JESUS BORN OF IO, GOD, AND BORN OF THE COSMOS
When presenting an understanding of Jesus for his community, Matthew begins with the genealogy of the Jewish people, starting with Abraham and going through David to Joseph. Saint Luke, giving an understanding of Jesus for his community, starts with Joseph and traces back to Adam. In presenting a Maori understanding of Jesus I wish to start with the Io creation genealogy. I present here the Io whakapapa, 'genealogy', as given by the Reverend Maori Marsden. Maori's link with the Io tradition is through his Grandfather, who was born in the 1790s, was a signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi and died in 1908. He was a priest of the Io tradition.
The genealogy begins with Io. Io-Matua-kore:- Io the Parentless who was the Always Existent without beginning or end. Io-Taketake:- Io the Root Cause, the First Cause who brought all that is into being. Io-Wananga:- Io the Source of all Wisdom.
Io-Taketake begot Te Korekore - the Absolute Nothingness. Te Korekore te rawea - the Absolute Nothingness which could not be wrapped up. Te Korekore te whiwhia - the Absolute Nothingness which could not be bound. Te Korekore te tamaua - the Absolute Nothingness which could not be fastened. Te Kowhao - the Abyss. Te Po - the Night.
Then Io seeded Te Kore and Te Kowhao laying down the root foundation of all things. So Te Kowhao begot: Te Pu - the Taproot, Te Weu - the Secondaries, Te More - the Hair-roots, Te Rito - the Shoots, Te Aka - the Vine.
Te Aka begot: Te Rapunga - the Seeking. Te Whainga - the Pursuit, Groping Towards. Te Kukune - the Stretching and Elongation. Te Pupuke - the Enlarging. Te Hihiri - Elemental and Pure Energy.
To give purpose and meaning and to direct the potential towards achieving authentic being:- Te Hihiri begot: Te Mahara - the Subconscious. Te Hinengaro - Deep Mind, Te Whakaaro - Consciousness. Te Wananga - Knowledge and Wisdom. Te Whe - Seed Word.
Then came:- Te Hauora - the Breath of life. Te Atamai - Shape. Te Ahua - Form.
From Te Atamai and Te Ahua came:- Te Wa - Time. Te Atea - Space.
"Now with the mauri-ora, 'life-force' of the Spirit present, Word and Wisdom as the agents for the creation of Te Aro-Nui, the world seen by our senses, could begin to create Rangi and Papa and the myriad shapes and forms together with Wa and Atea, 'Time' and 'Space'. Time and Space became the framework into which Rangi (Heaven/Sky) and Papa (Earth) emerged out of Te Ao Wairua, 'world of Spirit', into broad daylight, into the world of sense-perception."
This whakapapa, 'genealogy', puts into words something of the wonder of the being of the universe - its physical beginning and growth; the wisdom which lies behind that, the wananga, the 'knowledge' and the whe, the 'sound', which resounds from the beginning and throughout all space and time; the forces which give it energy and life, the physical forces, the different mauri, culminating in the Hihiri, the fulness of physical energy, and finally, the Spiritual Force giving shape and form to all, te Hau Ora, the life-giving breath, the life-giving wind.
With the development of modern physics and quantum mechanics we now know much more about the material universe than we knew even twenty years ago.
Most physicists, as the Maori, speak of the universe as coming out of a 'nothingness', as having a beginning in time. We know from Einstein's theory of relativity that time and space are not absolutes, but relative and most physicists accept the 'big-bang' theory of the beginning of the universe proposed by Edwin Hubble in 1929, especially as we have clear evidence that our universe is an expanding universe. According to the knowledge we now have of the physical universe, the 'big-bang' took place some ten to fifteen billion years ago. The Maori, too, speak of the length of time, the long periods of 'nights' and 'days' during which the process of creation took place until we come to the present stage of the universe.
Physicists also speak of the universe as starting at a 'singularity' and eventually, long after our time, returning to a 'singularity', to what is referred to as a 'black hole'. This 'singularity', at the beginning and at the end, is a point of infinite compression of both space and time. Everything is compressed to this one point and at this point there is no distance, there is neither time nor space. In the Maori thinking, it is only after time and space are created that things can take on form and shape.
