Finding Life with Heni
You can listen to this sermon here
Gate Pa – 5th Sunday in Lent - Year A - 2023
Readings:Psalm - Psalm: 130
First Reading - Ezekiel 37:1-14
Second Reading - Romans 8:6-11
Gospel - John 11:1-45
What I want to say:
I wonder how we are at the moment? - How many of us feeling like field of dry bones in Ezekiel – in need of breath of God?
With Mary, Martha and Lazarus we are invited to know Jesus as the “resurrection and the life.”
What I want to happen:
What does her story offers us about Jesus life for us today?
The Sermon
1. Introduction:
It is odd to think of where we were three years ago.
Just into the new strange land of lock down
Trying to work out how to do church online – what did that even mean?
We did pretty well compared to many other places
I had to be careful in my conversations with people overseas who did not have the same freedoms we had
Endured much higher rates of illness and death
Longed for someone like Jacinda to be at the helm.
And here we are out the other side – sort of.
Covid is still around.
Since then there has been war in Ukraine
- Weather events and Gabrielle in this country and in our diocese
Many of us are tired
- Some are fearful
We are in many ways we are grieving
Grieving is tough work
For many it feels like those dry bones in Ezekiel
Longing for life again.
2. John and Lazarus
- Grieving for his friend Lazarus
- Grieving with Mary and Martha
- Grieving for his friends Mary and Martha
o Weeping at their pain and loss
And there is a real sense that he is grieving for himself
- And all that lies just ahead for himself and his folowers
This is the hinge point in the gospel
In John’s gospel this is the last of seven signs or miracles.
This last sign, Lazarus rising, closes out the first half of the gospel.
When Jesus says of Lazarus’ illness/death in verse 4
“It’s for the glory of God so that God’s Son can be glorified through it.”
Ultimately he is talking about the cross
In John’s gospel God’s Son is glorified on the cross
This last sign is really about what the raising of Lazarus will lead to
It convinces the Judean leaders (Jews) that Jesus must die.
The rest of the gospel will be focussed on Jesus’ journey into Jerusalem, last supper, arrest and trial, crucifixion, and then resurrection.
While Lazarus being raised is pretty impressive,
- and while it provides the reason why the Judean leadership decide Jesus really did have to die,
it is not the point of the story.
It is just a sign
The point is that it acts as a signpost to Jesus own death and resurrection.
Jesus uses this astounding event to show that he is the resurrection and the life.
I have not used the word resurrection for Lazarus because he will die again. I’m pretty sure he dies again.
While he was really dead, stinky dead, 4 days dead,
Lazarus hears to voice of the good shepherd (Jesus) and comes back to life.
But it is his old mortal body.
When Jesus is resurrected it is a whole new way of being.
And it is that that we are offered at the end of time, however we understand that.
Death is defeated.
Humanity restored.
Creation renewed.
That is the resurrection.
But Jesus is also the life.
And “life” is now
Life is not everything being ok
- Lazarus will die again.
- The brutality of Good Friday will happen.
- Many of his first disciples will be martyred.
Is about how we live in the face of all that causes us to grieve
How we follow Lazarus’s example and rest with Jesus
- As Lazarus does at the meal that follows
What might that life look like for us with all that is going on for us now?
Use the life - Heni Te Kiri Karamu to look at that
3. Heni Te Kiri Karamu
What do we know about Heni?
Take a moment to talk to your neighbour
4. Biography –
(from https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1t43/te-kiri-karamu-heni and Jane’s Story - a biography of Heni Te Kirikaramu/Pore (Jane foley) by Alfred D. Foley
She was descended from Ngātoroirangi of Te Arawa canoe.
She was born probably on 14 November 1840 at Kaitāia, where her mother Maraea (also known as Pihohau or Pikokau) had been taken as a child by Ngāpuhi after the capture of Mokoia Island.
The identity of Hēni's father is not clear. She identified her father as Russell, who is also named in an obituary as Richard Russell, a ship's chandler from Sunderland, England. Hēni's death certificate records that her father was an Irish sea captain named Thomas William Kelly. (Maraea was price of muskets sold to Nga Puhi)
Hēni was at Henry Williams's mission at Paihia in 1845 and witnessed the burning of Kororāreka (Russell), after which she was evacuated with her family to Auckland.
Became ward of Richard Russell who took in number orphans from Kororāreka
- Became her “brothers and sisters”
Some records say she was taken by her kinsman, Ārona, to Rotorua.
She attended Thomas and Anne Maria Chapman's school at Te Ngae, Rotorua.
While here taught her whakapapa
returning to Richard Russell’s educational endeavours in Auckland in 1849.
There she attended two mission schools, including the Three Kings Native Institution, a boarding school for Māori children. Fluent in Māori, English and French, she became an assistant teacher there and also worked as a governess.
When she 15 - married Te Kiri Karamū, of Ngāti Rangiteaorere of Te Arawa, who was working as a gum-digger.
They lived in Auckland (Waiheke and at Mission School) where their three sons and two daughters were born.
