Preached at Wesley House, Cambridge (6 February 2025)<\/p>\n
Dr Richard A. Davis<\/p>\n
1 Corinthians 13:1-13<\/strong>
\n1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n==============================<\/p>\n
Have you wondered what love looks like in public? Even if you haven\u2019t asked yourself this question, some people have answered it.<\/p>\n
One view is that love made public is art.<\/p>\n
It was the African American theologian and philosopher Cornel West who said \u201cNever forget that justice is what love looks like in public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tonight I want to reflect on the role of love in the public theology of New Zealand. <\/p>\n
Today is a national holiday in New Zealand. The occasion recognises the signing of The Treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840 between the British Crown and indigenous M\u0101ori tribes. For some it\u2019s a celebration; for others a commemoration. It\u2019s always a controversial day.<\/p>\n
From the day this treaty was signed it has been a source of contention. Historians and lawyers have weighed in on the meaning of the English version of the Treaty compared to the M\u0101ori version and whether M\u0101ori ceded sovereignty to the British (this is the persistent government view – and the only basis of their legitimacy). M\u0101ori maintain that they would never give up their sovereignty, or Tino Rangatiratanga. <\/p>\n
What can theologians offer into the mix offered by constitutional lawyers, politicians, and historians of the British Empire and its colonies?<\/p>\n
Given the involvement of Anglican, Catholic, and Methodist missionaries 185 years ago when the Treaty was signed, theologians and church leaders today have felt that their ongoing interpretations of the relationship between M\u0101ori and settlers are legitimate, even if not always welcome.<\/p>\n
Some interpret the treaty as a sacred covenant. Yesterday the President of the Methodist Church in New Zealand, Te Aroha Rountree got applause for suggesting that recent government moves to unilaterally reinterpret the Treaty to the disadvantage of M\u0101ori were akin to the Crown filing for divorce from a \u201cblissfully unaware\u201d M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n
Both the covental understanding and the marriage metaphors for the relationship between M\u0101ori and the Crown suggest a more relational approach than a legal one. They even make room for the role of love in defining this relationship.<\/p>\n
Here we come to today’s reading from Corinthians on love.<\/p>\n
This passage has been so overused in weddings that it\u2019s now probably skipped over by preachers at other times. Yet Paul\u2019s insights into love cannot be limited to marriages and partnerships, however. There is much more to his teaching than that. <\/p>\n
Before we get into that, I\u2019ll take a digression\u2026<\/p>\n
It might be tempting to believe that something that happened in New Zealand in 1840 might not concern us here in Cambridge in 2025 and I am overindulging the preacher’s privilege. But hear me out.<\/p>\n
When I was in New Zealand last March speaking to a gathering of fellow Kiwis about my research into decolonial settler theology, I was asked by a theologian how I can do this work of writing about decolonising New Zealand theology living in the UK. I cannot remember my precise reply. I do recall that I wish I had said something like this:<\/p>\n
England and New Zealand were linked by a chain of colonial travel with the UK at the sending end and New Zealand at the receiving end. There were push and pull factors in settlers leaving England to travel to colonise New Zealand. We cannot fully understand New Zealand settlement without understanding England and the imperial mentality at the time.<\/p>\n
More specifically, there is a firm connection between Cambridge and New Zealand found in the life of George Selwyn.<\/p>\n
Selwyn was the first Anglican Bishop of New Zealand from 1841 to 1869. He was a school mate of Cardinal Newman and eventually studied at St John\u2019s College Cambridge. Later he would found St John\u2019s Theological College as the Anglican Seminary in New Zealand, which continues to this day. After his death two Colleges were founded in his honour, Selwyn College, Cambridge and Selwyn College, Dunedin within the University of Otago where I first studied theology.<\/p>\n
Selwyn had a very mixed record in relation to the M\u0101ori people. At times he protested some of the excesses of colonisation and abuses of M\u0101ori. Later he supported the military invasion of the Waikato region and was involved in an incident where colonial forces burnt M\u0101ori women and children alive at Rangiaowhia. He supported education for M\u0101ori, but on an assimilationist basis.<\/p>\n
I won\u2019t speculate on what Selwyn learned at Eton and the University of Cambridge that made him think that violence against indigenous peoples was OK. Understandably M\u0101ori today have very mixed feelings about Selwyn.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a long way of saying that there is a connection here between Cambridge and New Zealand.And it\u2019s not always a comfortable one.<\/p>\n
The question for me, other New Zealanders, and others, is this: How can we do better today in relating to M\u0101ori and other colonized peoples?<\/p>\n
Our reading from Corinthians suggests to me that love is the key ethic for interpersonal relationships. God\u2019s enduring perfect love for us is the model of love for our own love for others. If we love one another as Christ loves us, then can we expect our relationships to improve?<\/p>\n
