A Fake Gospel: When the Truth becomes the truth

 

Acts 14:8-19 MSG

Gods or Men?

There was a man in Lystra who couldn't walk. He sat there, crippled since the day of his birth. He heard Paul talking, and Paul, looking him in the eye, saw that he was ripe for God's work, ready to believe. So he said, loud enough for everyone to hear, "Up on your feet!" The man was up in a flash - jumped up and walked around as if he'd been walking all his life.

When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they went wild, calling out in their Lyconian dialect, "The gods have come down! These men are gods!" They called Barnabas "Zeus" and Paul "Hermes" (since Paul did most of the speaking). The priest of the local Zeus shrine got up a parade-bulls and banners and people lined right up to the gates, ready for the ritual of sacrifice.

When Barnabas and Paul finally realized what was going on, they stopped them. Waving their arms, they interrupted the parade, calling out, "What do you think you're doing! We're not gods! We are men just like you, and we're here to bring you the Message, to persuade you to abandon these silly god-superstitions and embrace God himself, the living God. We don't make God; he makes us, and all of this-sky, earth, sea, and everything in them.

"In the generations before us, God let all the different nations go their own way. But even then he didn't leave them without a clue, for he made a good creation, poured down rain and gave bumper crops. When your bellies were full and your hearts happy, there was evidence of good beyond your doing." Talking fast and hard like this, they prevented them from carrying out the sacrifice that would have honored them as gods-but just barely.

Then some Jews from Antioch and Iconium caught up with them and turned the fickle crowd against them. They beat Paul unconscious, dragged him outside the town and left him for dead. But as the disciples gathered around him, he came to and got up. He went back into town and the next day left with Barnabas for Derbe.

What if we are the Lyconians? What if we have started to misinterpret the gospel by adding our own manmade interpretations?

The Bible is filled with stories about them. Them, the people who are not us; them the people who are so much foolish than us; them, the stiff-necked Jews; them, the hypocritical Pharisees; them, the foolish disciples; them, the Lyconians who mistook the gospel Truth with a capital T with the manmade truth of the Greek Parthenon with a very small t.

What if we are the Lyconians?  

If we, us, you, I lived back then we would be so much better. We, us, you and I would see the redemption of Yahweh in the desert; we, us, you and I would never build a golden calf because of our doubt; we, us, you and I would understand the message of grace and not be bound in the laws like the Pharisees were; we, us, you and I would see Jesus in the flesh, in the miracles and on the cross, not like the disciples failed to do at times; we, us, you and I would hear the Truth of the gospel with a capital T rather than appropriate it into our own understanding and realities with a small t; we, you and I would never celebrate a miracle of the Spirit with a parade to Zeus which included calves and bulls.

What if we are the Lyconians?

Ok, I know that we are a holy people; we are so that holy most of us would already admit that we are humble enough to always acknowledge that there are times that we are stiff-necked, hypocritical, foolish and misled.

And that’s okay. But I want to suggest that there are times that we impose our own truth with a small t on the gospel Truth with a capital T without realising it. We are prone to shape the image we have of our God with the world that we live in. And, when we do this, we then have to be careful that we do not taint the gospel that we share with our own ideas and desires.

Here in Acts 14 we have a very simple story. Paul and Barnabas rock up to Lystra. Seeing a person in need, they proclaim the good news, the man receives healing and the people are amazed. They, seeing the miracle healing, are quick to frame it with their own worldview. They live in a Greek world which spirituality is dominated by the Greek Parthenon of gods. The healing, therefore, could only come from the gods and Paul being the spokesperson must be Hermes, the herald and messenger of Mount Olympus while Barnabas was the ultimate god – the mighty Zeus – the sky and thunder god and the king of Olympus.

Paul’s response is brilliant: "What do you think you're doing! We're not gods! We are men just like you, and we're here to bring you the Message, to persuade you to abandon these silly god-superstitions and embrace God himself, the living God. We don't make God; he makes us, and all of this-sky, earth, sea, and everything in them.”

I don’t know about you – but I love this particular phrasing of what Paul is saying here from the Message:

“We don’t make God; he makes us.”

“We don’t make God; he makes us.”

“We don’t make God; he makes us.”

I personally think that this phrase means the same now as it did then. The Parthenon of Greek gods was not a God-made reality. As Paul says: for many years, God let the nations go their own way.

In going their own way, different nations had to make meaning of the world. People had to make meaning of the supernatural and of the ultimate question – what is the meaning of life.

In Greece, the meaning of life was found in conflict, power and downright drama. I have said it before – Greece was the Game of Thrones in a different time and era. In Greece, the Parthenon of gods provided some answer to this world. But this whole concept of spirituality of gods who acted as mortals – who fought amongst themselves, procreated and created a soap opera of stories – were nothing but a creation of man. They were a manmade story.

So what does this story teach us – what does it tell us today?

“We don’t make God; he makes us.”

Surely, we all here believe it the same gospel story?

“We don’t make God; he makes us.”

Surely, we have never been like the Lyconians and have added our own perspective to the gospel story?

“We don’t make God; he makes us.”

What if we are the Lyconians?

Years ago, Eric and I visited my father when he was teaching in China. He had been there over a decade and was in some of the most isolated regions.

Before we left New Zealand, he had given us a wish list for all the things he wanted us to bring – baby formula, blue cheese, Glenfiddich whiskey, and … wait for it … a Bible in English. Now, my father is a staunch atheist, so something was up with the request for a Bible. So, I asked – Dad – why a Bible? And Dad, have you heard of Brother Andrew – we are playing with fire here? Dad’s response was simple. No, he hadn’t heard of Brother Andrew and Christianity is allowed in China – public confession of it is not. Book shops have Bibles in China, but they are in Mandarin, not English. The Bible was for a friend, who was learning English and wanted to do so with the written scriptures.

