Anglican
Church of Southern Africa
36th
Session of Provincial Synod
“ACSA
Discipling Communities for a Changed World”
Charge
by the President of Synod, the
Most Reverend Dr Thabo Cecil Makgoba
Archbishop
and Metropolitan
September
21, 2021
Readings:
Proverbs 3: 9-18; Psalm 19; Matthew 9: 9-13
May
I speak in the name of God who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.
Amen.
Welcome
& Acknowledgements
Members
of Synod, sisters and brothers in Christ gathered in your Diocesan
hubs, members and friends of our church watching online, a very warm
welcome to the opening Eucharist of this, the 36th
Session of Provincial Synod.
A
special welcome to those of you attending Synod for the first time.
Although I will miss meeting you in person, I hope you will feel
included and encouraged to play your full part in proceedings. I also
want to recognise members of the Order of Simon of Cyrene and all our
Provincial office-bearers, those with full-time jobs who give
generously of their time and effort to the Church. Speaking about
generosity, I encourage all members of Synod to give generously at
the offertory, since your giving will support bursaries for
theological education in the province. A report in the Addendum to
the 2nd
Agenda book emphasises the need for a Province-wide conversation on
critical decisions that we need to make on re-imagining the training
and formation of our clergy.
Since
Synod last met in 2019, one bishop in service and several retired
bishops have died. We recall the tragic loss to Covid-19 of Bishop
Ellinah Wamukoya of Swaziland, as well as the deaths of Bishops Mlibo
Ngewu, formerly of Mzimvubu, Tom Stanage, formerly of Bloemfontein,
Edward MacKenzie, Suffragan in Cape Town, Merwyn Castle of False Bay,
Eric Pike of Port Elizabeth, and Derek Damant of George. We
acknowledge too the deaths of former members of Provincial Synod: Ms
Agnes Mabandla, Dr John Healy, the Revd Malusi Msimango, the Revd KL
Mashishi, the Revd Canon S Mupfudzapake and Mr Kenson D Qwabe. We
also pause to remember clergy and their families, as well as the many
others who have died due to Covid-19. May they rest in peace and rise
in glory.
Also,
since the last Synod, there have been a great many changes in the
bench of bishops. I take pleasure in welcoming newly elected bishops
to their first Provincial Synod in their new capacities: Bishop
Nkosinathi Ndwandwe of Natal, formerly of Mthatha, Bishop Tsietsi
Seleoane of Mzimvubu, formerly Suffragan in Natal, Bishop Luke
Pretorius of St Mark the Evangelist, Bishop Joshua Louw of Table Bay
and Bishop Vikinduku Mnculwane of Zululand.
We
acknowledge with thanks to God the ministries of those who have
retired or resigned: Sebenzile Elliot Williams of Mbhashe, Adam Taaso
of Lesotho, Oswald Swartz of Kimberley and Kuruman, Martin
Breytenbach of St Mark the Evangelist and Dino Gabriel of Natal.
For
several bishops still in service, this will be their last Provincial
Synod before retirement. We recognise the faithful witness and
ministries of Bishop Andre Soares of Angola and Bishop Luke Pato of
Namibia.
Church
Governance under the Coronavirus
In
the time of the coronavirus, we have faced considerable challenges in
governing the church, from meetings of parish councils to convening
synods and elective assemblies. Fortunately, hard work by IT
specialists and our lawyers have guided us through the difficulties,
and we will address some of the results as we work through the First
Agenda Book.
As
a result of the pandemic, we have been slower than we would have
liked in filling episcopal vacancies and have had to rely much more
than usual on Vicars-General during the
interregna. However,
we are beginning to overcome the backlog, and we congratulate the new
bishops elected during this week by the Synod of Bishops: Bishop
Brian Marajh of George, to be translated to Kimberley & Kuruman,
and Dr Vicentia Kgabe, to be Bishop of Lesotho.