We also know something of the size of the universe. This universe has a million million or so observable galaxies. We humans are on a small planet at the edge of one of those galaxies and have been in existence for a tiny fraction of the time the universe has been in existence.
On the other end of the scale we have known for some time that we and the universe are made up of very small atoms. Then about eighty years ago a New Zealander, Ernest Rutherford, managed to split the atom and nothing has been quite the same since. We now hear of photons, neutrinos, gravitons, quarks and gluons and all sorts of strange new words for the particles which make up an atom. The human brain alone contains about a hundred million billion billion particles.
Another factor is the speed at which the universe is moving. Our planet, and so we ourselves, are travelling at about 1800 kilometres a minute as we speed around the sun. That is only the beginning of the story. The sun is moving at several hundred kilometres a second as it moves around the galaxy and the galaxy is speeding with the expansion of the universe.
What keeps the universe moving and what gives unity to each part of the universe? For both the physicists and the Maori there must be a source of energy. For the physicists there are the forces of gravity and nuclear energy, the energy contained in the particles. The Maori, in trying to understand how each being stays together and works as a unite, speak of a mauri. a material force or source of energy. In seeking an understanding of the unity of each human being, who is both material and spiritual, the Maori speak of a mauri ora, a 'life force'. In explaining the unity of all things, the Maori speak of te hau ora, the living breath or wind.
In keeping with this thinking, the Maori model of the universe presents us with at least a two-world system, a material world and a spiritual world, intimately connected. In the words of Maori Marsden: The Maori does not, and never has accepted the mechanistic view of the universe which regards it as a closed system into which nothing can impinge from without. The Maori conceives it as at least a two-world system in which the material proceeds from the spiritual, and the spiritual (which is the higher order) interpenetrates the material physical world of Te Ao Maarama.
In this model there are many atua, created spiritual powers, each being responsible for a particular area of creation. The most important of these spiritual powers are Tangaroa, responsible for the sea and all it contains, Taawhiri, responsible for the heavens and the winds, Tuumataurenga, responsible for human beings, Taane, responsible for the trees and the birds, Rongomaataane, responsible for the kuumara, the sweet potato, and Haumia, responsible for fernroot and what grows from the soil.
TAPU AND EXTENSIONS OF TAPU
Every part of the universe has its own being with its own potentiality, a being which is linked to the spiritual power from which it receives its being, and ultimately to Io, God, the source of all. The word which expresses this being with its potentiality is the word Tapu.
For most people the word tapu means 'forbidden'. There are many times, places, actions and events which are tapu in that sense, that is, meaning 'forbidden' or 'restricted'. This is not the primary meaning of tapu, but an extension of its meaning, just as the word 'health' when applied to foods, shops and even stamps, is an extension of the meaning of the term 'health' which primarily refers to the well-being of some living organism such as ourselves. Tapu primarily refers to the very being of the thing, with all the potentiality of its being. This is what I refer to as intrinsic tapu.
Some examples showing the distinction between intrinsic tapu and tapu which are restrictions might be helpful. The tapu placed on a group carving a canoe and forbidding us to go near while the carving is going on is a restriction placed out of respect for the intrinsic tapu of the canoe and the intrinsic tapu of Taane. It is an extension of the intrinsic tapu of the canoe and of Taane. The tapu restrictions placed on entering and leaving a cemetery are extensions of the intrinsic tapu of the people whose bones are buried in the cemetery and of the spiritual powers responsible for those people.
Tapu is closely linked to the word mana, 'power', so closely linked that at times the words are used interchangeably. But where mana refers to actual power, being with power, tapu refers to potential power, to what a thing can become. This is why I have defined tapu in its primary meaning as 'being with potentiality for power'.
With both tapu and mana, there is a clear sense that the potentiality for power and the power itself have their source in the spiritual powers, and ultimately in Io, in God. So, in a phrase found in an undated manuscript which John White claims comes from the Ngaapuhi people, tapu is defined as: Te mana o nga atua. The mana of the spiritual powers.
