REFLECTION 17TH NOVEMBER 2024 “WHANGAI” TO GOD” 

By Rev Dr Fei Taule’ale’ausumai 

The word “whangai” is the Maori word for adoption or foster, although it is not quite the same to the western view of legal adoption.  In Samoa our cousins are often whangai’d within the extended family.  Some of the reasons are because they are orphaned or for schooling, others because siblings were unable to have children and so they shared their children.  More often than not the child would know their biological parents.   

My father was the youngest of 9 children 2 boys and 7 girls.  He was whangai’d to the Sa Peseta Sio family and grew up in Leone in Apia and eventually travelled to Aotearoa NZ with his  Aunty  Silulu Iusitini Sio to attend the ordination of her son Rev Leuatea Sio.  Our blood ties and links to our fa’alupega or whakapapa genealogy are extensive and many hold several chiefly titles both matrilineal  and patrilineal  and that of Alii high chief and tulafale, orator or both Tulafale Alii.     

We probably can all relate to someone either in our own families or extended families, villages, hapu’s who have longed for children.  Religious people often use the term “we have been blessed with children”.  So, does that mean if you are childless, you are not blessed?  We have to be very careful how we use language to include or exclude, affirm or condemn and how it can easily become a language of cancel culture to use today’s trending phrases.   

The practice of whāngai today ideally upholds the rights of children to connect to their whakapapa, faalupega,whānau, genealogy, culture, language, land, and history. From a Māori and Samoan perspective children belong to their whakapapa, faalupega, whānau and not just to their birth parents.

The whangai children have knowledge of their birth parents and is often provided with the opportunity to establish intimate relationships with them. The kinship principle guarantees the child is not denied contact with the birth whanau or kin group and also able to call upon many relatives in times of need.  Within my own family growing up here in Aotearoa NZ we had about 20 whangai siblings living with us throughout our lives and when both my parents were on their deathbeds every whangai child was present to farewell them as they passed on.   

In our Hebrew reading, Hannah is the second and childless yet preferred wife of Elkanah.  She suffers silently in this predicament but eventually goes to a temple and prays fervently. She promises to return her child to YHWH if she is able to have a male baby, showing that she is most focused on securing her position in the community. She had to put up with the ridicule and bullying of her sister wives not only because they knew she was the favourite of their husband Elkanah but because she had not produced a child.   

She sat outside the temple, crying and praying. She prayed to God, reminding God that she was God’s servant and wanted but one thing only. Then she made a promise. She said: “Oh, God Almighty, if you will only see my misery and remember me by giving me a son, then I will give my son to serve you, God, for all the days of his life.”   

Our first glimpse of Hannah is a woman distraught over her childnessness.  She has come with her family to sacrifice at the shrine at Shiloh, but instead she weeps, declines to eat the sacrificial meal and goes alone to the shrine, where she prayed to the Lord, weeping all the while.  Hannah continues to pray fervently but silently, only her lips moving.  Since prayer in the ancient world was almost always audible and since excessive drinking was commonly one aspect of festive occasions, the priest Eli, not unreasonably, takes Hannah to be drunk.  He rebukes her, demanding that she sober up in the shrine.  Hannah replies: “Oh no, my lord, I am a very unhappy woman.  I have drunk no wine or other strong drink, but I have been pouring out my heart to the Lord.   

According to Leila Bronner from the institute of Jewish Studies in Los Angeles she says, “the Talmudic sages esteemed Hannah’s petition to God for a son as an exemplary prayer, yet most also opposed women’s participation in communal prayer and Torah learning.  This is the only prayer by a woman recorded in the Hebrew bible.”   

A priest at the temple, Eli, saw her sitting outside. Because she was behaving strangely, he thought she was a street person. “Why are you hanging around the temple?” he asked. Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief, asking God to grant my prayer.” Eli was moved by how earnestly she was praying and said, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”  Several months later, Hannah gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, “Because I asked the Lord for him.” 

Up until about 3 years of age Samuel continued to live with his family but when Samuel was old enough, Hannah made good on her promise to dedicate him to God. She took Samuel to the temple to live with the priests and Eli promised to take good care of him. Every year, Hannah and Samuel’s father visited him at the temple. Samuel did not want his mother to be lonely, so he blessed her and prayed for her. She had more children, and was a good mother to them. Samuel, who had been dedicated to God, became a prophet of his people and a leader of Israel.

This dedicating of Samuel to a life of service to God or whangai’d to God could be seen as the lesser type of sacrifice of firstborn males as burnt offering as compared to Abraham offering Isaac up as a burnt offering to God.  Rather than literally killing the firstborn child they are offered up into the service of God for a life time of service similar to the young monks you see in the Buddhist temples.  Israelite child sacrifice encompassed a range of rituals.  The general sacrifice of firstborn children served to acknowledge Yahweh’s claim to all firstlings and first fruits, applied specifically to children. Offering a firstborn child to Yahweh had the practical effect of ensuring that Yahweh would bless, multiply, and protect subsequent offspring.  

In Samoa we literally offer our children up to God and say “Ia avea ia o si taulaga mu  I luma o le Atua” May this child be seen as burnt sacrifice to God” in anticipation that they will eventually become a life time offering in service to the work of the church.    

Within the Catholic church I believe it is always the hope of staunch catholic parents that one of more of their children will be offered up to God as priests or nuns for a lifetime of service.  I used to wish as a young woman that the Presbyterian church should have a religious community for women, a place where we could serve God and not have to get married and have children etc. etc.  Had my family been Catholic I may very well still be a nun today.   

I edited a book called Pacific Treasures which was the first book of the stories and call to ministry of the first Pacific Island women ministers within the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ in the year 2000.  Here is an excerpt from my chapter.  “As a single person who is content and happy with my choice of lifestyle I often used to wish that the Presbyterian church had a religious order similar to the Catholic church so that I could join it.  For me it would mean that people would have to accept my way of life and could therefore stop trying to marry me off to every widowed or single man that happened to be passing through the neighbourhood.   Whenever I returned home people would grab my left hand and look to see if there was a ring on my third finger. I use to think “is my ministry not enough, am I expected to marry too?”.  It was like things were unfinished for them, that I would become complete with the right man by my side.  When I went to England the blessings I got were “may you leave as one and return as two or three”.  Perhaps people felt that I needed the company, or that I was lonely.  For me, I enjoy my choice of lifestyle and am happy and content with being single, every day brings new challenges and opportunities and I am always open to the possibilities.”   

Later on I did eventually get married but way past baby bearing age and sadly that was short lived as my husband Rewi Davis died 5 years later from a stroke.  Even today my parents continued to see me as a sacrificial offering to the church.  It may sound pious to some but as I said earlier my parents prayers were “Ia avea ia ma se taulaga mu I luma o le Atua”.  May she be our burnt sacrifice to God.   

These days I do not confine sacrifices and offerings to God within the confines of the work and life of God and the church, I believe that whatever vocation and calling one has from window cleaner to corporate CEO we make the most of whatever opportunity we are given, whatever situation we may be in whether that be unemployed or on the sickness benefit, we are to reflect on what it means for us to be in service to our iwi, our hapu our village to one another and in doing so being in service to a higher power whom some of us name God.  Amen.  

Audio of selected readings and reflections

Audio of the complete service