sustain:if:able kiwi

Pacific Island Synod bound

I’m delighted to be heading for Auckland to be part of the Pacific Island Synod over the weekend. I will be doing a keynote presentation on Friday, on the topic – singing the Lord’s song in a strange land. I’ve enjoyed the preparation.

This involves working on the bringing of greetings in five different languages and a final benediction in Samoan language. It has involved researching climate change in Pacific Islands and finding resources from Christian faith that might sustain communities entering this contemporary experience of exile.

I will also be weaving in wisdom from the Uniting Church Revised Preamble, including paragraphs that I observed having impact on Fijian Uniting Church leaders like Eseta Meneilly:

1. When the churches that formed the Uniting Church arrived in Australia as part of the process of colonisation they entered a land that had been created and sustained by the Triune God they knew in Jesus Christ.

3. The First Peoples had already encountered the Creator God before the arrival of the colonisers; the Spirit was already in the land revealing God to the people through law, custom and ceremony. The same love and grace that was finally and fully revealed in Jesus Christ sustained the First Peoples and gave them particular insights into God’s ways.

10. After much struggle and debate, in 1994 the Assembly of the Uniting Church in Australia discovered God’s call, accepted this invitation and entered into an ever deepening covenantal relationship with the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress. This was so that all may see a destiny together, praying and working together for a fuller expression of our reconciliation in Jesus Christ.

It has also involved seeking to understand more about a Samoan proverb: Fetu’utu’una’i’ muniao. In conversation with a number of Samoan leaders, I wonder if this is could be understood as an Oceania hermeneutic. I can see elements in fetu’utu’una’i’ muniao of the Wesleyan quadrilateral – Scripture, experience, reason, tradition – all held beautifully in an action-reflection, communal approach to voyaging. More later, after I see how fetu’utu’una’i’ muniao lands in the next few days.