Sermon at Anglicans Ablaze Conference 2025

 ARCHBISHOP THABO MAKGOBA

PRIMATE and METROPOLITAN OF THE ACSA

Anglicans Ablaze Conference 2025

St Agnes Parish, Kloof, Diocese of Natal

9 October 2025

Readings: Malachi 3: 13 -4:2a; Psalm 1; Luke 11: 5 -13

”WALKING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF JESUS“

Bishop Dalcy Dlamini, Liaison Bishop for Growing the Church,

The Revd Bruce Woolley, Director of GtC, 

Bishop Nkosinathi Ndwandwe – our host,

Visiting Bishops,

Participants in this International Conference, 

Invited guests and visitors,

Fellow clergy,

Young people and

Ladies and gentlemen:

May I speak in the name of God, who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.

Dear brothers and sisters, thank you so much for inviting me to Anglicans Ablaze, and allow me to join the organisers in welcoming the visitors and guests who have come to be with us. Please feel at home. 

Thank you so much for your warm welcome on our arrival today. Thank you to Bishop Nkosinathi, the Diocesan Bishop, for hosting us in your diocese. Thank you, Revd Sizwe Ngcobo and your leadership team for opening the doors of this beautiful church. Many thanks, Revd Bruce Woolley, Director of Growing the Church, and your team for your efforts in preparing for this year’s Conference – our evangelical outreach in the Province. And a special welcome to distinguished guests, fellow clergy, young people, and to all of you, the whole wonderful family from all corners of this Diocese, Province and beyond. 

It is an honour and privilege to stand here today as the Patron of the Growing the Church and to preside at this Service for this Conference, the last Anglicans Ablaze I will attend before my retirement as your Archbishop. I am thrilled at the wide representation of participants and guests from different dioceses of our Province and beyond. This is indeed a sign that God is growing this church, using Growing the Church to enable us to reach out to all communities of our Province. Your record of witness, service, ministry and mission through God’s love and grace is inspiring, especially during these challenging times in our country and the world. You are indeed one of the leading institutions of our Province in living out faithfully ACSA’s Vision statement as part of your ministry and mission.

Bishop Dalcy and Revd Bruce, thank you for your leadership. Thank you mostly for your openness to learn and grow in the knowledge and love of God, as witnessed in your experiences amidst the challenges you face every day. We wish you well for your plans beyond this conference – and we also pray for God’s blessing and strength as you continue to spread the Gospel message. Let me also thank the whole GtC Provincial leadership team for all you have done for our Province. 

I would like to begin today by sharing my thoughts on how those who serve God are called and sent.

Yesterday, the speakers laid a solid biblical and theological foundation. They reminded us that as the baptised, beloved in Christ, we are taken, broken, moulded, and refined, and are called to participate in what God is already doing in the world. This understanding reflects the missiological dimension of our sent-ness, which emphasises what the priesthood of believers is called to be and do by virtue of our baptism. Revd Catherine highlighted the significance of the sacramental element for those who are sent, stating, “We go not only as broken individuals who are now healed but as the body of Christ, with a variety of skills and capabilities, warts and all.” We become the visible manifestation of the inwardly invisible grace, illustrating the essence of the sacraments.

In a Pauline context, we indeed become the body of Christ, broken for the good of the world. Conversely, Bishop Darcy focused on the Christological elements of our sent-ness. She emphasised that in everything we do and say, we are called to imitate Christ, take on the mind of Christ, and put on the full armour of Christ. Canon Bob from Zambia reinforced this idea by reminding us that as we adorn ourselves with the armour of Christ, we are also called to heal, reconcile, and remember those who may have lost their connection to the body of Christ or have not yet heard the Gospel preached. He underlined that our primary mandate as the harvesters for God is missiological, urging us to make disciples of Christ in all corners of the earth.

Finally, our programme director from the Diocese of Johannesburg consistently reminded the attendees after each keynote speaker to pray for one another. This sentiment echoes the importance of remaining connected to God, as Christ did with the Heavenly Father, ensuring that everything flows from our relationship with the Triune God. At the end of yesterday, we prayed together and engaged in a ministry of healing. We laid hands on one another, fostering spiritual connections through prayer. The Bishop of Matlosane, our Dean of the Province, beautifully closed that day of worship by presenting all of us before God.

Today, I intend to weave one additional element into this already colourful mosaic and tapestry, which I refer to as the pastoral and prophetic lens. I will apply this lens to specific situations and share the lessons I have learned in the public space regarding the National Dialogue. I hope to bring forth a report from the Synod of Bishops on the pastoral and prophetic ministry challenges. 

Today's reading from Malachi (3: 13ff) tells us how those who have served God, who have truly feared the Lord in a time of great cynicism, will be spared. The prophet compares their attitude with that of those who have been defiant; of those who have thought that it was evil-doers who prospered and thus questioned whether serving God loyally is of any value. Malachi invites us as the faithful to refuse to be moved by the arguments of cynics and instead seek to deepen our fellowship with each other and to reassure ourselves of God’s justice. In that way we can emulate those in Malachi's time who helped to restore the moral order which prevailed in the days before God's people were exiled to Babylon.

The Psalmist in today's reading has a similar message for us, likening those who trust in the Lord to trees that yield a distinctive harvest, drawing life from a river. If we delight in the law of the Lord, then we too can be fruitful and prosper, since God watches over the righteous and guarantees their destiny.

