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Being a people of the land

 Hirini Kaa explores a tikanga maori approach to the land 
Rev Dr Hirini Kaa

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Being a people of the land

Transcript
Tonight Mejia. Papatuanuku tackle tonight. I'm a huge geek ETA for a top-20 matchup here tonight. Calculator, got oh, yeah cute angle Theta. R Tena koutou Tena. Koutou Tena koutou katoa. I could he couldn't meet America. Cooperative working at 30. We coordinate our hi. Good morning. It's my pleasure and my honor to be here this morning to share. Some thoughts on our readings this morning. I'd like to thank you Helen for the invitation. So I'm from now to Pro our tribe. We're famous for a couple of things. One for our humility, the other four are loquacious. And Helen said, can you keep it to about 10 minutes? Because she knows, my guys 40 mouth can often go for quite a long time. So I'll try and keep it brief and I look forward to sharing a little bit after the service this morning as But I'd like to start with a, I got to put our story starting, I spray, we come from the east cape of the North Island. If you look for that on a map, you'd find a map of the universe and find the center of their universe. And then you'd find out to put oh dear. And otherwise if we don't know where it is apart from feeling, sorry for you, you always have the opportunity to go there sometime in your life and I reckon, I highly recommend it. Our land is dominated by our sacred Mountain Houdini and our River, the wire Pro, which flows from their mountain. And we are the people of an RC Pro who live with that mountain in that River at the mouth of the river. It is a complicated, a little ecosystem and one thing we have there, we catch fish called, kaha way. Kawaii are a slightly mysterious fish and Western science. Little is known about them about their breeding habits about where they come from and particular. But now, they're being caught in large numbers is a lot of Fisheries around New Zealand. In the middle of the Year, our star sign appears, we can see it from this land called methodically and my authority has several names around the Pacific Rim. The Greek name is the Pleiades in Japan, I believe that's called Subaru. It has different names around the Pacific Rim. When the matara Q star sign appears and the middle of the year it strikes, a particular rock at the mouth of our River. That means for us at the Kahala wire starting to migrate in our tradition, they coming from the Pacific. It's also a time we take the kumara, the sweet potato. We take the seedlings and we plant them. So it's one way of us, reading our connection with nature. Our food supply, the Fisher coming the kumara. Our staple food is ready for planting. And then about September, the Kauai arrived at the mouth of the river. And we start catching these fish. Now these fish are, we got particular ways of catching these fish that we've used for Generation after generation, but basically it's used human bait. So you get the young foolish one. And this case was my brother, I'm for example, you normally pick the city kid who can't say no, and you tie them to a rope and you basically throw them in the water and let them drown in a. You're old-fashioned at the river mouth at the beach. These no continental shelf. So you just get stuck straight out to sea and if you didn't have that rope, you'd be in an awful. Lot of trouble. You'd end up in South America somewhere at some stage and you have this big net and you catch The Coho and you drag that person back in as a human boy and you bring that car Hawaii catch into Shore. If it's the first catch of coal way for the season, you take the first K whole way and you take it and you split it open and you pour its Blood on the person who caught the fish. And on the other fishermen, it's a man's task. Only men, take part in this fishing normally without clothes on, which adds to the fun. If you're a city boy having to do this for the first time. But we take that fish, we spread as but on the fisherman and then we get a pole, a stick and we put it by the river mouth and we take that first car Hawaii. And we tie it to that pole, as an offering to tongue Ottawa, the god of the sea and that is our offering of the first fruits of the season. And that has our offering of Thanksgiving for the gift of tongues a row and of creation. Why do we make this offering? Because hunger will help to guide us here to this land. About 5,000 years ago, our ancestors left, southeast Asia. You can go to parts of Southeast Asia, you can go to Eastern Taiwan. You can go to Malaya, you can go to parts of Indonesia, the Philippines and the indigenous peoples. Their their language, their Customs are very eerily similar to ours here because that's where we came from and we set off from those lands and we set off across the Pacific on a 5,000-year. Me, we went through all the Pacific through Micronesia, through Polynesia, our journeying stories are shared through our Waka and some more and Survey the walkie-talkies summer, stop there and for repairs and carried on without a row. And I'm a descendant of that worker all our worker came through that long, long journey. We went in search of a new hawaiki a new Homeland and along the way tongue Ottawa Bangalore has many names but of course the say was an integral part of that Journey you don't assert on a small island in the middle of the Pacific and think I'm going to hop on a small Walker now and I'm going to set off and I'm pretty confident that in that direction, there's another very small piece of land, you don't do that without. Sense of confidence. And if you do, do you won't live very long, you said off, you follow the signs, the signs and wonders that have been presented to you. You converse with the sea life, with the whales, with the dolphins, with the birds, you read the currents, you particularly read the Stars, the