever.
Amen.
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Sermon preached at St Brendan ‘s-by-the-Sea, Warnbro, Trinity Sunday, May 31, AD 2026.
Featured Image: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, from the book Die Malereien der Katakomben Roms, plate 78; original painting in the Pricilla Catacombs.
Flaunting his wealth, or more accurately, flaunting his father Pietro’s wealth, “Frenchy” provided the meat for feasting and wine for drinking;
They elected him ‘King of the Revels’.
Giovanni di Bernadone, known to all by his nickname ‘Frenchy’ was the most raucous partygoer in the small town of Assisi. Flaunting his wealth, or more accurately, flaunting his father Pietro’s wealth, he provided the meat for feasting and wine for drinking; always the very best wine and the finest quails and swans roasted for the table.
Some of the town’s old residents called them terrorists, because they tore around the town in the early hours singing loud drinking songs. They raced their expensive horses, the click of the horseshoes loud on the cobbles of the narrow streets, their horses whinnying, whether they were joining in the singing or protesting their treatment was hard to tell.
Frenchy was possibly born when Pietro returned from France with cartloads of expensive cloth in about 1191, and Pietro and Pica, the new mother, baptised him as Giovanni. Still, everyone in Assisi knew him from his birth by his nickname.
Later, Pietro and Frenchy set out together on trips to France, the father teaching the son the ways to do business. Doubtless, they caroused in the inns where they stayed, and the father was proud, if sometimes irritated, by the sums Frenchy spent on his friends’ revels.
It was a great time for a young man to be alive, especially if you were looking for knightly action as Frenchy was.
There were rumours of wars between the Emperor and the Pope, and on the small scale, Assisi, on the Emperor’s team, went on and off to war with the Papal town of Perugia. In one of these skirmishes, Frenchy was taken prisoner for a year.
But it was a miserable 12 months for the teenage Frenchy. Knowing that the boy’s father would pay the ransom, the Perugians delayed negotiations until they had extracted the highest price from the rich merchant.
It changed Frenchy. He started to question the extreme wealth into which he was born. He started hanging around some of the old, ruined churches in the forest slopes down from Assisi. He gathered rocks and started rebuilding them. He was guided by a crucifix that spoke to him, telling him to repair his broken Church.
The rest of the story of Frenchy, Francesco in Italian, Francis to us, is well known.
He gave up his great wealth, determined to live in complete poverty. He broke with his father Pietro, never to be reconciled.
Caring for lepers, announcing Good News in towns and villages, begging for food on the same streets, enjoying the company of rich and poor, humans and animals alike.
Francis and his poor Brothers, within a few short years, were known all over Europe and loved by all. He is still the world’s favourite saint.
In 1226, exactly 800 years ago, Francis lay dying. He asked the Brothers to sing a psalm with him. He asked them to send for Lady Jacopa to travel from Rome and for her to bring him her almond cookies, Francis’s favourites. By coincidence, the Lady had just arrived with her biccies.
Surrounded by his Brothers and the Lady Jacopa, his body weakened. Flaunting his wealth, a tattered tunic and some almond crumbs, and yet possessing all things, he died, singing…still partying.
John J. Kinder, The Canon of Ancona: Raffaele Martelli Missionary in Western Australia, Crawley, WA, University of Western Australia Press, 2026.
Paperback 351 pages, In the Public Library system From $35 online or directly from UWA Press for $45. ISBN 9781760803216
Reviewed by Ted Witham
There were heroic clergy in the early years of the colony of Western Australia. They roamed vast distances on horseback, paying pastoral visits and bringing the sacraments to remote farms and settlements. They slept out in all weathers as they travelled and, in the days before GPS, or even reliable maps, became lost and sometimes wandered for days before they recovered their route.
While we Anglicans know of John Wollaston, and his archidiaconal journeys around the southwest during the 1840s and 1850s, the Roman Catholic priest Raffaele Martelli is almost unknown, but Father Martelli was a similar local hero.
Martelli was born, raised and ordained in Ancona, on the eastern coast of Italy. He loved books and believed that civilisation grew out of religion and education. These convictions marked his missionary efforts later in Australia.