In the last few words of the Malachi reading, we are given an image of the consequences of acting upon the prophet's message, painting as it does a picture of the joyful, vigorous life that will be ours if we follow righteousness. But let us be clear: deepening our fellowship with one another, and being reassured that God's justice will prevail in the world, does not mean that we can treat this Conference as a comfortable cocoon into which we can retreat to escape from the world.

In the here and now of Southern Africa, Anglicans Ablaze gives us a chance to follow the example of those who listened to what Malachi was urging them to do. This Conference, in helping us to deepen our fellowship with one another, to share one another's burdens as well as joys, and to reassure ourselves of God's justice, enables us to take a step further and to use this opportunity of worship, fellowship and praise to work out what God's justice means in practical terms in our context today, and what we need to do to achieve it in practice. 

At the last meeting of the Synod of Bishops a few weeks ago, we heard of the multiple social crises being faced in just about every Diocese of our Province, whether caused by human failings or natural disasters. The bishops reported on children of migrant workers being left alone in Lesotho; kidnappings in the Diocese of Port Elizabeth; corruption over oil exploration in Namibia; illegal mining in Matlosane; youth crime in Mzimvubu; young people harming themselves, even committing suicide, in Eswatini, Pretoria and the Diocese of Grahamstown; xenophobia in the Diocese of Christ the King; the prevalence of taxi violence in False Bay and of drugs and absent fathers in the Highveld. St Helena suffers low wages, unaffordable land and housing, and emigration. Gender-based violence (GBV) was reported by many Dioceses. The Eastern Cape Dioceses of Mbashe and Mthatha, as well as the Diocese of Natal, reported on the effects of devastating floods. And that is not to speak of the crisis of corruption and incompetence found at just about every level of governance in South Africa, and of the societal crises brought about by inequality of opportunity, the yawning gap between rich and poor and the frightening lack of jobs, particularly for the young.

In that context, please allow me to address a few words to the South Africans among us on our National Dialogue. Given the cynicism that we hear about the dialogue, it was striking to hear at Synod of Bishops of how widespread the support for the dialogue is in our church. Most of our Dioceses are either rural or have significant numbers of rural parishes, and in my experience it is there, and in marginalised urban townships, that we are seeing support for the dialogue. People in better-off urban areas have the resources to overcome service delivery challenges themselves and can afford to be cynical. As I am saying everywhere I go, the levels of discontent in the country are so high that I don't believe politicians will be able to manipulate the dialogues at local level, and so I urge all of you to attend one of the 14,000 local gatherings that will be held around the country, and to help communities take control of the process themselves.

Please also allow me to bring to this very important gathering a troubling question concerning the ministry of our church which the Synod of Bishops has failed to resolve. Ten years ago, the Province asked us as the bishops to draw up guidelines for pastoral ministry to those among us who identify themselves as being LGBTQI. We have wrestled with the request for 10 years, but still have no guidance to offer our clergy for that ministry.

To go back to basics, if you go read the Catechism in our Prayer Book—the summary of our doctrine and our guide to faithful living—paragraph 106 of the Catechism says: “The two great sacraments given by Christ to his Church are Baptism and the Holy Eucharist.” We already administer those two sacraments to our LGBTQI sisters and brothers. Then if you read paragraph 120, it spells out “other sacramental rites”, which include Confirmation, Confession and Absolution, the Anointing of the Sick, Christian Marriage and Ordination. We allow for all of those for LGBTQI people, with the exception of Christian Marriage (as well as Ordination in most circumstances).

The bishops have not proposed making any changes to the Catechism. Paragraph 125 of the Catechism says explicitly, as does our Canon on Marriage, that Christian Marriage is the lifelong union of a woman and a man. I want to emphasise that what the bishops have been wrestling with does not involve any departure from our position on administration of any of the sacraments.

What the Province did ask the Synod of Bishops to do 10 years ago was to provide guidelines for how to minister pastorally to all. On that we have consistently failed, for meeting after meeting. The bishops all agree that all people are created in the image of God, and we explicitly said in 2016 that all baptised, believing and faithful persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are full members of the Body of Christ. But we have been unable to reach a common mind on how to give meaning to that declaration in the form of providing pastoral ministry to couples. 

I said at last month's meeting of the Synod of Bishops that I believe we need to take our failure to the wider church, and to ask for your help on the way forward. We need your input and your views, and in that I look especially to the young people in whose hands we are entrusting the future of our church.

Returning to today's readings, in Luke (11:5ff) we are presented with a parable whose purpose is to encourage us to pray. Although in this passage the householder who has bread is asleep and unwilling to get up, yet because of the persistence of the midnight visitor, the visitor's needs will be supplied. This is a parable of contrast; if even a human friend responds to someone in need, how much more will God respond generously? Just as earthly parents do not wilfully deny their children their needs, so God will give the gift of the Spirit to all who ask. With these assurances, we know that we can pray for our needs in confidence that our prayers will be answered by God as is best for us.

This is a matter of critical importance to our faith. For there can be no faith and no Christian works without the constant, daily ongoing conversation with God which prayer assures us of; a conversation in which we learn to listen more than to speak. Prayer does not involve escaping into a luxuriant comfortable little world of our own; truly effective prayer will drive us off our knees and out into the world to give meaning to God's justice and love for all God's creation. 

In conclusion, as you pray, worship, celebrate and work out together what it means to be God's agent of love in our world, and then go out into the world to live out our faith, I invite you to play your full role in addressing the important decisions we face in the many areas of our personal and corporate lives: how we participate in the lives of our nations; how we order our collective life; how we transform our liturgies so that we worship God in ways best suited to the times in which we live; how we respond to the need for sensitive and effective ministry to those in same-sex unions; and how we ensure that our congregations are safe spaces for all our people, especially women, young people and vulnerable children.