As mentioned above, we human beings come right at the end of the physical process of the creation of our universe and exist on one small planet at the edge of only one of the millions of galaxies. Yet we have a very special place in this universe. To the question: What is the greatest reality of the world? the Maori will still answer: The human person! This is expressed in a saying frequently used at the beginning of speeches: He aha te mea nui o te ao? Maaku e kii atu he tangata, he tangata! 'What is the greatest reality of the world? I say the human person, the human person!'
The reason for this is our intrinsic tapu, our being with its potentiality for mana or power. As human beings we can become one with all things and we express this in ritual. We can be one with the cosmos and in the ritual after conception are linked with the beginning of the cosmos. We can be one with people, both in the present and in the past. So in the ritual following conception, the girl is linked with Hine, the first woman. We are also linked with the different spiritual powers and with Io. These are the sources of our mana, our power. And through our word, especially when using the ritual chants, the karakia, we have our part in the whole movement of creation, i te kore, ki te poo, ki te ao maarama, from the nothingness, to the night, to the world of light.
MANA, POWER TO GIVE, NOT POWER TO TAKE
Perhaps the central issue today, as in the time of Jesus, is the issue of mana, or power, and how we use it. Is mana power to take and possess, or power to give, to serve others?
Where mana is seen as power to take and possess, it is almost always accompanied by violence and whether the authorities who use the violence are legitimate or illegitimate, it is still violence. Any taking over of another person or people, even without physical violence, is a violation of tapu, the tapu of that person or people.
This use of violence against another person can lead to the loss of one's own mana. We see this in the Waikato story of Kiki and Tamure. These were two tohunga, experts, who possessed great mana. When Tamure went to visit Kiki, Kiki sought to kill Tamure. But Tamure was protected by the spiritual power of his daughter, strengthened by karakia , and Kiki became ill and died. Kiki seeks to increase his own mana by violence, by killing Tamure, but it is Kiki himself who is killed, his own tapu and mana destroyed.
The real sign of a person's mana is not that person's power to destroy other people, but that person's power to manaaki, to protect and look after other people. This is an exercise of mana, power, for others.
In the 1850s when Tamehana Te Waharoa approached different chiefs around the country asking them to accept the title of King of Aotearoa, they refused, one after the other. In refusing they referred to the land over which they had control and to its food resources. The reason they gave for refusing the title was that they did not have the resources to manaaki, to look after, the people in a way fitting the position of King. "They felt that their tribal resources would not be equal to the strain of keeping up the position of King".
The same thinking is behind a saying quoted by Dame Whina Cooper: Ki te kore koe e manaaki i te tangata, me pehea te iwi e moohio e whai mana ai koe? If you do not show true hospitality, how shall people know you are a person of mana?
A similar saying is found in the Matorohanga manuscripts: Ma te manaaki i te tangata e tu ai te mana. It is by honouring and helping people that mana endures.
THE KINGDOM AND THE MANA OF JESUS
This understanding of mana as power to give, power to serve, gives us some insight into Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, and his mission. It also gives us some insight into the nature of God.
Jesus took as his mission the preaching of the coming of God's kingdom. What he meant by this was the coming of God to live amongst us and the establishing of God's rule.
Basic to this kingdom was the rejection of any mana that was an exercise of power over another.
Jesus told his disciples that no one was to be called master or father: You yourselves must not allow yourselves to be called Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers. You must call no one on earth your father, since you have only one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor must you allow yourselves to be called teachers, for you have only one teacher, the Christ.(Mtt.23:8-10)
No one was to 'lord it over another'. On one occasion the mother of two of the apostles, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, went to Jesus and asked him to give her two sons a place on his right and on his left when he established his kingdom. He told her this was not for him to decide, but his father. The other apostles were indignant with the two brothers over this request, so Jesus said to them: You know that among the gentiles the rulers lord it over them, and great men make their authority felt. Among you, this is not to happen. No; anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.(Mtt.20:25-8)
What this service meant Jesus showed his disciples at the Last Supper, when he took a towel, wrapped it round him, knelt before each of the apostles and washed their feet.(Jn.13:2-14) What giving his life meant he showed when he accepted death nailed to a cross, between two thieves.
