Rich service reflects Waiapu spirit

More than 800 people flowed into Napier’s Waiapu Cathedral on Saturday, June 7 to celebrate the ordination of David Rice, fifteenth bishop in the diocese’s 150-year history.

They included the three archbishops, 16 other bishops – including former Waiapu bishops Sir Paul Reeves, Peter Atkins and Murray Mills – and about 80 clergy. That in itself was noteworthy: Noel Hendery, former Dean, reckons he’d never seen that many clergy gathered in the cathedral in the three decades he’s been in Waiapu.

There was a 40-strong contingent from Dunedin, too, including Mayor Peter Chin and Dr Tony Fitchett, a GP who is our church’s lay representative on the Anglican Consultative Council and who preached the ordination sermon.

David Rice was Dean of Dunedin’s St Paul’s Cathedral for the last seven years, and the Dunedin contingent came to escort the new bishop and his family to Waiapu.

The service was rich and colourful, with karanga, waiata, and an affirmation of faith in te reo Maori; hymns, prayers, readings, vows and the sermon in English; as well as small contributions in Fijian, Samoan, Tongan, Hindustani, and Latin.

And for good measure Bishop David, who was born and raised in the United States, and who has Irish and Native American ancestry, also offered a traditional Cherokee prayer.

But it was a quintessentially Waiapu celebration. You could hear that in the music: The Lord’s Prayer, in Maori, led by the culture group from Hukarere Girls College, for example, and the singing of Bill Bennett’s Waiapu anthem, Jesus of the Eastern Sky, and anthems by Napier composer Vincent James.

And you could see that in the gifts that were given to the new bishop: a bottle of water from the Waiapu River; a boulder from the bed of the Makaroro River, taken from the trail William Colenso blazed from Hawke’s Bay over the Ruahine Range to take the gospel to inland Patea; and a glass cylinder with tiered layers of sand, soil, pebbles and shards of crockery.

Each layer in that cylinder has a poignant significance: there was sand from “The Elms”, the CMS station founded in Tauranga in 1835; another layer of sand from the beach at Opotiki, near the double tragedy of Carl Volkner’s 1865 murder and Mokomoko’s unjust hanging for that murder; soil and shards of crockery from Waerenga-a-Hika, site of the mission station set up by William Williams, the first Bishop of Waiapu; more sand from James Cook’s landing place at Kaiti Beach, Gisborne – and shingle from the Napier beachfront, which had been thrust up in the 1931 earthquake that destroyed the first Waiapu Cathedral.

At two and a half hours, the service was lengthy. But according to Bishop Api Qilio, from the Diocese of Polynesia, one of the most significant attributes of the new bishop’s ordination wasn’t spoken about and might have gone unnoticed.

That’s his age. At 47, David Rice is a young bishop.
“For me,” said Bishop Qilio, “David represents the future. I looked out over the congregation and I saw many grey heads. But he is an embodiment of the church renewing itself.

“David is American, and I couldn’t help but reflect on what we see happening on the political scene there. Barack Obama is saying is that this US election is about the future, and people are responding. I see David’s election as about the future, too. I’m encouraged.”

Robin Nairn, the former General Secretary of this Province and before that Executive Officer for Waiapu, liked what he saw too.
“David had a presence in the cathedral, I thought – and I felt that presence just grew on us with his ordination.”

No doubt some of the congregation were keen just to eyeball the new bishop. But Erice Fairbrother felt that for many there was more at stake: they genuinely wanted, she sensed, to reach out and extend a welcome to their new Bishop and his family.

That was a sentiment shared by one of the three former bishops of Waiapu in Saturday’s congregation.

Sir Paul Reeves – the first Maori Bishop elected in a Pakeha diocese – was Bishop of Waiapu from 1971-79.

“Waiapu,” he said, “is a diocese that is sane, sensible and committed. People don’t get fussed. It is also a warm, embracing and welcoming diocese – and that was shown in the ordination service. I hope the new bishop will be encouraged by that.”

David Rice preached his first sermon as bishop in the Waiapu Cathedral the following day, Sunday morning – and that was also his last for a couple of months.

The Rice family left for the United States this week, and Bishop David travels on from there to England, where he will attend the Lambeth Conference of Bishops. He will be back in Waiapu with his family in September.

And the new bishop’s verdict on Saturday’s ordination service?

“When I was told afterwards that it had been two and half hours long, I simply had no idea. That’s partly because I was in the middle of it, I suppose – but also because it was so well done. Dean Helen (Jacobi) did a superb job. It was liturgy at its best – seamless, and not remotely contrived.

“And based on the stories I’ve heard, and my brief experience about Waiapu, it felt like a celebration that had something of the flavor of Waiapu.

“Our family had talked about this day beforehand, and we recognised that this was going to be perhaps the most significant event of our lives. And it was… It was simply extraordinary.”

Footnote: Bishop John Bluck has agreed to serve as the new bishop's commissary. In simplest terms, that means he will 'mind the store' for Bishop David until he returns from Lambeth.