I encourage all of you all to continue striving for what is ethically good in our communities. Let us discern and fulfill our call to the best of our ability – by so doing we shall have responded positively to the Gospel message today. 

Finally, let me once again thank Bishop Dalcy, Revd Bruce and your team for the sterling work in growing disciples for Christ, and wish you all the best as you continue to reach out and live lives worthy of your calling, so igniting God’s flame in the world. 

Congratulations on this successful AA2025 conference, and may God bless you, your Dioceses, our Province, our nations and the world. May God bless each one of you richly.

God loves you and so do I. Amen.

 

* * * * *

Archbishop Thabo welcomes new Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has responded to the news of the choice of Bishop Sarah Mullally of London: 

 

"On behalf of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and on my and my family's behalf, my warm congratulations to Archbishop-elect Sarah Mullally. The historic appointment of the first woman as Archbishop of Canterbury is a thrilling development. We heartily welcome the announcement and look forward to working with her as we all try to respond prophetically and pastorally to what God is up to in God’s world."

 

Sermon for Desmond Tutu Memorial Mass, St John's College, Diocese of Johannesburg

ARCHBISHOP THABO MAKGOBA
PRIMATE and METROPOLITAN OF THE ACSA
Desmond Tutu Memorial Mass, Diocese of Johannesburg
St John's College
2 October 2025

Readings: Micah 6: 1-8; Matthew 5: 3-12

 

May I speak in the name of God, who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.
    Brothers and sisters, thank you so much for inviting me to this Memorial Service this morning as we remember Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.  Thank you for your warm welcome on our arrival. Amongst his many ministries, the Arch exercised a ministry of gratitude. Let me then start by expressing our thanks to God and acknowledging Mr West and his wife, Joanne West. Stuart has been a friend and support of our family, especially when he was head of Herschel, and he has served our Anglican independent schools over a long period of time as an outstanding leader. Mr West, and Joanne, thanks to you both and to your wonderful team for hosting us. Many thanks to the parents, learners and educators for gracing this early morning service. Thank you, Fr Thapelo Masemola, School Chaplain and your team for preparing for this service in this beautiful chapel and for ensuring that a liturgy is crafted perfectly in memory of the Arch Emeritus. 
    As we remember him this morning, in our Anglican Church calendar we commemorate the 19th century British philanthropist, Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, whom we remember as a fervent evangelist and  campaigner against the appalling conditions in which people lived and worked in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Following in the footsteps of William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery campaigner, Shaftesbury championed the under-privileged and oppressed, advocating legislation which aimed to improve life in the factories and the slums—a cause, like that against slavery, which in its day generated as much controversy as did Desmond Tutu, in and outside this school community, when he fought against the injustices of apartheid. In our case, of course, we have won political, although not economic, liberation, and we need to continue a New Struggle to achieve that. In the case of the UK, I am glad to say that the Church of England has acknowledged its sad past in collaborating with slavery in the West Indies by earmarking 100 million pounds for reparations, with the objective of boosting it to a one billion pound investment. 
    Turning to our readings, the Old Testament prophet Micah is perhaps known best for those words which concluded today's text: 

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
    and to walk humbly with your God?”

Both Anthony in the 19th century and Desmond Tutu in the 20th were indeed shining examples of Christian witness who, in the face of the cruel ill-treatment of God's people, indeed did justice, loved kindness and walked humbly with their God. In fact, the preacher at the Arch's funeral in 2022, the retired Bishop of Natal, Michael Nuttall, used this verse as the foundation of his sermon.
    I wonder how many of you know of the role this school played in Desmond Tutu's first major public act in calling for the apartheid government to do justice? It was nearly 50 years ago, in May of 1976, when as the Dean of St Mary's Cathedral he joined other clergy from the Diocese of johannesburg for a week-long silent retreat here. He had refused to live in his official residence, the Deanery, which was just around the corner from here in Houghton, choosing instead to stay in Soweto, and he was deeply worried about the situation there. Since the beginning of the year, teachers were being forced to teach maths and social studies in Afrikaans even though there weren't enough teachers fluent in Afrikaans. In response, 14-year-olds at the  Phefeni Junior Secondary School, close to the Tutu home in Orlando West, had begun a slowdown, then a strike, dumping their Afrikaans textbooks at the principal's door.
    So anxious was the Arch that, sitting in what has been described as his schoolboy's cell-like room at St John's, he spent the week here in silence, feeling called by God to write a 2,600-word letter to Prime Minister John Vorster. In the letter, which he said “more or less wrote itself”, he addressed the prime minister, and I quote, “as one Christian to another, for through our common baptism we have been made members of and are united in the Body of our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ... who has broken down all that separates us... such as race, sex, culture status...” In the course of the letter, he warned that “I have a growing nightmarish fear that unless something drastic is done very soon then bloodshed and violence are going to happen in South Africa almost inevitably.” The prime minister ignored the letter, five weeks later the Soweto uprising began and in the months that followed, at least 650 young people were killed, most of them under 24. South Africa was never the same again, and the Arch's prediction, written here at St John's, propelled him into the front ranks of religious leaders who were opposing apartheid. 
    (As an aside, if you were to ask me where I was in all of this, I was 15 and my family had been forcibly removed from Alexandra Township, alongside Sandton, to Pimvlle in Soweto. So I was spending a lot of my time every day travelling from Pimville to town by train, then by bus to school in Alex, and back again after classes. I only joined the rebellion when it spread to Alex two days after June 16.)
    In Desmond Tutu's letter to John Vorster, he was following the example of the prophet who summoned Israel to repent, recalling God’s mercy at the Exodus, invoking a scene in which God lodges a formal complaint against the people Israel and summons them to listen to His accusation and to prepare their defence against the charges that follow. God remonstrates with His covenant people for their ingratitude and faithlessness, telling them they have treated the Lord as if He had been guilty of injustice towards them; yet they cannot cite any wrong He has done to them, except perhaps in giving them benefits they did not deserve and having delivered them from danger and from all their foes since the days of Moses and Aaron, whom He sent to lead them out of bondage in Egypt.
    Friends, a true and living faith will be evidenced by a will, firstly, to work for justice in accordance with the principles of Scripture revealed as God’s will; and secondly, to love kindness or steadfast love, whether it involves those closest to us, our neighbours or those of God's children who may not share our faith or our nationality. Thirdly, a true and living faith will be judged by whether we are prepared to walk humbly with our Lord, in utter dependence upon God, recognising that any goodness within ourselves is merely a reflection of the goodness of God, not the result of our personal ability or our own merit.
    Moving from the Old Testament to the New, what we heard in the reading from Matthew's Gospel (Mt 5:3-12) is Jesus spelling out in practical terms what it means to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God. In what we call the Beatitudes, Jesus in his teaching ministry unites the exhortations found in the Old Testament into one integrated narrative of a life of Christian character; a life in which the poor, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, and the peacemakers—just to take a random selection—will, as Jesus goes on to say further down in this chapter, become the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
    I must keep this homily short, so let me end by saying two things, firstly—and importantly—by wishing each one of you all well, whether learners, parents or staff—indeed, the whole school community—as you prepare for end-of-year exams.
    Secondly, I leave you with a personal testimony. I have sometimes been asked, especially overseas: Why, in a country in which those such as John Vorster, and others like him, chose in the name of Christianity to inflict upon us colonialism and apartheid—why in such a country do I choose to be a Christian? My reply is that I do so because, to adapt what I said in Faith and Courage, a memoir I wrote some years ago,