In the garden of Gethsemane, when the soldiers and guards from the temple came to arrest Jesus, 'Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his right ear.' Jesus told Peter to put his sword back in its scabbard; 'Am I not to drink the cup that the Father has given me?'(Jn.18:10-11) He rejected all use of force in his defence. 'Put your sword back, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword'.(Mtt.26:53)
Jesus came, not to destroy the tapu or mana of anyone, but to restore and enhance the tapu of each. It was because of this that his mission was especially directed to the poor, the sinner and all who were marginalized in any way, the 'non-persons' that Gustavo Gutierrez speaks of.
Right at the beginning of his public life he made it clear that his mission was especially directed to the poor, to those in prison and to the sick and afflicted. He spelled this out when he spoke to the people in the synagogue in the village of Nazareth where he had been brought up. He said, quoting the prophet Isaiah: The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.(Lk.4:18-19)
Again, when John the Baptist, now in prison, sent some of his followers to ask Jesus if he was the Messiah, the one to come, Jesus' told them to look at what he was doing: Go back and tell John what you hear and see; the blind see again, and the lame walk, those suffering from virulent skin diseases are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.(Mtt.11-4-5)
Jesus showed his concern for all those who were marginalized by his love and by everything he said and did. He talked with them, he ate with them and he took every opportunity to condemn those who were responsible for the systems, social, political and religious, which excluded them. Ultimately he died for them and with them.
His love for people, all people, was absolute and unconditional and his righteousness went right beyond any righteousness called for by the Jewish system. You have heard how it was said, You will love your neighbour and hate your enemy. But I say this to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he causes his sun to rise on the bad as well as the good, and sends down rain to fall on the upright and the wicked alike. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Do not even the tax collectors do as much? And if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional? Do not even the gentiles do as much? You must therefore set no bounds to your love, just as your heavenly Father sets none to his.(Mtt.5:43-8)
This is the pono, tika and aroha, the faithfulness, righteousness and love, of Jesus and in this way he showed what it is to be a person of mana.
HIS MANA SHOWN IN HIS EXERCISE OF POWER THROUGH THE WORD
He first showed his mana at a wedding feast at Cana, a village not far from Nazareth. Here occurred the incident which precipitated him into public life, the changing of water into wine. According to the story that has been handed down to us in John's Gospel,(Jn.2:1-12) Jesus' Mother was at the wedding and he and his disciples were also present. When Mary noticed the hosts had run out of wine she told her son: "They have no wine." His reply was: "Woman, what do you want from me? My hour has not come yet." Nevertheless she told the servants to do whatever he told them to do. There were six stone jars meant for the customary ablutions and these could hold twenty or thirty gallons of water each. He told the servants to fill the jars with water, which when the president tasted, not knowing what had been going on, he turned to the bridegroom and said: "Everyone serves good wine first and the worse wine when the guests are well wined; but you have kept the best wine till now."
This incident marks the beginning of his public life. In the words of Saint John: "He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in Him." (Jn.2:11)
For the next two-and-a-half years Jesus carried out his mission, proclaiming the coming of the 'kingdom of God' especially for the poor and the marginalized, and in doing this he manifested that mana which is special to the human person, the mana, power, of the word.
It was through his word that he cured many people of their diseases. Through his word the deaf heard, the blind saw and the crippled were able to walk again.
