Charge to the 37th Session of Provincial Synod

Anglican Church of Southern Africa

37^th Session of Provincial Synod

“Flourishing like a garden: Listening, reconciling and celebrating God’s new creation”

Charge by the President of Synod

The Most Reverend Dr Thabo Makgoba

Archbishop and Metropolitan

September 25^th 2024

2 Corinthians 5:16-20; Ps 86:1-13; Luke 19:41-44

May I speak in the name of God, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Since the heart of thanksgiving lies in expressing gratitude to our Creator, let me start by thanking our Triune God for faithfully calling us again and again to participate in the work of reconciling the world to God in Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity and joy of the apostolic vocation and ministry I share with others in our church, as well as granting us the opportunity to listen, especially to those in the margins and on the periphery of our societies as we seek to bring them to the centre of celebrating your new creation.

Let me also thank Lungi Manala, my wife, Nyakallo, our son and Paballo, Karabo, our daughter. They are the ones who listen to me rehearse sermons and speeches several times before and after they have been delivered. They know and feel the pulse of my episcopal vocation, with its joys, its challenges and, yes, sometimes its stresses and strains. As we say at home, thanks Ditlou, for your unwavering support. Let me also thank my intercessors, my friends and family and those who have supported us financially or are simply present in our lives, helping us to celebrate God’s steadfast love and mercies which are renewed every morning.

Thank you also to those who work at Bishopscourt, a team I consider as my immediate extended family: my personal staff, the staff in the Provincial Executive Office and John Allen in media and communications. Thank you to the Dean of the Province, Bishop Stephen, to the Provincial Treasurer, Rob Rogerson, and the Provincial staff, and in the Diocese of Cape Town, to Bishop Joshua of Table Bay, to Charleen van Rooyen and the Diocesan staff, to the members of the Canon Law Council, especially the Registrar and Chancellors based in the Western Cape. Thank you to all of you for your support and for bearing with my nature and temperament.

The joy and privilege of being an Archbishop in this Province is that, despite the heavy load, I am surrounded by loving—of course sometimes difficult!—but nonetheless loving, beautiful and hard-working selfless people who love our church. My thanks also go to those named in the Second Agenda Book who have helped prepare for this Provincial Synod, and who have met over the past 10 months to plan and pull together the agendas, draft measures and proposals for changes to the Canons. The Advisory Committee was joined and enabled by specialised sub-committees, the Liturgical Team, the Bible Study Team and those whom I have pulled out of retirement literally into full-time active ministry, Canon Janet Trisk and Bishop Luke Pato. I am very grateful for your support and friendship.

To the Synod of Bishops, your spouses and dioceses, thanks for your support and help always. Let me acknowledge all members of the Order of Simon of Cyrene, and extend a very warm welcome to Bishop Anthony Poggo, the Secretary General of the Anglican Communion, the Ven. Kofi deGraft-Johnson, General Secretary of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa, the Revd Dr Duncan Dormor, General Secretary of USPG, and all our invited guests. You are all very special. A particularly warm welcome to all Synod members attending for the first time. This is a unique experience in the life of the church, and I hope you will enjoy it. We all had our first time here and, never fear, we all survived it. My current plan is to make September 2026 my last Provincial Synod and, God willing, to retire on March 28, 2027, the anniversary of my installation, and Provincial Synod is one of the meetings I will miss most.

To unpack my message today, allow me to use the multiplicity of layers we are all so familiar with; that is Scripture and Reason in the light of our Tradition and our lived Experience.

Today’s scripture invites us to listen to the almost apocalyptic language in Luke’s Gospel, which unarguably describes the world we lean into as we approach the second quarter of the 21^st century, and as we face the reality we are called to navigate, the reality which we must enfold into our prayers and inspire our action as we seek to be ambassadors or reconcilers in God’s garden. In our respective nations, we experience the ramparts hemming us in, of which the passage in Luke speaks, in the culture of death which casts a long shadow over all of us.

To take perhaps the most glaring example of suffering among God’s people in Southern Africa, consider the levels of poverty which intensify their pangs of hunger. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says he came that God’s people may have life, “and have it abundantly.” (Jn 10:10) But what does the promise of abundant life mean to the one in every three South Africans—nearly eight-and-a-half million people—who are unemployed and the four out of every five who have given up even looking for a job. Moreover, it is of no help to create well-paying jobs if we don't have people qualified to do them. The failure of the government to increase funding for provincial education departments to cover the salary increases granted to public servants has thrown the education sector into a funding crisis in which provinces have to decide what to cut to be able to pay the increases. Gauteng has reported that it has to cut back on feeding and transporting learners in order to avoid eliminating teachers' posts. The Western Cape is reported to be facing a shortfall of R3.8 billion, leading to the prospect of eliminating 2,400 contract posts for teachers. Other provinces face the same dilemmas in the coming weeks and months. In the sea of unemployment in which we are drowning, cutting education budgets spells disaster. If we are to educate a modern workforce, we should be increasing investment in education, not reducing it. Adopting “austerity measures” in the fields of education, health and social welfare is a recipe for trouble.