“I am a Christian and I remain a Christian because I remember that our faith begins with a young Palestinian on a donkey in Jerusalem, riding to Calvary. Since Roman times we have perverted the Word and the mission of Jesus Christ, and its message about what God is up to in our country and our world. Over the centuries we’ve allowed ourselves to be pointed to imperial agendas. Christ’s message has been attached to national flags, to military might, to the AK-47, and dare I say to Make America Great Again.

        “But that is not the Gospel. Christianity is not imperialism. Christianity is not colonialism, nor is it apartheid. Christianity is how do I love my neighbour as myself and as others. The man who links us to God is he who enters Jerusalem a nonentity, riding a borrowed donkey. He is humble and he is marginalised, but his message of love and simplicity is powerful; powerful enough to challenge the perversion of common humanity that empire and power engender.”

    May God bless you, our country and the world.

    God loves you and so do I. Amen.

************

St Cyprian's Anglican Church, Sharpeville 70th Anniversary Celebrations

ARCHBISHOP THABO MAKGOBA
PRIMATE and METROPOLITAN OF THE ACSA
St Cyprian's Anglican Church, Sharpeville 70th Anniversary Celebrations
Diocese of Christ the King
28th September 2025

Readings: Jeremiah 32: 1-3a; 6-15; Psalm 91:1-6,14-16;1Timothy 6: 6-19; Luke 16:19-31

