sustain:if:able kiwi

creationary: Waitangi Day Resources

For folk in New Zealand, Sunday worship this week falls on the 6th of February, which is also Waitangi Day, a day to reflect upon the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between Maori and the Queen of England’s representatives in 1840 and the implications for our life as a nation going forward.

For those thinking about the implications for worship, here are some resources that I have created in previous years that might be of some use.

• a daily prayer service (20 minutes) here
• a sermon I preached in 2007, making linkages between Ephesians 2, Jesus and Waitangi Day.
• some worship ideas (here), including an interactive call to worship, a medley of Scriptures and a song suggestion
• a Waitangi day communion liturgy I wrote for Waitangi Day. It is published in Gerard Kelly’s, RetroFuture: Rediscovering Our Roots, Recharting Our Routes, 178-9.

Female: Waitangi Day
Where Maori and Pakeha wanted to be one
Hoping for security
Dreaming of biculturalism

Female: We who are many are one body
Male: Ka whatiia e tatou tenei taro.

Male: Communion,
Where God wants us to be one,
Hoping for restitution,
Dreaming of full and final settlement

Female: We who are many are one body
Male: Ka whatiia e tatou tenei taro.

Female: Communion [raise bread]
Take this and eat it. This is my body,
Jesus, broken, that we might be one.

Male: Communion [raise cup]
Take this and drink it. This is my blood.
Jesus, broken, that we might be one.

Female: We who are many are one body
Male: Ka whatiia e tatou tenei taro.

Female: Waitangi Day – Divided Day
We hear the protest from our margins.
We hear the rage of the disillusioned.

Male: Communion. And so we are God’s body,
Caught in the projection of bread and wine,
We are bringers of peace. We are messengers of hope.

Female: Communion – brokenness that we might be one
Take this and eat
Take this and bring peace

Male: Communion – brokenness that we might be one
Take this and drink
Take this and live hope

Together: We who are many are one body.

(It works best if you have a large projected visual image which people walk into to partake of communion.)