MPs reflect on heart of the matter
News
South Australian MPs were urged to ‘listen to the heartbeat of the world’ at an ecumenical service to mark the opening of the State parliamentary year last week.
A group of 14 Members of Parliament including the Premier, Peter Malinauskas, joined Her Excellency the Honourable Frances Adamson, Governor of South Australia, and church leaders at the service in Bethlehem Lutheran Church, city.
The Governor and parliamentarians were presented with handcrafted timber prayer hearts from the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide.
The ‘holding hearts’ are made by members of the Whyalla Men’s Shed and are sold at the Mary MacKillop Museum Gift Shop at Kensington.
Presenting the gifts, Sarah Moffatt, who is the Archdiocese’s representative on the Leaders of Christian Churches of SA Reference Group, said when the request for 50 hearts was made to the gift shop, the Men’s Shed members responded promptly and even offered to transport the hearts to Adelaide.
“It’s a beautiful story about connecting with our South Australian community,” she said.
The service was led by the Lutheran Bishop of SA/NT Andrew Brook with Psalm 145:8-18 read by the Governor and the reflection delivered by the Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide and Anglican Primate of Australia Geoffrey Smith.
Archbishop Smith said he would not offer the MPs advice on how to be involved in the Parliamentary life of our State.
“Mostly I’m going to say thank you for doing what you do, and for being prepared to serve our community,” he said.
“As well as saying thank you, I want to say that we pray for you very often, but I do think that the fact that you’re here this morning on a very busy day says something and that might be at least that you acknowledge God and somehow see what you do at work as having something to do with God.
“And I’m going to say ‘sure does’; God does listen to the heartbeat of the world and God responds and engages with the world…in the way that Psalm 145 describes, and God seeks co-operators who can embody and enact God’s love so that, to go back to Psalm 145, those who are falling are upheld, those who are bound down are raised up, those who are in need receive what they need. So that as much as possible in a broken world, that world reflects Heaven. What we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer, God’s will be done as it is in Heaven.
“As members of Parliament and staff members of Parliament, you have an opportunity to be co-operators with God, that’s an amazing privilege and responsibility and that’s why we pray for you often.
“I would never offer you advice about how to do your job and navigate the complexities of the political world, I haven’t figured out how to do that with the Church…but I do want to say that God listens to the heartbeat of the world and we can, with God’s grace, join in that listening and co-operate with God so that God’s will is done more and more on earth, as it is in heaven.”
Anglican priest Reverend Stuart Langshaw said serving the State as politicians was a “high and a holy vocation”.
“It is one that calls each elected member to serious and unflinching efforts to advance the standard of life of others,” he said.
“It is a vocation that must be undergirded by wisdom, grade, determination and a spiritual power that blends with their own life-philosophy, for the good for all.”