The unemployment rate in the other nations of our Province is just as distressing. In Namibia it is approximately 33.5% and in Lesotho and Eswatini, it is only a little better—24.6% in Lesotho (but youth unemployment is extremely high, at about 30 to 35%) and 28% in Eswatini. The effects of unemployment, low wages and poor economic growth are seen in the shocking levels of poverty in our different nations. In South Africa, a country blessed by natural resources is blighted by the fact that nearly 40% of people earn less than R65 per day and 60% earn less than R125 a day. In Lesotho, poverty is more severe, with a staggering 27% of the population living on less than R33 a day, while more than half live on less than R56 per day. In Eswatini approximately 59% of people live below the national poverty line and 20.1% live in extreme poverty. In Namibia, approximately 27.8% of the population lives below the national poverty line. By any definition, great numbers of our people are chronically poor and vulnerable. And while unemployment rates on St Helena are lower, the cost of living is high, due to the cost of importing most of their requirements, forcing people to emigrate to be able to afford housing.

We also cannot live lives of abundance if our environment continues to deteriorate the way it is doing as climate change alters weather patterns, creating different kinds of hardship. So beyond this Season of Creation, I urge our parishes and Dioceses to continue engaging in projects, such as tree-planting and the Anglican Communion Forest, to rescue our environment. I also urge South Africans to join the new “Cleaning and Beautification of South Africa Initiative”, a nation-wide programme of clean-up and beautification activities, endorsed by the South African Council of Churches, which will be launched on Saturday the 12th of October. I want to encourage our young people especially to see cleaning up our suburbs, townships, cities and villages across Southern Africa as a “cool” activity.

If we look at the landscape of violence across the world, researchers have counted nearly 50 conflicts ranging from skirmishes to full-scale wars in the past two years. Looking at our own continent, more than 20 African nations to the north of us have been afflicted, ranging from the insurgencies in the Cabo Delgado province of Mozambique and the Sahel region of West Africa to the fighting in the eastern DR Congo and the war which has destroyed much of Sudan in the past 18 months.

The United Nations reported earlier this year that in the first three months of 2024, more than 730,000 people were driven from their homes in the DRC, bringing the total number of displaced people to more than seven million. In Sudan, where the army is fighting a paramilitary group created by a previous regime, the UN says more than 18 million people face acute food insecurity in the worst humanitarian disaster in recent world history. Nearly three-quarters of a million Sudanese children are believed to be suffering from severe malnutrition. Reported deaths total more than 20,000 but The Economist magazine suggests that up to 150,000 people have actually been killed, with the bodies which are piling up in makeshift cemeteries visible from outer space.

Here in Southern Africa, as I deliver this Charge this evening, too many homes are battlegrounds of vicious domestic violence. South Africa in particular has notoriously high levels of violence against women and among the highest rates of rape in the world. Researchers tell us that although people of all genders perpetrate and experience intimate partner or sexual violence, the men to whom women and children look for protection are most often the perpetrators. We are seeing some action to fight this evil, but there are not enough prosecutions of the perpetrators.

Turning to those ramparts which are hemming in the international community, I have just returned from Athens, where I co-chaired a World Council of Churches working group reviewing the WCC’s policy on Palestine and Israel. The group was convened after the last WCC General Assembly declined, under pressure from the German Protestant church, to characterise Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians as apartheid. Since the Assembly in 2022, the conflict in the land three religions call holy has become much worse, with Israeli leaders including their President, their Prime Minister and their Defence Minister responding to the vicious attack on Israel a year ago with what I have publicly described as “genocidal rhetoric” in which they made clear they were drawing no distinction between militants and civilians, but were, and I quote, “fighting human animals”.

The war in Palestine underlines the importance of the Bible studies we prepared for Lent last year, teaching our people about the difference between the biblical idea of Israel as a people and the modern secular state. The late Bishop David Russell of Grahamstown once said, “Please don't make an idol of the Bible. The Bible is not a textbook or a history book. It is a collection of theological writings.” In other words, the texts describe a particular theological position, particularly in South Africa, where the Bible was used as textbook to attempt to justify apartheid. It is both dangerous and wrong to assume that all opposition to Israel’s cruel and pitiless assault on Gaza, and now the violence of Israeli settlers in the Occupied West Bank, comes from Muslims. This incorrect assumption can lead quickly to Islamophobia. There should be no easy conflation of the terms “Muslim”, “terrorist” and “jihadist”. In fact, opposition to Israel’s policies and actions comes from Christians, Muslims, Jews and people of other faiths or no faith.

