Dear
People of God
I am writing this as I prepare to travel to Canterbury, where I will
attend
a
meeting of the Primates of the Anglican
Communion over the next week. Following that I will chair a meeting
of the Lambeth Design Group, a body which oversees planning for the
next Lambeth Conference, to be held in 2020. Our Province is
committed to faithfully showing up and participating in these key
meetings of the Communion, doing so because our reward is to be
faithful servants of God and God's witness and mission in the world.
Please pray for both meetings.
The Communion meetings follow a busy week of debates and decisions,
first at the second session of the Synod of Bishops this year, then
at the annual Provincial Standing Committee (PSC), at which bishops,
clergy and lay representatives from every diocese in the Province are
represented. The Dean of the Province, Bishop Stephen Diseko,
“embarrassed” me, almost marketing my new book to both meetings
by congratulating me on it. I appreciated it but as you all know me,
I always try to push attention to Jesus, the church and not me.
The bishops dealt with a wide range of important issues, including
the election of a new bishop for Mthatha, the situation in the
Diocese of Umzimvubu, the future of the College of the
Transfiguration and the Archbishop's Commission on Human Sexuality.
You can read the details in
our
Pastoral Letter.
At PSC we also considered in detail a very wide range of questions
ranging from theological education and the environment to how we
should organise our youth work and our role in combating substance
abuse. Of particular note was the statement we received from the
special conference marking the 25th anniversary of the
ordination of women as priests in ACSA, which was held at the same
venue and simultaneously with the Synod of Bishops. At the end of
their conference, we all celebrated a special Eucharist with arriving
members of PSC.
While those who met in conference celebrated the 1992 decision to
ordain women as priests as “a victory over exclusion, inequality,
and injustice in the church,” they said these features continued in
our leadership, structures and practices. They called for a series of
changes, including the election of more woman bishops. You can read
their
statement on the ASCA website, as well as
a
pledge to which they committed themselves.
Apart from the challenging task of presiding over the deliberative
bodies of the Province, the life of an Archbishop is also taken up
with difficult pastoral issues. Before the recent Provincial meetings
got under way, my ministry and that of a number of my fellow bishops
in a number of dioceses in the Eastern and Western Cape were
overshadowed by tragedy.
Firstly, I had to preach and preside at the funeral of a senior
priest, Archdeacon Lunga Vellem, in Kokstad in the Diocese of
Umzimvubu. As someone who held an MBA, he was a valuable asset to the
Diocese but was killed when he sustained head injuries in a car
accident. Then in Cape Town we had the sudden death of the Revd Mark
Abrahams, Rector of the Church of the Holy Spirit in Heideveld. He
died just after undergoing an operation and only a week before his
54th birthday. Large numbers came both to the Church of the
Resurrection in Bonteheuwel and to Holy Spirit to commemorate his
life and ministry.
Soon after that, I buried a young priest in the Diocese of Mthatha,
Archdeacon Sibulele Njova, his wife, his son and his younger sister.
They all died in a head-on collision with a van which was allegedly
forced out of its lane by a taxi – which then sped off without
stopping, apparently realising what it had inflicted on this young
family. As we lowered the four coffins into the grave in Mqandule in
rural Transkei, not far from the picturesque Wild Coast resorts of
Coffee Bay and Hole-in-the-Wall, the wailing of the mourners seemed –
very painfully – to be matched by the sound of the sea. After the
funeral I went to Mthatha Hospital with the Dean to visit the two
surviving daughters, aged 11 and four. The 11-year-old was battling
with her injuries but the four-year-old could hold a conversation
with me and even gave me a high-five. She was happy that we were in
cassocks because we reminded her of her dad. But she had not yet been
told her parents had died and thought they were arriving back from a
conference later that day. I suspected she must have sensed that her
parents had gone – she was, after all, in the car with them – and
I felt that I was betraying her by not saying anything. But I was on
my way back to Cape Town, so I resisted the temptation to tell her
and then to leave her and fly off. If her sister pulls through, they
will both be orphans. Their grandparents are ageing, so they will
have to stay with an aunt in conditions far inferior to those of a
rural Anglican rectory.
As I reflected on the lives of these three clerics and their
families, I thought of the Gospel assurance that “Blessed are those
who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:4) – but also
of the Psalmist's words: “Why are you so full of heaviness, my
soul: and why so unquiet within me?” (Psalm 46) We all have finite
lives, and as St Paul says to us, “We do not want you to be
uninformed... about those who have died, so that you may not grieve
as others do who have no hope.” (Thessalonians 4:13) Well done,
good and faithful servants, and may you enter into your Father's
rest.
Fortunately I can end this letter to the laity on a note of hope and
new life. On my return from the Communion meetings, Bishop Martin
Breytenbach of the Diocese of St Mark the Evangelist will marry
Colleen Thomas of Cape Town. After they both suffered the loss of
their spouses in tragic circumstances in recent years, we celebrate
and rejoice that they have found new happiness and give thanks for
this life-giving sacrament, marriage. God be praised!
God bless,
†Thabo
Cape Town