There
has been a lot of comment about the number of elective assemblies in
the past few years which have decided to delegate the election of a
new bishop to the Synod of Bishops. Many rush to brand such a
decision as a failure to elect, but as I told the Diocese of Natal
recently, it is far from that. Of course, dioceses ideally want to
make the decision themselves, and there is a proposal in the Second
Agenda Book which seeks to address the matter. However, when a
diocese chooses to delegate, I regard it as a spirit- and God-filled
act. The Synod of Bishops takes the invitation to elect very
seriously – and of course God can also work through the Synod of
Bishops!
Igreja
Anglicana de Mocambique e Angola
In
the realm of church growth and church governance, the most exciting
development to come before this session of Synod is giving birth to a
brand-new Anglican province in Southern Africa – the Igreja
Anglicana de Mocambique e Angola.
When I addressed Synod in 2019, I said one of my hopes and visions
was that “one day in the not-too-distant future we will inaugurate
a new Province in the Communion: an independent, stand-alone,
Portuguese-speaking Province in Southern Africa.”
Even
I did not imagine that the dioceses in Mozambique and Angola would
have been able to act so quickly. As a result of the intensive
planning and work of Bishops Carlos Matsinhe, Andre Soares, Manuel
Ernesto, and Vicente Msosa, supported by Mrs Mototjane in the PEO's
office, the PEO, the Revd Dr Makhosi Nzimande, the former PEO, Archdeacon Horace Arenz, Provincial Officers and our lawyers, we received the approval
of the Communion for a new Province in August. On September 1, the
day on which we commemorate Robert Gray, we adopted the Canons and
Constitution, and on Friday IAMA will be inaugurated, with Bishop
Carlos as the Acting Presiding Bishop and Bishop Andre as Dean of the
Province. And all this has been done virtually, efficiently, and
cost-effectively. Their hard work is an example to us all.
Of
course, it is a bittersweet moment for ACSA. The Diocese of Lebombo
was established in 1893, and these important dioceses of our Province
have enriched our lives immensely over the past century. Now, in a
part of God’s vineyard in which there were four dioceses a few
months ago, there will soon be 12, with nine now. Next year, God willing and
Covid-19 permitting, we will hold the re-scheduled Lambeth
Conference. If it can indeed go ahead, we can be proud and pleased
that our part of the world will be represented by not one Province
but two. Praise be to God.
Discipling
Communities for a Changed World
Across
all the countries of the Province, the last 20 months have been as
challenging as any through which any of us have lived. They recall
the memorable words of the English novelist Charles Dickens, who
writes in the opening paragraph of “A
Tale of Two Cities”:
“It
was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of
wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it
was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the
season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of
despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we
were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other
way...”
Our
personal lives, our deepest relationships, have felt both horrific
spikes of violence and destruction, but also the kindness of
strangers as people have reached out to give succour and refuge to
others. We traversed through a winter of despair when those already
living in chronic poverty took on new burdens as unemployment
spiralled. Hunger has haunted the faces of children. Domestic
violence has scarred the lives especially of women and children. Both
in South Africa and across the Western world we have witnessed the
spectre of racism. The phrase “I can’t breathe” became the grim
reminder of both the pandemic of racism and of the virus. We have
heard cries for greater democracy on the streets of eSwatini, we have
seen devastation and unparalleled violence in KwaZulu-Natal and
Gauteng. We have heard the echoes of the incessant bombardments of
war in Cabo Delgado. Amid it all, the pandemic has ravaged our lives
and livelihoods. We have experienced vaccine nationalism, in which
the prosperous countries of the world have hogged life-giving
inoculations, and we are still experiencing some vaccine hesitancy,
despite the magnificent work being done by ACSA’s Covid-19 Advisory
Team under the leadership of Canon Rosalie Manning.