In South Africa, the rest of the continent, and abroad, the ramparts which surround us enable heinous crimes against humanity to be normalised as exclusion and separation become the dominant, hegemonic narrative. All the while our planet burns and, as Pope Francis has said, we are fundamentally challenged by the incessant cries of the earth and the cries of the poor. This is what tonight’s passage from Luke speaks of in the reference to encircling and crushing to the ground “you and your children within you”, a phrase which can be unambiguously understood as killing our future.

As a church, a deeply believing body of witnesses called by God to be light and salt to the earth, challenged by the outrages of our times, by the cruel legacies of our past and by the rampant individualism and materialism of our present, we cannot be silent, nor can we remain indifferent in the face of the suffering of God’s people, whether of poverty, war or exclusion. It is not an option for the Church of God. We literally stand between the destruction of our world and the forfeiture of our children’s future and the flourishing of the Kingdom. In Martin Luther’s words in 1517, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” In Southern Africa in 2024, we too need to say: Here we stand and we too can do no other. It was that great African saint, Augustine of Hippo, who wrote in The City of God, his philosophical treatise in defence of our faith, that “Without justice, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers?” He was speaking of governments but we can also apply his words to organisations, especially our own, where we are responsible for power and co-operating with power, legitimising the power of others in society.

In our own time, we can apply to ourselves the words of Jesus as he wept for Jerusalem. Just as he challenged the people of the Holy City, saying, “You of all people should have understood the way to peace,” we could say of ourselves: We of all people should know that if we want peace, we must implement justice. We of all people have been anointed by the Spirit, given a vision and given spiritual gifts that allow us to build different communities, rear supportive families, and shape societies differently. We are called to practise bold stewardship, take custody of the future, and hear again those life changing, challenging words of Paul to Timothy: “You have not been given a spirit of timidity but of power, love and self-control.”

Our Synod theme compels us to bring God’s reconciling presence and transformation so that all, not some, may celebrate the joy of new creation. As Paul reminded Timothy, we have boldness and courage on our side and therefore need not be daunted by what the future demands of us. If we are to contribute to transformation in our different countries, and create different and better futures for our people, we need to ask: On the long road to reconciliation in our societies, divided as they are by income inequality, what self-control do we need to exercise with regard to the accumulation of personal wealth? What self-control do we need to exercise to resist corruption, and indeed benefitting from it? What self-control do we need to exercise in the face of the destruction of our planet, our only home?

Wrestling with these questions, I turned to our Province’s mission and vision and read it again in the light of the measures, motions and reports which are before this Synod and appear in the Agenda Books (and which I urge you to read and engage with again). Having read each one, I asked: Are we fully aware of the nature and the power of the spirit Paul talks about? Are we drawing on the power of that same spirit in us which raised Christ from the dead? Can we draw from the documents before Synod, from our imaginings, and from the values we proclaim, a vision for a church which will now, in three years from now, and in five and ten years from now, help transform unjust structures in society and within our own ranks?

My own assessment is that the reports before us—for which I thank the organisations and ministries which produced them—do indeed express our aspirations, but that the data does not demonstrate that our actual interventions are fulfilling those aspirations. Do not get me wrong: our diaconal ministries in the areas of climate change, gender justice, feeding the poor, peace-making and development are valuable, but they could benefit from targetted public policy work. And our outreach and evangelism too could benefit from more biblical teaching and discipleship. We need to reach beyond denominational initiatives, webinars and statements. Instead we need to enhance our prophetic ministry and apostolic vocation with engaged spirituality rooted in Scripture, scholarship and courageous walks of witness.

Put differently, considering our Synod Bible Studies and the theological rationale behind the Synod theme, we need to ask: How do we participate as organisations of ACSA, not by regurgitating concepts and formulas we have learnt elsewhere or in the past, but in a ministry of reconciliation, whether between God and humanity, (Rom 5:1-11), between different people (2 Cor 5:17-20 and Eph 2:12-20) or reconciliation with the whole of Creation (Eph 1:10 and Col 1:19-20)? In God’s garden that is ACSA, we have patches of weeds, but we also have blossoms, flowers and fruit. Let us build on what is beautiful and productive as we choose our goals and focus our efforts to bring about the reconciliation which will make God smile.

Just to pick out a few examples, what are the appropriate modalities of being and doing church in the light of what the Technology and Ethics Commission ( or the Commission on Valuing Diversity: Disability Justice raise in their reports? Since Provincial Synod 1989 we have been trying to reconcile our understanding of the nature of God with how we minister to LGBTQI+ members in our pews. Have we listened to and adequately sought reconciliation with one another on providing appropriate pastoral care to loving faithful couples in same-sex civil unions? What is this Provincial Synod, 35 years later, going to resolve beyond flowery words? In my past 16 years as your Archbishop, I have relied for guidance on such matters on, in no particular order, theological advisers, the Canon Law Council, the Southern African Anglican Theological Commission, Safe and Inclusive Church, the Anglican Board of Education, the Synod of Bishops, Scripture of courses, and on the lived experiences of our parishioners in such unions and relationships. At this Synod, we will convene a Conference of Synod on this issue and on Disability Justice. Will we be able to craft a pragmatic, re-conciliatory outcome which takes account of the differing pastoral needs for effective ministry in our varied Dioceses which are called to minister in widely divergent contexts?

