Archbishop Thabo Makgoba's sermon at the Institution of the Minister-in-Charge of Emmanuel Church, Cape Town

Institution of the Minister-in-Charge of Emmanuel Church, and Associate Rector in the Parish of St John the Evangelist

17th November 2024

Readings: 1 Maccabees 2: 29 -50; Psalm 144; Matthew 23: 13-24

May I speak in the name of God who calls, informs and transforms us. Amen.

Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, dear family of Emmanuel Church in plurality with St John the Evangelist-Wynberg, I am pleased to be with you this afternoon and celebrate this important day – the institution of your new Minister-in-Charge.

I extend a warm welcome to Bishop Margaret, the retired Bishop of False Bay, the clergy present and your spouses, as well as guests who are here to grace this occasion. A special welcome to the Revd Delmaine Petersen, your husband David, your children, Stefanie, Jade and Paton and your father, Mr George Brown. After your ministry in the Diocese of False Bay, we warmly welcome you to the Diocese of Cape Town.

Thank you, Canon Natalie, and all who worked tirelessly preparing for this service. We will miss you! Thank you, Church Wardens, for your practical arrangements and your warm welcome on our arrival here this afternoon.

Today's gospel passage in Matthew gives us a collection of sayings which are warnings against the practices of scribes and Pharisees, naming seven specific instances in which Jesus highlights their misdeeds and weaknesses. He spells out a searching condemnation of the Pharisees, but he does it in love. There are affinities between the “woes” he names here and the Beatitudes. Not to enter the kingdom of God was bad enough, but to prevent others from entering was far worse.

Sisters and brothers, despite the scribes and Pharisees missing the kingdom, there was still a zeal among many of them, but it had disastrous results. In what they were promoting, they missed the true requirements of God. As Jesus said, their lack of proportion in spiritual matters was as ridiculous as straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel.

As the people of Emmanuel and St John's, as people of the Diocese of Cape Town, what can we learn from this gospel story? What is Jesus saying to us in the here and now? Well today, even as we give thanks for new beginnings in this Parish and in this church, my heart is heavy. I have a heavy heart, because after the events of the last two weeks it is easy to name our own woes and to see where we have neglected what Jesus calls “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” (Mt 23: 23) My heavy heart is eased, however, by the fact that in the Anglican Communion's Cycle of Prayer, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa is today being prayed for by Anglican churches around the world.

In the light of the scandalous abuse in England and Zimbabwe that has forced the Archbishop of Canterbury to resign, we have to ask as Anglicans in South Africa whether we have neglected “the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” The details of the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, in the 1980s and 1990s are enough to make you sick. Archbishop Desmond Tutu used to say that no one is beyond the love of God, that no one is irredeemably evil, but I have to say that Smyth's vicious and foul abuse of young men tests that belief.

In the church, we often accompany people at the most critical points in their lives: at the celebration of new life at baptism, celebrating their marriages, at times of work and personal crisis, and when their loved ones die. We also minister to young people at a formative time of their lives, often to teens and pre-teens from unstable or unhappy homes. For someone in the church, which is meant to be a safe and nurturing space, to prey on God's children when they are at their most vulnerable is not only wrong, it is not only criminal, which it often is, it is evil beyond description. It makes me want to weep.

Beyond our compassion for victims of abuse, which must be our primary and overwhelming concern, the sad and horrendous cover-up revealed in the Church of England's report on Smyth's abuse removes the glue which holds us together in the church, and which we pride ourselves on: that glue is trust, a trust that binds communities together.

We now know that John Smyth appears to have lived in South Africa, mostly in Cape Town, from the early 2000s until his death in 2018. When the diocese received a warning in 2013 from a bishop in the Church of England about the abuses he committed before he came here, it was established that he had worshipped in one of our parishes for a year or two until about eight years earlier. There was no evidence that he had abused or tried to groom anyone. In 2020, I learned that during the last months of his life, when the diocese knew of his history, he had been allowed to attend services in the same parish on condition he was not to get involved in any ministry or contact any young person.

In the absence of any evidence that Smyth had committed abuse in the relatively short periods during which he had worshipped in our church, there was no action that could be taken under our Canons (church law). Nor did we know of any crime that he committed in South Africa, whether inside or outside our church, that could be reported to police. But the diocese and I are accountable to you, our church members, and to society, to ensure that all our churches are safe spaces in which to worship and minister.