A gifted linguist, Father Martelli taught rhetoric in the seminary in Ancona. His bishop appointed the young professor as a Canon in the local Church of Saint Maria of the Pizza, a stipended position to be part of the rota for saying the Offices and celebrating Mass. In Australia, he relinquished the stipend but continued to style himself Canon.
The Benedictine Order inspired Canon Martelli to become a missionary priest. His goal was to serve ten years in a missionary role before retiring to the Benedictine Abbey at New Norcia, not as a professed monk, but as a secular priest living with the brothers.
This goal was strengthened by his long friendship with the Spanish founder of New Norcia, Bishop Salvado, but the road to his retirement was not smooth. He spent 10 years as chaplain to Fremantle, a role which combined parish priestly duties with chaplaincy to prisoners in Fremantle Gaol and on Rottnest Island.
Because of the shortage of clergy, Martelli visited Catholic communities in Dardanup and York. He found himself caught up in the church politics of the early Archdiocese of Perth, often torn between his own belief in obedience to authority and his sharply critical opinion of those authorities.
Before his eventual retirement, the Apostolic Administrator prevailed on the Canon to become parish priest at Toodyay, but only after Salvado intervened to make it an issue of obedience. Martelli was well-liked by Catholics and Anglicans alike in Toodyay and in Northam, where he raised the funds to build St Joseph’s.
Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church, Northam, built by Fr Raffaele Martelli
It was while he was at Toodyay that he travelled extensively, despite being a poor horseman and suffering from haemorrhoids, a condition exacerbated by riding.
It is unlikely that John Wollaston met Father Martelli. Wollaston died only four years after Martelli arrived in WA. I fancy that the two priests would have respected each other. Martelli had a strong gift for friendship.
Martelli always made it clear that he was of the Roman Church. He ignored the jibes of ignorant people among the majority Protestants but reached out nevertheless to work with other clergy and the wider community. He served on the Boards of Public Schools and made friends with the Anglican priest at Toodyay, riding with him to New Norcia frequently.
(This priest Hugh Pidcock and Mrs Pidcock were later received in Sydney into the Roman Church, and, when his wife died, Hugh Pidcock was ordained as a member of the Society of Jesus.)
John J. Kinder, Emeritus Professor of Italian at The University of WA has trawled through the many letters Martelli wrote to Salvado and other friends, and through archives in Italy, Perth and especially New Norcia, and has produced a full-length and vivid biography of this priest. The book is copiously illustrated with photos and maps.
As a linguist rather than a trained historian, Kinder makes sense of the changes in Martelli’s Italian under the influence of Australian English and highlights the many and often funny literary allusions in the letters.
He also charts Martelli’s changing attitude to the mission to Aboriginal children. He had come to Western Australia mainly to be involved in their education so that they might grow up knowing Western civilisation and religion.
When he travels north, far from Noongar country, to invite young Aboriginal boys and girls to join the schools at New Norcia, he realises firstly, that the plan will not work, as the Indigenous people themselves don’t want to accept the invitation, and secondly, that taking young people away from Country will cause more harms than any good it might do.
With other later analysts, including Indigenous commentators, he saw the benefits of the New Norcia mission specifically, which did provide safety and opportunity for some Noongars.
On one hand, he rejoices as Noongar people choose to receive the sacraments and find benefit in European culture, but on the other, comes to doubt that the solution is as simple as giving Aboriginal children education.
The Canon was saddened to see how quickly Noongar culture was being destroyed by settlement and clearly wished the mission effort had begun with understanding the culture.
The Canon of Ancona tells the story of one heroic priest in our early days. The story has importance for readers interested in New Norcia and its Benedictine community, and for all wanting to understand better how the Gospel arrived in Western Australia.
Rae and I had only a limited time in Rome, and we allocated about four hours to explore the great basilica.
We found there a church that was luscious and gorgeous, overwhelming and powerful, beautiful and moving. We stood for some minutes before the famous Pietà, Michelangelo’s marvelous marble statue of the Virgin Mother holding her dead Son.
We found a wealthy church of the Renaissance in some ways ever compromised by its departure from the poor Jesus of Nazareth. Even though we knew Christians had been worshipping there on the Vatican Hill from just after the time of Jesus, it was hard to find evidence of that in just a short visit.