The latest reports from the various Diocesan annual planning meetings that you have held show that, over the next three to 10 years, most of you envisage an Anglican community that is:

• Prophetic, trans-formative, inclusive, contextually rooted and guided by the Anglican Communion’s Five Marks of Mission;

• Hospitable and characterised by serving the interests of justice, social needs and the protection and enhancement of the environment;

• Honest and humble, committed and passionate, disciplined and outward-looking; and

• Also sensitive to the tensions within the Anglican Communion of those disaffected in the Communion.

You say furthermore that we must continue being pioneers; that we must be a church marked by empowering communities through integral mission; that we must heighten the communication needs of the Province across social media and beyond in a digital era; and finally that in a constantly-evolving world we must not overlook the importance of familiar and old-established traditions, such as celebrating Sea Sunday.

Let me conclude by drawing on the wisdom of our spiritual ancestors to remind us of the power, the life force, which will enable us to overcome despair as we face the challenges which beset us, and to break down those ramparts which surround us. I speak, of course, of the power of hope. There is a saying attributed to St Augustine of Hippo, that “Hope has two beautiful daughters, anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and the courage to ensure that they do not stay that way.” In an essay written on the 150^th anniversary of Robert Gray’s arrival in Southern Africa, Archbishop Emeritus Njongonkulu Ndungane said, "...we dare not be hopeless. For Christ is our hope. The risen Jesus is our strength. Christian hope is the beginning of the possibility of transformation. It was that which brought a Bishop Gray to our shores. It is Christian hope that must revive and strengthen us as missionaries for the new millennium.” And hope, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu famously reminded us, “is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

My generation in the church drew deeply from the wisdom and indomitable witness of Jürgen Moltmann, the German theologian who died this year at the age of 98 and who has left a legacy, vital for our times and our country, of what hope looks like in the public space. His ground-breaking book, Theology of Hope, published 60 years ago, was prophetic for our generation, giving meaning to various political theologies and soon afterwards the nascent theology of liberation and the important variants that grew from it.

In a perceptive reflection on Moltmann’s theology and the South African reality which has been so short on hope in recent years, Prof Jacobus Vorster of North-West University makes a powerful point in stating that South Africans have tied hope to our liberation event of 1994 rather than on the ongoing liberation process which the methodology of the “Theology of Hope” encourages. He suggests that hope as a process is built on the often small signs of what he describes as “the living, moving God” working through small acts that are the witnesses of God’s Kingdom; acts of compassion and care for the poor, justice in policies and public life, a just economic system and the care of creation, all of which we can consciously give expression to in our daily lives.

In each of the nations of Southern Africa, our church communities, filled with a spirit reflecting the acceptance of our Lord for each one of us, are well placed to be sacred spaces for truth-telling, for repentance, for contrition for our past and for re-commissioning to “go out and sin no more.” Hope is not a nebulous, pie-in-the-sky concept. No, hope is the driving force which motivates our determination to name our problems, to identify solutions to them and to mobilise people to overcome them. Hope must be what drives us to work to fulfill the promise of societies based on democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights. Small steps taken in hope can become islands of hope and as they come together we can in turn create landscapes of hope. We need to be cautious though, because it is not simply about “good deeds or works”, it is about those deeds infused with love, which in the public domain means deeds infused with justice. If I might quote St Augustine once more: “Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.” And God must be acknowledged as being at the centre of all that we are and all that we do. When we see signs that we are making progress, says Professor Vorster, “The church must always remind people of the reality of the moving God who erects these signs, irrespective of human failures, as the constant impulses of the hope that never fade away.” And he sums up beautifully our spiritual exploration, our counter to Luke’s despair. “To find hope in South Africa,” he writes, “is to see and testify about the moving God who continuously grinds out of the hard rocks of evil the visible and touchable signs of goodness that can serve as the solid foundation of hope.”

This is the testimony we must offer, the hope which we must realise, the love which we must give expression to in the world, the wisdom that must flow from our resolutions, the intellectual rigour which we must bring to our arguments, the clarion call to fill the spaces between the silences of our prayer, and the prophetic challenge which we must issue from this Synod to ensure that the kingdoms of this world can surely be transformed into the Kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. (Rev 11:5)

References:

Ndungane, W.N., 1998, “The relevance of Robert Gray for the contemporary church”, in Change and Challenge, eds. John Suggit and Mandy Goedhals, CPSA Publishing Committee.

