Te Pouhere Sunday 2020 - GAZING INTO ANOTHER MIRROR

Matthew 7:24-29 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Hearers and Doers

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!” Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.

I runga i te Ingoa o te Atua,

te Matua, te Tama me te Wairua Tapu. 

Āmine.

In the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen

Morena

Ni sah yandra

Malo e lele-i

Good Morning

These are greetings in the languages contained in “A New Zealand Prayer Book He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa” - Maori, Fijian, Tongan and English. 

When I look into the mirror in the mornings I look to see if my clothes are neat and tidy, colours matching and no missing buttons, I brush my hair and make sure there are no bits in my teeth. I change things that need changing. I DO something. There is always something that needs to change. I’m not like the evil stepmother of Snow White who would gaze at her mirror saying “mirror mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all” and demand the response she wanted “you o queen, you are the fairest…” What she wanted was an echo chamber.  

I titled my most recent essay on an unrelated topic “Gazing into the mirror” and I decided to title this sermon the same. Today is Te Pouhere Sunday and it is a time to gaze into the mirror of history and try to understand who we are today in light of that history. 

206 years ago Samuel Marsden landed at Oihi, this was the beginning of the Anglican church in NZ. 

It was a Maori focussed missionary church. Somehow, until recently I had the impression that the missionaries travelled around the country sharing the gospel and “converting” the Maori but when I started reading church history I found that a huge amount of the early evangelisation of the Maori was by other Maori. Missionaries would arrive in a place to find the gospel had travelled ahead of them and their task was not introducing the Maori to the gospel but helping their Maori brethren build on that foundation. The story of Tarore and her gospel comes to mind and it is well known in this area. 

As I continued my study I found that it was the missionaries who pushed for the Treaty of Waitangi - they recognised that the flood of incoming settlers were exploiting the indigenous people and insisted legal protection be put in place. This has become the foundation document of our country. 

Bright beginnings turn darker as we see that the church who put in place this document did not uphold the principles within the treaty of equality and participation in the ongoing relationship between the Maori missionary church and the Pakeha settlers churches in NZ. Te Reo was not valued and it was a shamefully long time before Maori were in leadership positions and their voices listened to. Patriarchal attitudes abounded which meant that Pakeha were making decisions for Maori, including about their spiritual & leadership needs. By 186o there were only 6 Maori clergy in NZ and it was 1928 before there was a Maori Bishop at all (and he was a suffragan bishop). 

Finally in the 1970s the Anglican church started to re-examine our responsibilities with the Treaty of Waitangi. This culminated in the forming of our constitution in 1992. Te Pouhere comes from the the word “Pou” which means a post like the great posts that support the ridgepole of a meeting house and “here”  or guide - so it could be translated as the “guiding framework”. Thus was formed our unique 3-tikanga church Tikanga Maori, Tikanga Pakeha and Tikanga Pacifica. A multi-faceted church where power is shared equally and where consensus is sought together before God. 3 ways of being church in one Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand. It is fitting indeed that we celebrate Te Pouhere Sunday immediately following Trinity Sunday. Last week we celebrated the God who is wondrously 3 in one, a loving community. This week we celebrate the formation of our 3 in one Church, a loving community, no one subordinate, a church modelled on our triune God. Truly the formation of this 3-tikanga church was and is a work of God and we praise God for all God’s works. 

Our symbol is a woven cross. Weaving together makes the threads a great deal stronger than the individual threads would be alone. The woven fabric of the 3 tikanga creates a strong foundation for our church. Strong foundations are a theme today. Our gospel is that well-known story of the wise and foolish builders. Most of us remember this as a Sunday school story. I found myself singing the song in my head “the wise man built his house upon a rock …”

This is NOT just a fun Sunday school story or a cute song. The story begins with “everyone who hears these words of mine…” so the first question to ask ourselves is “what words is Jesus talking about”. We find this passage at the end of the Sermon on the Mount. This very confronting sermon talks about God choosing the underdog, loving your enemies, money, prayer and judging others. 

Those of us of a certain age might remember “The Desiderata”  a poem written in 1927 which began “Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence…” There were posters of it everywhere including bedrooms and toilet doors. We appreciated the beautiful sentiments but for most of us it didn’t go any further. This story of the builders is telling us not to treat the sermon on the mount and Jesus’ teaching in general like that. Don’t just put “Blessed are the poor” and the rest of the beatitudes on your literal or figurative walls. If you do that, Jesus says, you are a fool - real wisdom is not just knowing the beatitudes, real wisdom is living them. 