I can tell you, while Dad hadn’t heard of Brother Andrew and why for Eric ‘the name rings a bell but I don’t know why.’ For me, taking, well smuggling, a Bible into China, was terrifying. I was shaking at Shanghai Airport fearful that this would be the first and last mission trip for me behind the Bamboo curtain. It was to my surprise, that there were no border checks. But Eric and I being honest kiwis, found a border worker and asked how to declare our goods. His response was – ‘what do you have to declare.’ I stammered – a bbibblllee, baby formula, blue cheese and whiskey. His response was ‘the cheese isn’t allowed.’ He smiled at his partner as we partered with our Kapiti Coast blue vein cheese.

My father’s response was something different. As far as he was concerned, and the Chinese travel website, cheese was allowed; the guard was just after some dairy goodness from the land downunder.

Once we were in China, and in the deep parts of China, Eric and I got to see a side of China not seen by many westerners – by the end of which, Eric was, to quote Ming Fung, our Chinese mum ‘tired of photo.’ Our very first evening in China was one of a banquet meal. During the meal, we were asked out right by the host – ‘Are you a Jesus follower?’

By this point, my stomach was churning, if I said yes would I be executed on the spot? Well, I fought back the fear and said ‘yes’. At this point, the host introduced us to Jacquie (her English name), one of his staff who was a Jesus follower as well. It was Jacquie who we bought the Bible for.

Jacquie was our tour guide in the city of Jingjong. She took us to all the historical points of interest and showed us how ‘spiritual’ the Chinese people were. She taught us how Mao set himself up as a god, with his little red book, a book that looks like the Gideon bible. She shared with us how many people in China now are coming back to faith – whether it be Buddhism , Taoism, Confucius, or Christianity.  Her own story was of turning to Buddhism and becoming lost before she found a deeper Christianity.

We asked her why this spiritual turn was occurring in China and she replied that while it looked super spiritual on the outside, even the turn to Christianity was fake and that this was her own story until recently.

Jacquie shared with us how years of poverty and exploitation of the people by the government, saw many Chinese look to the west and particularly America. For them, the answer out of poverty was not a faith but rather money. The meaning of life in China, was found in money. For Jacquie the public display of any faith or religion in China was a testimony to the promise of wealth. If you followed this spiritual way, you would become financially rich. So, the gospel, the good news, was to follow Christ is to find, the true meaning of life, financial wealth.

For Jacquie, a committed Christian who went to ‘church’ (well to the homes of other Christians), to read scriptures and learn about God, the gospel of Christianity had been tainted with this false gospel. For Jacquie, the gospel she believed in was one of a restored relationship with a Creator God, a son who came and turned the world upside down and demonstrated that those that follow him should be prepared to live upside down lives – to love ones enemies, put your neighbour first and despise injustice. To know that God loves both the rich and the poor, and his son dwelled with the poor, not to promise wealth but to affirm that at the father’s table was a seat for them.

So, China, had imposed its own meaning of life on the gospel. A meaning that came out of the brokenness of Communism and exploitation. A meaning that came from looking at what appeared to make the world go around in countries like America.

What if we are the Lyconians?

Later we would go to Inner Mongolia. By this stage, Eric and I were used to being asked the ‘Are you a Jesus follower’ question. We were also use to the conversation that followed – it would either be one about our own personal wealth or one about our relationship with God. In Inner Mongolia we met a number of Americans who had come to China to teach, well that was what was on their Visa. But they had not just come to teach, they were missionaries, and their gospel was one about the wealth that can be found when you become a Jesus follower. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a wealth in spirit but financial wealth. It appeared to me there, that just as the Lyconians mistook the gospel for the gods of their time, even Christians today, mistake the promise of the gospel with the financial gods of our world. This made me deeply reflect on where the gospel, the good news, of financial wealth was coming from; a reflection reinforced by the Chinese Christians I met who were so upset at this tainted gospel story. Are there moments that we are the Lyconians, moments where we turn the capital T of Truth into a small t?

And I think there are. I think there are times that we try to fit God into boxes of manmade truths in order to make sense of the radical things he does in our lives. And when we do this, I think the result of this is very simple – we limit God, we limit others and we impose our own expectations of God on him. We attempt to make God in our image. This is what happened here in Acts 14, and it is what Jacquie observed in her own communities in China. It is something that happens everywhere.

You know, over the last couple of years, there has been one consistent message from our pastors. Each of us has our own truths and interpretations of the world. And because of this, we need to show each other grace. Now me, being a scholar from the postmodern tradition just responds to this message – I told you so. You see, postmodernism argues that there is no one truth, instead there are many truths – each of which is manmade.

What if we are the Lyconians?

“We don’t make God; he makes us.”

This argument of many manmade truths is actually really helpful – why? Well it can help us understand why truths at times harm others, and why truths at times get disproved.  And often we find ourselves getting into debates with each other about these truths – whether it be God loves a certain political party, God has a position on the Covid-19, God hates a particular group of people, when we attempt to push our opinion into the God-made gospel truth of love, justice, sacrifice and compassion, we limit God, we limit the gospel, and we bring division into our community.

But as a Christian postmodern scholar, I would also argue that “We don’t make God; he makes us.” While there is no manmade truth that makes God. The Truth of God – the Truth with a capital T stands outside of manmade truths. And our quest to know God will only bring us closer to the Truth and each other – it will not divide.

Now hear me here. Remember – I have asked if there are times that we add our own interpretation to the gospel story and I have said that I believe that we too can be like the Lyconians. I think we find it in the ways that we frame the purpose and intention of our holy scriptures in which the Gospel story arises. Each of these ways forces God’s Truth in our own manmade truths.