Also through his word he brought many back to life. There was the twelve year old daughter of Jairus, who himself was one of the synagogue officials. Jesus simply took her by the hand and said to her: 'Talitha, kum!' which means, 'Little girl, I tell you to get up'. Then after telling her parents not to let anyone know about it, he told them to give her something to eat.(Mk.5:21-43)
Another time, entering a town called Nain, he met a funeral procession of a young man, the only son of a widow. He felt sorry for the widow, put his hand on the bier and said: 'Young man, I tell you: get up'. 'The dead man sat up and began to talk and Jesus gave him to his mother.'(Lk.7:11-17)
Then there was his friend Lazarus who had already been in the tomb four days when Jesus arrived. Jesus wept when he came to the tomb, because of his love for Lazarus. Then he told them to remove the stone blocking up the tomb, spoke to God his Father and "cried in a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!' The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of material, and a cloth over his face. Jesus said to them, 'Unbind him, let him go free'."(Jn.11:1-44)
Jesus showed the same power of his word over the wind and the sea, especially as he moved across and around the sea of Galilee. One day as his disciples rowed him across the lake he fell asleep. "When a squall of wind came down on the lake the boat started shipping water and they found themselves in danger. So they went to rouse him saying, 'Master! Master! We are lost!' Then he woke up and rebuked the wind and the rough water; and they subsided and it was calm again."(Lk.8:23-4)
Another time he cursed a fig tree that had no fruit. Next morning as he and his disciples passed the fig tree again "they saw the fig tree withered to the roots. Peter remembered that Jesus had cursed the fig tree the previous day and said to Jesus, 'the fig tree that you cursed has withered away.' Jesus answered, 'Have faith in God. In truth I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, "Be pulled up and thrown into the sea", with no doubt in his heart, but believing that what he says will happen, it will be done for him."(Mk.11:12-14; 20-3)
HIS MANA SHOWN IN HIS SILENCE
It is a very different scene when Jesus is arrested and appears before the leaders of the Jewish people and before the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate. Now, before the people who betray him and condemn him, Jesus is silent.
This is not easy to understand and Peter, for one, could not understand it. Some time before, Jesus had began to reveal to his disciples that he was going to suffer and be put to death. On hearing this, Peter took him aside and: started to rebuke him. 'Heaven preserve you, Lord;' he said 'this must not happen to you'. But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle in my path, because you are thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings do.'(Mtt. 16:21-3)
If mana is to give, as suggested above, then the fullness of mana is the complete giving, of oneself, to the other. When the other is suffering, that calls for a oneness with the other in that suffering. When the other has been marginalized as a person, that calls for a being one with the other in that marginalization. When the other is a person whose tapu has been violated, that calls for a oneness with the other in that violation. For Jesus to be true to this understanding of mana, there is no way he is going to use his power not to be one with all those whose tapu has been violated. There is no way he is going to come down from the cross.
True mana is the power to give oneself for others, not the power to take for oneself from others. Jesus came to die for us: 'For this was I born, for this came I into the world'. To come down from the cross would be a betrayal of his love for the human person, a betrayal of his mana. It would also be a betrayal of Io, God, his father, and of Io's mana. It would be a betrayal of his own being as the word, as the revelation of the Father, of God.
He wanted to be one with all who suffer in any way, who are marginalized, whose tapu is violated. As one writer has said: The only thing which can gauge the rank of a human being is his or her capacity to suffer for and with other human beings in the blackness of sickness, loneliness, torture, and despair'.
Jesus because he loved us, freely entered our blackness, our loneliness, our torture, and our despair.
HIS OOHAAKII, HIS FINAL WORDS
Much of this finds expression in his oohaakii, his final words as he was dying.
His first words on the cross were words of forgiveness: "Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing."(Lk.23:34) He never went back on his love for people, even for his enemies.
One of the two thieves crucified with him abused him and asked why, if he was what he claimed to be, he didn't save them. "'Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us as well.' But the other spoke up and rebuked him. 'Have you no fear of God at all? he said. 'You got the same sentence as he did, but in our case we deserved it: we are paying for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong.' Then he said, 'Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.'" Then Jesus spoke those wonderful words: "In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise."(Lk.23:39-43)
In terms of his love for people he seems to have been closest, after his mother, to the apostle John. It was fitting therefore that even on the cross he thought of them and provided for his mother by entrusting her to the care of John. Seeing his mother and the disciple he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, 'Woman, this is your son'. Then to the disciple he said, 'This is your mother'. And from that moment the disciple made a place for her in his home."(Jn.19:26-7)
His cry:"I am thirsty", is recorded by John. John adds, the soldiers then gave him some vinegar to taste and "After Jesus had taken the wine he said, 'It is fulfilled', and bowing his head he gave up his spirit."(Jn.19:28-30)
According to Luke his final words were spoken directly to God his Father: It was now about the sixth hour and the sun's light failed, so that darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. The veil of the Sanctuary was torn right down the middle. Jesus cried out in a loud voice saying, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit'. With these words he breathed his last.(Lk.23:44-6)
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