Vorster, J.M., 2023, “Six decades of Moltmann’s Theology of Hope and tangible hope in South Africa today”, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 79(1), a8988. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v79i1.8988

https://scielo.org.za/pdf/hts/v79n1/102.pdf

Of shocking jobs statistics & peace talks for Sudan & Gaza - Sermon for St Saviour's 170th anniversary

 Archbishop Thabo Makgoba
 170th Anniversary Service
St Saviour's Anglican Church: Claremont
18th August 2024 @ 08h30

Isaiah 9: 2–7; Psalm 8; Acts 4: 8–21; Luke 2: 15-21

May I speak in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.
    Sisters and brothers in Christ, St Saviour's family and friends, dear people of God, it is a privilege and an honour for me to have been asked to celebrate this day and share with you the Word of God. Wow! 170 years of service, witness and ministry through God’s love and grace! What a milestone. Thank you, Fr Chesnay, your leadership team and to the whole community of St Saviour's for inviting me. Thank you everyone for your welcome this morning on our arrival. Thank you too to those who worked tirelessly in preparation for these celebrations. And a special welcome to the guests who have been invited for this auspicious event. 

Homily delivered at VID University, Stavanger, Norway

Service for the Opening of Term
VID Specialized University Campus Chapel
Church of Norway (Den norske Kirke)
Stavanger
August 13, 2024

Reading: Luke 8: 1 -3

Soon afterwards he went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their resources.

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

Sisters and brothers, I greet you in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ: God morgen! Please excuse my Norwegian pronunciation!
    What a pleasure it is to be here in this chapel, visiting the VID Specialized University, with which the University of the Western Cape, the University of Malawi and other universities on the continent have such important partnerships. Congratulations to this year's cohort of students, including those who received scholarships, including our daughter Paballo, Karabo Makgoba. They join many from the continent, like Zibokjana (Moses) ka Gudu from Zululand who trained in Stavanger in the 1860s.
    It is especially good to be here in Stavanger, where in the 19th century the Norwegian Mission Society set up a “Mission School” which trained a number of the missionaries who were sent to join Pastor Hans Schreuder in your church’s mission to amaZulu, the Zulu people. I was grateful to meet Bishop Anne Lise Ådnøy yesterday, and also to visit the archives which tell the story of the rich history of your evangelisation in my country. And on behalf of my family and myself, I want to say a special thank you to Professor Vebjørn Horsfjord for your hospitality and assistance in setting up my visit. Tusen takk!
    Our Gospel reading today (Luke 8: 1ff), presents to us an account of how Jesus began to travel round the countryside after a period of fairly settled ministry. Various women took part in the campaign and helped to provide for the necessities of the missionaries. There is a thematic link in the story of the woman who anointed Jesus. His ministry had been centred in Capernaum, and many of his teachings had been in the synagogues of the region, but now he was on the road again, travelling from town to town on a second tour of the Galilean countryside.
    Most of Jesus’s teachings were in parables and the parable which follows today’s reading was a simple description of how seeds sown across a field differ in their growth, depending on what kind of soil they were scattered upon. Those which fell on rocky ground withered, those which fell among thorns were choked, but those which fell into good soil grew abundantly, producing, as the Gospel says, “a hundredfold.”
    I think we can draw an analogy between the parable of the sowing of the seeds and the role people of faith have played in relations between our two nations and peoples over the past two centuries. When Pastor Schreuder, his companions and successors, as well as missionaries from other parts of Europe, left the places familiar to them at home, sailed across the sea and went into the South African countryside, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God, sometimes their words fell onto rocky soil or among thorns. But at other times, they fell onto good soil and grew abundantly. Of course, success did not depend only upon the quality of the soil; it also depended on whether they were using the right kind of seed for the soil they were attempting to spread it on.
    I know that you have debates in your church about how appropriate the kind of evangelisation practised by 19th and early 20th century missionaries was. We certainly have them in the Anglican Church. For example, just as Pastor Schreuder had considerable contact with the 19th century Zulu King Mpande, our bishops had frequent contact with his successors, Kings Cetshwayo and Dinizulu, some of it good and some bad. Thus, at the coronation of the current King MisuZulu, and at the 90th birthday celebrations of Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi, I felt bound to recognise with shame the way in which Anglicans undermined many valuable African cultural traditions, imposing on people Western cultural accretions which had nothing to do with the Christian faith.
    But overall, I think we can agree with our beloved Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, who, preaching at the 150th anniversary of the church established by the British missionary Robert Moffat, criticised missionaries who acted as “one arm of the imperial might of European expansionism” but also went on to give thanks for the schools and hospitals they established, then added:
    “More than anything we give thanks to God for the [that is, the missionaries] for bringing us the Gospel of salvation through faith, faith in the life and death and resurrection of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is an unsurpassable gift. We have come to learn that we too, all of us, are of inestimable worth. We have a worth that is intrinsic to who we are, a worth that does not depend on extraneous attributes such as race and wealth and status and skin colour.”
    For myself, I have said that despite the oppression of colonialism, racism and apartheid, I am a Christian and remain a Christian because, for me, our faith begins with a young Palestinian on a donkey. I expressed it this way in a memoir I have written about my ministry to Nelson Mandela in his last days:
    “... [S]ince Roman times we have perverted the Word and the mission of Jesus Christ, and its message about what God is up to in 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 and to the AK-47.”
    “But,” I added, “that is not the Gospel. Christianity is not imperialism. Christianity is not colonialism. 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 on a borrowed donkey. He is humble and he is marginalized but his message of love and simplicity is powerful; it is powerful enough to challenge the perversion of common humanity that empire engenders... The Christian identity I aspire to is one of equality, harmony, reconciliation, truth and, indeed, one of turning the other cheek. For me that is more persuasive and forceful than the values of those who hold secular power.”
    Returning to Luke’s attention to detail in his biography of the three women, Mary Magdalena, Joanna and Suzanna, we are reminded that these three verses are critical verses for dreaming of this new world, but also in rediscovering the wonder of our discipleship. Our past should not stand in the way of contributing to the future: our position should help us shift the dial to something more just and wonderful and our possessions should help us build a just, healed and restored world.
     Please allow me to go over my allotted time by ending these reflections with an expression of gratitude for the role that not only your university and your church, but that your nation has played in promoting peace and democracy in South Africa and the world. In 1961, the Norwegian Nobel Committee in effect created a new category of the Nobel Peace Prize, one focussing on the promotion of human rights, when it awarded the 1960 prize to Albert Luthuli, President-General of the African National Congress. Forty years ago this year, it gave hope to millions of us at the height of apartheid oppression when it awarded the 1984 prize to Desmond Tutu. During our struggle against apartheid, your church and government channelled money to the liberation movement through the then Archbishop of Central Africa, Khotso Makhulu, a project memorably recorded in the book, “The Church’s Secret Agent”.
    And who can forget the role your country played in brokering the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995? As people horrified at the suffering brought about by Israel’s bloody war on Gaza, and the attack by Hamas which triggered it, those of us who support the Palestinian cause wonder: when peace is negotiated, as eventually it must be, is there any European nation with better credentials than Norway for helping to end the conflict?
    Thank you once again for giving me this opportunity. May God bless you and all the people of Norway.
    