·         Reading the Bible as an instruction manual

·         Reading the Bible as a self-help text

·         Reading the Bible as a science text

Believe it or not, the Bible is not an instruction manual. It is not a formula to how to live a good life, if it was it would stop after the books of Moses. It is call to relationship and a revelation of God. The Bible is not a self-help text. It is not written as a book with a verse for every occasion. While verses can be added to every occasion, the Bible was written to, and for, a community of people. The Bible is not a science text. It does not give a physical and material explanation of the world that we live in. It does not apply the scientific method to understanding the world. Forcing God’s stories into our ideas of truth is just so wrong.

The reality is, both psychology and science are manmade knowledge systems which we have made over time, disproved, proved and built upon to understand our world. And quite often, just like the Lyconians, we want to interpret what God is doing through a knowledge we make like psychology and a science; when we don’t realise that our many knowledge systems, including science, is a manmade attempt at answering the big questions like – why are we here? And what is the meaning of life?

As Christians, we often try to fit God into our knowledge, we try to justify the Bible through science, we try to present the Bible as a solution to a person’s individual problems, and present the Bible as a way to live the good life – when the Bible is so so much bigger and should not be forced into our boxes.

When we try to fit God into our world, we limit him and we limit the purpose of his story. You see the gospel story – the Good News shared by the early church was deeply radical. It wasn’t an instruction manual, a self-help text, or science text. It was a simple message.

For God loved the world [Jew, Samaritan, Greek, Gentile, you and I] so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to be its judge, but to be its savior.

John 3:16-17 GNT

The challenge for us Church is to realise “We don’t make God; he makes us, and all of this-sky, earth, sea, and everything in them.” For us it is vitally important in our lives, and in our witness, that we do not reduce a gospel framed around restoration, relationship, justice, equity and an upside down concept of living into the ‘right way’ round world of brokenness, injustice and inequity. God is much bigger than you think church. He is not restricted to the truths of science, prosperity and our many manmade knowledge systems. He is the creator, he is our father and the good new is – he is here to restore, he is here to counsel and he is here to enable the extraordinary to occur in our every day ordinary

What if we are the Lyconians?

“We don’t make God; he makes us.”

We don't make God; he makes us, and all of this-sky, earth, sea, and everything in them.

No rei ra.

Let’s not limit God, force the gospel into our own truths and desires. Let us be free to be limitless in God’s Truth so that he can through us reveal his love, his justice, his grace and his mercy.

Perseverance Road - A West Coaster's reflection on the concept of disruption

 

You will find Perseverance Road in the rohe of Te Tai Poutini. The road has little meaning for most visitors, but it means a lot to Coasters. It is a road into hope, disruption and lost hope. It symbolises that ‘start again’ ‘she’ll be right’ attitude of the West Coast. It once led to a cluster of stamping batteries, which would crush the rocks coming down the awa of Inangahua in the search for gold. But Inangahua doesn’t carry yellow gold. It weaves its way through mountains which share in both te Ao Māori and te Ao Pākehā a story of mass disruption. Nga pae Paparoa once sat in Fiordland but journeyed north to its resting place of Kawatiri turning upside down on the way and exposing to the world the black gold of coal that was once buried deep within. It is this black gold that nga awa of Kawatiri are known for. This talk is a sharing of disruptions, from the perspective of a person from Kawatiri. It is a reflection of what matters most in times of disruption. Kawatiri, or Buller, is a landscape rich in disruption – from upside down maunga to last year’s floods, Pike River, Cave Creek, and the journeys of Little Biddy, Brunner and Kehu. It is through these stories that we learn the importance of keeping the flax seed protected, of understanding relationship matters and the importance of perseverance.

 

Tēnā koutou katoa

Ko Fiona tōku ingoa

He kawhakahaere mo te ako, me te auaha, me te rangahau mo te Kura Matatini o Whitireia me Te Whare Wāngana o te Awakairangi

He mihi nui ki a koutou te iti me te rahi

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou tēnā tatau katoa

When you think about research what is it? Is it a bunch of white men in white lab coats lifting up test tubes to the light. Is it Indiana Jones, or Laura Croft, exploring exotic cultures and dehumanising the indigenous voice? Is it a bunch of nerds behind a computer playing with data? Is it the lonely philosopher sitting beside a fire, hair greying as they seek to explore the meaning of life?

You will note that the bulk of my questions will create a very western picture in your minds of research. And this is intentional. For too long we have framed research with a western lens. And within that lens a scientific understanding of truth. And as such, we have both limited research and limited the types of people that can engage with research. I want to disrupt this notion. 

You see, I want to argue that the essence of all research is storytelling. And not just any storytelling. It is the telling of truth stories. And an essential problem with the tradition of research and storytelling is that these stories include and exclude. I also want to argue that in the pursuit of a good story, that Te Pukenga sits in a very unique space and time in history. We sit on the edge of disruption. And it is at this edge that a disruption to truth and story telling can occur.

So, let’s start with a story.

Ko wai au?

