According to this Maori chant, often used to begin a speech, the greatest reality of the created universe is the human person. Yet more violence is shown to the human person than to anything else, and that by other human beings.Huutia te rito o te harakeke, kei hea te koomako e ko? Kii mai ki ahau: He aha te mea nui o te ao? Maaku e kii atu: He tangata he tangata! If you pluck out the heart of the flax bush, how can the bell bird sing? You ask me: What is the greatest reality of the universe? I reply: The human person!'
Jesus' response to the violence against the human person was to establish his 'kingdom', a community of free people, a community where no one would lord it over the other, where authority was given to serve, a community of equals, where everybody would be a first-born, a community that would eventually overcome wars and bring peace to our world, a community that, in Maori terms, would fully respect and enhance the tapu of each person, of each people. This was in fulfilment of a prophecy given over three hundred years before the birth of Jesus:
Rejoice heart and soul, daughter of Zion! Shout for joy, daughter of Jerusalem! Look, your king is approaching, he is vindicated and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He will banish chariots from Ephraim and horses from Jerusalem; the bow of war will be banished. He will proclaim peace to the nations. His empire will stretch from sea to sea, from the River to the limits of the earth.
Jesus went about preaching the coming of his 'kingdom' beginning in the towns and villages around the lake of Galilee. As great crowds of people started to come to hear him, people began to argue about what he said and many began to say he was possessed or mad. It was in this context that one day "his mother and brothers arrived and, standing outside, sent in a message asking for him. A crowd was sitting round him at the time the message was passed to him, 'Look, your mother and brothers and sisters are outside asking for you'. He replied, 'Who are my mother and my brothers?' And looking at those sitting in a circle round him, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of God, that person is my brother and sister and mother."
Some two-and-a-half years after he began his mission, Jesus entered the city of Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, and was received by the people in triumph and with great joy. Some two weeks later many of the people were calling for his crucifixion. Seen as a threat to civil and religious law and order, he was put to death as a criminal, crucified between two thieves.
Three days later he rose from the dead and over the next few weeks was seen by the Apostles and many of his disciples and told them to preach his message throughout the world, baptising people 'in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit'. Before he finally left them he promised he would be with them till the end of the world and that he would send his spirit to guide them and teach them.
Since then the movement he began, the church, sure in its hope of the resurrection, has spread throughout the world, its mission, to establish the kingdom that Jesus preached.
The church, therefore, is a community of people, one with Jesus and united and inspired in his spirit. In Maori terms, it is committed to work for the kingdom of God in which the tapu, the worth, of each person, of each people, is fully restored and transformed and in this way it is to be a witness, a sign, a sacrament, of God's presence amongst us.
Jesus himself chose the apostles, the foundation for his church. He himself told them to: 'Go out to the whole world; proclaim the gospel to all creation'. In the words of Matthew's gospel he told them also: Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you.
He gave them the power to forgive sins. He himself left them the Eucharist at the celebration of the Jewish Pasch the night before his death. At that same celebration he promised them the Holy Spirit and he promised to be with them 'to the end of time.' .
Baptism and Eucharist take us into the world of ritual, the world 'beyond space and time', in which we experience our oneness with creation, with people and with God. This experience is the knowledge contained in what the Maori refer to as the third basket of knowledge.
According to some Maori traditions Taane-nui-a-rangi climbed up to the topmost heaven and received from Io three baskets of knowledge which he brought back for us.
These are known, again according to some Maori traditions, as te kete aronui, te kete tuauri and te kete tuaatea. According to the explanation given by the Reverend Maori Marsden te kete aronui is the basket of the knowledge of those things we see before us, the knowledge which comes to us through our senses. Te kete tuauri, is the basket of our understanding of things, a knowledge 'beyond, in the dark'. These are the models we make of the universe, and represent our understanding of the reality behind and beyond what we see with our senses. Finally there is the knowledge contained in te kete tuaatea. the knowledge 'beyond space and beyond time', the knowledge experienced in taking part in ritual and in using the ritual chants.
Just as the physical universe starts from a 'singularity' where all is compressed into one point and there is neither time nor space, so in the use of ritual and the ritual chants we move into what is sometimes called ritual time and ritual space. This is a 'singularity' where we are one with all people, with the ancestors, with the spiritual powers and with Io, God, the source of all being, beyond space and beyond time.
To have this experience of oneness with people, with creation and with God should be part of our normal life, something everybody can experience. It is not something just for a few people, and we do not have to be intellectuals to have this experience. For the Maori it was, and is, a normal part of life.