But we did find Jesus just outside of Rome along the Via Appia. As it was just a few days before Christmas, it was quite cold as we walked along the old Roman road, a row of distinctive Roman pines on one side, and on the other, old villas behind hedges and high fences, and catacombs.
We remembered that the Emperor Nero had crucified thousands of Christians along this Appian Way. He blamed them for the great fire of Rome in A.D. 64, and made his point by setting them alight at night to serve as gruesome torches, and leaving the bodies to be gnawed by wild dogs.
We pictured Jesus here.
Jesus walking along the row of his followers, heartening them and praying for all, his own heart broken for them.
Today as I remember that wintry afternoon, I remember too Christians in Iran as they mark these great Three Days of the year. They will be meeting discreetly, feeling the lash of increasing persecution under the cover of this war.
I think too of Christians in Sudan proscribed by that country’s harsh version of Sharia law.
Christians in Gaza; Christians in Ukraine still grieving their necessary split from their sister Russian church; Christians in parts of China.
I pray that they too may find in the Cross of today and the Resurrection of tomorrow the strength to go on and the joy of knowing that Jesus walks with them too.
The miracle of the Eucharist is that the risen Christ empowers God’s people to act to bring positive change to those suffering from the unjust structures of our society.
Sermon for St Brendan’s-by-the-Sea, Warnbro [Diocese of Perth]
Readings: Isaiah 58:1-14 1 Corinthians 2.1-7,9-10a,13a Matthew 5:13-20
To hear Ted preach this sermon, click here:
In the Name of the + living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
You may have heard of the new priest in a parish. (Not this parish, of course). The nominators had assured the parish that she was a good preacher, so the congregation looked forward to her first Sunday. She preached about ‘love’. After the service, the wardens and nominators congratulated her, saying what a nice sermon it was.
On the next Sunday, they were surprised to hear the priest preach the same sermon, word for word, on ‘love’. The wardens and nominators said among themselves, ‘Well, she has been unpacking and getting her kids sorted for school. We won’t say anything today, but we will look forward to the next sermon.’
On her third Sunday, the priest again preached the same sermon. The wardens said to her, ‘We understand you’ve been busy settling in, but we are surprised to hear the same sermon week after week.’
‘And I’ll go on preaching it,’ she replied, ‘until you get it… and act on it.’
I feel a bit the same with today’s sermon. I seemed to have preached it many times over 50 years. And the challenge is the same. Jesus commands us to love God and love our neighbour, especially the vulnerable neighbour. I’ll go on preaching it, I guess, for the same reason as the brand-new Rector. We all, myself included, need to really get it – and do it!
It’s easy to be angry or depressed about the world around us. I definitely won’t talk about that man, although his actions are making things worse.
I won’t use his name either. There’s a family connection here: my beloved Rae’s mother grew up in Nazi Germany. ‘Zat man,’ she used to say about a different power-drunk man. I never heard her use his name. ‘Zat man took away our vote. Vot zat man meant was zat ve didn’t have enough to eat.’
As to today’s world, I won’t mention that man in America again. As you will see, I won’t need to.
Who makes the clothes we wear? A 2025 Oxfam Australia report states that children in Bangladesh are making some of those clothes. Children are subcontracted out, so their names don’t appear on any payroll. And Bangladeshi adults, too, are forced to work. Under intolerable conditions, 10 or 12 hours a day, and refused bathroom breaks. 95% of the factory workers are paid below a living wage, and for women, that figure rises to 100%.
These conditions amount to slavery. At the very least, they are ‘the bonds of injustice, … the straps of the yoke, … the oppressed.’ (Isaiah 58:4) The very conditions Isaiah railed against two and half millennia ago.
You have all answered your phone to unknown numbers where the callers spoke in a South Asian accent and harassed you to put money into some scheme or repay a debt (that you didn’t know you had) and told you that you had to transfer the money today, in two hours’ time. If you get a call like that, put the phone down. It’s the wisest thing to do.
It’s a sad reflection of today’s world that we have to be alert to these scams. There is another tragic side to the story. Many of these scam call centres are run by international criminal groups. The callers may be young Indians lured to Dubai by the promise of real jobs in construction. Instead, the gangs traffic them to countries as far apart as Myanmar or Peru, lock them into substandard accommodation attached to the call centres, and force them to make these calls in cramped conditions, hour after hour, shut into a tiny world by their headphones.
