Auckland church leaders’ Easter message: It’s time for those with power to help those without

The challenge for us us all, including the church, is to consider the ways in which we are privileged. Photo / Brett Phibbs

OPINION

In his sermon at this year’s Waitangi Day dawn karakia, Dr Alistair Reese said love needed to be “cross-shaped”. He was calling for the powerful to sacrifice their own interests for the sake of the powerless. This defies our intuitions and our own instincts. We expect those who gain power to hold it, not use it to benefit others. Reese’s point was profoundly Christian because it is in the Christian practice of giving ourselves up for others that the shape of the cross is seen most readily.

At Easter each year, the Christian church around the world and in Aotearoa New Zealand focuses on the crucifixion of Jesus. We retell the story of Jesus and his walk through Jerusalem, his unfair trial by the empire of Rome, and his unjust death. We do this because we believe this story is not merely human. We believe Jesus was God himself, choosing to suffer to reconcile us to God and to one another.

The cross is the symbol of Christianity, seen on many of our buildings. We believe that, in the cross of Jesus, God’s love for us is most clearly seen. The cross is the way in which we have been brought back to God. The cross also shapes how we seek to approach life together.

One of the most famous passages of Christian scripture was written by Paul, who led churches years after Jesus’ death. In it, he says this:

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

The contrast is striking. Unlike us who are merely human, Jesus was God himself. But, where we often cling to our rights or to an idea of equality, Jesus gave up what was rightfully his and laid aside the privileges he truly deserved.

This is the template for living a radically different kind of life as individuals and as a society. A cross-shaped approach to society’s problems begins by calling each of us to see how we can sacrifice for the sake of others. Instead of insisting on holding on to what we have managed to build for ourselves, the cross-shaped approach sees possessions and influence as opportunities to serve those who lack them.

In the context of Waitangi Day, Reese was calling for an approach to Te Tiriti o Waitangi that would require those with privilege, not least the Crown, to give up their rights for those without, not least Māori. The challenge here is that this invites us all — including the church — to consider the ways in which we are privileged.

All too often, the church has been seen to be lecturing others about how they ought to behave and then failing to do the same ourselves. But one of the great insights of the Christian faith is that imperfection mars every person, every power, every structure, every nation — and, also, the church. This Easter, we want to start by acknowledging that Christians and churches, too, have sometimes been complicit in seeking our rights instead of laying them down, and in grasping our privileges instead of taking the position of servants in society. Wherever that is the case, we must confess our sin before God. A primary reason we so treasure Jesus’ self-sacrifice on the cross is that, in that story, we have found the beginning of healing for our own failures, our nation and our world. In a world where forgiveness is increasingly rare, we have found God has been willing to forgive us. No one is deserving of God’s love or of the position we may have inherited in our society, but we are profoundly grateful for the way God shows kindness to the undeserving — even to us.

The story of Easter is centred on the cross. But the story of Easter does not end there. In our churches on Easter Sunday, we will celebrate the greatest miracle of our faith: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. We are the ultimate optimists. We believe God has not abandoned us, but is powerful and active in giving new life: to individuals, to groups and, indeed, to whole countries. Our celebration of the new life given to Jesus after his crucifixion compels us to hold on to the hope that new life can be brought to Aotearoa New Zealand. We would love you to come to an Easter service and hear that story told more fully.

God offers us forgiveness, but also calls us to change. That includes the church. Just this year, a symbol of new cross-shaped life was seen at Rangiaowhia, where land was returned by a church to its original owners, in recognition of serious historic wrongs perpetrated by colonial powers and their military forces. Such symbols of new life can never fully erase old wrongs, but can give hope for a future that includes forgiveness and reconciliation. Where else — wherever people, institutions, the state and the church have inherited the fruit of past injustice — should we be doing all we can to make things right? What are the aspects in our society where wealth and privilege should be shared much more, for the benefit of all? Our human nature can urge us to guard our rights and privileges rather than to share them, rather than to give them away. But the cross calls us to something different. The willingness and the power to change can come from God.

Many people are cynical about the church. We get that. But we hope that, as society watches us, it will see the church increasingly cross-shaped as God’s resurrection power transforms us, and that we are giving up our rights and privileges — even “our” land and money — to empty ourselves of what we have so that we can better serve others. We hope you will see us look more like Jesus.

And we hope that many people this Easter will think anew about the meaning and implications of Easter: what it means to have our lives shaped by the cross of Jesus, and what it means to live in the newness of life that comes through the resurrection of Jesus.

We pray that many may experience the love that we have found, and the same power and hope for a renewed life.

You are invited to share in this Easter hope at a local church near you.

Reti Ah-Voa, Regional Leader, Northern Baptist Association, the Rev Paul and Pam Allen-Baines, Congregational Union of New Zealand, the Rt Rev Ross Bay, Anglican Bishop of Auckland, Pastor Tak Bhana, Senior Pastor, Church Unlimited, Pastor Steve Burgess, National Leader, C3 Churches, Captains David and Denise Daly, Area Officers, Auckland Area, The Salvation Army, Pastors Luke and Melissa de Jong, Senior Pastors, LIFE, Pastors Jonathan and Robyn Dove, Senior Pastors, Gracecity Church, the Ven Dr Lyndon Drake, Anglican Archdeacon of Tāmaki Makaurau, Dr Richard Fountain, the Christian Community Churches of New Zealand, Auckland Enabler, Darren and Sharon Gammie, National Secretary, Assemblies of God New Zealand, Pastors Steve and Rebecca Green, Senior Pastors, Elim Christian Centre, Charles Hewlett, National Leader, Baptist Churches of New Zealand, the Rev Brett Jones, National Superintendent, Wesleyan Methodist Church of Aotearoa New Zealand, Pastor Nich Kitchen, Auckland Leader, Lutheran Church of New Zealand, the Rev Dr Stuart Lange, National Director, New Zealand Christian Network, Pastor Bob Larsen, President, North New Zealand Conference, Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Rev Kok Soon Lee, Auckland Chinese Churches Association, the Rev Dr Featunií Liuaana, Senior Pastor, Congregational Christian Church of Samoa (EFKS), the Most Rev Steve Lowe, Catholic Bishop of Auckland, Pastors David and Lissie MacGregor, National Directors of Vineyard Churches Aotearoa New Zealand, Pastor Geoff MacPherson, Moderator, Grace Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, Pastors Joe and Racquel Manase, Lead Pastors, City Impact Church, the Rev Andrew Marshall, National Director, Alliance Churches of New Zealand, Pastors Stephen and Susy Miller, Auckland Leaders of New Life Churches, the Very Rev Anne Mills, Dean of Auckland, Pastor Sam Monk, Senior Pastor, Equippers Church and ACTS Churches National Leader, the Rt Rev Te Kitohi Pikaahu, Māori Anglican Bishop of Te Tai Tokerau, the Rev Dr Marie Ropeti-Apisaloma, Moderator, Northern Presbytery, Pastors Dean and Fiona Rush, Senior Leaders, C3 Church Auckland, Pastor Moses Singh, Senior Pastor, Indian Christian Life Centre, Apostle Brian and Pastor Hannah Tamaki, Destiny Churches International, the Rev Uesifili Unasa, Auckland Synod Superintendent, Methodist Church of New Zealand.