God of Justice and Compassion
You give us a Work to do
And a baptism of suffering and resurrection
From you comes the power to give to others
The care we have ourselves received
So that we and all who love your world
May live in Harmony and Trust. Amen

(The New Zealand Prayer Book).

I am always a little overwhelmed when entrusted with responsibilities such as this – leading Bible Studies, preaching, offering Biblical or theological reflections and especially for such an extraordinarily talented, theologically savvy, Biblically experienced and thoroughly ‘traditionally’ grounded group who also just happen to be beautiful, compassionate and deeply devoted Anglican women! Thank you for the privilege you have afforded me this morning.

I have three short scriptural pieces that I want to ask us to consider this morning. These are three that I use frequently in my own scholarly work especially when I am trying to make sense of my own call to ministry as a single, lay, indigenous woman blessed with the professional responsibility of being a theological educator. My job as I see it is to prepare students to become ‘critical thinking activists capable of exercising transformative ministries anywhere in God’s world’. My job therefore is to ensure students are well equipped to function as Anglican advocates for God’s mission and ministry. The priority issues you have already identified for today – women’s health, women’s education, women as agents of God’s peace and poverty are all an integral part of the ministries I expect all students of theology to anticipate having to address. Each of these issues has an increasingly urgent sense of poignancy attached to them especially when we consider the continuing plight of too many of our sisters in various parts of God’s world. I want therefore to be as a teacher and to use these three scriptural pieces to in turn identify three overarching theological principles which I want to suggest might well be helpful as we address the challenge of developing our own enduring mission ‘vision’ - not just so the ‘people do not perish’ but rather in order that all may flourish and thus become more fully whom God intends they become.

My first scriptural reference is from Paul’s letter to the Romans 12:2. This passage is one I often use for my farewell speech to 'validecting' students. “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good, acceptable and perfect”.

In this piece I find the powerful urging of the Spirit insisting that we are never to be passively accepting of things the way they are, especially ‘unjust things’, even in the face of our apparent helplessness to change or transform the situations we are being confronted with. What Paul is doing here is encouraging us always to use that spectacularly underdeveloped part of ourselves – the life of our minds, to truly deeply, critically, imaginatively, analytically figure out how best to effect social transformation – social transformation not merely for it’s own sake but in order that what we are doing is indeed ‘good, acceptable and perfect’ – that what we are doing is indeed the will of God and not simply a whim of our own. Using our innate capacity for ‘reason’, alongside of Scripture and Tradition is our unavoidable theological responsibility as Anglican women of God. May I suggest the theological principle at work here is that of ‘intellectual endeavour’?

My second scriptural piece is from Marks’ Gospel 7:6-8. Here is a piece, which I find especially challenging and yet powerfully encouraging – you see my own academic field is actually Race Politics and Theological Education. The reason I am so impassioned about race politics has to do with my lifelong commitment to indigenous rights through naming and working to redeem the historic legacy of injustice arising out of the colonial experience which has left such an indelible ‘stain’ upon all colonial ‘agencies’ including our Church. I yearn for redemptive justice to prevail in all post-colonial Anglican sites and I believe many parts of our Church globally including my own Province is proving itself more than willing to accept the challenge for transforming itself away from being the stereotypical colonial overlord. However given our church’s inherently unjust overly patriarchally represented existing structures, then the challenge to ‘transform’ is made that much more difficult.

In an ironic twist to this challenge to ‘transformation’, a phenomenon I have noted with increasing alarm is the tendency among predominantly male leaders of previously marginalized/dominated post-colonial faith communities to assert uncontested and uncontestable! culturally based practices to be part of our contemporary ecclesial tradition. For example senior clergy who still insist women have no place in ministry especially in leadership because it is ‘culturally unacceptable’ or ‘against tribal tradition’. It is time these men sorted their ‘traditions’ out – is it Christian first or tribal first – they cannot have it both ways!

Even a very cursory examination of this phenomenon so easily reveals that at its heart is a very predictable variation on the universal theme of P.M.E or ‘problematic male ego’! The threat to one’s own power base, the inability to share power let alone to devolve it, invariably leads to bizarre behaviour. Even in my own indigenous community it is not uncommon to witness male tribal leaders ‘teaching human precepts as doctrine’ – evidence of the abandonment of the commandments of God in favour of holding on to human tradition.

In this respect, women, particularly those of us who are tribal people ourselves have to set a new ecclesial standard for our Church. We have to be courageous enough to say to one another that only those traditions that are theologically defensible are deserving of protection and perpetuation, for it is only those things, which are acceptable to God, which are worthy of our attention. The other more important consideration is to remember that as women we are more than ‘cultural beings’ we are God’s created human beings, created equally in the image and likeness of God therefore there can be no question of our ‘acceptability’ in God’s sight. There is still a significant work of transformation yet to do.

May I suggest the theological principle at work in this second example is that of ‘moral courage’?

We all need to exemplify the highest levels of moral courage to continue on the journey for justice for all.

My third scriptural piece is from Philippians 2:1-7. In this Paul is imploring of us to model Christ’s personal example of profound humility. Once again for us as Anglican women, the call to servanthood ministry is unmistakable, “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus”. What an unavoidable challenge this poses. This piece is so open and simple, so irrefutably clear in its urgings to us all. Can I suggest the theological principle at work in this final piece is that of ‘humility’?

Now just as I gave you the ‘three r’s’ the other evening as a suggested ‘mantra’ for redefining the purposes of our International Anglican Women’s Network - relevant, radical and responsive, so now I offer you three distinctive theological principles by which you might begin to address the pressing issues of injustice currently negatively affecting too many of our sisters. It occurs to me that it is possible to get an acronym from my three theological principles but I suspect we may not get too enthusiastic about it! Humility, intellectual endeavour and moral courage – put the first letters of each word together and what do we get – h – i – m!

Notwithstanding the unfortunate acronym, we do now have a work to do – issues of health, poverty, education and peace are in many instances not merely urgent they are desperate – they will require every ounce of our intellectual endeavour, every possible expression of our moral courage and under every circumstance our instinctive preference must be to look not to our own interests but to the interests of others – our preference must always be for Christlike humility in the service of others. 

I believe however the challenge is eminently achievable:

We can do it because we are women
We will do it because we are Anglicans
We must do it because we are Women of God.

Sisters, let us now turn to the substantive agenda before us today. In closing let me offer a second short prayer also from the New Zealand Prayer Book.

God of Peace
Let us your people know
That at the heart of turbulence
There is an inner calm that comes
From faith in you.
Keep us from being content with things as they are
That from this central peace
There may come a creative compassion
A thirst for justice
And a willingness to give of ourselves
In the Spirit of Christ. Amen.

Dr Jenny Plane Te Paa.