During
this Synod, one of the most controversial issues we will debate is
whether vaccinations should be made mandatory, which is a sensitive
issue not only here but across the world. Anti-vaccine lobbyists
defend their right not to be vaccinated, which is all well and good
if they are willing to stay at home in isolation. But as soon as they
move into spaces occupied by others, their rights become limited by
the rights of others. In the words of the legal philosopher Zechariah
Chafee, “Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other
person's nose begins.” In a deadly pandemic, the right of your
neighbour to life inevitably circumscribes your right to do as you
like.
In
the church, there is a strong case for clergy to be vaccinated
because we are necessarily near other people, we visit vulnerable
people to provide pastoral care and numbers of people in our
congregations are vulnerable by virtue of age or comorbidities. The
labour writer Terry Bell has put forward a powerful case for
employers to make vaccinations compulsory, citing the cardinal
principal of trade unionism, “an injury to one is an injury to
all”. And is it expecting too much to require travellers sitting
near others on aircraft flights to be vaccinated? Let us take
seriously our prophetic role in society when we debate this matter.
In
this time of suffering, unprecedented in its nature in the last
hundred years, we have often felt bereft of answers and struggled to
remember that tremendous reassurance that the Lord is with us. We
have often felt the burden of failure, but we have also been
encouraged by Madiba’s exhortation: “Do not judge me by my
successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up
again.” In the words of St Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the
11th
century, we are indeed passing through an hour of “faith seeking
understanding”.
As
we try to get up on our feet again, as we look to our faith in
groping towards understanding, we can take encouragement from today’s
Gospel reading. The parallels between the age in which Matthew lived
and our own reality are stark. His work as a tax collector put him
into a particular category of people in a deeply unequal society.
Scholars tell us that two percent of the population at the time of
Jesus comprised the ruling elites. Another five percent were people
like Matthew – retainers or agents who served the elites and the
Roman Empire. Ninety-three percent were the poor, the peasants, those
excluded from the benefits of the economic system, a system built on
their labours.
Those
figures call to mind statistics which Moeletsi Mbeki gave us at a
seminar at Bishopscourt a few years ago. At the top of the pyramid,
he told us, there is an elite who earn more than R60,000 a month.
They constitute less than half a percent of working age people. Then
there are independent professionals who make up two percent of the
population, and a middle-class comprising just under 10 percent, who
earn between R11,500 and R60,000 a month. Against that, 38 percent or
nine million people are blue collar workers earning less than R11,500
a month, while 50 percent of working age people – a total of 12
million South Africans – are either unemployed or part of what he
described as an "under-class". Recently we learned another
shocking statistic, that the official unemployment rate among people
under 25 in South Africa is 46.3 percent, meaning nearly half of our
young people have no jobs. The resolution on youth unemployment on
our agenda could not be timelier.
The
organisers of the Camissa Project, the series of discussions on black
theology being hosted by St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town,
portray the challenges of Covid-19 vividly. "Race, class, gender
and disparities were starkly exposed,” they say. “The frailties
of life and ongoing exploitation were displayed for what they were by
the stroke of a pandemic. Oppressed people worldwide experienced this
pandemic as yet another burden in addition to the pandemics brought upon
them in five hundred years of imperialist invasions, colonisation,
oppression, enslavement, and capitalist exploitation. Similarly,
gender-based violence has been described as a pandemic, hugely
exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.”
Palestine
in the Roman era and Southern Africa today are worlds in which Jesus
was and is now at home, populated by people battered from every side;
people upon whom, in Matthew’s words, Jesus looks compassionately
for “they were like sheep without a shepherd”; people crying out
for shepherds to raise their voices, to speak prophetic words, to
instil hope and to work for justice. It is worth noting that Jesus’s
invitation to Matthew was to leave the space he occupied as a tax
collector. It was a challenge that reminded Matthew that a system
which was built on corruption, that robbed the poor, that created
desperation as a matter of course, was no place to find growth or
fulfilment, no environment for becoming fully human.
Scholars
tell us that Matthew’s Gospel is deeply influenced by Jeremiah and
Ezekiel. When Jesus looks on the marginalised, he does as the prophet
Ezekiel also did – he admonishes those who abuse their leadership
for their own interests and protect ill-gained wealth or prestige.