These conditions also amount to slavery. INTERPOL is one of several agencies tracking down the criminals and having them tried in court.
Closer to home, one in seven Australians lives below the poverty line, defined by ACOSS, the Australian Council on Social Services, as half the median income. So, 15% of us bring in less than $40,000 a year. Now, $40,000 is fine if you own your house, you share it with a spouse or partner, and you have some savings, and you’re eligible for a Support at Home package from the government.
But if you are single, not a homeowner, with no savings, $40,000 means you struggle to pay up to $15,000 for rent, and find the money for food, air-conditioning, and out-of-pocket medical expenses. And because WA has the highest incomes in the country, prices here can be higher than elsewhere, making it even more difficult just to live with dignity.
There are over 3,000 homeless children in WA. So reports the Youth Affairs Council. 60% of those young people are LGBTIAQ+. From 2013 to 2023, 52 children known to the Specialist Housing Service have died. That’s two kids a year. Around Australia, 177 children have died on the streets over a ten-year stretch. Nearly 18 kids under the age of 14 every year.
This means that ‘[s]haring you bread with the hungry, bringing the homeless poor in your house,’ and providing clothes for the winter cold (Isaiah 58:7), are challenges for us Christians, for us as Australians.
Here in the City of Rockingham, a group of agencies nominate homelessness, mental ill health, and family and domestic violence as the main three social needs of people in this suburb.
Isaiah’s words describe our world so well:
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? 7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
Isaiah 58:6-7 NRSVue
Does this sound like Good News? Maybe not. But Isaiah commands us not to turn our eyes away. And not to harden our hearts. The world’s problems are our problems. Working for social justice is essential for us as Christians, as people of faith. It’s not an optional extra.
Good News is found in this morning’s Gospel reading. We are to be salt and light. We are to change the world for the better, like salt improves the taste of food. We are to bring light to dark situations. Salt and light. It sounds simple.
And not one little, teeny bit of the Old Testament is abolished by Jesus. Not one requirement of the Law and the Prophets. And the Prophet this morning roundly condemns people who do nothing to make the world more just. Isaiah also criticises hypocrites, who profess they are helping the disadvantaged, but they do nothing.
The prophet backs us into a corner. Helping the disadvantaged is not an option for people of faith.
But here is Good News.
If God has favourites, they are the poor. The Risen Christ proclaims that the future belongs to him. The poor are blessed because Christ is reversing their plight. The Spirit of Christ empowers us to collaborate with him. And what collaborations there have already been! We can see injustice. But we can also see how Christian people have responded to the call to be salt and light.
We think immediately of this parish’s respite for the homeless. It’s good news for those doing it tough, and it’s good news for the volunteers. Just ask them how they feel about their role at ‘Homeless’.
I think of Anglicare WA. Good News for many suffering from the selfishness of our wealthy society. Every Diocese in the Australian Church has an Anglicare, people working with Christian motivation to relieve the suffering of poverty. It is Good News.
I think of the West Australian organisation Ruah. Its name means ‘Spirit’ in the Hebrew of the Bible. Ruah is carrying on the work of the Daughters of Charity, a Christian Order in the Roman Catholic church. Ruah works especially with people with mental health challenges. It has wrap-around services for the homeless. It makes sure that Indigenous people are appropriately cared for. It’s Good News.
I think of EPIC Assist in the Eastern states, supported by the Anglican Franciscan Brothers, especially Brother Donald Campbell. E.P.I.C., Enabling People in Community, works to provide employment for people with disabilities. Its work has expanded from Queensland to Scotland and Croatia. Good News.
Father Tucker, Founder of the Brotherhood of Saint Laurence, Melbourne
I really admire the Christians in Minneapolis who have the courage to take peaceful action to curtail the cruelty of the ICE immigration agents.
Some write letters to the authorities. Groups of Christians protest noisily outside the hotels where ICE agents are staying.
Some blow whistles when ICE agents arrive in a neighbourhood. Others, like the young mother, Renee Good, follow them in their cars. Others, like nurse Alex Pretti, are filming their activities. I see that God is at work in his people in Minnesota.
We know, in our hearts, that there could come a time when God would call us to do similar. Pray God it doesn’t. But if it does, God will give the strength and courage we need. That’s the Good News in a bad situation.
