OUR HAWAIIAN IDENTITY, LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
Each week during Lent, we are spending some time on Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings taking a look at one part of our new Mission Statement:
Our Mission is to worship and serve God,
Whom we understand as Creator, Christ and Spirit;
Embrace our Hawaiian identity, language, and culture;
Invite and welcome others into our faith community;
Nurture all with God’s unconditional love;
And reach out into the broader community
By sharing aloha with everyone.
On Sunday, I shared with the congregation some of my thoughts about the 2nd part of the statement, which focuses on our Hawaiian identity, language and culture. I talked about the Hawaiian word for water, “wai”, and for wealth, “waiwai.” Wealth actually means “lots of water.” Hawaiian people have always measured wealth by the abundance of natural resources…and where there was plenty of fresh water, there was an abundance of kalo (taro), sweet potatoes, animals, and many other things to eat, not to mention an abundance of drinking water! In Hawaiian culture, it was important that there was lots of food and water for everyone. It was also important for people to work hard at whatever it was that they were good at. In fact, people from other places used to be so impressed by how industrious Hawaiians were…how hard they worked…even though they were surrounded by so much seafood and other things that grew on the land. They worked hard and long hours because they found their work extremely meaningful.
I also shared my observation that so much of the Old and New Testaments also speaks of wealth in the same way, including our reading from Isaiah 55:
Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
and you that have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wind and milk without money or price.
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
This sounds like the same message to me! There is something deeply satisfying about working hard at something when you know your place and see the overall purpose of your work, especially when you know that you are making life better for others.
I invite you to come to the water and drink deeply! Enjoy the abundance all around us! And, if you haven’t already, find something that you are really good at, and figure out how to use that gift to make life better for others! Let’s commit to that as individuals…and as a church!
Kahu Alan Akana
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