The common way of greeting someone is to give the hongi, to press noses. This is a sharing of breath, the sign of life, so it is a sharing of life, a sharing of all the sufferings and the joys experienced since last we met. It is not surprising, therefore, to see people both laughing and crying when they meet and greet each other with the hongi, especially if it is a long time since their last meeting.
To hear the karanga, the welcome call of the women, as we walk onto a marae, is to hear the call of the whole family, living and dead. To move into the meeting house is to move into the womb of our mother and to experience the oneness we have with our ancestors.
In the traditional Maori education system the most important knowledge was that experienced in ritual and in the use of the karakia, the ritual chants. The people trained in the wananga system were taught the karakia, the ritual chants, the ones they needed at each stage of their growth. In our European education system the emphasis is on the first and second baskets of knowledge and little or no place is given to ritual and to the knowledge we experience especially in ritual.
We do not know how to move into the singularity of ritual, the singularity in which we move into the moment of creation and the moment of re-creation in Jesus.
For the church the two most important moments are the moment of creation and the moment of the new creation, the moment of the death of Jesus. These are the two moments of greatest mana, the moment of God's completely free giving of self in creation and the moment of God's completely free and absolute giving of self in the giving of his Son on the cross, These two moments are symbolized by the double spiral and by the cross, the spiral symbolizing creation and the cross symbolizing the death of Jesus.
The double spiral is a major symbol in Maori carving. The cross, a Christian symbol, can be seen as a transformation of the rods which are a major symbol in Maori ritual
The double spiral symbolizes the unfolding of the cosmos, not just the galaxy as we know it today, but also the millions of galaxies that make up the cosmos. At its core there is a 'singularity', where there is neither space nor time. The whole universe in its movement, i te kore ki te poo ki te ao maarama, 'from the nothingness to the night to the world of light', comes out from that point, from what Stephen Hawkins refers to as the big bang. This process has already taken millions of years:
`From the first division of time unto the tenth, and to the hundredth, and to the thousandth, all was darkness.'
We ourselves have come into being long after the process had begun. Yet in ritual and through the karakia, the 'ritual chants', one with the ancestors and speaking their words, and one with the spiritual powers to whom we are dedicated, we can identify with the whole process, at its beginning, the 'singularity' of the first moment of creation, and in its unfolding right up to now.
The spiral is also a symbol of Io, of God. Io is at the core of the universe, at the centre point of the spiral, and is the source of its mauri, its energy or life-force. At the same time Io is at every point of the spiral.
Io is Io-Matua-Kore, Io the Parentless, Io-Taketake, Io the Root Cause of all. Io is the fulness of being. In Io there is no potentiality. In Io, therefore, tapu and mana are one. The sign of mana, as we have seen in chapter four, is the ability to manaaki, show hospitality, the ability to give. In this understanding of mana, to be is to give. Io, the fulness of being, is also the fulness of giving. The universe is itself the sign of that mana, the sign of the giving of Io, a giving which is absolute and unconditional.
At the centre of the spiral, beyond space and beyond time, is also Wananga and Whe, Knowledge and Sound, the Wisdom which processes from Io and which reverberates throughout the universe, giving purpose and meaning to all things. At the centre, too, and processing from Io and Wananga, is the Hau Ora, the Living Breath, the Living Wind, the source of all mauri, of all energy and life, giving shape and form, and bringing unity, to all things.
The spiral can also symbolize the life of each person and of the whole human race, from its beginning right up to now.
A second major symbol is that of the rods. Rods are used in all the major ritual complexes and also in some of the minor rituals.
In the opening sections of most of the rituals, and in the final section for the ritual for death, the rods symbolize both pathways between earth and heaven and temporary abiding places for the spiritual powers. The pathways are the pathways by which the spiritual powers come to us and, in the ritual for the dead, the pathway by which the dead person ascends to heaven and the living, who have been taking part in the ritual for the burial, return to normal life.
For Christians, the rod is the cross planted into the earth and reaching up to the heavens and with its cross-beam reaching out to each person, to all peoples and embracing the whole of creation, the whole of the cosmos. This was the pathway chosen by Jesus by which he could become one with us, especially with the poor, the sick and the sinner, those who had been marginalized, those whose tapu had been violated.
His whole life was a being planted into this earth and a taking on of our flesh and blood, becoming one with the human race and as a human reaching into the centre of our cosmos. Then lifted up on the cross, one with all those who are suffering and sharing their shame, he reaches out and draws all to himself.