moon, the Sun, and you're good, and you hit off with a sense of confidence, if any of you have flown to the United States before and said, On the lovely, in New Zealand flight and looked at the little map thing as you fly across the Pacific. You know what I'm talking about the distance between islands is a mince. I wouldn't fancy at myself, on a little wooden Walker, but my ancestors had the confidence to do that, and not just the confidence, the faith to do that. They understood that, they were being guided, that they had a particular purpose that they were setting out with the protection of Big odds and of creation until they got here dull Theodore. Now, you see what I did there. I made that entire Journey about us being marketed. So I often say to my son, one friend, shall we stopped in some War but we were still looking for the better place. And of course, from my perspective, the best bass, the Pinnacle of that 5,000 year Journey was an artsy photo, which we eventually arrived at the Pinnacle of language of culture of of humility. Also in a trump s kind of way. So, we read those signs and wonders, and God blessed us, and God protected us and God's many manifestations of creation. Guided us here to this land and we kept those stories. And so when we go fishing, when we offer our first fruits that come out or we were remembering their Journey, we remembering the journey that our ancestors undertook to get us here and the many blessings that creation gave us as we travel. In Deuteronomy. They are remembering their stories. There are men, bring the journey that they took. The very, very long journey that they undertook to find that land that land of milk flowing, with milk and honey, the signs and wonders, that God gave them on their Journey. And as we enter into lent, of course, we have the classic Lenten reading of Jesus being tempted by the devil. Jesus being offered all sorts of treasures. All sorts of, Jesus wasn't just being offered treasures and wealth and power. Jesus was being offered a new way to think about himself. Jesus has been offered new stories. You can be powerful. You can overturn, the ways. Your ancestors thought. Don't worry about it. You can have a new way of doing things. And Jesus responds as constant to return to the stories of his ancestors to say, that is not our way. We will remain truthful to our way, to our stories, to our way of being. Yes, we could do these other ways but we choose not to because God gave us these ways. We will retain them. He was having his identity. Challenged is one way of thinking about it. If you are the Son of God do this, well, Jesus knew who he was and remained firm in that sense of identity. For us here in aotearoa and 2019. It's a constant challenge. For us to remain firm to who, we might think we are particularly here in El tiro and now Colonial context. I was going to do a little Riff on what, Egypt might be and who fear it might be. I'll leave that up to you to think about and our context here today. But we are faced with particular challenges as Marty. Yes, we have these stories. We have these Journeys. We have these gifts that we were given. We have the first fruits. But we run a huge fishing industry as Martin. It was part of our treaty settlement. It was an attempt to seek Justice in this land. It was prophetic and a lot of ways except our fishing industry practices often, very problematic. Our we fishing practices can be very difficult. We were using slave, Indonesia and slave labor as much as any other company from time to time. We had lost sight somewhere along the way of these stories of these offerings of firstfruits of these gifts that creation and given us. And instead we were just exploiting. It is just another resource because KPMG told us, we needed to maximize our to the devil is constantly tempting us to turn away from our stories. And yet, we're here in this land together with the Levites and the aliens. So interesting in the pipe. In the, my division of the Bible, they use the word Marnie, me for aliens, which can be Outsiders can be people who are lost or dispossessed can also be pilgrims, but here is Marty and I'll to do. We share this land with many others and in Deuteronomy, it says, we share this land. We share the story of this land together and there, I think as the blessing for us the opportunity that Kauai story is very precious to me as That's Pro those stories are very common across us as Marty and their stories, we hold close to our hearts and I think we have an opportunity to share them together to think about what creation means in the context of this Lent together with the Levites, the aliens, the money made the pilgrims and to think about our future in this land and how we want to share those stories and how we want to live out those stories because we're always going to be tempted by news stories. Particularly at the moment by stories of power and profit and control and domination. It's particularly challenging with an issue and existential challenge, like climate change, how we might deal with those. And I think the opportunity for us to share stories, which is a great opportunity that we presented with today, for example, to think about how we bring these stories together, how does the story of Deuteronomy? I'm not sure how challenge you were by the idea that we have this God called tongue out, or God is a very imperfect word in this sense. It's a very Greek word in the scenes that doesn't do Justice at all to the idea of thing at all. And I'm fully able to be Christian and understand tongue. Aurora's part of my life. I have no problem and I'm not being sync. Ristic either. But we offer you, those stories to think about, in the season of Lent, as we think about creation, as we think about these challenges in our lives, and we think about where we go from here together, I will leave you with those words, it in the thing, looked out to him, much work on my way to the top.