Sermon preached at the 80th birthday celebrations of the Revd Canon Barney Pityana

 The Most Revd Thabo Makgoba

Metropolitan of ACSA

Thanksgiving Service for Revd Canon Prof N. Barney Pityana, GCOB

on his 80th Birthday

St Alban’s Cathedral - Pretoria

9^th August 2025 

Readings: Deuteronomy 6: 4 - 13; Psalm 18: 1-2, 50 -52; Matthew 17: 14-20

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

It is heart-warming to be with you again at St Alban's. I am always delighted to be here, but no more so than at a celebration such as this, a celebration of the extraordinary life of one of the great clerics, scholars and South Africans of our generations, Prof Nyameko Barney Pityana, GCOB. 

Barney, on behalf of the whole Province and on my own and Lungi's behalf, our heartiest congratulations on this significant milestone in your life. I am honoured simply to be in your presence at this service today, and especially privileged to have been asked to preach. Thank you to the Vicar-General, Dean Moses Thabethe and your team, together with the Church Wardens of this Cathedral, for inviting me to be part of this service. Thank you to our fellow bishops present here for your part in the service. Let me also welcome Mrs Dimza Pityana, their family and friends, as well as Dr Brigalia Hlophe Bam, and of course everyone in the congregation. Thank you all for being here.

As we acknowledge the roles of both Mama Dimza and Mama Hlophe in Barney's life, in our lives and in that of our country, let us all on this Women's Day recognise and pay tribute to the lives and the struggle of women for the society we aspire to: truly non-sexist as well as reflecting all the other values of our Constitution.

The reading from Matthew's Gospel (17:14 ff) which we have just heard reflects one element of Jesus's pattern of ministry, a pattern of continual withdrawal, followed by involvement, followed again by withdrawal, then involvement. From being alone with Jesus, the disciples return to the crowd. From the glory of the mountain, Jesus returns to the suffering of the plain, to be confronted not only by a faithless and perverse generation, but by lack of faith on the part of the disciples.

The words of Jesus to the father in this reading, summoning him to bring his son, ring through that tableaux of despair, a tableaux of dreams deferred, and of unmet expectations. I could not think of words more appropriate for celebrating Professor Barney's life, ministry and witness in the public domain than these: simply because he has lived his whole life responding precisely and particularly to the challenge issued by Jesus: to bring to him everything that the boy in the story represents – we know the list well – brokenness, stigmatisation, labelling, prejudice, fear, the stunting of potential, marginalisation, mental health and the othering of people not like us.

Against all the odds, obstacles and objections, the father brings the boy because the father’s heart and hopes are anchored in a belief that transformation is possible even in the midst of adversity. The father, even in his disappointment with others – and the disciples in particular – remains the holder of the dream, the custodian of the real possibility of transformation and the activist pushing the boundaries. The disciples could not work the miracle of transformation, so he was the one who pushed the boundaries further.

Barney, we see so much of the father in you; the courageous activist who is not prepared to step back when disappointment in others afflicts you, when others let you down, and let down the causes you represent. In the public space, you have built a legacy of pushing on, of continuing to hold onto the possibility of change as your lode star and thus of speaking hope into dark situations. The father would absolutely not let the boys many ‘chains’ become normative, he pushed on, broke boundaries, called out from the margins, persistently. Evil and corruption in whatever sphere can never be normalised.

Let me also draw a third comparison. The father stands with the boy, he doesn’t leave his side or let his cause disappear from public gaze and scrutiny. There is an unbreakable bond with the marginalised, stigmatised son who lives at least existentially on the margins. The father is thus a sign of abiding solidarity. Again there is a part of you Barney-indeed a very large part of you, that is a pledge to be in solidarity with the poor, the stigmatised and the oppressed, especially in the height of your activism, a time of racial stigmatisation, of silenced voices. You stood in a solidarity that inspired many others. Note that, in our Gospel reading, solidarity wasn’t easy for the father, it was demanding, it cost him his time, his energy, his vigilance: his son was prone to do harsh things and to strike out defiantly. His behaviour was unpredictable. What it must have cost the father is beyond the ordinary. That is the point of solidarity. Solidarity is hard work and it’s costly. I often quote those words of Pope Francis, written especially to priests who push back on the summons to solidarity. 

“Openness to God, makes us open towards the marginalised of the world, and gives us the courage to leave the confines of our own security and comfort to become bruised, hurting and dirty as we joyfully approach the suffering of others in a spirit of solidarity.”

Prof Barney, in all of your multiple quests, as a dream holder, as an activist, as an architect of solidarity and the articulator of the pathologies that have blocked the flowering of our humanity, you have brought the son to Jesus. You have let nothing stand in your way. Beyond being a father to your family, beyond being a father in God to your flock, you have been a father to many groups in our wider community. In all of this you have been a witness to your name, Nyameko, which can be translated as ‘filled with endurance’. Your birthday is a wonderful time to remember and celebrate this. We are so grateful to you and for you.

Allow me to draw one or two other points from the Gospel reading. Despite the fact that Jesus (in Mt 10:1ff) had anointed the disciples with the power to act with authority and to cast out demons, they failed to do so and were clearly embarrassed by it. And that too. Jesus had indeed anointed them with the power to cast out demons, to act with authority - and yet they had failed- and they failed in front of the Scribes and those whose negativity was just waiting to undermine them. Why? Why did that happen? It was because they had forgotten God's promise.