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US Church elects new leader as Archbishop Thabo turns thoughts to the GNU

The Episcopal Church’s General Convention is coming to an end soon, and termination anxiety is setting in among the guests from other churches and countries as we prepare to come home, in my case an 18-hour journey. But before looking ahead to when I return, some more reflections on the last few days here in Louisville, Kentucky.

On Wednesday, at a Eucharist focused on discerning the holy things of God as we contemplate how he has poured out his spirit to transform this world, I prayed in isiXhosa for all the ministries of the Episcopal Church: “That our church will continue to be a place, for every person created in the image and likeness of God, to be both safe and brave! May we celebrate and respect our differences and, through the proclamation of God’s Word and the sharing of Jesus’ Eucharist, may we be thankful for the common identity that we share as the churches of the Anglican Communion.”

The bishops dramatically withdrew from the Eucharist before the blessing to go to Christ Church Cathedral to elect a new Presiding Bishop. When we choose a new Archbishop, the Diocese of Cape Town first elects, then our Synod of Bishops convenes separately to confirm the election. In The Episcopal Church (TEC), the House of Bishops elects the PB (for a nine-year term), then brings the result to the House of Deputies for consent. After some time during which we voted electronically for other office-bearers such as the Treasurer and pension fund trustees, there was an exchange of delegations between the two houses, and at 14:10, we received a delegation from the House of Bishops to say that at the first ballot, Sean Rowe of the Diocese of Northwestern Pennsylvania was elected. The floor was opened for discussion, but there was none, and the deputies voted on the first ballot, 778 to 43, to confirm. The delegation was sent back to inform the House Bishops, led by the “Sergeant without Arms”, and the deputies continued with their business until the bishops joined them, business was suspended, and outgoing PB Michael came to the podium to introduce PB-elect Rowe to loud applause.

Bishop Rowe, who then offered an acceptance speech, is from the “Rust Belt” in the USA, the area in the middle of the country which has been hit badly by changing economic conditions. He said that he has seen factory closures and resistance to change in a part of the country that he knows well, but what is key now is to manage the change and focus on the issues of resources and partnerships for our church and world.

He called for energy for mission, asking church members to disagree with one another without tearing each other apart. All should be for the sake of the Gospel, he said, and he called for sitting lightly to structures to allow room for the Spirit to inspire effective ministry on the ground. He asked that between now and November, when he is to be installed, the church observe a “Relational Jubilee” in which her people summon the courage to forgive others for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to display openness, holiness and courage.

My sense is that TEC has elected a good pastor, a spiritual leader who is also a manager likely to make the church’s mission administratively leaner and more goal-directed, perhaps a little like our transition from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane. Congratulations to Bishop Sean on behalf of ACSA.