Tēnā Koutou Katoa        
Nō Ingarangi tōku tūpuna mātua            
Kei Isle of Wright te Turangawaewae     
Ko Inchinnan, ko Mandarin, ko Oriental ōku waka

 

Ko Paparoa nga pae maunga te rū nei o taku ngākau      
Ko Kawatiri te awa e mahea nei aku māharahara                           
Ko Te Tai-o-Rehua te moana e whakamarie toku wairua
Nō Kawatiri ahau, terā tōku turangawaewae hou            
Ko Ngāti Apa ke te Waipounamu te iwi taketake (or mana whenua)

Ko Fiona tōku ingoa

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou tēnā tatau katoa

My home has imprinted itself on my identity. For most New Zealanders, I come from the West Coast of the South Island. But on the Coast, I come from the mighty Buller. The home of Ngāti Apa ke te Waipounamu, gold seekers, coal miners, fishermen, hunters and people hardened by the elements. I grew up in a State House in the 1980s. And while I could share with you all a story about the 1980s, I will limit my story to just this. The conditions at home were not the best and I spent the bulk of my childhood hiding from the elements under the Buller Bridge. One of the only dry places in Westport on a cold and wet winter day.

The closest town to Westport was a smaller town called Reefton. On the odd occasion, we would journey to Reefton and each time a certain road sign would fascinate me. It pointed from the main road into nga pae Paparoa. Its name – Perseverance Road. As a kid I would imagine a raft of stories for the reasoning of the naming of the road. And most would resolve around a history of gold and coal. The road, itself, was named for a number of gold claims up into the ranges. None of the claims resulted in much gold – hence the name – perseverance. And the reality for some, no matter how hard you work, even with perseverance, you might not get your reward.

As soon as I could, I ran away from the Buller. Most school leavers from Westport end up in Christchurch, but I wanted nothing to do with my home town and ran up to Wellington. My aim was to go to Teachers’ College and change the lives of many children by teaching them what was not taught to me – how to sock it to the system.

It didn’t take me long to learn that schools were actually part of the problem. It also didn’t take me long to learn that there were many research stories – things called theories – and that these stories didn’t always have a place for me in them. One such story came from a theorist called Abraham Maslow. Maslow had devised a triangle to picture a what he called a hierarchy of needs.

At the base of the triangle was basic physiological needs – food, shelter and sex. Maslow argued that once these needs were fully met then safety and security needs could be met. Once this group of needs were met, then an individual could focus on belongingness and love. The tip of the pyramid was the need for self-actualisation.

Maslow’s theory just didn’t seem to make meaning of my life and his theory, therefore, might not have felt right for others in my class. But it was presented as Truth and as Truth we had to accept it and then apply it in our assignments and teacher practicums – if little Freda played up in class, it was because her basic needs weren’t being met. For myself, I spent much of my childhood not knowing if I was going to be sleeping in the house or under the bridge – but I felt that I had achieved other levels of the hierarchy. It just didn’t ‘feel’ right – oh yeah ‘right, feelings don’t matter in the science, and story, of one Truth.’

Later I would go onto complete a PhD with a poststructural application of theory to conceptions of youth crime. Without going too far here, in short, poststructural research looks at the history of language, words, meanings, theories and truths. It explores the whakapapa of concepts to unveil the effects of words, theories and truths today. What I learnt was the theories that underpin our understanding of youth crime have a whakapapa that draws upon racist knowledge. It shook me in a good way, I would never again accept the theories I had been taught as a teacher as Truth. I would see them for what they were – stories often created by bearded white men in Europe and America.

And while I could do the same to Maslow’s theory right here and now. I am not. Instead I am going to take an autobiograhical approach to disrupt his theory – I am going to tell a series of stories to suggest that his theory may not stand up as soundly as it appears to in a textbook of teaching and learning.

This story starts in my childhood and with my Grandfather. While, I may have had a hard childhood, I did have a grandfather who deeply cared and loved me. His approach to being a grandfather was storytelling. He would always mix fiction in with truth and our role would be to find the truth – if there was any. He had dated Cleopatra – who was a little strange as she insisted on milk baths. He had courted Florence Nightingale as well – but decided not to take the relationship any further as she was a bit obsessed with cleaning.

The one person that he didn’t date but he admired was Little Biddy. Little Biddy was just as her name suggests – little with the proper name of Bridget. She had come to the Buller in the late 1800s from Nelson. She lived a man’s life. She searched for gold in Lyell and then made her way to Reefton. She lived rough, not really having the shelter that Maslow insisted needed to be present. She also probably drunk more gin than ate food. But the people of the Buller loved her.

She died a pauper and the community of Inangahua rallied together to insist that she have a grave with a stone that meant that generations would remember this hardy woman who fought the elements, and the men, to make a life for herself. Little Biddy now has a gin named after her and her grave is kept clean by the people of the Inangahua district. Looking at Little Biddy’s life through Maslow, she didn’t even have her physiological needs meet. She had the perseverance of the road in which she would have wandered down once or twice, she had demonstrated long-term survival and found a place to belong in Inangahua. But Maslow doesn’t have a place for her in his pyramid. We can never say she realized her potential – but who are we and who is Maslow to say her life was a failure.  Little Biddy demonstrated how a community can come together in the disruption of the gold fields to remember and acknowledge someone special – someone who persevered and someone who had a place in a community of nobodies. I know to this day that Grandad shared this story as a point of encouragement so that I wouldn’t give up in a world that might seem against me at times.

Later I would find myself working at Granity School just north of Westport. Well not really working, as I was on Taskforce Green. Taskforce Green was a scheme in the 1990s by the government to get people at risk of long-term unemployment into work. So, I was at Granity School answering the phone and the 3pm news came on the radio. It was April 28 in 1995. A platform had collapsed in nga pae Paparoa at Cave Creek. There were causalities and the emergency services were struggling to get to the site. We had no rescue helicopters on the Coast. It would take two hours for the first emergency responder to get to the site.

Names would be released later that day, what was known then was that the affected groups were from Tai Poutini Polytechnic. The town of Westport knew at this point and time that we would be affected.  At that single point of disruption, we all knew that we were connected, affected and involved. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs fell out the door. Our disruption shook us to our core – our core cried for connection, a need not found on his hierarchy.