Love is not just between spouses and family members, friends also love one another.<\/p>\n
Yet we need to tread with care here.<\/p>\n
The word translated as \u2018love\u2019 in our passage is the Greek word for love agape. This can be described as brotherly love or goodwill toward one another. It is this quality that could be explored as a transformative ethos in friendship between settlers and indigenous peoples.<\/p>\n
In trying to do better, I have been reflecting that friendship is what we should be aiming for with all peoples. Friendship is an elusive thing. It is difficult to define. However, I think that friends look for the best in their friends, give them the benefit of the doubt and wish them the best in life and help them along the way.<\/p>\n
Friendship, however, is not as easy as it sounds. We are a much more egalitarian society than we used to be. While class and hierarchy still exist in our world it is now much easier to make friends across gender, racial and class lines.<\/p>\n
Reflecting on my own history, it was easier to become personal friends with M\u0101ori in New Zealand when I was at school, when in my town, we were all relatively equal. For others M\u0101ori were more separated and lived in poorer suburbs separated from them. The M\u0101ori I did get to know in school and played sports with were weeded out of the school system as early as age 15, when the old exam system would cull the majority of pupils by the final year of school, leaving very few M\u0101ori ready for University.<\/p>\n
So yes, there was nothing stopping us being friends with M\u0101ori, except we didn\u2019t see them in numbers at school and university when life long friends tend to be made.<\/p>\n
These facets of life are not unique to my upbringing. Friendships between settlers and natives have been fraught across the world\u2019s empires, which separated people and even segregated them, with the extreme example being Apartheid South Africa.<\/p>\n
Friendship between settlers and indigenous peoples was sometimes distorted by a colonial mentality that friendships had to be on the terms of the settlers. This was a civilising mission. Gentlemen could only befriend other gentlemen, so natives had to be made into gentlemen in order to fit within the polite society of the coloniser. Friendship could not occur between classes or races without assimilation.<\/p>\n
As we have seen with Selwyn, Christian mission was sadly a part of this so-called civilising mission.<\/p>\n
Can Corinthians help us break through these Victorian cultural conventions about who can be friends with whom? Here a general invitation to simply love others is not enough. Thankfully Saint Paul outlines for us the specifics of love, and what stands in its way.<\/p>\n
Here I want to highlight verse 5 of our reading: \u201dIt [that is, love] does not insist on its own way\u201d<\/p>\n
As we may know from personal experience, friends who try to impose their will on their friends, soon won\u2019t have any friends at all. There must be give and take, even compromise to maintain friendships.<\/p>\n
No surprisingly, settler colonialism in the Western world has imposed its own way of doing things and seeing things on subjugated indigenous peoples. According to the President of the Methodist of New Zealand, the government is still insisting on its own way in interpreting the Treaty. This is not the basis of love, peace, or justice.<\/p>\n
Christians need to take this verse seriously and not insist on their own way. This, I believe, has radical implications for our church and nations.<\/p>\n
In politics, we should insist on our own way, even if we are politicians with a majority and apparent mandate to rule. Leadership cannot be loving when it insists on its own way over others.<\/p>\n
Christianity, the handmaiden of Western imperialism, has insisted on its own way of approaching the divine and finding salvation. To take this verse seriously upends Christian mission built more on the rightness of our doctrines over the love of non-Christians.<\/p>\n
Teachers, too, need to be humble enough not to insist on their own way. To do so is old pedagogy of command and control. We now know better that we need to listen, for we all know but in part.<\/p>\n
Can loving and not insisting on our own way reset relationships between communities and peoples?<\/p>\n
Could such a Christian message get traction in a very secular New Zealand, and other settler colonies? <\/p>\n
It is not for nothing that the command to love our neighbours was given by Christ, who modeled crossing boundaries and loved people where he met them. He remains the interpretive key on how to love and to be in relationship with the other.<\/p>\n
With God\u2019s help we can try loving people as Christ did, loving them where they are.<\/p>\n
With God’s help we too can love like that.<\/p>\n
Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Preached at Wesley House, Cambridge (6 February 2025) Dr Richard A. Davis 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,143],"tags":[139,126],"class_list":["post-1202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-decolonial-settler-theology","category-new-zealand","tag-decolonial-settler-theology","tag-waitangi-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1202"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1206,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions\/1206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rad.net.nz\/radiescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}