As the Convention winds down, I am getting accustomed to the bicameral houses. In prayers on Thursday, a list of those who had died since the last convention, wow, the numbers! Amid debate and votes on legislation, the youth – attending for the first time as an official youth presence – were welcomed and addressed the convention. Steve Pankey was elected as Vice-President of the House of Deputies and Ayla Harris, the President, congratulated him with a message on sharing the love of Jesus Christ with a world that desperately needs to hear about him.

Due now to take a break to prepare for travel, interrupted only by a reception for the new Presiding Bishop, I end these reflections and thank you for your prayers.

My friend Soenke in Germany sends me photos of 1895, around the life, times and killing of my ancestor, Kgoši Makgoba, about whom I wrote here on Sunday. There is book for me to write to heal myself, perhaps a sequel to Faith & Courage, with reflections and stories of healing. I reconnect with home and read the Good Hope Synod edition and congratulate Rebecca Malambo for producing our account of Diocesan Synod so beautifully and ably as always.

My sincere apologies to the Order of St John in South Africa that due to GC and travel, I cannot preside as Prior at the investiture of members this Saturday. I pray also that by the time I land, we will know who the members of our Cabinet are, and we can work out how we can participate as church and citizens in Codesa-type dialogues about “whither South Africa”. Frankly, we have been talking a lot for 30 years, now we need to talk about solutions.

Blessings

††Thabo Cape Town

 

Living in Dignity With Our Differences – A Tribute to the Powerful Leadership of Presiding Bishop Michael Curry

Delivered by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba at dinner held by Bishops of the Episcopal Church and their spouses at their General Convention in Louisville, Kentucky. This is Bishop Michael's last Convention before he retires:

Sisters and Brothers in Christ;
Presiding Bishop Michael, our Brother in the Jesus Movement;
Bishops and your Spouses:
 
From a freezing cold Cape Town winter, and although you may not need or want to be any warmer, I bring you warm greetings, in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, from your sisters and brothers in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

In the words of our most widely-used mother tongue in South Africa, isiZulu, I also greet you: San'bonani! If I was greeting one of you individually, I would use the singular form of address, which is Sawubona! That word literally means, “I see you,” and using Sawubona as a form of greeting underlines the importance in our African cultures of recognising the worth and dignity of each person. As it has been said, to greet another with the phrase “Sawubona” means “I see the whole of you — your experiences, your passions, your pain, your strengths and weaknesses, and your future. You are valuable to me.”

And indeed, you in The Episcopal Church are valuable to us in the world-wide Communion. This is especially so when, in so many ways, the nations of the Global South look upon your nation with concern, worried for your future when you seem to be alienating yourself from the international community, complicit for example in the brutal war against the Palestinians which Israel launched in response to Hamas's vicious attack of last October 7th.

In total contrast to the image your governments project to the international community is the image you as The Episcopal Church project to the Anglican Communion, and no more so than under the leadership of your, of our, beloved Bishop Michael.

That isn't to say that our respective churches do not have our differences. We in Southern Africa are still struggling after 30 years to agree on ways to provide pastoral ministry to people living in the same-sex civil unions recognised under South Africa's 1996 Constitution. And those of us who have actually lived under apartheid and frequently visited our Palestinian sisters and brothers since the days of the first Intifada differ with those of you who dispute that Israel, especially in the Occupied West Bank, practices apartheid as defined under international law. But, as one of South Africa's wisest Chief Rabbis, who worked with Nelson Mandela to lead his community into democracy, might have said: “We can celebrate our common heritage and live in dignity with our differences.”

And those differences pale into relative insignificance when viewed against the gentle but oh-so-powerful leadership of Michael Curry. Both in his visits to our Province of the Communion, and in Primates' and other meetings, I have witnessed and admired his humble leadership, his quiet but so beautifully transparent recognition of the value of every human being, and indeed of the whole of God's beautiful creation, his collaborative style and of course the extraordinarily vital and passionate way – unmatched in my experience – in which he manages to express in himself, and convey to others, his love of Jesus and the love of Jesus for each one of us. Could there be any higher tribute than that paid to a Christian leader? I don't think so.

I know you have some time to go before you actually retire, Bishop Michael, but I can say safely, without contradiction, that I speak on behalf of millions of Anglicans around the world, when I say in some of the languages of my church: Thank you, Michael! Ke a leboga; Siyabonga; Enkosi kakhulu; Ngiyabonga; Tangi unene; Baie dankie!

Before I end, let me share a story of an event that to my mind saved our Communion because you were magnanimous. At your first meeting of the Primates of the Communion, the Primates overreached and sanctioned the Episcopal Church, preventing you from participating in Communion matters. The first expectation was you would sulk and walk out. But you did not. You graciously listened and still spoke of the love of Jesus. Few know of this sacrifice for which I am grateful and, as I was in that Primates Meeting, I equally want to say “mea culpa” for my part in that.

PB Michael, here is a small drum from Africa, as a token of our appreciation and deeper connections with you. May you continue the rhythm of the drum beat as you hear the words “God loves you! Jesus loves you! And so do we!”