May I speak in the name of God, who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.
    Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, people of God in the Diocese of Christ the King, it is an honour and a privilege to have been asked to celebrate and share with you the Word of God in this wonderful service. Today, we celebrate a remarkable milestone as we recognise 70 years of worship and witness in this church, named after Cyprian – Bishop of Carthage and Martyr. On behalf of the whole Province, meaning the Anglican Church across the whole of Southern Africa, I bring you our warm congratulations! 
    Thank you to Bishop Mkhuseli and to you, Archdeacon David Mahlonoko, together with your leadership team, as well as the community of Sharpeville, for inviting me to join you in your celebrations. Thank you also to the Matshaneng family who hosted the dinner last night, provided transport for me and before dinner accompanied the Rector on a visit to my grandparents' home and on a tour of Sharpeville. Some of you will know that when I was young I spent many happy summer holidays here when I took a break from everyday life and school in Alexandra Township or Soweto. 
    Thank you too, all of you who have worked very hard behind the scenes to prepare for this celebratory service. I want to acknowledge Bishop Peter Lee and Gill, also my Rector when I was young at St Michael's  in Alexandra township, as well as Bishop William Mostert and Canon Eric Ephraim, both of whom were at St Paul's together with me, and their spouses. Finally a special welcome to distinguished guests, fellow clergy, and to all of you, the whole wonderful family from all corners of this Diocese. 
    Your record of witness, service and ministry through God’s love and grace in this Diocese is inspiring, especially during these challenging times in our country and the world. I want to acknowledge and congratulate you for using your premises to partner with SANCA as they offer support and counselling to people with addiction challenges. This is a progressive initiative and is indeed what more of us should be doing,  especially in an environment in which the teachers complain that some of their learners come to school completely disoriented due to substance abuse.
    We meet today to celebrate your anniversary, recognising the centrality to your witness of the life, ministry and witness of Cyprian, whose name you bear. Our little book, Saints and Seasons, tells us that Cyprian, a scholar and someone learned in the law, was elected Bishop of Carthage at a time when the church was troubled by much schism. During his time, he reflected on how the apostolic ministry of bishops, when they were bound together with bonds of love, could secure and preserve the unity of the church.  St Cyprian was martyred, together with members of his diocese, at the hands of the Emperors Valerius and Gallienus in A.D. 258 for refusing to offer sacrifices to them rather than to God. We give thanks to God for this giant leader of the church, and for the example of unsparing dedication to our Lord to which he gave witness.
    In the story of Lazarus and the rich man which we heard in the Gospel of Luke today (Lk 16:19-31), both   Egyptian and Jewish sources have furnished similar stories in describing how the fates of uncaring rich people and those who are poor are reversed in the world to come. The parable told in Luke implies that the rich man did scarcely anything to alleviate the beggar’s distress. When the latter died, he found a place of honour beside Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation and a friend of God, while the rich man found himself in Hades, in torment and agony. He appealed to Abraham as a father, begging for mercy, but Abraham refused to offer him help.
    Thus far the story follows traditional lines, but now there is a fresh element. Could the rich men’s brothers, presumably rich and careless themselves, be warned before they reached Hades? Abraham's reply was very clear: the teaching they had learned in the Old Testament should be enough. For those who shut their ears to the voice of God in the Scriptures, not even the miracle of somebody returning from the dead to warn them would have any effect. It is a moot point whether the parable is intended to give literal information about the next world, but whatever the case, while the language of the story is surely symbolical, it speaks clearly to a warning in the scriptures that a failure to practise love and mercy will lead to bad consequences.
    It is for this reason that Paul, in his charge to Timothy (1 Tim. 6:19 ff) exhorts him to be true to his Christian calling, to keep clear of such ensnaring things as the love of money, and to sustain the pursuit of Christian virtues. In those memorable words which resonate across the ages, and across societies wherever Christ is confessed, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil...”
    As the people of Sharpeville, of Gauteng and of South Africa, I come to reassure you that all of you here, members of St Cyprian's Parish and of the Diocese of Christ the King, are part of God’s plan for the world, just as Lazarus, Paul and Timothy were part of God’s plan for the world. So what can we draw from these lessons and use as building blocks to build ourselves, our families, our parish, our communities and the world? What do the lessons mean to us in the here and now?
    Well, I suggest we begin by looking at the readings and asking what it means in South Africa today to practise the Gospel imperative to show love and mercy, in particular to those who are poor and oppressed. And what does it mean to recognise, as the reading from Timothy says, that “in their eagerness to be rich, some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains”? 
    Can we really say that all of those who wield power in South Africa today, whether political power in government structures or economic power in the corporate world, are taking any heed of these scriptures? Or are they like the rich man and his brothers in the story of Lazarus, men who shut their ears to the voice of God?
    Nearly eighty years ago, Trevor Huddleston, the priest who led the way in urging our church's leaders at the time to take a more radical stand against apartheid, used our Gospel reading to try to shock the civic leadership of Johannesburg into action. Preaching at a celebration of the founding of the city of Johannesburg, he called attention to the terrible living conditions of black South Africans in its townships. Calling them “stinking backyards”, he said they were the result of, and I quote, “a criminal, a sinful, lack of vision in the years that are past, [in that] whilst Lazarus has been lying at the gate unheeded and full of sores, [the rich man] has fared sumptuously, has built himself skyscrapers and laid out for himself pleasure gardens every day...”
    Eighty years later, and 31 years after our liberation, we have made a lot of progress, yes, but not nearly as much as we could have, were it not for the corruption, self-dealing and nepotism that we see at every level of society. And even when people are not guilty of this kind of criminal or sinful behaviour, as I have said times without number, it remains true in our society that the sons and daughters of the wealthy flourish, while the sons and daughters of the poor are caught in a self-perpetuating spiral of inadequate education, too few jobs and debilitating poverty.
    Sometimes it’s difficult to see that we are part of God’s plan, especially when we are inward looking. Is the infrequent, close to non-existent, collection of waste in Sharpeville part of God’s plan? Is sewage running in your streets part of God’s plan? Is incorrect billing of accounts, which sees people suddenly owing large amounts of monies to the municipality, part of God’s plan? Is the total collapse of services, partly because of the deployment of cadres without the requisite technical skills, part of God's plan? Indeed, is  the corruption and bad government that we see at every level of government across Gauteng, and indeed across the length and the breadth of South Africa, part of God’s plan?  Of course not. 
    To fulfill God's plan for South Africa, we need to embark on what I call the New Struggle for a new South Africa, a struggle which replaces the old struggle against apartheid, a struggle in which we overcome the huge wealth gap between the rich and the poor, a struggle in which we restore water supplies, fix our roads, ensure the rubbish is collected, clean and maintain your graveyard, and create environments in which all of us can live decent lives in all our communities. One of the ways in which we can do this is to reject the pessimism that we see in the media around the National Dialogue, and take control of the dialogue ourselves. I have said it before, and I will say it again: If corrupt politicians think they can take control of the process and seize it as an opportunity to benefit themselves, they have another think coming. 
    I know some are sceptical about the dialogue. But the mistakes which beset it at the beginning can be fixed, and it was interesting to hear at last week's meeting of our church's Standing Committee that there is widespread support for the dialogue as the best chance ordinary people have to make their voices heard. The co-chair of the Eminent Persons' Group, Professor Tinyiko Maluleke, addressed the Standing Committee later during our proceedings, and it was clear from his address that controversy and contestation is to be expected, and in fact without it,  the dialogue won't be a proper dialogue. He emphasised that it is meant to be the people's dialogue, to be owned and guided by ordinary South Africans, expressing their different views. And he underlined a point I have been making, which is that I think the cynics tend to be those who are more comfortable with the status quo than those who are trapped in urban ghettos where services don't work, or in rural areas starved of resources and services.
    The dialogue will involve nearly 14,000 community dialogues at ward, district and sectoral levels, so I urge you in this community to go and make  your voices and your needs heard. The Sharpeville community does not deserve the kind of treatment you receive from government and the municipality. Nor should people have to wait in long queues to be treated in hospitals, especially Sebokeng Hospital. When that happens, it's no wonder some are tempted to blame migrants for our problems, but we must put the blame for inadequate services and bad living conditions where it belongs in what is a much wealthier country than those the migrants come from. We should not be attacking them. 
    Your founding fathers planted this parish and Diocese through tempestuous times of colonialism, oppression, pandemic and sometimes of wars in our country. As you move forward into the next 70 years and beyond, you will be challenged to revisit your vision and mission for this parish and the Diocese for the years to come. 
    With all our daily challenges in this journey, our assurance is that God has, again and again, met people and sent them out to proclaim his truth, with clarity and courage, through difficult and challenging times in the past. And God will do so again today and in the future at St Cyprian's and Diocese of Christ the King. 
    Finally, let me congratulate you once again and wish you well on your 70th anniversary. Celebrate it, and build upon it for the sake of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
    God loves you and so do I. Amen.

