Archbishop Philip Richardson’s address to General Conference in Napier: 6 May 2016

Engari ko te kawenata tēnei e whakaritea e ahau, e ai tā Ihowa; Ka hoatu e ahau taku ture ki ō rātau wāhi i roto, ka tuhituhia anō ki tō rātau ngākau; a ko ahau hei Atua mō rātou, ko rātou hei iwi māku. 

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.   – Jeremiah 31:33 

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ 

I want to address the three elements of Gospel, Treaty and Constitution. This is a personal perspective but one offered from within a lifetime of being part of this particular family, this Hahi.

It is these three things - Gospel, Treaty and Constitution – Te Rongopai, Te Tiriti, Te Pouhere – that bind us to each other.

• They bind us in a way that means we cannot let each other go.
• They bind us in a way that means that we must seek each other’s good.
• They bind us in a way that means that when one part of this body is suffering or unable to live out their potential then we are all weakened and diminished,
• we are bound in such a way that we recognise that all of the resources we have at our disposal come from God and are for the whole body in the service of the Gospel.

Te Rongopai

Central to the Gospel is the certainty that God loves all that God has made and that God reaches out to each one of us in Jesus Christ.

God’s love captures our hearts – each one of us is here because we know that we are beloved of God, that this love has been offered anew and made known in Jesus Christ and we find ourselves drawn to follow his way. At the heart of the Gospel message is God’s unceasing offer of relationship. 

That experience, that certainty, of unmerited Grace binds us to each other and demands that we seek the very best for each other.

Just over two hundred years ago the Christian gospel was proclaimed for the first time on the soil of Aotearoa. 

It is also important to acknowledge that that historic moment in 1814 was many years in the making, and also to acknowledge that its potential is still to be fully realized. 

That first Christian sermon on the soil of Aotearoa, two hundred years ago, was possible because of Grace – filled generosity.

Now it is true that the Nga Puhi Chief Ruatara provided that generosity. It was Ruatara who invited Marsden and those who travelled with him to settle in that quiet bay at Oihi. 

It is also true that the friendship forged between Ruatara and Marsden began with Marsden’s kindness to Ruatara who he met in a sad state of health as a result of being maltreated by sailors on the long journey to England from Australia. Transferred onto a returning ship with little care for his physical state, it was on this ship that Marsden met Ruatara and helped him back to health. This friendship was strengthened when Marsden invited Ruatara to stay with him on his farm at Parramatta.

But it is also true that Ruatara’s invitation was in spite of actions that could, perhaps even should, have derailed the welcome completely.

Te Pahi, Ruatara’s uncle who had formed a friendship with Marsden some years before was accused of having been involved in the sinking and massacre of the crew of the Boyd.  Te Pahi’s home was attacked and Te Pahi was mortally wounded. Marsden, after investigation, was convinced that his old friend was falsely accused.

In many cultures and societies there would have simply been an escalation of mistrust and hostility, but 200 years ago Ruatara extended to Marsden and his companions a grace of manaakitanga which secured that small mission settlement and inaugurated a vision of partnership which undergirds our potential as a nation, and as a Church, to this day. We are a people born out of a grace-filled act of sacrificial generosity. What Ruatara offered was more fundamental than the English word hospitality can possibly convey. Ruatara lived out the values of manaakitanga; costly, self giving generosity, putting the holistic well-being of the other first. 

These are the values on which the hand of friendship was offered at Oihi. These are the values that undergirded the partnership between tangata whenua and settler. 

God’s yearning for relationship with us cannot be contained and in Jesus, God again offers us the intimacy of relationship. In Christ God reaches out to us again. There are no bounds to the extent our God will go to draw us back.  This is Good News! 

So our identity, individually and collectively rests first in this reality: We are each made in the image of God and we are each redeemed by God in Christ. That compels me into a certain relationship with others and with this earth. I can do no other than to seek the good for my brothers and sisters and for this earth our mother. 

Te Tiriti

This first ‘imperative of identity’ if you will, quickly leads to a second. 

I am located at a particular point in a history of relationships; I was born to Barbara and Bill, grandson of Vera and Frank, Winnie and William, great grandson of Violet and George, Charles and Naomi, Frederick and Jane, Alfred and Charlotte etc etc …

But I am also located in a particular land and nation, with a very particular history.

I was born in this place, in this land, but I have joined its history. My parents were migrant people. They sailed here. They met on the boat. They made their life here. I was given the gift of life here. 

So part of my identity is that as the child of an immigrant family I have a place to stand in this land because of a covenant established with the first people of this land. Te Tiriti o Waitangi

My identity also then is as a child, of te Tiriti. And I have to understand this covenant and my rights and obligations under it.

We know the cost of the failure to do so. I want to read from Archbishop Brown’s reflection on the occasion of the 175^th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty - 2015

In 1940, during the 100th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty, leaders and chiefs gathered once more at the sacred ground of Waitangi. Sir Apirana Ngata stood and said: 

“I do not know of any year the Maori people have approached with so much misgiving as this Centennial Year … In retrospect what does the Maori see? Lands gone, the power of chiefs humbled in the dust, Maori culture scattered and broken.

“What remained of all the fine things said 100 years ago?  

“Before proceeding further with the new century, it is the clear duty of the Government to try to wipe out the mistakes of the past 100 years.

