A Polynesian
In-Your-Face
And other sheep I
have,
which are not of this
fold:
them also I must
bring,
and they shall hear my
voice;
and there shall be one
fold,
and one shepherd.
— John 10:16
One of our favorite experiences on
our recent trip to Hawaii was an oceanside luau. We were lucky enough to be
seated front and center, immersed in the ancient native culture, fantasizing
what it might have been like to live back then. We got an eyeful of some great
Polynesian dancing and music. My beloved liked the young women in their coconut
bras and swaying grass skirts. I liked it when the hunky guys got going really
fast, and their litsy bitsy loincloths were allllllllllmost . . . isn't show
biz wonderful?
But at one point, one of the men started spinning this big,
mean-looking weapon around, motioning as if he was going to throw it like a
spear at the audience. Scowling, he had all kinds of tattoos and body paint.
The drumbeat picked up considerably, and I could tell we were coming to the
climax of the performance.
Suddenly, chanting in an unfamiliar language, the scary guy flung
what looked like a grass whip to the ground on the stage. It was like a
gauntlet, an obvious challenge for man-to-man combat. The whip fell on the edge
of the stage in easy reach of the nearest pudgy tourist from the mainland in a
loud shirt. Said tourist had his face two inches above his plate, porking out
on Course #14 of 42 courses, oblivious to the onstage action.
So this tourist - my beloved -- didn't see the muscled warrior/dancer
lean forward four feet from him, and stick out his tongue, flat, all the way
down his chin, in the Polynesian equivalent of an "IN YOUR FACE, BUSTER! PUT UP
YOUR DUKES!!!"
It was just so real! So strange!
But this was just an act. He WAS joking.
Wasn't he?
Finally, some card from the back row shouted, "I think he
wants you to pick it up!" My beloved finally looked up from his plate, realized
he'd been challenged, lifted his hands in exaggerated surrender, grinned, and
went nonchalantly back to his dinner.
The dancer and the crowd laughed with delight. On with the
show!
But in my overactive imagination, in that instant of uncertainty,
I realized what it must have been like for the first Europeans, especially the
missionaries, who arrived a couple of centuries ago. They must have seen guys
like that all over the place. It must have been confusing and scary. When
cultures collide, and you don't understand the language or rules, how do you
even tell when someone's trying to make a joke? How could those early Christian
missionaries have kept their cool in such a precarious situation?
Now, we all love the beauty of the Hawaiian culture. But history
has also documented that the Hawaiians had all kinds of human sacrifice, incest,
bigamy and promiscuity. They worshipped idols and the bones of their ancestors,
wore themselves out trying to appease some 40,000 spirit deities to hold off on
things like launching volcanoes, fed corpses to sharks to try to get them on
their side, and trusted their bods to witch doctors and sorcery. Their society
practiced the subjugation of women to the point where the gals couldn't eat
with the guys, and couldn't eat coconuts, bananas or roast pig. Heyyyy! So much for the luau spread we were having
that night!
So, even though there were a lot of things the whites did in
Hawaii that weren't so great, as happens any time a culture with more
technology meets up with a subsistence culture like that, getting rid of that harmful
native stuff was good. And boy, did it take guts.
I really admire people who, even today, are obeying Jesus' command
to go into all the world and make disciples, regardless of the dangers and
deprivations of the missionary lifestyle. Like our Lord, they are bravery
personified.
Then again, I bet it was pretty strange and scary for the
Hawaiians, too. Though hopefully, those first white visitors acted with a bit
more sophistication and restraint than us 21st Century vacationers:
Yeah. Well. Who's civilized NOW?
I'm too much of a wuss to be a missionary. I would have
hated those Hawaiian taboos, especially the ones about women and dining. That's
just one more good thing about the Christian life: there's nothing anybody
can't eat! †
