On June 19, I had the honour to
be invited to participate in a day of remembrance with Ngāti Toa Rangatira, the
mānā whēnua of Porirua. We stood around a flagpole as they raised their tribal
flag to remember the day, 19 June 1840, when their paramount chief Te Rauparaha
put his signature to Te Tīrītī o Waitangi on Mana Island. He signed in the
belief that it would guarantee him and his people their ownership of the lands
they occupied and he told his people to never let their flame be extinguished,
never let their fires go out.
Before the flag was raised, I was
talking with a fellow Christian staff member who asked me – what are you doing
over the weekend? I said, I am writing a sermon about church membership and
what it means to be ahi kā – what it means to keep the fire burning. I spent
some time with her talking about the concept of ahi kā and the gift God has
given churches here in Aotearoa New Zealand with Māori culture – there is a lot
that can be learnt if churches journey with and alongside marae.
We finished the conversation and
went to the Ngāti Toa event led by kaumātua Dr Te Taku Parai. As we stood around the flag on a windless
Wellington morning, Te Taku spoke into the key symbol on the flag – a hand holding
a flame. The flag of Ngāti Toa is called ahika he told the crowd standing
around it.
Quite literally ahi kā means
burning fires he told us, but in Te Āo Māori, the Māori world, words have
symbolic meaning. To be ahi kā Te Taku told us is to keep the fire burning.
Traditionally, fires provided warmth, they would show land being occupied and
would sustain the people through the provision of cooked foods.
On a marae, or meeting place, ahi
kā represents loyalty to each other, the place that you may have been born and
your community. Ahi kā means a deep commitment to keeping the presence of your
people to a place visible, the fire burning so that others can see – yes, those
people have a presence and a commitment to keeping that presence alive.
Even if wars are lost, or like in
recent times, natural disasters destroy the marae itself, to be āhi ka, is for
those to remain to tend to the fire that remains, preserving that space and
place for people to return.
When I spoke to my colleague that
morning on June 19th, I did not know that the flag of Ngāti Toa
Rangatira was called Ahika. All I knew was that since I said yes to being an
elder of this church, I felt that God was calling us to be in a place of ahi
kā. Just before I said yes, members of this church voted as to whether we would
discontinue rebuild insurance of this building complex should it be destroyed
in a natural disaster. In that decision, the voting members of this church committed
to ensuring that we would maintain a presence in Wainuiomata should we lose
this building.
And from that point, I felt God
pressing into me to share this message. It has been two years in the making,
but as Te Taku spoke into Ahika just over a week ago, I knew in my heart that
it is time to share with you what God has impressed on me. We are to be a
people who come together in membership to keep the fire of God burning in this
community.
You see, ahi kā is the fire that
can only stay lit because the people of God stay present. In this place, at this time, to be a member of
this community of faith, of Wainuiomata Baptist church is not to hold the
status of ‘member’. It is not to separate those who can vote from those who
cannot. Membership here is a presence that you commit to keeping. It is saying
that, yes right here, right now I commit to keeping ahi kā, to keeping the
light and flame of our fire burning.
This helps us then to see what
membership truly is, what to be ahi kā, truly entails. I want to suggest that
if we take this idea that the fire can only stay lit because the people of God
stay present, that membership entails five deep commitments. And, all of these
are about right relationship – right relationship with God and right
relationship with each other.
The first of these ahi kā commitments
is a commitment to covenant belonging. We can find this call to covenant
belonging throughout the full letter of Ephesians. It is the perfect letter for
this as it is to a church that has been built on diversity – Jew and Gentile
coming together in Christ. In Ephesians
2, verses 19-22, we learn that:
Consequently, you are no longer
foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also
members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building
is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him
you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his
Spirit.
To being committed to keeping the fire that we
believe in alight here is Wainuiomata, we are committing to more that just a
contractual relationship in which we sign a bottom line and get on with life.
We are committed to joining with fellow Christians, citizens of God and members
of his household. We are committed to holding Christ as our cornerstone,
learning from those who have come before us, and understanding that as we are
brought together in a covenant relationship,
we rise up to being a holy temple, a dwelling for God’s spirit.
A covenant relationship with each
other is ongoing, it is relational, it is mutual, it looks to the future but
also builds our identity as a church together. It is us as a community that
defines this church, not the building which keeps us dry. It is us staying
present, staying connected and staying committed.
I am reminded of a sermon from
Cecily Archer a number of years ago when she spoke into the three-way Covenant
relationship between ourselves and our God as a triangle. The apex or top of
the triangle is God, at the base is each other, as we allow ourselves to build
relationships with each other in God, we become closer to God in turn. This
illustration is often used to talk about marriage in God, but the God’s people
are also called to live in covenant – and that means in relationship with each
other.
The second ahi kā commitment is
committing to a presence that sustains the community. It other words, it is a
presence that shows to each other and the world that a fire is burning here –
there is a presence and the community of this church is alive and well.
In Acts, we learn of the early
church and how ahi kā, having a present fire can lead to growth as the fire
attracts others. I am reading from Acts 2, verses 44-47:
All the
believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and
possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet
together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together
with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the
people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
So, what is a presence that
sustains a community and how can we see this in Acts 2. To be blunt, a presence
that sustain a community, is a commitment to remaining, dwelling together,
showing up and keeping the fire burning – something that you can’t do if you
choose to only come to church when you feel like it. I would even argue that if
we made the decision to never again have a Sunday service here, visibly but
only met online, our fire would slowly cease burning because we would be for
all intents and purposes no longer physically present. After all, it is near
impossible to achieve the first commitment, a covenant relationship, on a
YouTube screen.