By 1990, and the 150th Anniversary of the signing of the Treaty, the relationship between Māori and Pākehā had improved, and Treaty grievances were being acknowledged and settled. But, as the then Bishop of Aotearoa Te Whakahuihui Vercoe noted in his speech at Waitangi that day, there was much more to be done:

“Some of us have come here to celebrate, some to commemorate, some to commiserate, but some to remember what happened on this sacred ground.

“But since the signing of that Treaty 150 years ago I want to remind our partners that you have marginalised us. You have not honoured the Treaty. We have not honoured each other in the promises we made on this sacred ground.  

“May God give us the courage to be honest with one another, to be sincere with one another, and above all to love one another in the strength of God.

Now we find ourselves here in 2015, the 175th year since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.

What can we say has changed since the signing of the Treaty? What has changed since the 100th Anniversary of its signing? What has changed since the 150th Anniversary?

A falling short

Some may say that much has been done to right historic wrongs, but I feel that the offer of a few cents as reparation for every dollar stolen falls far short of the promise and potential of the Treaty of Waitangi.

If we can renew within ourselves the faith and the courage of our forebears who first signed the Treaty, we may well rise to fulfill our true potential as one people:

If our sense of servanthood can overpower our sense of entitlement;

If our hunger for justice can overpower our selfish greed;

If our hope can be more relentless than our grievance;

And if our love can be more powerful than our litigation;

We will fulfill the greater promise of the Treaty of Waitangi: One people, united.

Until then, we need to pray for peace, and to strive to deal with injustice and oppression.

Nā tōu rourou, nā tāku rourou, ka mākona te iwi.

We are all in this together. 

As Anglicans we have a particular responsibility in relation to the Treaty we are inheritors of the mahi of our forebears who worked hard to secure the signing of the Treaty, we carry that kaupapa and responsibility for it.

Te Pouhere

A powerful set of opportunities and obligations rest with this Church. This Church of ours, which for the first decades of it’s history was undeniably Maori in shape, worship and ethos, quickly marginalized Maori. In this predominantly Maori Church there were no Maori signatories to the 1857 Constitution!

There was a long struggle to see the establishment of the Bishopric of Aotearoa. When the Church could not accept the idea of autonomous but inter-dependent Maori oversight of Maori ministry, there was a hospitality of a kind offered by this Diocese of Waiapu and the establishment of the Bishop of Aotearoa as a suffragan of Waiapu.  

In 1978 General Synod established the Bishop of Aotearoa “to share in partnership with the Diocesan Bishops”. This happened by way of an amendment on the floor of the General Synod. There was much hope that real progress had been made. 

As Judge Eddie Durie expressed the hope ““I am a Maori Anglican. The Bishopric of Aotearoa serves to assure me that I need not cease to be a Maori in order to have a place in God’s home, and a home within the Anglican Communion.” 

By 1982 concerns were being expressed that while the Bishop had the status of a Diocesan Bishop, there was no clear jurisdiction. As a result the General Synod established the Bi-Cultural Commission which in 1986, presented the report, Te kaupapa tikanga rua: bi-cultural development, to the General Synod.

Most of the recommendations were adopted and in 1992 we adopted a new constitution providing for three partners, 'to order their affairs within their own cultural context: Tikanga Maori; Tikanga Pakeha; Tikanga Pasefika'.

I was growing up at the time of the Bi-cultural Commission and the consultation and controversy of that process. I understand that this three Tikanga Church was birthed out of what was fundamentally a wrestling with the consequences of the Treaty of Waitangi for the life of the Church in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

Our constitutional framework seeks to honour the Gospel and Treaty imperatives which have shaped out history. The framework establishes a basis for mission which recognizes that effectiveness in mission needs to allow for differences in language, kawa and world views.

But the framework provided for in Te Pouhere demands a constant commitment to relationship which does not allow us to live in silos but requires us to strive for each others good. Even to sacrifice ourselves and our own aspirations for the good of our partner. There cannot be partnership if there is no relationship. 

I look around this Marquee and I see people who are my family, the family which is this Church, some of you have been in my life for most of my life.

I look around and I am left wondering why we have found it so hard to begin this conversation with each other.

So much of the potential that lies in our partnership has been unrealised.

However inadequate today’s first conversation might be, we simply have to begin to talk with each other and we have to keep this dialogue going. And we need to be clear about practical and achievable outcomes.

We simply have an obligation to work to fulfil the potential our forebears set the foundations for. 

I am deeply hopeful about the possibilities that today heralds – if we wholeheartedly commit to this, then we need to be clear that it is a ‘never ending journey’, but we have an opportunity to begin a process, at every level in this church, that will lead to a quality of engagement together in mission that will transform us and our ministry, as Tikanga and as a Church.

Perhaps we can do no better than to approach each other in the way that Mary the mother of our Lord, responded to the call of God; with humility and a deep openness to God’s justice. 

From Luke 1 46 -55 

46 And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,

47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

  Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,

  and holy is his name.

50 His mercy is for those who fear him

  from generation to generation.

51 He has shown strength with his arm;

  he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

  and lifted up the lowly;

53 he has filled the hungry with good things,

  and sent the rich away empty.

54 He has helped his servant Israel,

  in remembrance of his mercy,

55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,

  to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”