The bush telegraph, or gossip line, was going quickly. Our first call out wasn’t for the physiological needs but the call to connect to know what had happened, to grieve and find answers. Soon after Task Force Green stopped as a scheme. No one ever said why, but we knew in Westport that the platform had been built through this scheme with no expertise and no understanding of cliff dynamics. Cave Creek sits heavy on the shoulders of the community in Westport even today.

And I want to emphasize this. The story Maslow created was not a story for understanding our response to the needs that arose from the horrors of Cave Creek. This would be reverberated even further as my own story developed another chapter.

It was soon after Cave Creek that I moved to Wellington. And a few years later, another event and another disruption. Soon after miners were rescued from a gold mine in Chile, we had our own massive mine disaster. The disruption of the event brought it home. My hubby and I were eating out with a friend on Friday November 19, 2010.  I got a text message from the NZ Police – there had been an explosion at Pike River. Our friend not being from the Coast was – oh it will be okay. But my husband and I knew that it wasn’t okay. We had many family and friends connected to the mining communities of the Buller. We knew that Pike River came with danger pay for a reason. Some of our family had started to work there because it gave the highest wages on the Coast. This was the danger pay of Pike River.

We finished the meal quickly and as we were driving home, we madly texted and rung all of our family connected to Pike. No one was answering. Saturday came, names were not released. No one was answering our calls. We were becoming worried. Sunday came and some names were released. The phone was answered, our family had been staying with those families whose men did not come home. Their instant reaction did not align with Maslow; their instant reaction was to provide connection, comfort and spiritual safety. While we did not lose immediate family that day, we did lose family.

We also saw the need for connection was much deeper than story-tellers like Maslow could see. We went back home to the Coast for Christmas and joined our community in the Christmas Parade. That year, 2010, it was not a parade of celebration. Instead, we all wore ribbons of yellow and yellow ribbons covered lamp-posts, doors and windows. We wore a colour of hope for our men to come home. They never would and  never will. Nga pae Paparoa have claimed them home, but in that moment of the Christmas parade we learnt in moments of disruption, connection is so much more real.

But this takes me to my final story, a story that suggests that Maslow missed something further with his story of human need and the lack of connection present. July 19 2021, I was at work when I got the message that Westport, Kawatiri, the town and river I was most connected to was in a red alert. I said to my team as I left the office Te Awa Kawatiri can take a good flood. A quick look on Wikipedia will tell you that the river claims the highest flood flow in Aotearoa. But my grandad’s words were echoing in my head as I said to my team – it is not the Te Awa Kawatiri we have to worry about, it is Te Awa Orowaiti, the Orowaiti River. If that river breaks its banks the town would be in trouble. This is a message that my grandfather gave me all my childhood. The Orowaiti serves as an overflow for the Buller river, and it had not been looked after all cared for by the community. Grandad was aware that awa are living and if they are not cared for they will speak.

And my grandfather was right. There was some flooding on the Friday night. I rung my mother that Saturday, mum lived in the middle of town. She was fine. The rain was heavy, but flooding in Westport does not come from the rain on the town but on the rainfall in the St Arnaud Range and the flow coming into the river from Lake Rotoiti. By lunchtime Saturday, the lake was in full flood.

Then the news hit, the Orowaiti was rising. By 1pm the Orowaiti, a small estuary river was swallowing up Westport from behind. By 3pm mum’s little rented flat was completely flooded. We stayed connected all through this time. And Maslow was right, mum need flood and shelter – but again he missed that important aspect of connection.

In the following weeks I returned home. Westport, even now, is not the same. The beauty of the town is still there but for many living there, and for myself, the connection to the land between the two rivers is broken. Every time it rains, fear enters the air. My mum’s little flat has since flooded again and she has moved away from Westport. Maslow never really understood the depths of connection and how over time as we journey down Perseverance Road, connection deepens branching out to people, relationships, time, space and place.

At the end of the day, the act of research, is an act of story-telling. Often some stories are seen as more valid than others, and it is in these moments of disruption that we can question their validity.

And what does that mean for us? I want to suggest that connection is even more important now as we occupy a space and time in which disruption, no disruptions, are so much more evident. Not only can connection enable us to navigate and find our ways through disruptions, connection can help us see our role in the disruption and connection can help us tell another story.

In the disruption of climate change, connection serves as this two edged perspective. It is the reality that we are all engaged in little things that feed into a warming environment that is heating the planet and tit is a reality that each one of us can do something to slow that warming down. Each action connected can have a massive global response.

In the disruption of covid-19, we have all experienced the need for connection. Whether it be the experience of lock-down or isolation or tiredness of the novelty-worn-off of Zoom and Mircosoft Teams classes, many of us have carved opportunities for authentic kanohi-e-te-kanohi conversations. Some would even argue that the covid tiredness that is affecting workplaces like our own is simply due to the intense thinking that has had to go into how to keep connections going when disruption is oh so well.

And for most of us here, there is the reality of 2023 and the months coming up to January as each of our workplaces find a disruptive change to becoming one with Te Pūkenga. Now, hear me here, I am not saying that disruption is bad; rather any form of change does bring disruption and when that change comes with uncertainty then the disruption does bring uncertainty.

So what does this opportunity of disruption bring? Well, I would like to suggest that it brings one thing but necessitates another. It does bring one thing, and that is the disruptive opportunity to write a different research story, with different writers, voices, and people. The beauty of this time in history is that the birth of Te Pūkenga comes in a context of greater change. Not only is vocational education changing but the recognition of key research funding sources – the PBRF and a variety of other MBIE mechanisms are changing. These changes are, on the surface, intentionally bringing Te Tiriti o Waitangi to effect, enabling and recongising rangahau, decolonizing methodologies (and stories), and privileging voices that have previously been suppressed. And while the intention of all this, at this point, is on paper. We have an opportunity as Tangata Whēnua and Tangata te Tiriti to come together to enable and enact the intentions of this movement.