The cross is a symbol of shame and powerlessness. It is now also as the symbol of the death of Jesus, the revelation of divine love, absolute and unconditional. It is thus the revelation of the fulness of mana, of the complete giving of self.
The two symbols, the spiral and the cross, are brought together in ritual.
As a representation of divine love, of the mana of Io, God, the cross goes right to the centre core of the spiral and extends to every part of the spiral.
The identifying with the beginning of the universe was expressed, at least for the people of higher ranking, at the ritual followed shortly after a child was conceived when the mother would be taken down to the river. Wiremu Te Rangikaheke gives an Arawa account of this rite.
First the priest would form a mound of earth beside the river. The swirling waters, like the spiral in the carving, symbolized the cosmos. The earth represented the child coming up out of the waters of creation, the waters of birth. Next the priest would place a stick in the mound of earth and call upon the spiritual powers to descend from the heavens by means of their pathway, represented by the rod placed in the mound of earth, and command them to remain in the rod as their abiding place.
The second part of the ritual consisted of a loosing and binding, a loosing from whatever was destructive of the child and a binding to the spiritual powers which would give strength to the child. The final part of the ritual, the whakanoa rite, clearing all those taking part in the ritual from any restrictions, consisted of an offering of food to the spiritual powers as a way of acknowledging them and then an eating of the food, first by the priest and senior woman, the ruahine, and then by all the people.
To link together the two rites, the Maori waituhi rite and the Christian baptismal rite is to understand baptism in a Maori way and bring together the two realities, the reality of creation out of the nothingness as expressed by the earth formed and taking shape out of the undefined waters of creation and birth, and the reality of the new creation brought about by the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus the carpenter from Nazareth.
The rod of the Maori rite now takes on the meaning of the cross, reaching from heaven deep into the earth and into the moment of creation, the singularity from which the whole cosmos came into being, while the arms of the cross reach out to the ends of the cosmos, embracing all of creation. Saint Paul speaks of the whole of creation in travail and waiting to be "freed from its slavery to corruption and brought into the same glorious freedom as the children of God."
Just as the Maori child symbolically bound to the rod is bound to the spiritual powers to whom it has been dedicated, so the person symbolically bound to the cross is bound to Jesus and in its descent into the waters of creation dies with Jesus. Its being taken up out of the waters symbolizes its new birth, one with the risen Jesus, a member of the new family, the new creation, in Jesus.
The new family into which we are born through baptism is without limits of time or space. It is a family that embraces all people of the past, of the present and to come, of every race and of every part of the world. In this whanau all are equal, all are first-born, all one with and in Jesus.
One with Jesus, we too must be committed to the human person and our love also must be absolute and unconditional. It is because of the commitment to the human person that we must give priority to the poor, the sinner, the leper and to all those who have been marginalized by society or by religion, who have been rejected as persons.
The central weekly, and for many daily, ritual action for the church is the ritual celebration of the Eucharist left to us by Jesus. The earliest description we have of the Eucharist is that given by Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians:
For the tradition I received from the Lord, and also handed on to you is that on the night he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and, after he had given thanks, he broke it, and he said: 'This is my body which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.' And in the same way with the cup after supper, saying: 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial of me. Whenever you eat this bread, then, and drink this cup, you are proclaiming the Lord's death until he comes.'
Born into the new creation through Baptism, we can reach to the fulness of the new creation in and through the Eucharist. The Eucharist gives us a ritual way of joining each moment of our own life to the life of Jesus, especially to the moment of his acceptance of his death on the cross.
If we follow the structure of the Maori rituals, the first part of the ritual for the Eucharist is a linking with Jesus. The rod which is set up as the pathway by which he can be present with us is the cross or crucifix and we can call Jesus to be present using the words of the Maori ritual:
The second part of the Maori ritual is the loosing and binding, the loosing from whatever is destructive, the binding to whatever is life- giving. The loosing is expressed most powerfully by the first part of the karakia waea te noa. This is the karakia to take away the negative noa, all that weakens or destroys our tapu, our worth as human beings, referred to in chapter four. The binding, paralleling the second part of the karakia waea te noa, is a binding to Jesus and a going back to the life-force with all its tapu, its fulness of tapu, its perfection of tapu.
In the present Western ritual this is effected by the prayers, the readings from the scriptures, and the recitation together of the Creed, our common profession of faith. This prepares us for the presentation of the gifts and the consecration of the bread and wine to be the body and blood of Jesus.
