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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