After a quarrel Hēni Te Kiri Karamū left her husband in 1861 continued to work at school
Met Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipi te Waharoa and other moderate Waikato leaders
- Sent sons to mission school education
- Worked find peaceful resolution – recognised Māori self government and protection Māori land rights
- Became involved in translating communication between these chiefs and government
Forced into Hunua ranges in 1863 after refused sign declaration of allegiance to crown and surrender weapons
When war began in Waikato in July 1863, Hēni Te Kiri Karamū and her family supported the King movement.
They fought with Ngāti Koheriki, a section of Ngāti Pāoa led by Wī Kōkā, in the Hūnua Range. Along with her mother and sister Hēni had her young children with her. After several weeks of skirmishes Ngāti Koheriki split into small groups to withdraw to Waikato. One party, who ignored the advice of the tohunga as to the route they should follow, was severely defeated at Ōtau, on the lower Wairoa River, on 14 December.
The force regrouped at the headwaters of the Mangatāwhiri River and continued their way south. Finding themselves hemmed in by a cordon of military posts, they camped for some time in a deep, forested valley, south-east of the Wairoa River, living mostly on wild honey and cold water as they could not light fires or shoot game for fear of attracting the British troops.
One
night they were able to slip
through the soldiers' lines, moving so close to the sentries that they could
hear them talking. They waded through a swamp and crossed Lake Waikare by
canoe.
A Ngāti Hauā leader, Te Raihi, advised them to go to Wiremu Tāmihana Tarapīpipi's village, Pēria, near Matamata, where the King's followers were gathering. They remained there for the summer of 1863–64, and during this time Hēni Te Kiri Karamū translated captured military documents for Wiremu Tāmihana.
In 1864 Hēni Te Kiri Karamū and Ngāti Koheriki joined the King's forces at Te Tiki-o-Te-Ihingarangi pā at Maungatautari. After the fall of Ōrākau on 2 April this pā was abandoned, and they accompanied a force of Ngāi Te Rangi warriors to Tauranga. British troops had landed at Tauranga in January to prevent the King's allies from the East Coast from sending aid to Waikato.
Hēni Te Kiri Karamū has been remembered in written history primarily for her involvement in the battle at Pukehinahina, or the Gate Pā, on 29 April 1864. The women who had helped construct the fortification at Pukehinahina had been ordered to leave by Rāwiri Puhirake before the British force attacked. Hēni Te Kiri Karamū, however, stayed, as she was recognised as a woman warrior, and refused to leave her brother Neri.
She was nearly killed by the first shot of the bombardment but was saved by the tohunga Tīmoti Te Amopō, who saw the cannon fire and pulled her down into a trench. When the British troops were repelled, their wounded, left behind in the pā, were treated with kindness and humanity by the defenders, in accordance with a code of conduct drawn up before the battle by Rāwiri Puhirake and Hēnare Taratoa, a former mission teacher.
After the battle of the Gate Pā Hēni Te Kiri Karamū went to Rotorua, where she lived at Hapokai, on Mokoia Island.
In 1865–66 she fought in support of the government against the Pai Mārire movement, alongside her uncle, Mātenga Te Ruru. They captured Ngāi Te Rangi leader Hōri Tūpaea at Rotoiti, as he attempted to cross Te Arawa territory to join the Hauhau leader Kereopa Te Rau on the East Coast.
Later in 1865 Hēni Te Kiri Karamū fought with Te Arawa forces led by Major William Mair against the Hauhau at Matatā and Te Teko, near Whakatāne.
After the wars Hēni Te Kiri Karamū married Denis Stephen Foley, who kept a hotel and was in charge of the military canteen at Maketū. They were married on 28 December 1869 at Maketū, and had three daughters and three sons.
In 1870 they moved to a farm at Katikati. About this time Hēni Pore, as she was now known, also attended a theological school.
She reclaimed family land at Hauānu, Mokoia Island, to which she had rights from her ancestor Whakatauihu, and built a house there for her mother. She also claimed the land known as Patoroa, which was later farmed by her son, Rangiteaorere Te Kiri.
On 20 November 1870 Denis Foley, who was a heavy drinker, attacked Hēni with a bill-hook, breaking her arm and severely cutting her about the head and body. He claimed she was bewitching him; he was certified insane, and committed to the Auckland Provincial Lunatic Asylum. Hēni subsequently applied for a protection order against him and was granted maintenance of 10s. a week.
Gradnson, Alfred says she stayed in Katikati until after Denis died and their children were grown
She purchased a 30 acre block of land at Katikati in 1888,
She returned some time after this to Rotorua. but lived for the remainder of her life at Rotorua.
In her later years she worked as a licensed interpreter,
and was active in the Women's Christian Temperance Union, becoming secretary of the Māori mission and of the Rotorua Union. Hēni Pore lived to see five generations of her descendants, and died on 24 June 1933 at the King George V Hospital, Rotorua.
She is buried at the Rotorua cemetery.
Tough life, filled with hardship, injustices and grief
At centre of all that was her unwavering faith
- Her devotion to the welfare of her own people
- Her sharp intelligence
She was a champion for rights of women and underprivledged
5. Conclusion
I wonder what her story offers us about Jesus life for us today?
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