Consequently, I am consulting the Safe and Inclusive Church Commission, which pursues abuse cases vigorously, as well as our Chancellors and Registrars, who give us legal advice, to work out the terms of reference of a review of whether the diocese, and I personally, met our obligation to keep you safe, and what we could have done better.

We must also not be naïve – the publicity around this case will generate more reports of abuse from the past, so far unknown to the church's leadership. The Safe and Inclusive Church Commission has re-published its contact details on the church's website and Facebook page, and I encourage anyone who knows of abuse to report it to them.

Not only our handling of the warning in 2013, but our handling of other abuse cases going back decades, raises a serious trust issue, and as I said when we were fighting government corruption 10 years ago, low levels of trust have a high cost. In the case of abuse in the church the cost to us lies in terms of those who will lose their faith and wander away as well as society's loss of trust in our integrity when we claim to work for the flourishing of all human beings. We cannot credibly challenge our government or business without ourselves living up to the standards of morality we expect from them.

The sad reality of the culture of the bad decision-making, marked by secrecy, of yesteryear, in which we hid such heinous acts, is that it has crippled us today. In the Smyth case it has led to the tragic resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, to “collateral damage” for others of us, and a credibility crisis for the church. Tough as this process will be, we must seize the opportunity to identify what we need to change and then to look forward and work for a new vision for tomorrow.

The Christ who has died to such sin as we have seen here, calls us sinners, warts and all, to be transformed and to seek to transform the structures of society. The question we face today is how do we move beyond mere words and deploy our shock and anger in order to be self-critical and to hear Joel afresh and “Sanctify a fast, [and] call a solemn assembly.” (Joel 1:14) How do we clean up the culture of secrecy, become more accountable, transparent, compassionate and honest in our dealings with all, particularly the vulnerable?

The Safe and Inclusive Church Commission, which deliberately operates independently of our church hierarchy, will help to guide us, and a system of referrals of the names of suspected abusers between the different autonomous churches of the worldwide Anglican Communion will be key. We can’t be like Pontius Pilate and pass the buck. We cannot bury our heads in the sand in shame and become invisible as the body of Christ. We are a Resurrection people.

As we radically reorient ourselves after this heinous and tragic episode, and move into a new reality, our culture, our leadership and our vocation must be to serve others and to demonstrate that evil and death are not the final goal. So Dalmaine, your work is cut out for you, and especially in this Parish, where because of the unfortunate stereotypes we have inherited from the Church of England, evangelical Christian witness is under scrutiny and stress.

Sisters and brothers, we learn from today's Psalm that David, though enthroned by the wonder of God’s acts for him, still needed divine help. After the great deliverance that he was gifted, his life, though still beset by foes, could never be the same again; it had a new song. The psalmist also looks forward in prayer to the glories awaiting God’s people. The keynote is one of certainty.

Revd Delmaine, it is equally my prayer that your life here at Emmanuel church should have a new song – full of new possibilities. This is the re-assurance of God’s sufficiency for present needs and the prospects of greater blessings yet to come. You do not lack experience, but you will nevertheless need assistance from God to advance his will for Emmanuel church. You will need divine help! So as you take up your new responsibilities, I bring you, on behalf of the Diocese, of the wider church and on my own behalf, congratulations on your appointment.

As you all know this Parish has a proud history of seeking to challenge and inspire parishioners to advance the kingdom of God through teaching ministry and evangelism. To achieve that objective it requires a discernment that produces good decisions based on divine principles. It is therefore our shared prayer and hope that you, together with your team, will discern the common good in whatever decisions you take.

More than that, we rely on all of you here to work for the common good of all humanity. The concept of the common good is one which is rooted in God's desire that humans may flourish, each according to their own particular circumstances, and that all will have a liveable standard of material well-being. In its widest sense, a society organised for the common good is one which is stable, safe and just, a society which accords everyone respect materially, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.

And God urges us to correct our faults. His discipline is evidence that we are his children. Far from being a reason for despair, discipline is a basis for encouragement and perseverance. Received in the right spirit, discipline provides a framework for wholesome and beneficial individual and corporate lives

As I conclude, I congratulate you once again, Revd Dalmaine, on your appointment, and as I institute you in this church I pledge my support for your ministry here for the common good.

God loves all of you and so do I. Amen

[November 19: Minor additions have been made to this text since first publication, reflecting additions made when the sermon was delivered - notably that we cannot credibly criticise business (as well as government) if we do not hold ourselves to account.]

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