Hear the words of Ezekiel:
“Ah,
you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not
shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with
the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep.
You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you
have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed,
you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have
ruled them.”
Rowan
Williams, in his new book, “Candles
in the Dark: Faith, hope and love in a time of pandemic”,
has pointed to how Covid-19 can offer us a way forward into a world
which better reflects the values of Jesus. He writes that the
pandemic has turned upside down the belief, especially among the
affluent, that humankind is steadily bringing our environment under
control. Instead, the pandemic has created what he calls a “new and
unwelcome solidarity in uncertainty.” He continues:
“The
Christian gospel repeatedly tells us that we are always involved in a
situation of shared failure and shared insecurity; it tells us that
this is overcome only when we stop denying it by closing our hearts
to each other; and it announces that our closed hearts can be and are
broken open to each other through the action of God in Jesus and the
Spirit.”
And
he adds that in the time of the virus:
“Perhaps
we have learned more about our dependence on one another; perhaps we
have learned something of the need to accept the limits and risks of
living in a world we are never likely to tame successfully and
totally. Or perhaps we have had our eyes opened to who is least safe
in our neighbourhood – and not just our immediate neighbourhood,
but our global neighbourhood...”
In
this time of an ongoing pandemic, as we work out what it means to
“disciple our communities for a changed world”, as our Synod
theme says, if we have learnt anything, then it must be that we must
use our gifts, rekindle our imaginations, harness our spiritual
energies, and employ our skills, to choose again that fundamental
option for the poor. As the story of the call to Matthew reminds us,
it is never too late to leave our old ways and follow Jesus into
implementing the Kingdom.
Choosing
to focus on the poor and the marginalised has implications for how we
organise our lives as the Church. I have occasion to meet with the
Provincial Treasurer to pray and reflect on challenges that confront
the Province broadly and some Dioceses specifically. Covid has made
this time of reflection important particularly given the financial
strain that many dioceses are experiencing. With so much change
taking place in the secular world, both locally and internationally,
we as a church need to begin a process of re-imagining ourselves, how
we can remain relevant in a very changed world and meet the needs of
our people. It is a time to look to our roots – at that which made
us the Anglican Church in Southern Africa. We need to look to our
clergy being well trained, not only ahead of their ordination, but
beyond – with a strong emphasis on life-long learning. Looking at
leadership development at all levels of the church, we must not lose
sight of our role as servant leaders. We need to look to our laity
and their gifts and skills and how they can assist the church to deal
with the complexity of so many areas of church life – management,
finance, property, education, leadership training, medical, legal,
and so many more diverse disciplines. For our Bishops we need to
remember that we are the servants of the servants of Christ and that
we have a pivotal role in shaping the dioceses that we lead through
our prophetic witness, building on the work of our predecessors and
leaving a legacy of growth in mission and ministry and in the
sustainability of our dioceses.
Choosing
the option for the poor also has implications for our prophetic
ministry to the world beyond our stained-glass windows. I have
previously spoken of my participation a few years ago in the first
Ecumenical School on Governance, Economics and Management in Hong
Kong. At that meeting, four major international Christian groups –
the World Council of Churches, the World Communion of Reformed
Churches, the Council for World Mission and the Lutheran World
Federation – brought together theologians, economists, church
leaders and others to discuss how we can develop a new form of global
governance and a new economic model, one that transforms the market
economy from a self-serving mechanism for elites to one which is less
exploitative, one which distributes resources and income more
equitably, and which serves both our environment and all the world's
people.
Ahead
of COP26, the forthcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in
Glasgow, we are called to re-evaluate our relationship to our
environment, and I am pleased to see that Synod representatives have
put the issues of plastic pollution and the future of gas and oil
exploration on our agenda. I was struck recently by the strong words
used by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world's top experts on
sustainable development, at a recent meeting. He said the world’s
food system is based on large multinationals and private profit, and
on what he described as “the extreme irresponsibility of powerful
countries in regard to the environment, and a radical denial of the
rights of poor people.” In the 1980s, when the fight against
apartheid reached its peak, many of us adopted the Kairos Document.