Blessings from Louisville 

††Thabo Cape Town

Of American church's two Houses, Spanish worship, displaced Indigenous peoples, and Palestine

In notes on the opening days of the General Convention of The Episcopal Church (TEC) of the United States, Archbishop Thabo writes of how they differ from us in governance, of their use of Spanish as well as English in worship, of a pro-Palestinian protest against decisions of their House of Bishops, and of their willingness to acknowledge the displacement of Indigenous Americans by settlers and the evil of chattel slavery through their country's history.

Our Archbishop is at the convention to mark the retirement of TEC's Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, a descendant of enslaved Americans. The church has its origins in a breakaway from the Church of England at the time of American independence, when Anglican clergy who remained loyal to the British Crown often left for Canada and other jurisdictions, while those supporting the Revolution turned to the Scottish Episcopal Church to consecrate their first bishop.

The convention now represents 108 dioceses, with 167 bishops, more than 800 lay and clergy deputies and 239 alternate deputies registered. But it is also an opportunity for up to 10,000 people to attend events and visit exhibitions organised around it. Archbishop Thabo writes:

Those of us attending the General Convention (GC) as invited, ecumenical and interfaith guests gathered on Saturday for the first of our orientation sessions, which will be helpful as we join the big and complex “houses” of the convention.

In the House of Deputies, which represents the laity and clergy, we listened to a welcoming message by President Julia Ayala Harris, and from Presiding Bishop Michael Curry (the PB) from the House of Bishops. I also met the Dean of Theology at the University of the South, to arrange for our sabbatical at Sewanee, Tennessee after I retire in 2026. At 7pm, we attended a revival and healing service, where the PB was at his best, and we sang “This little lamp of mine” by the light of our cellphone torches.

On Sunday, after the ecumenical guests recorded our greetings to the GC for playing later to each House, we attended orientation and breakfast at 7 am. Then it was the Opening Eucharist, which is being held this year with the overall theme of “Together in Love”. Eucharist was in English and Spanish, with the singing a combination of Hymns Ancient & Modern, American spirituals and choruses. It was vibrant and the President of the House of Deputies preached, stressing our call to bring healing to a hurting world, assuring us that Jesus is with us in the storms we face and that in the midst of everything, what is key is transforming lives rather than focussing on increasing our numbers.

In the House of Deputies, I was moved at the reading of an acknowledgement of the racial and brutal expropriation of the land and cultures of the indigenous peoples and First Nations of he United States. One of our own, the Revd Lester Mackenzie, now of Los Angeles, is the chaplain to the House and brought to the proceedings much love and light and laughter. (He is a grandson of Bishop Ed Mackenzie, Suffragan of Cape Town in Archbishop Emeritus Desmond's time.)

The President of the House opened the legislative session by reading the standing rules of the Convention; the preliminaries dealt with, about 813 members from 102 dioceses were seated.

Of note, and different to our Province, in which the Houses of Laity, Clergy and Bishops meet together at Provincial Synod, here the houses meet separately and each represents a team to receive greetings from the other House. The Diocese of Liberia has a seat and voice in TEC, since they belong jointly to the Province of West Africa and to TEC, one of the benefits being that they receive pensions from TEC.

After lunch and a siesta, we joined the House of Bishops’ legislative session. This house is much smaller and the bishops are seated at round tables as opposed to rows in the House of Deputies. One motion before the House was work from a task force on the definition of doctrine and how the theologically-held views of minorities on the issue of human sexuality can be protected.

Resolutions on social justice and the international policy work of committees were presented. The TEC is different from where we in ACSA are on these matters. Resolutions on human trafficking, migration with dignity, and affirming the integrity of a independent Palestinian state, were carried in an atmosphere of Anglican moderation and pragmatism.

After a take-away dinner, we went the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts to watch A Case for Love, an inpiring and moving film based on the writings and teaching of PB Curry. At 8.45 pm we walked back home to our hotel in a much longed-for breeze. The temperatures so far have been around 34 degrees C, dry and hot.

On Monday, a briefing and breakfast was followed by Morning Prayer, in which the worship was inspiring. We attended a joint session of the houses to look at the church's budget, then had lunch and listened to a session on the work and ministry of the Anglican Church in Palestine, led by Archbishop Hosam Naoum, President Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.

There was also a small group that picketed for Palestinians, then we were officially welcomed to the House of Bishops and our recorded video messages were played. The House then reconsidered an amended motion criticising the theology of Christian Zionism.

A motion on full communion with the United Methodist community in the US was carried with applause, and the convention was also reminded of the formal communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria.

Monday night was “Kentucky night” with various activities, but I took a break at 4pm to recharge for Tuesday, when – very late in the day, SA time, I am one of those paying tribute to the retiring PB.

Blessings,

††Thabo Cape Town

Watch the trailer for A Case for Love: