[Sermon]

Tena koutou. Tena koutou. Tena koutou katoa.

I speak today because Father Te Awhitu has asked me to speak. Ka pai te mahi. I pick up the crumbs from the table.

Forty days and forty nights he spent fasting, and at the end of them was hungry. Then the tempter approached and said to him, ‘If thou art the Son of God, bid these stones turn into loaves of bread.’

He answered, ‘It is written, “Man cannot live by bread only; there is life for him in all the words which proceed from the mouth of God.”’

Our Lord suffered for us. The fasting made him hungry.

Why did he fast? He did not fast for himself. He had no sins. He fasted for us. He fasted to make himself ready for his ministry. To talk to us. To give himself to us. To give us light.

He said, ‘Man cannot live by bread only.’ Te taipo wanted him to do a miracle, to turn stones into bread, to feed himself.

Our Lord could have done that. He could have turned stones into bread. Later on, he did feed six thousand with one or two loaves and fishes. He gave men bread as well as words. He would do a miracle for us, but not for himself.

Now it is the beginning of Lent. We begin to fast a little. To do without one or two things. For ourselves, yes – because we need to be purified, to ask God to help us to get rid of our hara.

But we do it for other people as well. The hara of my people is my hara. For myself, that is what I say. Then, if I fast, I do it for myself, and also for other people.

We do it for God, because he did it for us. Because he loves us, we love him. Because Our Lord suffered for us, we suffer a little bit for him.

He said, ‘Man cannot live by bread only.’

I remember a friend of mine, a man from the Ngapuhi. He was going to the university in Wellington. He was being educated. To become a lawyer.

One day he came to me where I was working, and he said, ‘I’m very troubled.’

I asked him what was wrong.

He said, ‘It’s the temptation in the wilderness. To turn stones into bread?’

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He was a leader at the university among the Maori people, from his own tribe and other tribes. He was like a father to them.

The trouble was – he wanted to be a lawyer just for himself – to get high up in the world. But he found he was leaving the Maoritanga behind him. It began to hurt him inside.

He went and got another job. He became a very good actor on the radio and the TV. But he held on to the Maoritanga.

To make money. To climb the ladder. There’s nothing wrong in any of that. But it is wrong if a man does it just for himself.

Christ fed the people with bread and fish. He did a miracle to feed them. But he would not do a miracle just for himself.

Te Ariki is like the wharepuni. His ribs are over our heads. His arms are on each side of the door.

He came into the world for us. He fasted for us. He died for us.

We have to try to be like him. We have to try to live and die, not just for ourselves, but for other people.

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