This can only happen if the necessity within this disruption is met. And, hopefully, now you will know that in talking needs, I am not taking my source being first Maslow, but rather the lessons I have had along my own Perseverance Road, that of connection. There is an important whakatauki which is often reduced to the last sentences, but says so much more up front. It is the same whakatauki that underpins the operating model of Te Pūkenga:

Hūtia te rito o te harakeke, kei whea te torimako e kō? Ka rere ki uta, ka rere ki tai     
Kī mai koe ki au, he aha mea nui o te ao?            
Māku e kī atu,  
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata

If you pluck out the centre shoot flax, where will the bellbird sing? It will fly inland, it will fly seawards. If you ask me, what is the most important thing in the world? I will reply, it is people, it is people, it is people.

For Te Pūkenga ākonga and their whānau are at the heart of the operating model. They are te rito, the centre short of the harakeke, the flax bush. I would like to suggest though that if this whakatauki represents Te Pūkenga, then the remainder of the harakeke leaves are the kaimahi. It our these leaves that protect te rito. The important thing here is that we are all connected.

In the journey along our Perseverance Road, we don’t have a guarantee of finding gold at the end, but we do have an opportunity, we have an opportunity to connect, we have an opportunity to seize the disruption and begin to enable other stories to come to the table. Stories, which will, in themselves enable a disruption of sorts to occur. Stories, which will not just question the mainstream stories of yesterday, but create an opening of hope for the stories that will come tomorrow.

No rei ra

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tatou katoa

 

 

 

Dynasties: Help Me Rhonda

 

Every great story needs a hero. And to make the story even greater, every great story needs an antihero. Maybe not a pure villain, but someone who is out to make it on their own; own the world and have the most power, wealth and notoriety. We see heroes and antiheroes all through our popular culture – where would Superman be without Lex Luther, Skywalker without Darth Vader, Aslan without the White Witch, the Smurfs without Gargamel, Toothless without Grimmel the Grisly? We even see them in our Bible, where would the story of Exodus and Moses be without the Pharoah, Elijah without Jezebel, Daniel without Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius and Cyrus and Jesus without…

Well, I guess here, logically you would guess and say Satan ... but is he the only antihero talked about all through the gospels and into Acts?

What I am going to suggest that there is another family of anti-heroes in the Jesus story.  A family that also features in the story of Acts. A family whose evil intent shows up around the festival of the Passover. A family that loves to follow the Roman tradition of calling itself gods and beheading an enemy or two. That family is the family of Herod. Today, we are going to learn about Dynasties and the importance of answering the door – Help Me Rhonda is more than a song.

We are doing this so that the reality of Acts becomes so much more richer to us. The reality and the story of Acts sits in a historical context. We learn though Acts that the church at its best is a witness to the Gospel. We also learn that, even the church in this context, finds it hard to recognise a miracle when the world around it just wants to take off its head.  

Let’s start with Herod. Now, we need to not be confused here. There are many Herods in the Bible.

So, it is easy to be confused. King Herod the Great was indeed a very great and busy man. He had to be. He had ten wives and many many sons. One of these wives was intent on killing him and had a mother-in-law straight out of the television series Game of Thrones who loved to twist the innocent minds of her great children. This mother-in-law also schemed to kill the great king, with her friend Cleopatra. Yes, the Cleopatra of bathing in milk fame.  And yes, Herod’s eldest sons got caught up in the plot and soon lost their heads – both figuratively and literally.

King Herod the Great had his title gifted to him by Antony, Cleopatra’s lover and the land was gifted by Cassius and Brutus – yes the Cassius and Brutus who killed Julius Caesar. Jesus and the early Church were firmly planted in the great Roman Empire of our history books.

King Herod’s children would be gifted the regal name of Herod and thus King Herod had many sons, and those that sat in power carried the name Herod as well. That’s where the confusion falls in. Some scholars say that there could be up to five Herods in the Bible. But today we are going to focus on three, Herod the Great, his son Herod Antipas and his grandson to another wife, Herod Agrippa.

Herod Antipas was the son of Herod the Great to his fourth wife. We first see this great antihero in the Gospel of Mathew. It is back in Mathew 14. Herod’s brother Philip, also known as Herod, has a wife, Herodias (I wonder where she got that name). Herodias dances for Herod and gratifies him so much, that he, being the good Greek ruler pledges to give her heart’s desire. She, being of the name Herod, asks for the head of John the Baptist on a plate. Herod instantly serves this up.

And this is not children’s story. This is how Grecco-Roman rule worked back in the day. We also learn in Mark 6 and Luke 9 that Herod ruled out of his own fear as well. Like a typical tyrant, he knew that his power was limited. Just as Caesar Augustus saw himself as a God in Rome, Herod was his own God over Israel and all other gods had to be tested. So, when Herod hears about the miracles of Jesus, his instant reaction was – but I killed John the Baptist. How can John the Baptist come back from the dead?

As we know, John the Baptist didn’t come back from the dead – but Jesus would. Even after Herod Antipus and Pilate condemned him to death during the holiest of Jewish festivals – the passover.

By the time Acts 12 comes onto the scene, Herod Antipas has been exiled and, in his place, the grandson of Herod the Great, Herod Agrippa is now ruling. Agrippa was not the son of Antipas but the son of one the sons that Herod the Great executed. Agrippa was raised in exile in Rome in the imperial court. He would become close friends with Claudius, another Roman Emperor. The reality is the Herod family do not just have a history connected with Israel but pretty much can name drop every famous Roman leader around the time of Jesus and Acts.