The Message paraphrase puts it like this “These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on.” If we look again at the words of the beatitudes they are words of compassion, mercy and peacemaking. As we gaze into the mirror of our own lives, our church, our history - if we are really honest the reflection is disturbing - there are changes to make. The changes made in our constitution were a beginning - the weaving together of the threads of Tikanga Pakeha, Tikanga Maori and Tikanga Pasifika this created a strong foundation for building our  - church individual threads versus a woven one reminding us of the foundational differences in the parable of rock and sand. But the work did not finish with the foundation - the building goes on - in our individual lives, our churches, our country, our world. With God we are creating an edifice that reflects the values in our constitution of participation, partnership and protection. We are not there yet.

Perhaps you, like I, have been watching the news with tears in your eyes over the past couple of weeks. The murder of George Floyd by police was appalling, but unfortunately far from unique. It has been a catalyst not only in the USA but globally to look at racism. The riots in the USA reflect centuries of racist abuse and the simmering anger coming to the surface. The #blacklivesmatter is an invitation for us not to get defensive but to get honest as we look at the racism in our own lives, our country’s history and in our own church history. It is an invitation for us to change attitudes and behaviour. To work towards true equity. The work starts in the lives of each one of us here, in our very own parish church of St Johns Otumoetai. We must ask ourselves - “What are we doing to work towards true equity for our Maori and Pacifica brothers and sisters?”

The opening verse in our Corinthians passage reads this way in the Message “Christ’s love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.” 

I want to read to you the preamble to our constitution and I invite you to hear it with Christ’s love moving you, driving you on, urging you. 

“WHEREAS (1) the Church is the body of which Christ is the head and all baptised persons are members, believing that God is one and yet revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit ‑ a Holy Trinity, and

(a) lives to be the agent and sign of the Kingdom of God.

(b) is called to offer worship and service to God in the power of the Holy Spirit and

(c) as the community of faith, provides for all God's people, the turangawaewae, the common ground;

AND WHEREAS (2) the Church

(a) is ONE because it is one body, under one head, Jesus Christ,

(b) is HOLY because the Holy Spirit dwells in its members and guides it in mission,

  (c) is CATHOLIC because it seeks to proclaim the whole faith to all people to the end of time and

(d) is APOSTOLIC because it presents the faith of the apostles and is sent to carry Christ's mission to all the world;

AND WHEREAS (3) the mission of the Church includes:

(a) proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ,

(b) teaching, baptising and nurturing believers within eucharistic communities of faith,

(c) responding to human needs by loving service and

(d) seeking to transform unjust structures of society, caring for God's creation, and establishing the values of the Kingdom;

AND WHEREAS (4) the Church, in striving to express the perfect oneness prayed for by Christ, and affirming the transforming power of the Gospel, 

      (a) advances its mission,

      (b) safeguards anddevelops its doctrine and

  (c) orders its affairs,

within the different cultures of the peoples it seeks to serve and bring into the fullness of Christ”

You can read the rest of our constitution online here:

https://www.anglican.org.nz/Resources/Canons

There is a Maori proverb:

He waka eke noa

A canoe which we are all in with no exception

Roughly translated We are all in this together.

The final verse in the Gospel reads this way in The Message:

“When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this. It was apparent that he was living everything he was saying—quite a contrast to their religious teachers! This was the best teaching they had ever heard.”

Jesus taught us about the Kingdom of God, Jesus lived the Kingdom of God, The parable of the wise and foolish builders suggests that Jesus expects the same from us. 

LET US PRAY

God of Love

We thank you for Te Pouhere, our guiding framework. 

We thank you for the symbol of the woven cross reminding us of the strength of the interwoven beauty in our 3-Tikanga church. 

We thank you for the words of Jesus - inviting us to live lives of love, compassion, justice, mercy and peacemaking. 

We acknowledge that we fall short of the ideals stated in our constitution and we fall short of the words and commands of the one we call Lord. 

Help us to gaze honestly into the mirror and change.

Help us to work together to make changes which bring equity, 

May we live wholeheartedly by the principles of participation, partnership and protection.

He waka eke noa, We are all in this together.

I runga i te Ingoa o te Atua,

te Matua, te Tama me te Wairua Tapu. 

Āmine.