All of these and so many more are Christians acting together and also working with others of good will, to
to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.
Isaiah 58:3.
The Good News in all this is that Christ is with us.
In the Eucharist this morning, as every Sunday morning and all around the world, a body is broken. Blood is poured out. The Risen Christ is with every body broken in slavery. The Risen Christ is with every Gazan or Ukrainian or Sudanese whose blood is poured out.
What is more, the powers-that-be, the rich and powerful who are crushing the poor, they are critiqued. Their greed and cruelty are exposed. We see that man I will not name for what he is. Our poor attempts to change things is revealed. We come to confession, confessing the one true sin: our failure to love.
The miracle of the Eucharist is that we no longer need be angry and sad about the world. The broken body and blood poured out moves us first to compassion and then to hope.
The risen Christ empowers God’s people to act to bring positive change to those suffering from the unjust structures of our society.
As individuals, we can be aware of poverty, and we can be well informed as we pray.
God empowers us to do a variety of things.
Support these organisations which have a Christian impetus…
By being aware of their work, by praying, by donating goods and money, by spreading the word, by volunteering.
Be mindful of the good we can do…
By asking God for guidance.
What is God calling you to do? For example,
Be mindful in our shopping for clothes. How can we cause the least harm to Bangladeshi workers? Research supply chains. Buy fewer new clothes. Support Op. Shops.
Understand the situation of those making scam calls. Answer those scam calls gently. Yelling at the caller only adds to their humiliation as slaves. Maybe ask them how their day is. Maybe tell them you’re sorry you can’t oblige them.
Not walking past the homeless. We may not carry cash, but we do carry kindness. If someone is begging in the street, they’re desperate. And in the end, they are desperate for love, so we can choose to be salt and light for them. Money may or may not be helpful, but we can do a lot to restore their dignity by seeing them as a fellow human being. ‘Hello. How are you?’ is great medicine.
Be assured that our little acts of love, because we are empowered by the Risen Jesus, add up to make a difference. Be encouraged by Jesus saying, ‘Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.’ (Matthew 31:40) And where we fall short, the Spirit makes it up to be effective action. In the economy of grace, our five loaves and two fishes feed thousands. (See Luke 9:10-17)
And for those of us who are struggling to make ends meet, we can choose to be grateful for the kindness and ministry of others. We can all choose to recognise the hard times of the people we meet.
Take away from this sermon three ideas:
Be aware. Don’t turn your eyes away. God’s people are suffering. Be aware.
Prayer. It can be hard to pray. Let the Spirit pray in you and through you. But groups and individual Christians will be strengthened by your prayer.
Be aware. Prayer.
Dare. Dare to take action. Dare to give of your treasure, your time, your talents to make a difference in God’s world. Holy Spirit will empower you to be salt and light. ‘Don’t worry what you are to say or do, because the Holy Spirit is working through you.
Be aware. Prayer. Dare.
Ash Wednesday is 10 days away. We all need to begin thinking about this Lent. What kind of fast is God calling you and me to this year? Giving up sugar? Well, yes, it might be sensible. I need to cut down on sugar.
But today’s Good News is that our fast shouldn’t be about ourselves. The fast is not to focus on our own spiritual needs. Our fast can and should be pragmatic, hands-on action for others, not hollow words. Some suggestions for your Lenten fast are on thepage below.
Isaiah goes on to say:
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, 10 if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. 11 The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail. Isaiah 58:9b-11
My dear friend, the late John Warner, fellow-priest, travelled from Perth to Busselton to sit with other poets before the stained-glass windows of Saint Mary’s Church.
We were to be inspired by the windows to create original poetry. From the Heart of Busselton was published in 2013, with photos of the windows by Enya Warfield and Wendy Slee, accompanying the works by 11 of the poets.
Canon Warner’s poem, A Wicker Cage, was inspired by a detail in the window of the Presentation (image above). The poet expresses pity for the two doves (in the wicker cage) that had to be sacrificed for the freedom of Jesus – and of Simeon and Anna.
This Feast of the Presentation, February 2, 2026, enjoy John’s poem.
The tips of icebergs are notoriously dangerous: the old saying posits that nine-tenths of the iceberg is under the water. This larger invisible ice stabilises the whole ice structure. Ignoring them is a dangerous choice.