We get to meet our antihero Agrippa at another Passover festival in Acts 12. And both his grandfather and uncle would be so proud of him as he has continued in the family tradition of power, violence and wealth:

That's when King Herod got it into his head to go after some of the church members. He murdered James, John's brother. When he saw how much it raised his popularity ratings with the Jews, he arrested Peter--all this during Passover Week, mind you-- and had him thrown in jail, putting four squads of four soldiers each to guard him. He was planning a public lynching after Passover.

All the time that Peter was under heavy guard in the jailhouse, the church prayed for him most strenuously. Then the time came for Herod to bring him out for the kill.

That night, even though shackled to two soldiers, one on either side, Peter slept like a baby. And there were guards at the door keeping their eyes on the place. Herod was taking no chances!

Suddenly there was an angel at his side and light flooding the room. The angel shook Peter and got him up: "Hurry!" The handcuffs fell off his wrists. The angel said, "Get dressed. Put on your shoes." Peter did it. Then, "Grab your coat and let's get out of here." Peter followed him, but didn't believe it was really an angel--he thought he was dreaming.

Past the first guard and then the second, they came to the iron gate that led into the city. It swung open before them on its own, and they were out on the street, free as the breeze. At the first intersection the angel left him, going his own way.

That's when Peter realized it was no dream. "I can't believe it--this really happened! The Master sent his angel and rescued me from Herod's vicious little production and the spectacle the Jewish mob was looking forward to."

Still shaking his head, amazed, he went to Mary's house, the Mary who was John Mark's mother. The house was packed with praying friends. When he knocked on the door to the courtyard, a young woman named Rhoda came to see who it was.

But when she recognized his voice--Peter's voice!--she was so excited and eager to tell everyone Peter was there that she forgot to open the door and left him standing in the street. But they wouldn't believe her, dismissing her, dismissing her report. "You're crazy," they said. She stuck by her story, insisting. They still wouldn't believe her and said, "It must be his angel."

All this time poor Peter was standing out in the street, knocking away. Finally they opened up and saw him--and went wild! Peter put his hands up and calmed them down. He described how the Master had gotten him out of jail, then said, "Tell James and the brothers what's happened."

He left them and went off to another place. At daybreak the jail was in an uproar. "Where is Peter? What's happened to Peter?"

When Herod sent for him and they could neither produce him nor explain why not, he ordered their execution: "Off with their heads!"

Fed up with Judea and Jews, he went for a vacation to Caesarea. But things went from bad to worse for Herod. Now people from Tyre and Sidon put him on the warpath. But they got Blastus, King Herod's right-hand man, to put in a good word for them and got a delegation together to iron things out. Because they were dependent on Judea for food supplies, they couldn't afford to let this go on too long.

On the day set for their meeting, Herod, robed in pomposity, took his place on the throne and regaled them with a lot of hot air. The people played their part to the hilt and shouted flatteries: "The voice of God! The voice of God!"

That was the last straw. God had had enough of Herod's arrogance and sent an angel to strike him down. Herod had given God no credit for anything.

Down he went. Rotten to the core, a maggoty old man if there ever was one, he died.

Meanwhile, the ministry of God's Word grew by leaps and bounds. Barnabas and Saul, once they had delivered the relief offering to the church in Jerusalem, went back to Antioch. This time they took John with them, the one they called Mark.

(Acts 12:1-25)

Often when we read Acts, we focus on the miracles. We focus on the extraordinary in the times of the ordinary. But I want to posit two things. Another way to read Acts is to focus on the world in which the church lived. And added to this, another way to read Acts is to look at how the church itself responds to the extraordinary Acts of the Holy Spirit. Reading Acts like this enables us and empowers us to reflect on how we are responding to our own world around us today and how we accept or reject the Acts of God in our presence.

Acts 12 is so powerful for this, some commentators talk about it being a humorous moment in a serious story. I want to suggest that Acts 12 is a serious reflection of the world in which the early church lived. I also want to suggest that the whole book of Acts is a challenge to us on how we ourselves respond to the world of today.

We have already been introduced to the family of Herod. We have focused on three Herods but also found another couple along the way. And Paul later would encounter the last of the Herod rulers. But if we really want to know about the world that the church of Acts encountered we have to have a firm understanding of the Grecco-Roman world in which this church was located.

As a western Christian church, I think we have done some serious damage to our Bible over the centuries. What is this? I believe we have sanitised it. We have been so keen that our Bible is accessible to children, we have removed the gruesome details from it. When we do this, we decontextualise the Bible. While we see the message in Acts as one of miracles and God with Us, we fail to see the ‘in what’ of God with Us. God with Us – in what? In the context of Acts, it is God with Us in the brutal reality of Herodian rule in a Roman Empire.

This is incredibly important. Herod the Great, his sons and grandsons ruled out of fear. Herod the Great had married into the Hasmonean family. The Hasmonean family were a Jewish family who were instrumental in freeing Judea from Seleucid rule through pure violence. They served as high priests, governors and kings until Roman occupation. Herod the Great and the dynasties that followed wanted to secure their claim to their Jewish heritage, but they also wanted to claim their Roman titles. Each generation of Herods sought to do both by pleasing both Rome and in particular the Sadducees; the aristocratic families, priests and merchants of Judea.

This is why there is so much violence and infighting in the family. And the violence was real. It was horrific and it was the context of the early church in Acts. Herod Agrippa had already murdered James, the brother of John when we get to Acts 12. And now Herod was after Peter.