Choosing Life: A Call to Justice and Unity in the Face of Violence - Archbishop Thabo Makgoba

Notes for an address to an interfaith community gathering in Mitchells Plain, Cape Town, an area ravaged by gang violence, on September 18:

Thank you so much, Programme Director, and thank you to each of you, colleagues and community leaders, for your leadership, your hospitality, and your willingness to gather here in solidarity.

Let me begin by extending the traditional greetings of our faith traditions: As salaam alaykum; Peace be upon you all; Shalom aleichem; and Grace and Peace in the name of the God of Abraham, the Creator of heaven and earth. We invoke the blessings of the Most High on this sacred space and on every heart present here today.

As Imam Rashied so beautifully reminded us in the reading from Scripture, “The God who formed and created each one of us did so for a purpose.” We are grateful to our Muslim brothers and sisters, to the management and owners of this mosque, for opening these doors—literally and figuratively—to people of different faiths, and even to those who may be wrestling with questions of faith. In this gathering, we stand not as isolated, divided groups, but as one interwoven tapestry of humanity, bound by our shared grief, our shared compassion, and our unyielding hope for justice and peace.

Friends, today we come together in lament. Our streets have become battlefields where gunshots ricochet through the night. Our neighborhoods are shrouded in sorrow as mothers weep for children they will never hold again, and fathers carry burdens too heavy for any one person to bear. Only last night, three more young lives were stolen from us. Their loss compounds a tragedy of violence that is neither random nor inexplicable. This is the bitter harvest of a deeper injustice, seeded long ago in discriminatory policies that relegated communities like Mitchells Plain to the margins.

More than mere proximity to the city center, spatial apartheid has meant substandard housing, limited public transport, under-resourced schools, and a lack of basic services. Generations have grown up feeling cut off from hope, from economic opportunity, and from the dignity that every human being deserves. Against this backdrop, unemployment has soared; inequality has become entrenched; and criminal syndicates have moved in, flooding our streets with drugs and weapons, profiting from our despair. Too often, local officials either turn a blind eye or become enmeshed in corruption. Too many community leaders remain silent or powerless, allowing structural violence—the kind that steals life before a bullet is ever fired—to choke the spirit in every corner of our neighborhoods.

In our meeting at Bishopscourt last week—a gathering that brought together clergy, imams, activists, educators and ordinary citizens—we made commitments to one another. We declared that we would not be silent. We would not surrender to helplessness. We would refuse to accept death as our destiny or violence as our inheritance. We pledged instead to speak truth to power, to hold officials accountable, and to build alliances across churches, mosques, synagogues, and civic groups.

Last night at the University of Mpumalanga, Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela reminded us that amid despair, we must proclaim ubuntu—the African ethic that proclaims, “I am because you are.” She said, and I paraphrase, “Our shared humanity demands that we see beyond the cycles of death, toward horizons where we live and flourish together.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu put it simply: “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” When one child is taken from us, we all suffer loss; when one child is killed, we are all wounded; when an entire community is abandoned, the fabric of the nation unravels.

From the Christian scriptures, the book of Deuteronomy 30:19 sets before us “life and death, blessings and curses,” and it commands, “Choose life so that you and your children may live.” Today I reaffirm that call. We choose life. We choose justice. We choose hope. We choose to confront the root causes of violence with unwavering determination.

This morning’s march from this mosque to the Mitchells Plain Police Station, the lighting of candles, the rising incense, the sprinkling of holy water, and the placing of flowers will be more than solemn rituals. They will be acts of prophetic resistance. Each candle we light will be a beacon demanding accountability. Each wisp of incense will carry our prayer for reconciliation and peace. Every drop of holy water will be a tangible blessing poured out on the wounds of our land. Every flower will speak of life rising from death, of beauty emerging from sorrow.

Peace, as Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela reminded us, requires the moral imagination to envision a different future, the courage to break free from past cycles of violence, and the solidarity to walk together toward shared life. We will not grow weary. We will not give up. We will not lose hope.

But rituals alone, beautiful as they are, must lead to concrete action. Lament must yield liberation for those who live in fear, for those wounded by crime, and for those whose voices go unheard in corridors of power. Therefore, this morning I issue a series of prophetic challenges to our society:

1. To our political leaders: Set aside petty disputes and personal ambitions. Do not use the poor as pawns in your games. Govern with integrity and compassion for the common good. Implement policies that break the cycles of poverty, that rehabilitate rather than criminalize, and that bring safety and opportunity to every neighborhood.