It recognised that South Africa had reached a “kairos” moment –
a moment of truth, a critical turning point – requiring a deeper
commitment to the struggle. Today the climate emergency offers us
another Kairos moment – an opportune moment for new and creative
initiatives towards a just solution to the crisis.
In
these frightening times, the Lord calls us to re-imagine our
economies, to put people before profits, to enhance a sense of
belonging and to repair the frayed social fabric of our communities.
Part of repairing that fabric must involve intensifying our efforts
to eradicate the scourge of gender-based violence. I have written in
my memoir, “Faith &
Courage”, of my first
exposure as a priest to the depths of depravity that men can sink to,
when I volunteered at a shelter for woman victims of violence in
Johannesburg and witnessed the horrifying cruelty men can inflict on
women.
Turning
to the issue of how this affects us within the Church, one of the
most difficult exercises in providing spiritual ministry is to learn
to listen and hold space open for those who are hurting. In the
Province our Safe and Inclusive Church Commission has helped us to do
this even at the most difficult moments. We have amended the Canons
to ensure that we can deal with abuse more transparently. Now we need
to amend them also to help us challenge patriarchy and its values and
practices within the church. It is not only critiques of our
behaviour that will bring change; we need sustained teaching and
modelling of an ethic of care and dignity (what we call “Seriti”
in Sepedi) until everyone is free and safe, and treated equally in
all our churches.
The
societal challenges that we face are daunting, but we can respond to
them in faith and hope. After the unrest in parts of South Africa in
July, one of the acts of hope we saw emerged from people who found
solidarity with each other and began to demonstrate against looters
and rioters, to declare “not in my name” and to help clean up in
the aftermath. It was a small beacon of hope, the kind of hope that
Jurgen Moltmann spoke of in book. “Theology
of Hope”, as “forward
looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionising and
transforming the present.”
We
are called to be a church for such a time as this, shepherds for such
a time as this. But when we hear the call of Jesus, we need, like
Matthew, to follow quickly. It is part of the genius of Matthew that
he also points us to practical ways of transforming lives to
guarantee us a welcome in heaven, for example in Chapter 25. And he
challenges not only the elites and the retainers; although they have
a greater responsibility because they have resources and power, all
of us, the 90 percent, have the responsibility to carry out
compassionate ministries, to act with justice and to contribute to a
different, transformed world. Every sheep is also a shepherd. No one
is exempt from being part of ushering in the Kingdom. All of us are
challenged to enhance the agency of the poor. That is what it means
to be salt and leaven.
In
many ways the Church in these challenging times hears the echoes of
Jesus’ request to his friends on the night before he died, to watch
with him. As we know, he was asking his friends not only to stay
awake but to pay attention to the depths of reality. The English
theologian Oliver O’Donovan points out that although the psalmist
and the Old Testament prophets regularly call on God to wake up, this
call is never sounded in the New Testament. The call there is instead
that we should stay awake to God, that we should be alert to God’s
work in the world. O’Donovan writes: “God has already awakened,
has already acted. All that remains now is for the faithful to be
awakened.”
Amid
all the joys and sorrows, the hopes, and anxieties of our times, we
are called to alertness, to mindfulness and to train our hearts to
embrace the times and places when the glimpses of God appear. That
surely is the task of the Church, just as it was for the disciples in
their challenging hour, “to watch and pray’. And then, as with
Peter, to feed the sheep. Every local congregation, big or small,
every group, every individual occupying a pew, is both sheep and
shepherd, and it is synergy which embraces both roles that will
release the energies, creativity and discernment that will take our
church forward confidently into the world that lies ahead. Let us use
this Provincial Synod to equip us to take that journey.