Added to this, there is another factor at play in the early church. You see, as far as Rome was concerned. Christians were atheists; they were non-believers in the Roman pantheon, nor did they worship the Imperial cult of Ancient Rome.  Christians worshiped a God outside of the Roman tradition and they did not recognise Caesar as a God. Christians were seen as a threat to Roman rule because of this and, for the Jews, they were a threat to tradition.

From the time of Herod the Great to Herod Agrippa, one thing was very clear to their maintenance of power – kill the Christians and please both Rome and the local Jewish community. Please both, and your throne will be maintained. Kill the Christians and your power will be declared to the world. We see this here in Acts 12, Agrippa sees that he pleases the Jews, so he is even more determined to have Peter’s head on a plate.

Now put this miracle here in this context. Put the whole of the books of Acts here in this context and what do we learn? Some have said that a key message can be that the church is at its best in times of persecution. I want to add something more here. What we learn from Acts is the response of the church to brutal rule. What we learn from Acts is how we should respond to worldly powers.

What we learn is this. At a time of high persecution in Acts. What did the church do? Did it protest? Did it attempt to take all operations completely underground? Did it die out? Did it speak into the persecution? Did it cry out for peace? Did it fight? Did it pray against the rulers of the time? Did it speak up against the Jewish leaders?

The learning we can take from Acts, is that it did none of these things. The church merely did one thing. It was a witness to the Gospel, to the love of God and to the sacrifice that we are called to be for each other.

So the question to us is – are we a witness today? And this is not a question for us as individuals but for us here as a church. As Wainuiomata Baptist Church are we a witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the love of God and the sacrifice that we are called to be for each other?

I don’t think the answer is a complete no, but I also don’t think that the answer is a complete yes. Why is this? Well if it was a complete yes, I think we would find our conversations being very different, our actions being very different and our response to our own world completely different.

I personally think we would find ourselves talking more and more about the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ, rather that our stance on national or global positions. I think we would find ourselves just wanting to fellowship more and more. I think collectively we would find ourselves on our knees in prayer more and more. I think we would be seeking more and more together opportunities to witness to Jesus Christ rather than share our own opinion.

What we learn from the church of Acts, is a healthy church is not of the world. Nor does it respond to the events of the world in predictable ways. A healthy church is a witness to the testimony and victory of the cross. Afterall, what turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, it is the presence of the Holy Spirit, the counsel of the Holy Spirit and the freedom of the Holy Spirit.

A contemporary example comes from a testimony captured in the secular magazine, the New Zealand Geographic. The reporters are capturing what is happening on lifeboats in Whakaari/White Island eruption. Remember, we, as a church, are called to be a witness, this is more than just a response, it is to be light in the darkness of our world:

Those who had sustained the worst burns had been placed at the front of the vessel, and two doctors had stepped forward from among the passengers to tend to them—a general practitioner on holiday from the United Kingdom, and another from Germany. Geoff Hopkins, a pastor at Arise church in Hamilton with a St John certificate, provided assistance.

His daughter, Lillani, was at the back of the vessel with the other victims, doing her best to stave off hypothermia and shock. She found herself singing the evangelical song “Waymaker”:

You are here, moving in our midst… You are here, working in this place… You are here, healing every heart…

And if she stopped there’d be a touch on her leg, and a whisper: “Keep singing.”

Church, are you prepared to be a witness to the cross rather than a mere response to the things that are happening around you? And are you prepared to recognise the extraordinary or the Spirit when it happens. You see the core message of Acts is to be witness to the Gospel and respond, not to the world, but to the call of the Holy Spirit.

I mentioned when I started this message that it was called – Dynasties: Help Me Rhonda. I did this because of another character in this chapter – the young woman, Rhonda. We don’t know much about her but what we do know is that her fame is her response to her excitement of realising that Peter had been released – she forgot to open the door. Imagine meeting Rhonda in Heaven, what would you say … oh you are the dipsy teenager who forgot to open the door? But I also think the praying friends were just as dipsy as they kept questioning Rhonda, praying for a miracle while, all the time, it was knocking on their door.

Church, how do we respond to miracles, how do we respond to the extraordinary of the Holy Spirit? Do we keep praying for a miracle witness of the Gospel truth while it is right there occurring before us? Do we get so excited that a miracle has occurred without stepping into the miracle and opening the door? I could do a whole sermon on Rhonda but in summary, I think it is fair to say that there are times that our excitement of what is possible keeps the door shut because we have failed to act.

There are two verses in the New Testament that refer to someone knocking on a door and the response to that knocking. Both refer to the church response and unfortunately one is often misquoted to refer to the response of the lost. Church, open your eyes, tune into your ears, are we as one prepared to open the door and let the extraordinary in – to let Jesus in and the counsel of his Holy Spirit. Church when Christ is knocking at our door – what is our response?

You see by the end of the Chapter, Herod Agrippa would be dead. He saw himself as an equal to the God of the Christians and the Message captures this so well:

That was the last straw. God had had enough of Herod's arrogance and sent an angel to strike him down. Herod had given God no credit for anything.

Down he went. Rotten to the core, a maggoty old man if there ever was one, he died.

Meanwhile, the church witnessed continually to the Gospel message. And the ordinary was turned into the extraordinary.  Are we prepared to be that witness? But then added to this, are we prepared to respond to the Holy Spirit when it knocks on our door and the extraordinary has occurred?

The Herod family were obsessed with beheading all of its enemies. The family never realised one truth – the head of the Church is Jesus Christ. And you can kill him, you can hang him on a cross but and shut him away in a tomb, but he has overcome death. He has conquered the grave. He is our hero. He is our saviour. He is our God, and he is the call to our witness to the world and we will respond to that call and be counselled by the Holy Spirit.

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

(Mat 28:18-20)