2. To our universities, colleges, and schools: Do not remain as ivory towers cut off from the realities of our communities. Provide real opportunities for our young people—scholarships, mentorships, research partnerships, skills training—and bring academic resources directly into places like Mitchells Plain.

3. To the business community: Do not pursue profit only in the safest, most affluent areas. Invest where jobs are scarce and hope is scarce, too. Create dignified employment, apprenticeships and training programs. Be corporate citizens who recognize that your success is bound up with the welfare of the wider community.

4. To social and sporting clubs: Our children need you. Open your doors. Offer coaching, after-school programs, youth leagues, and safe spaces where young people can learn teamwork, discipline, and self-worth. Become mentors and role models who help young hearts and minds to flourish.

5. To the faith communities represented here—mosques, churches, synagogues, temples, and beyond: Do not remain insular. Reach out in genuine partnership to those of other traditions. Pool your resources to establish community centers for trauma counseling, for literacy and numeracy classes, for job readiness, and for family support. Let our gatherings be more than words—let them be the seeds of a lasting covenant of service and solidarity.

This is our third meeting as the interfaith committee working in Mitchells Plain, but let us not allow it to become just another talk shop. Let it be a bound covenant of action. Let each faith house commit to launching two or three concrete initiatives within the next three months—whether that is a youth mentoring scheme in a mosque, an after-school STEM programme in a church hall, a job placement network in a synagogue, or a trauma recovery group shared across congregations.

I understand that this very mosque already hosts a vocational training center. Let us learn from that model and replicate it. Let our churches become sanctuaries for those suffering from post-traumatic stress. Let our synagogues serve as hubs of financial literacy and startup coaching. Let every shrine, hall, and place of worship become a beacon of hope, a crucible of compassion, and a fortress of healing.

As we prepare to walk together in silence and song, carrying candles, incense, holy water, and flowers, let us do so knowing that our action here today speaks volumes. This vigil is not only mourning—it is a public declaration of life. Each candle we light whispers, “We will not give up.” Each trail of incense proclaims, “Justice shall rise.” Each drop of holy water promises, “Healing is possible.” Each bloom we lay down insists, “We will not forget the dead, and we will never abandon the living.”

So let us walk forward together with eyes moistened by compassion, with hearts ignited by hope, with spirits united in ubuntu, and with hands ready to roll up their sleeves and break the cycles of violence through concrete, sustained action. The God of Abraham calls us. Our ancestors watch us. The children yet unborn depend on us. Let us choose life here in Mitchells Plain—so that our children, and our children’s children, may live in dignity, safety, and peace.

Amen. Amen. Salaam. Shalom. Thank you.

Using the Canons to build up the Family of God - Sermon at St Mary's Cathedral Bicentennial celebration

St Mary the Virgin Cathedral, Diocese of Port Elizabeth

Cathedral of St Mary the Virgin

14th September 2025

Readings: Genesis 3:4-15; Psalm 84; Galatians 4: 1-7; Luke 11:27-28

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, people of God in the Diocese of Port Elizabeth and the city of Gqeberha, it is an honour and a privilege to have been asked to share with you the Word of God at this service. We celebrate a remarkable milestone as we recognise 200 years of worship and witness in this church, first the Collegiate Church of St Mary the Virgin, and now the Cathedral of the same name. On behalf of the whole Province, that is the Anglican Church across Southern Africa, I bring you our warm congratulations!

Thank you to you, Vicar-General Sharon, Canon Kula, and your leadership team, as well as the diocesan family for inviting me to join you in your celebrations. Thank you too, all of you who have worked hard behind the scenes to prepare for this service. And a special welcome to distinguished guests, fellow clergy, and to all of you, the whole wonderful family from all corners of this diocese. Your record of witness, service and ministry through God’s love and grace in this diocese is inspiring, especially during these challenging times.

That helpful little aid to our devotions, the booklet Saints and Seasons, sums up beautifully the centrality of your patronal saint to the story of Jesus. During Jesus’s life, Mary was often among the women who followed him and ministered to his needs. At his death, at Calvary, she was among the few who stood at the foot of the Cross. And after the Resurrection she was to be found with the apostles watching and praying until the coming of the gift of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

And from a modern-day perspective, isn’t it fascinating what a prominent role Mary and other women played in the Jesus story? Scholars now highlight how unusual it was at the time Jesus lived for women to be given the role they are given in the Christian gospels. In Jewish law, women were not seen as reliable witnesses, yet the accounts of Matthew, Mark and John all record that women were the first to witness the empty tomb and the Resurrection.

Having said that about the status accorded to women in the Gospels, let me turn to our Old Testament reading, and to the account of the Fall in the Book of Genesis (Gen. 4:3-15). To modern ears, that is a more difficult read, involving as it does a man blaming a woman for his wrongdoing. The story presents to us the original transgression, the breaking of the law, and thus the entrance of sin to humanity. The serpent was the instrument of Satan, who turned the opportunities given to us by God into an avenue of temptation. The slithering movement of a reptile hidden by its camouflage in the undergrowth made it symbolically suitable as a medium for the schemings of the devil. In her exchange with the serpent, Eve accepted Satan’s violation of the law of God’s kingdom, yielding to the authority which Satan had appropriated.

