May 29, 2016

Eseta Mateiviti-Tulavu

Te Pouhere Sunday

Video available on YouTube, Facebook

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you my rock and redeemer. Amen.

Ni sa bula vinaka, Malo e lelei, Talofa lava, Namaste, Ki orana.

I grew up in a small Solomoni settlement in the outskirts of the Suva City. My father was a boxer and gold and bronze medallist who represented Fiji in the South Pacific Games and Commonwealth Games as a Bantam weight boxer. He was a supervisor in the Chrome and plaiting industry within the Carpenters industrial group. He was a first generation Solomon Islander to be born in Fiji, his father left the Solomon Islands at the age of 16 after he was recruited to go and work in Fiji. In the early 1980’s dad gave his life to the Lord and became a lay reader and was sent to St Johns the Baptist to study a certificate in theology, after 3 years of study he was ordained as deacon and became a curate at the Holy Trinity Cathedral under the Dean, The Venerable Michael Bent who lives in New Plymouth. After 3 years he was ordained priest and was posted to St Lukes and after 3 years he was later posted to Labasa which is on located north of Suva. It was here in Labasa that my father taught me to set up an altar, soak the purificators, to make sure that the Sunday sheets and rosters are given to those rostered to read and lead worship. This is something he taught me so that I could help him as he had to preside and celebrate in St Andrews at 8.00am, St Thomas 10 am and then to Wailevu at 12pm and then other times at Church of the Holy Cross, Dreketi at 1pm. For a year this was the usual practice, little did I know that this responsibility and partnership with dad was for life and I had no idea during that time that this where it would end up. I had committed myself to working alongside dad and had become to accept that helping him is not only going to make the work light for him but it was my responsibility as the eldest of the family and the only girl.

Today is Te Pouhere Sunday. “pou” is a post and “here” means to tie. The imagery is that of an anchor. A place where we could anchor our “waka”, “waqa” or boat. This anchor helps us to develop 1. a partnership 2. a covenant between us and God to do Christ’s ministry in the world. So what is Te Pouhere? Te Pouhere is a Sunday put aside to celebrate the constitution (post) of the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia. The 1992 constitution of the Church is a provision for three equal partners. Today in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia we celebrate an identity of working alongside each other, praying with and for each other and listening to one another.

Who are the 3 equal partners?

The 3 equal partners are Tikanga Maori, Tikanga Pakeha and Tikanga Pasifika. Tikanga means ‘the right way of doing things in one’s own culture’. So Tikanga Pakeha have their own right way of getting things done, through the Pakeha culture and this is the same with Tikanga Maori and Pasifika.

The Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia is one church in which each Tikanga is an equal partner in the decision-making process of the General Synod and where each can exercise mission and ministry to God’s people within the culture of each partner. There are some things we do together like General Synod, and other committees which are done Across Tikanga like – Liturgical Commission, Toru Youth Commission, Women’s Studies, Archives Committee are just a few that I can name and some of which I have been part of as a representative of Tikanga Pasifika but then there are many things we do separately.

So Te Pouhere is about 1. partnership. What does the term partnership mean? Partnership is about mission, relationship, acceptance, involvement, commitment, trust, respect, identity, love, forgiveness, understanding, responsibilities, sharing.

What does partnership involve?

• Partnership involves people, individual persons, group of people,

• There must be acceptance before the relationship can develop. With acceptance comes trust. As Cathy Ross (missiologist) states; - “We trust each other with the “keys” if you like; we respect their cultural way of being and doing

• Learning to give up control and sharing the responsibility

• Readiness to accept responsibilities/ readiness to pay the price and serving the purpose

Partnership is about being engaged and having a relationship with each other. It is also knowing that sometimes there will be strengths and weaknesses revealed but it is within the most vulnerable times that partners need to have some form of acceptance, need to be involved, have some sense of responsibility, intentional listening and forgiveness.

The highlight of today’s gospel – John 15:16 “You did not choose me but I chose you…and then he emphasises this with ..I appointed you to go. It was not we who chose God but God who in his grace approached us with a call and an offer made out of his love. Out of this passage you and I can compile a list of things for which we are chosen and to which we are called;

• We are chosen for joy – however hard the Christian way is, there is always joy in doing the right thing. We are redeemed sinners and within us is joy. How can any of us fail to be happy when we walk the ways of Jesus?

• We are chosen for love – we are sent out to love one another. Sometimes we feel that we are sent out to compete with one another or to quarrel with one another. Sometimes we say to people that they should love one another when we ourselves do not demonstrate that. Jesus is saying this to us because he showed this to us by dying on the cross for us. Pauls 2nd letter to the Corinthians today speaks of “And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them.

• Jesus called us to be his friends. He tells his disciples “I do not call you servants or slaves any more; he calls them friends. This is a wonderful offer, where we are no longer a distant stranger but a close friend.

Te Pouhere is secondly about a covenant, a covenant is either a verb or a noun, it is what you define it to be. A verb meaning – contract, treaty, bond, an agreement, it is a noun meaning – pledge, promise, vow…these are words we use in this day and age but a covenant is more, for me it is sacred. Sacred in a sense that there is more to it than just a contract or any of the other words I have already used. Sacred because it is between you as an individual and God. The constitution between the 3 Tikanga partners is a covenant that they have pledged to each other and to God, this makes them equal partners. But sometimes human nature kicks in and there is a scent of dissatisfaction and disrespect, but with sacred partnership there is always forgiveness, acceptance and restoration.

Today’s gospel says;

• We are partners, slaves could never be partners. But as Jesus says “you are not my slaves; you are my partners. I have told you everything about what I am trying to do and why I am trying to do it, I have told you everything which God told me. In here Jesus is sharing his mind to us and has opened his heart to us. The choice is ours, can we accept or refuse our partnership with Christ in the work of mission, in the work of leading the world to God.

• Jesus chose us as ambassadors. “I have chosen you he said, ‘to send you out’. He did not choose us to live a life retired from the world but to be his eyes, his ears and his mouth in the world. Jesus chose us to come to him, to know him fully and then to the world to make him known. That must be the daily pattern and rhythm of our lives

Te Pouhere is about us, our identity as a 3 Tikanga Church. Our identity is about love, partnership and the covenant we have made between ourselves as the 3 Tikanga Church and our God. It also about a calling to a commitment about mission within our own Tikanga, our own whanau or family.

In reality our commitment to the partnership that we share as a 3 Tikanga Church was already there well before we became a 3 Tikanga Church. Historically, when God sent Bishop Selwyn into the Solomon Islands the mustard seed that grew there was scattered into Fiji through our Solomoni ancestors because when the Anglican Church started it not only began with the planters but it lived on in the lives of the Solomoni settlements. From the time the Diocese of Polynesia was established as a missionary Diocese to one that is now an equal partner. There have been bishops, priests and people who have served and have helped the Diocese of Polynesia to what it is now.

What does the readings and Te Pouhere Sunday mean for us today?

• That we are all called

• We are all equal even though distinctly different from the other

• We are called to be partners for the mission of God

• We are called to be ambassadors

• We are called to be friends

There are times we need to be responsible for the other, there are times when we need to just listen intently with an open heart and mind. Our mission is to live up to the calling that God has for us.