SERMON PREACHED at St MARY’S,
OAMARU NORTH
TE POUHERE SUNDAY (6th June) 2021
There is a selection of
readings appointed from which to choose for this day. I have not attempted to impose
a current festival, however important, on to an ancient text except insofar as
there is a reference to the unity for which Jesus prays in John 17.
In Anglican churches today, most of us will do an unusual thing
even by our standards. For this is a Sunday on which we look at and give thanks
for their constitution. I doubt it is a document we look at often – I use it
during future-planning consultations when a parish is navigating its route to new ministry – so-called vacancy consultations, (we’ll have
one here some time in the coming months!) but that is about all. Yet a
consultation-scan need not be quite as dull as it sounds. Nor should it be, as
it becomes in some place I have served, a
sort of exclusive Anglican self-congratulatory thing, aren’t we good? aren’t
we good? That is simply a wrong-headed attitude.
But the Pouhere is a profound piece of faith-work. In its most
recent incarnation, the 1992 constitution, the compilers were emphatic about addressing
past wrongs, about setting to right colonial injustices, about generating a
different future, one that breathed more of the Spirit of the compassionate
Christ.
The constitutional revisers recognized, as the liturgical scholars
have long emphasized, that facing, embracing a new future begins always by
recognizing the wrongs of the past. There is much that has been wrong in the
colonial past, not least the Anglican past, and liturgically we should begin by
saying sorry. We might note in passing that when we make our confession at the
beginning of the liturgy we are not specifically confessing the naughty things
we’ve done, though they too many be caught up into our lament, but the whole
sorry state of humanity. WE have sinned, and as the priestly people
Jesus has made us, we confess, in the plural, the sins of the world we
live in. Those sins include the sins that dwell deep in our past, but whose
ramifications continue today: sins of exploitation, disrespect, disregard, to
name just some that are hallmarks of colonial insensitivity. E te Ariki, kia
aroha mai: Lord, we are sorry.
Traditionally in liturgy , when we have confessed our sins and
the sins of our world, we hear the presiding priest speak the words that God
would and does say to all who truly repent. “you are forgiven, be at peace” –
and stand up, now, in the divine presence. Our task, then, us to burst out in
praise, spoken or sung, glorifying the God who forgives. We become the walking-, striding-for-God people,
moving out into God’s world to declare divine love and forgiveness.
By pausing in our liturgical cycles to observe Te Pouhere Sunday
we are reminding ourselves of our imperfections – and of the ways in which God
can breathe new hope and life into us as individuals and as the Body of Christ.
The word “pouhere” is used to refer to the constitution, but its origin is not
in legalese. Its origin is the post to which different waka are tied as
journeyers come together to korero and mahi, to speak and work as one. Before I
came down south from Hawke’s Bay I belonged to a wonderful hahi, Te Pou Herenga Waka O Te Whakapono, the anchor or hitching pole of the waka of
faith. The name was a reminder of that one post, the faith in Jesus that anchors
the different journeys of being human, and even the different journeys of being
a Christ-bearer.
The Constitution of the our Church establishes three equal but
differing strands, Tikanga Māori, Tikanga Pacifica and Tikanga Pākehā. These
strands have different backstories, different whakapapa, yet each of these
strands leads back to the same encounter with Christ. Sadly, the three strands
experience vastly different resources. That flawed nature of our present state
of being is something we must address – precisely one reason why we must be a
sorry-saying people. “If a brother or a sister has wronged you,” says Jesus, and goes on to address questions or restoration.
Effectively tikanga Pākehā is reminded by tee Pouhere that we have done wrong,
as our fiscally weaker sisters and brothers enjoyed smaller slices of the pie
that God had given the Anglican Church in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific.
It was a painful reminder, and it isn’t over yet. I was at a recent
meeting at which Tikanga Māori Archbishop Don Tamihere laid down some
blistering challenges to the assembled Tikanga Pākehā educators and leaders,
challenges about equality and equity. Not for the first time I had to take a
long hard look at my assumptions, and swallow discretely. The three Tikanga
Pouhere or Constitution is one attempt to answer the prayer of Jesus for his
Church: Father may they all be one, in resources, opportunities, and gifts,
as we are one. We’re a long way from perfection, but perhaps we are
beginning to navigate by the right truths, to build on the right foundation.
The confession that we use in liturgy is a lament. Laments are as
ancient as the winds, and they need to be ancient, for exploitation and
division are at the heart of the human condition. It is that human condition
that we are challenged to say “aroha mai,” I am sorry, for, each time we engage
in the Christian rites of Communion. I personally may not have used or abused
my sisters and brothers directly, but I have participated in structures that
have done so. Or perhaps I have personally, anyway?
Peace, Albert Einstein warned us, is not the absence of war, but
the presence of justice. What he actually said was this: “Peace cannot be kept
by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” The Global Peace index has
found New Zealand, alongside Iceland, Portugal, Austria and Denmark, to be the
most peaceful countries on earth. But we are not Nirvana yet, and must strive
always for improvement.
The concepts undergirding the New Zealand Anglican Constitution,
te Pouhere, are the longing for the three ethnic strands of The Anglican Church
of Aotearoa New Zealand and the South Pacific to work together in a just
sharing of knowledge, insight, material resources and opportunities.
In so many ways that hope is far from fulfilled. It has never
been and is not yet terribly equal: compare the number of Tikanga Pākehā
stipendiary clergy with the Tikanga Māori numbers. Assess the value of Tikanga
Pākehā’s properties—especially buildings—and compare that with Tikanga Māori.
And that's before we even consider the assets and opportunities of Tikanga
Pacifica – or take into account disparities in personal income, life
expectancy, and myriad other indicators.
Te Pouhere Sunday in the modern tradition of contemporary New
Zealand Anglicanism is a means to acknowledge, lament the flaws that divide
people of faith across barriers of race. In practical terms Te Pouhere, the constitution
that we remember and give thanks for today, ensures that Anglicans come
together in a handful of contexts to hear one another – marae style we might
say – and alter our paths and responses when our sisters and brothers point to
injustice and unChristlikeness. It is perhaps honoured more in the breach than
the observance, but it is at least a step towards reconciliation and cooperation.
The Lord be with you.
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