In the past few days politicians have been bandying about the phrase ‘Islamic terror hatred’. They state that preventing such hatred may prevent further shootings. The Government are proclaiming victory. Their new law will make Australian Jews safer.
That may be true – as far as it goes. There is a great deal going on ‘under’ the tip of the iceberg: the psychotic killers who use Islamic language to justify their criminal actions are only the visible iceberg. Laws condemning such statements should have some effect. Reducing the number of guns in the community may also reduce opportunities for killers to act.
These psychotic killers are buoyed by hate groups. Neo-Nazis spout hatred of Jews. I note that they are not Islamic terrorists, but nasty just the same. ISIS may not be an identifiable group in Australia, but its hate speech empowered the killers at Bondi. These militant groups may not be killers, but they give permission to the few who are.
But drill down further into the iceberg, into the Australian community. Politicians, community leaders and religious leaders, myself included, have not been strong enough, persistent enough and clear enough in our condemnation of these hate groups.
As a Christian priest, my clear task is to promote the truth that every person, regardless of race, religion, ethnic background, is made in God’s image, beloved by God, and therefore worthy of respect. God loves each person and weeps over every instance of discrimination and hatred. God doesn’t tolerate it.
Other faith and community leaders may express these values differently. Even these differences are wonderful and to be welcomed.
Our lack of leadership gives permission to the hate groups. We need to own the fact that our condemnation of them has not been strong enough.
And of course, leaders can be strong in promoting community harmony only if the community itself encourages us leaders to speak out against hate and for respect.
As we drill down even further, into the general community, we should examine ourselves: are we harbouring discrimination in our hearts? Are we tainted by not accepting difference ourselves? These are uncomfortable questions, and lead to other questions even more discomforting: do we call out casual racism when we hear it? Do we show acceptance to those of different skin colour or strange religions (strange to us)?
My assessment is that we participate in a society that fails to live up to its values of acceptance and compassion. I cringe when I recognise the sting of the discriminatory attitudes I grew up and I catch myself flinching from different skin colour or distinct dress.
We are a racist mob. And for as long as we don’t challenge it, we let our leaders off the hook. They, in turn, avoid difficult conversation. They fail to condemn. They, in turn, give power to the rhetoric of the hate groups, who, in their turn, give cover to those who would use their rhetoric to kill.
One law won’t stop ‘Islamic terror hatred’ or anti-Muslim diatribes. There’s a rottenness running through our whole society. Of course, not every individual is a racist, but too often I find myself willing, by inaction, to participate in it.
As well as laws against hate speech, we need education for harmony. That is a huge task to get on with, but it is a possible remedy to the danger of the iceberg. The choice to do nothing through every part of the community is the choice to run into more horror like that on the beach at Bondi.
Pyramid courtesy Northern Ireland Mediation
Racism is not a new problem, but all the more reason to tackle it.
The man-child Herod, 22 months into his reign, Points a chubby finger, Says, ‘He is a bad person’, and has him put to death. His hands are clean, washed and washed again in a gilded porcelain basin, His hands are clean; his mind washes in blood.
The man-child, 22 months into his reign, Is full of fear.
The boy-child, 22 months into his reign, Smiles, Says, Mama, and Baba, toddles in his swaddling clothes, his world overflows with love, His hands are in the dirt, close by the people of earth, His hands cultivate a garden of love; his mind washes in love.
The boy-child delights in his world.
The man-child, 22 months into his reign, Prophesies that a boy-child will take his throne away, Pouts his fleshy lip, points, Says, ‘All boys under two are bad persons,’ And has them put to death.
The monstrosity…
Howling in the streets. Mothers wail. Countries grieve. Squares fill with flowers. Torrents of tears through channels of love.
Wise men avoid the border guards. They do not show their visas. They run. Smugglers: love is their contraband.
Wise men show whose reign is true.
The man-child, 24 months into his reign, Fears. Still fears. Herod’s own kidneys turn on him. Gangrene eats his private parts. He dies in pain.
The boy-child on the cross. Hands and feet pierced. Head bloodied. A halo of red. His breathing stops. He exults, ‘It is finished.’ He is returning to his Baba.