The third and final part of the ritual, from a Maori point of view, is a whakanoa rite, an offering of food to the spiritual power called upon by the ritual as a way of acknowledging that that power is the source of our strength and then a sharing of the food. The offering we make in the Eucharist is to Io, God, Io-Matua, God the Parent of all, Io- Taketake, God the source of all, and what we offer is Jesus, and ourselves one with him.
The Catholic belief is that the bread and wine we offer to express the giving of Jesus and the giving of ourselves, and then share, is no longer bread and wine, but the body and blood of Jesus. It is this that we offer to God the Father. It is this that we share. The sharing is a sharing which binds us all together, blood brothers and sisters, across all nations, all peoples, in the flesh and blood of Jesus and one with all those whose blood, like that of Abel's, cries out to God from the earth.
In the Easter ritual carried out at Mangamuka marae and described in chapter three, the three parts of the ritual were carried out over the three days.
The rod, the crucifix, was brought onto the marae three o'clock on Good Friday afternoon and the karanga, the welcome, to Jesus, was done by the women. Then the crucifix was placed in the Meeting House where the dead are placed.
The ritual on Easter Saturday night, with the recitation of the family's genealogy became a sharing with Jesus in his descent into Sheol, in his becoming one with all those who had died. This was a moving into the poo ki tawhito, the night given over to all those long since gone. In this case the binding of the second part of the ritual was a binding of Jesus, and ourselves one with him, to those who had suffered the ultimate violation of tapu, who had suffered death.
The third part of the ritual, the whakanoa rite, freeing us from all restrictions, took place on the Easter Sunday morning. This was the Eucharist in which we acknowledged Io, God, as the source of all life, offering to Io as our sacrifice the death of his own son Jesus, and in our communion being bound to one another in that sacrifice. The Eucharist we celebrated together was the Mass of the Resurrection, Jesus' resurrection from the dead, the sure basis of our hope in Jesus.
The third moment which is vital for the life of the church is the moment of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Wairua Tapu, or to use the words of the Io whakapapa, the Hau Ora, the Living Wind, or Breath, and principle of all life, the divine mauri.
According to the belief handed down to us from Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Wairua Tapu, the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, is the love of God which proceeds in eternity from the Father and the Son. This is also the spirit of God spoken of in the book of Genesis as brooding over the waters at the beginning of creation. To me, this is the Hau ora, the Living Breath or Wind spoken of in the Io genealogy which gives life to all things, all things formed in the Word, the Wananga, the understanding of God, and expressed in the Whe, the resounding throughout all of creation. In Maori terms this is the divine mauri, the divine source of energy, and te tokomauri o te tapu, tapu nui, tapu whakahirahira, the manifold energy of the tapu, the great tapu, the all- important tapu, spoken of in the karakia Waea te noa as coming from Rongo, the spirit of peace.
It is the same Holy Spirit which gave life to the church at Pentecost appearing in the form of parted tongues of fire resting above each of the disciples and accompanied by the sound of a mighty wind. The moment of the coming of the Holy Spirit, which is also the moment of the forgiveness of sin, is not just one moment, but every moment when the Holy Spirit, the Hau Ora, comes to us giving us life and energy, the spirit of Jesus bringing to us our unity in Jesus.
Through baptism, one with Jesus we move into the moment of creation when all things came into being and the moment of the new creation, the renewal of all things, brought about by his death. So we are born, through water and the Holy Spirit, into a new life, into a new family.
Through the Eucharist we bring our own lives into the moment of Jesus' death, the expression of his absolute and unconditional love for the Father and for each person and of his commitment to all those whose tapu has been violated.
If we, as church, are truly one with Jesus, then we will be truly one with those who are suffering, with the marginalized of our world. Then our offering will be an offering one with Jesus and one with them and our sharing will be a sharing also of our oneness with Jesus and with all whose tapu has been violated.
To be fully human is to be one with the human race, the people of the past, as well as the people of the present and to take part in the whole movement i te kore, ki te poo, ki te ao maarama, 'from the nothingness, to the night, to the full daylight'.
To be fully human is to be one with Io, at the centre and at every part of the universe, whether in the 'dark night', or in the 'dark light' spoken of by some of the Western mystics.
To be fully human is to be one with Jesus on the cross and so to be one with the poor, the sick and the sinner. To be fully human is to be one with all those whose tapu has been violated.
Out of its oneness with people, with Jesus and with Io comes the church's mission, the mission of the Word.
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