So, showing up and being present
is a commitment that another Māori concept captures perfectly – whakawhanaungatanga
(the enacting of physical, visible and spiritual expressions of being family
together). A commitment to a presence that sustains a community is a community of
physical, visible and spiritual relational belonging – coming together as a church
family and connecting with others.
The third ahi kā commitment is one
to whakapapa, where we have come from, and continuity. It is a commitment that
builds on from Helen Temple’s poem – Someone took away the chairs
When I was
young, I used to sit behind the saints at church and listen as they told of
battles fought and won in lonely places would pray and sing, steady and sure,
their faith worn smooth with years ... Today I stood in church and saw that
someone had taken away the chairs. Mine was the front row now, and just behind
me was young Christians wanting to learn from me …
To be committed to knowing where
we have come from and continuity means that we are committed to keeping the
fire of Wainuiomata Baptist church burning so that the next generation knows
where home is. It is us as a body committing to passing on our faith, mentoring
young believers in theirs, knowing and holding the story of this church, and it
is a commitment to maintain mission – both local but also global. It is a
commitment to sending people out, keeping the fire alight so that if and when
they need to, they can find their way home – and there will be a home to go to.
I remember people who have come
before me in this very church and how they spoke into my life – June and her
smile of welcome, Anne and our hidden family connection in the Wilton line. I
still hold in my physical bible at home, a photo of encouragement from Gilbert
Hadfield for my first ever sermon, as well as a card from Tricia for the same
sermon. One of my most cherished letters is from Barbara Gibbard for a sermon I
gave on Romans 13 and Bonhoeffer. I still remember, with a smile, family forums
when Ron Senior, a founding member of this church would remind us all of our
history. And now, it is my turn to give back and feed into the next generation.
It is my turn, to tell the story of this church to others. We have a long and
proud history built on families, built on mission, and first and foremost built
on faith with Christ as our cornerstone.
The fourth ahi kā commitment is
one of shared responsibility. It is to say, yes we will be kaitiakitanga of
this church, our faith community, we will work together in active guardianship,
being good stewards of what God has provided us. And, yes this is about how we
actively steward the physical resources we have been provided – this building,
the whēnua, the land, on which it sits. How we steward our staff – and this
includes our leadership, our pastor. It is about how we give physically our
talents, tithes and offerings. It is also active stewardship of our
relationship with each other and of what we believe.
Both Phil and I have used the
letter of Ephesians as teaching from Paul to the Ephesian church as how to live
together – how to light the fire and keep the fire burning. By the time John is given his revelation, the
Ephesian church has moved away from being a church that lives in grace and
humbleness, showing mercy to each other to being so rule bound and pious that
they are the first of the seven churches to be rebuked by Christ in Revelations
2:2:
I know your
deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate
wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not,
and have found them false. You have persevered and have endured hardships for
my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have
forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent
and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you
and remove your lampstand from its place.
The fire and presence of the
Ephesian Church will no longer be present.
One of the hardest things in
keeping ahi kā, is keeping each other to account in love and reminding each
other that it is the grace and mercy of Christ that brings us together – it
isn’t anything that we have done or can do through our own strength. So, it is understanding that we have to
steward the mission that God has given us, we have to be committed to
protecting the unity and health of our church community, we have to work
together to discern God’s direction and, yes, we steward the resources we have
been given and bring the tithe into the house.
I want to hit this point again
about stewarding right relationships with each other though one more time. I
have a few more years on me now compared to 1990 when I first committed to
Christ. I have see churches come and go – I like others here have seen churches
in Christchurch lose their buildings due to the earthquake but I have also see
a lot of church buildings, still standing, but empty of worship. I want to
suggest one thing, if a church is strong in relationship with each other, they
can lose their building and remain strong together. We have seen this through
the Christchurch earthquakes, but if a church is divided or poor in
relationship with each other, the building may remain but the church itself
will collapse. I have seen this time and time again. I have been part of a church
where this happened and it still breaks my heart because of the hurt that
resulted. The fourth ahi kā commitment is one of shared responsibility and
stewardship.
Finally, ahi kā in membership is
a mutual commitment. It is a commitment by each and everyone of us to a shared
covenant of presence and responsibility. This aligns with how Baptist
congregational governance works. When we come together to make decisions, we
like the early church in Acts, we make those decisions mutually together. It is
not the pastor or the elders presenting the big decisions, it is all of us –
all of us as one. Because all of us play a part in ahi kā. All of us keep the
fire of our community of faith present.
If we have this understanding
that ahi kā is about presence, covenant living together, building on our past
and keeping the fire burning into the future, shared responsibility and a
commitment to being good stewards of our faith and our resources; if we have a
mutual and shared commitment to this, then we have a fire that we can build
upon.
You see, ahi kā is the fire that
can only stay lit because the people of God stay present. In this place, at this time, to be a member
of this community of faith, of Wainuiomata Baptist church is not to hold the
status of ‘member’. Membership here is a presence that you commit to keeping.
It is saying that, yes right here, right now I commit to keeping ahi kā, to
keeping the light and flame of our fire burning.
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