In the past two weeks, I have been thinking about the late Kim Beazley, Snr. I knew the great man slightly when I was a priest at Christ Church Claremont, and he was a parishioner. I greeted him after church each Sunday. I visited him at his home in Cottesloe, and on one memorable occasion, he took my colleague John Warner and me to a long lunch at Parliament House, combined with a history of the characters in the Labor Party before the split. He was a lively raconteur.
I have also been thinking of the Headmasters Conference and their actions beginning in the 1930s.
I have been thinking that the massacre at Bondi Beach last week could have been prevented if their vision had been grasped back then.
In 1938, the Headmasters Conference consisting of the Heads of all the Independent boys’ schools in Australia, together with those of some Catholic Schools, were disturbed by the rise of antisemitism in Europe. The Conference proposed that an association to promote the high-quality teaching of religion in Australian schools should be created.
The war intervened, and nothing came of the proposal until 1974, when the HMC and the Association of the Heads of Girls Schools Australia (AHIGSA) formed the Australian Association for Religious Education. I joined AARE in 1975 and over the next 30 years I served at State and National levels, so I know this Association well. And there have been other similar associations.
The question haunts me; did we not do enough? Did we fail to raise the quality of the teaching of religion? Maybe we could have stemmed the tide of antisemitism, Islamophobia and all the other hatreds of different religious groups.
Teaching in schools about religion may have had more effect if the educational community had listened to Kim Beazley, as Australia’s Minister for Education in 1973-75. Mr Beazley proposed a National Curriculum consisting of nine learning areas. He included Religion as a learning area alongside English, Maths and Science. He meant, of course, not the doctrinaire teaching of Christianity – although he was a Christian – but the proper teaching of the religions in our society.
Other prominent educators, like Professor Brian Hill, Foundation Professor of Education at Murdoch University, who was one passionate advocate, pushed for the inclusion of religion in the general curriculum.
It is true that the learning area of Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) mandate some attention to religion in society. And the Arts cannot avoid the heritage of Christians and others who have made wonderful music, literature, paintings, and sculpture to express their faith. Some educators told us that we should be content just to have religion included within other learning areas.
Teachers resist the teaching of religions believing that they are not sufficiently informed about the subject. To me, that is a sad excuse. We can all be better informed. That’s why the Principals of Independent Schools set up the AARE with its biennial Conference model of in-service preparation for their teachers. Teacher educators could easily devise similar in-service for teachers in State Schools.
Imagine if as much effort had been poured into the teaching of Religion as has been poured into English and Maths. Imagine if the students graduating from our High Schools, both public and private, had a sympathetic understanding of Islam, and Judaism, and Christianity, of Hinduism, and Buddhism, and Bahai, of Taoism and Shinto, and Confucianism, of paganism, and Wicca, as well as Indigenous culture as a special and focused Australian spirituality.
Imagine if those students had met Australian adherents of those religions, individual Jews or Buddhists or Christians and recognised them, as they would, as fellow Australians, fellow human beings. Imagine how that would percolate through society and act as a damper on religious hatred. (Not to mention how much richer their ownlives would be.)
Maybe that would have been enough to stop this hatred of religions, especially the hatred of the Jews.
It is possible that I’m overstating the case. No amount of high-quality education would likely have stopped the shooters at Bondi on 14 December 2025. They were too filled with hatred.
But great educators like Kim Beazley Snr, Sir James Darling (Geelong Grammar’s renowned Headmaster from 1930-1961), Peter Moyes (Headmaster of Christ Church Grammar in Claremont from 1952-1982, and my mentor in AARE) and Brian Hill, must all be wondering whether it would have been any different if Australia had listened to them.
Courtesy Anglican Diocese of Edmonton, Canada
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Ted Witham is a Life Member and former President of AARE, and was Executive Director of The Churches’ Commission on Education (YouthCARE WA) from 1999-2003, and founding Convenor of the National Association of Government School Chaplaincy Providers (now called Chaplaincy Australia) from 2000-2003.
He taught Religious Education as Senior Chaplain to Christ Church Grammar School (1978-1984). He also followed Professor Brian Hill from 1998-2004 as the teacher of the unit ‘Religious Education in Schools’ to students at Murdoch University preparing to be teachers.
In 1985, AHIGSA and HMC amalgamated to become AHISA, the Association of Heads of Independent SchoolsAustralia
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