Te Pouhere Sunday
Mike Bowler
Isaiah 42:10-20, Acts 10:34-43, John 15:9-17
May my words and our thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord. Amen
Two weeks ago we celebrated Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, the birthday in effect of the Church, where the Holy spirit descended on the disciples like the blowing of a violent wind and with tongues of fire, and the disciples spoke in other languages.
Last week was Trinity Sunday, when we remembered the relationship between the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit. A difficult concept that Christians have struggled with for millennia. It is our only festival that celebrates a doctrine rather than a person or an event and was probably first celebrated in the 10th century. Trinity Sunday also represents the start of what is known as “Ordinary” time. This is the longest period of the church calendar and perhaps gives the connotation of being boring. Perhaps after the busy-ness of the Christmas and Easter periods, boring might be good! The word ordinary doesn’t actually refer to the plainness that it implies. The Sundays after Trinity are numbered and so are in order, hence the name. The liturgical colour of green also points to new life and growth, of Christian hope as we celebrate God with us during our every day lives.
When John Cathcart Wason founded Barrhill on the south bank of the Rakaia River in the 1870’s, he planted trees in the centre of the township which are now seen to be in the form of the interlocking circles representing the Trinity.
Today is also Te Pouhere Sunday and is the day on which this Church celebrates it's Constitution or Te Pouhere, which establishes the three Tikanga or cultural streams of this Church in this Province of Aotearoa New Zealand and Polynesia. The streams are Tikanga Maori, Tikanga Pakeha and Tikanga Pasifika. This relationship came into place in 1992. In te reo, Te Pouhere also means a hitching post for a waka. There is one post representing Christ with three waka tied up to it.
Our gospel for today is part of what is known as the Farewell Discourse, given by Jesus just after the end of the Last supper, the night before his crucifixion. This part is about love. We are promised divine love, the love of a Father for is Son. We are also reminded that it is not us who have chosen God, but God who has chosen us. But what have we been chosen for? We have been chosen for several amazing privileges. For Joy, For Love, To be His Fiend. The journey of a Christian may be hard. The verses in John immediately following the passage we have read today have Jesus telling us that the world may hate us, as it hated him first. However, we as Christians have the joy that even though we are sinners, we are redeemed sinners. Jesus tells us that we have His joy within us, and that our Joy may be complete.
We are commanded to Love one another, as Jesus loves us. This commandment is only the second to that which commands us to Love the Lord our God. Earlier in John, Jesus tells his disciples, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must Love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35). This Love will actually identify us as disciples of Christ. This command to love is also found in the other gospels. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:37-40).
This command to love is something Mankind finds so hard achieve! It is almost the opposite that occurs in our world. The conflict in the Ukraine and Sudan, developing nuclear weapons and long range missiles, dictator-ships and authoritarian regimes, genocide and racism, fraud and ram raiding, child poverty and abuse, family and relationship conflicts. These sadly all have their root cause in our lack of love for ourselves and our neighbour. There are a lot of neighbours. The world population currently is over 8 billion and growing, and each of us totally unique, both physically and genetically.
Even identical twins are not the same, I can assure you.
It is incredible that God made each and every one of us out there, in his likeness, and not one of us is the same. This is not the result of sloppy workmanship with little regard to close tolerances, but a divine plan. We each have been given a unique task on this earth. The population in this world of course makes some extreme competition for resources, land and food. If we took to heart Jesus’s command, we would see everyone else as our family, friend and neighbour. We would love them as we know Jesus loves us.
Jesus words on loving were going to be put in action as very shortly after talking to his disciples, he was to die on the cross. There is no greater sign of love than laying down ones life for others.
“I no longer call you servants, ….instead I have called you friends…” (John 15:15). Being a slave or servant of God was no title of shame. Moses, Joshua and David were all servants of God. Paul and James also counted it an honour to be a servant of God. Jesus was now offering a change to that status, of being a friend, one who would be able to share what Jesus had learned from His father. Abraham was mentioned by Isaiah as being a friend of God. (Isaiah 41:8).
Apparently in the courts of a Roman Emperor or Eastern King of the period, there would be Friends of an Emperor who would have priority access rights to that leader above that of the Generals or other states people.
Jesus had now called His disciples and us, to be his Friend. We are no longer a servant who has little right of access to our God. We are no longer standing and waving in the crowd as a monarch passes by in a stately coach, with guardsmen separating us from them.
This intimacy with God that we have been gifted comes with an appointment that we have been chosen to go (forth) and bear fruit, fruit that will last. (John 15:16). We are now partners with Jesus in the tasks that need to be done. We are his ambassadors. We are not chosen to just lead a Christian life just within our own circles, but to be able spread Christianity by being a Christian, by bearing fruit. These fruits are the fruits of the Spirit, Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control. (Galatians 5:22). We are also to bear the fruit of Christian lives and conduct. In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he says “so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.” (Colossians 1:10). We also need to be able to let people see Christ in us, so that they may also know Him.
As the Christian missionaries to New Zealand in the early 19th century came to spread the Gospel, the Church plantings, the building of churches, many in Christchurch and Canterbury of which St Johns in Barrhill is one, built in about 1877, they were full filling the terms of the Great Commission “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28: 18-20)
The celebration of our one church, with three cultural Waka. Indeed the celebration our cultural diversity in our communities, and the Christian command to Love our neighbours as ourselves. Let us show that love, that identifies us as disciples of Jesus.
The Holy Spirit came upon the Disciples. Not only to them but to us also. We received the Holy Spirit in our hearts. Let us use the gifts and fruits of the Holy spirit, let us be empowered by the Holy Spirit, as we go out into the world and be God’s hand and feet here on earth. Let the rest of the period of Ordinary time be Extra Ordinary!
The final part of the Great Commission: “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 20)
Amen