It is Harawira Hatey Day in New Zealand. It is not a day of celebration, but division. And it is a time when the ritual of claiming indigenous sovereignty leads to a general avoidance of any celebrations.
It is a good day for sleeping in and getting the groceries. And (given that it is raining) catching up on work. But celebrating a treaty that has become a justification for creeping apartheid in my country? May it never be.
Prime Minister John Key and Government ministers have been welcomed on to Te Tii Marae without incident. Mr Key was escorted on by Titewhai Harawira. Finance Minister Bill English, Te Ururoa Flavell and Mr Key all accepted challenges laid down by the warriors in the powhiri.
There was no trouble other than a small group of protestors against the Trans Pacific Partnership and some calls about sovereignty. Mr Key has said he would deliver a largely positive message while on the marae. Labour leader Andrew Little and opposition MPs will be welcomed on later today.
Now, the passages today deal with a time when the old covenant stood, and the place of prayer for Israel was the temple: and when the idea of continuity of the people was great. When foreigners thought they were damned, and the law said anyone with crushed testicles — that is all eunuch — could not enter the assembly of the people, nor worship at the temple.
The divisions among us on ethnic or disability or injury are unjust and against the clear teaching of God. And there is another reason these are wrong, as Paul told the Galatians.
Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.”
For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
“And the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to him, to love the name of the LORD, and to be his servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it, and holds fast my covenant— these I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
The Lord GOD, who gathers the outcasts of Israel, declares, “I will gather yet others to him besides those already gathered.”(Isaiah 56:3-8 ESV)
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
(Galatians 5:16-24 ESV)
We talk a lot about impurity and sensuality, and we should. For many if not most of us struggle in these fallen times: the number of men who end up frivorced and the number of women abandoned, is too great: the encouragement to consider all others as sexual objects is part of daily propaganda, and the cost to our children and society is disavowed.
But look at the other parts of the list. Strife. Fits of anger. Dissension, Division, envy… these are the tools of rulers, keeping the populace divided against each other. If there is not an ethnic division, import people who will not integrate. If men love women and women support men, tell both groups they are oppressed and useful idiots among both Men’s Rights and Feminist activists as your cannon fodder.
Encouraging the Hateyness is not of Christ. And on this day, when every Maori Activists screams at the Prime Minister (Regardless of Party: Helen Clark was a woman with impeccable SJW credentials. Did not matter: She stopped going. John Key still does: but he normally gets things thrown at him and insulted by those who protest. Ironically, the Local Tribe (iwi) tries to respect all their guests and each year eats shame from the behaviour of human trolls who descend on their grounds and ignore their customs and protocols) we need to say that this will not happen in the church.
Instead we will be one. So our Church will be a house of prayer to all nations.