However, sisters and brothers, it is important to note that although Eve was the first to stumble, the complete Fall of humanity was to involve not just deception by the woman but the transgression of the man. In the combined action of both, Satan in one stroke re-interpreted God as a devil, a liar possessed by jealous pride, and presented the path to being cursed as the way to blessing. As a result of their disobedience, sin entered the world, and a sense of shame attaching to physical nakedness manifested itself in a consciousness of inner nakedness. The evasive half-truth in Adam’s response to God about his sense of nakedness was, like his fear, an evil consequence of his rebellion.

When God saw through Adam’s behaviour, exposing his act of disobedience as a root of evil, Adam avoided confessing guilt by transferring blame. Then Eve sought to escape blame herself by pointing her finger at the serpent. Thus does Satan’s instrument, slithering in the dust, subject to trampling, become a symbol of Satan’s humiliation.

(As an aside, hearing God’s words to the serpent in today’s reading reminded me of how Archbishop Desmond Tutu used to joke that he sometimes felt sorry for the serpent—when the man was caught out, he blamed the woman, then she blamed the snake, and the poor snake, being a mere reptile which couldn’t speak, had no one else to blame! But to get back to my exegesis...)

Paul’s letter to the Galatians (4:1-7)—one of the epistles that we definitely know came from Paul’s hand—makes it clear that after the comprehensiveness of the Fall described in Genesis, our salvation as sons and daughters of God depends totally on the incarnation, the atonement and the Holy Spirit. The Gospel reading (Luke 11:27-28) brings Mary back into the picture, not as someone to be worshipped herself, but as someone who fulfills God’s word in delivering God’s instrument for rescuing humanity. We can read into the text the lesson that the Pharisees should have realised that Jesus was speaking God’s word without there being wonderful signs to confirm it.

The second century theologian Irenaeus—declared by Pope Francis in 2022 as one of the saints whose writings have special authority—draws together beautifully how God’s purpose unfolds in history, linking the witness of the Old Testament to that of the New in a way that is relevant to our readings today. The Oxford University church historian, Professor McCulloch has written of how Irenaeus loved to stress the symmetries to be discerned in the Bible: “...[T]hus the fall of the first man, Adam, was remedied by the second Adam, Christ, rising from the dead; the disobedience of the woman Eve remedied by the obedience of the woman Mary; the fateful role of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden was remedied by the Tree of Life which was Christ’s cross.”

As the people of Gqeberha, of the Eastern Cape and of South Africa, today’s readings reassure you that all of you here, members of the Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin and of the Diocese of Port Elizabeth, are part of God’s plan for the world, just as Adam and Eve, Jesus and Mary, were part of God’s plan for the world.

Understandably, sometimes it’s difficult to see that we are part of God’s plan. Is the confusion and uncertainty over the election of a new bishop of Port Elizabeth part of God’s plan? Are the current struggles in this city, in the Eastern Cape, and indeed across South Africa, part of God’s plan?

Of course this Diocese is not the only one affected by legal challenges, whether to episcopal elections or on other issues, mainly arising from the management of our human resources, which usually means relations between bishops and clergy. Although it’s very frustrating to see hundreds of thousands of rands being spent on legal fees instead of on mission—often fruitlessly because so many of the cases are not well-founded—it is in some ways understandable as people test the limits of the new rights we have under our Constitution. Given that context, the process we are going through is succeeding, case by case, in refining church order, so enhancing the predictability of how the law affects the church. We take ourselves and the needs of people affected prayerfully and seriously, trying our best to discern how to approach each matter in a way which will build up the family of God. Our Canons are much improved, we have fine people serving on our Canon Law Council and we can even dream of establishing an Institute for Canon Law at CoTT. I am pleased that we have been able to affirm that the Elective Assembly to choose a successor to Bishop Eddie will go ahead soon. Let us soak the Diocese in prayer for a new leader.

Your founding fathers planted this Cathedral Church and Diocese through turbulent times of colonialism, oppression, pandemic and sometimes of war. As you move forward with a new bishop into the next 200 years and beyond, you will be challenged to revisit your vision for the Cathedral and the Diocese for the years to come. The Diocese, birthed from a huge Diocese of Grahamstown, remains a big diocese geographically. Might you want to think of adding a Suffragan Bishop to ease the load, or perhaps of negotiating the extent of your boundaries with neighbouring dioceses in the Northern Cape and Free State? I pose these as questions, not proposals!

In public life beyond the church, you are known as a diocese steeped in the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures, powerful in your ecumenical witness with sister churches in the region, and outward looking when it comes to the challenges of the communities in which you are rooted. Like Cape Town, you have serious crime and violence problems. In Cape Town, we recently convened a meeting of leaders of all the faith groupings in the region to liaise with the Minister of Police and come up with comprehensive plans to defeat the drug-fuelled gang violence which destroys the lives of so many of our people. As Anglicans in Gqeberha and the Eastern Cape, you as the Cathedral and the Diocese are well placed to be a beacon of light, working as part of a community known for its action based on faith, action that is aimed at overcoming unemployment and inequality, action that seeks to end poverty, and action that will defeat crime and end fear. In so doing, you will make the eternal life we receive from Christ felt in the here and now, bettering the lives of many in and around Gqeberha, the rest of Eastern Cape, South Africa and beyond.

Our assurance is that God has, again and again, met people and sent them out to proclaim his truth, with clarity and courage, through difficult and challenging times in the past. And God will do so again today and in the future in this Cathedral and Diocese.

In closing, I congratulate you again very warmly on your 200^th anniversary. Celebrate it, and build upon it for the sake of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

God loves you and so do I. Amen.

The Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba

Archbishop of Cape Town and Metropolitan of ACSA