I believe there is a lesson for us there. We need in our lives and especially in those moments when life throws us curved balls, to hold onto God’s promises, to remember God’s faithfulness in times past and the promise of God to ‘have our backs’. Otherwise rather like the disciples in testing moments, we will lose our grip and doom ourselves to lead lives in which our potential is wasted.

God has so much more in store for us than mediocrity, and Prof Barney is a stellar example of this. There is a thread in this story that calls us to rise above the temptations of mediocrity and allow ourselves to be moulded into the best versions of ourselves. It is easy to forget that what threw the disciples—besides not remembering God’s promises—was their failure to see the challenge they faced in all its enormity, in its complexity. And when we make the same mistake, we are so overwhelmed by what we face that we lose sight of that basic spiritual principle, that the problem in front of us is not as big as the God inside us. 

In our time of growing hostility in the world, in a time of warfare and megalomania;

• when politics is stripped of integrity;

• when leadership is subverted by greed and corruption;

• when the powerful exploit the marginalised;

• when undisguised racism, genocide, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment distort our sense of our own worth, undermine our dignity and rob us of our potential;

then we need to regain our confidence that nothing can separate us from the love of God, if we lean into the basic principles that anchor us and prepare us for all that lies ahead.

Barney, you are now a decade beyond your three-score-years-and-ten, at an age when the psalmist (Ps 90:10) reminds us that reaching 80 reflects that you are strong. We admire your strength, and you are a beloved witness to what that strength means in the public domain, what it means in the academy, and what it means in the hours of prayer, worship and witness you exemplify in the church.

Friends, it was Dr Martin Luther King Junior who warned us of the consequences of becoming silent about the things that matter. To quote his words the day after many people were beaten on a protest march in Alabama (adapted slightly to be gender-inclusive), “A person dies when they refuse to stand up for that which is right. A person dies when they refuse to stand up for justice. A person dies when they refuse to take a stand for that which is true.” Thirty years after we won our political freedom, the time has come in South Africa for us to emulate Barney Pityana—whether it is in his stand with Steve Biko, Malusi Mpumlwana, Mamphela Ramphele and others in the 1960s, whether it is during his banning the the 1970s, or whether it is in his stand against corruption and misrule in the Zuma era and in our lottery—the time has come for us to stand up for that which is right, for justice and for that which is true.

I return again to the appeal I have been making since the days of the Zuma administration, an appeal that we embark on a New Struggle, a struggle which replaces the old struggle against apartheid with a new struggle to regain our moral compass, a struggle to end economic inequity, a struggle to bring about equality of opportunity and realise the promises of our Constitution.

As we look to the forthcoming municipal elections, I want to address the young people of our country. You are quite correct when you tell us that the promises of democracy are not being realised. We can understand your disillusionment, we understand why you are opting out of politics and public life. But that is not the answer to our crisis. That will not secure you and your children's future. No, the answer to our crisis is for you to roll up your sleeves and make the New Struggle a new struggle for a new generation. Please, young people, for the sake of our country's and your futures, dig deep into the radical roots of the old struggle against apartheid, and dare to dream and work for a country in which there is justice, equity and equality of opportunity.

Organise amongst yourselves, and those of you who are old enough, register with the Independent Electoral Commission, then campaign and vote in the early next year's elections. We need a peaceful revolution in which young people stand up, reject corruption and self-dealing, and help us to realise the promises of our Constitution.

We can no longer sit back and allow the elites of our society simply to reproduce themselves. I have said repeatedly what we all know to be true, which is that the daughters and the sons of the well-off tend to get the best opportunities in life, and become well-off themselves, while the daughters and sons of the poor struggle to escape the vicious cycle of deprivation that keeps them poor. Our President has asked me to serve as a member of the Eminent Persons Group advising the National Dialogue that is about to begin, and although I know many are sceptical, even cynical about what it can and will achieve, the single most important reason I accepted his invitation is my belief that if we don’t fundamentally reform our economy to give better opportunities to the poor, we may as well pack up and stay at home. I am not an economist, but I cannot in good conscience sit on my hands in Bishopscourt, sniping at the process from the outside, without arguing my case as strongly as I can.

The announcement yesterday that foundations pursuing the legacies of the leaders of our liberation struggle are among those pulling out of preparations for next week's National Convention, and the Convention itself, should not be seen as a setback, but as a genuine effort to wrestle with – and find agreement on – issues upon which the success of the whole initiative will depend. I am already on record as having said in my Easter sermon, before I was asked to serve, that a successful outcome to the dialogue depends on the process becoming everyone’s business, not just the government’s, and that it is critical for the credibility of the dialogue for it to be free from manipulation by political and economic elites. As one of those now tasked with being a bridge-builder in the process, calling on all to serve the common good in the interests of the whole nation, I appeal to everyone on all sides to take a step back, to reconsider their positions, and hold urgent consultations to ensure we can move forward together on the basis of the principles outlined. Our country, and especially the poor and the marginalised, desperately need an initiative such as this, and we cannot afford to let it fail. To adapt the words of Desmond Tutu, the consequences could be too ghastly to contemplate.

Sisters and brothers, as we give thanks to God for the witness of Prof Barney to our Province and the world, let us all say together with the psalmist “For this will I give you thanks among nations O Lord and sing praises to your name. To him that gives great triumphs to his king; that deals so faithfully with his anointed with David and his seed for ever” (18:51-52). As the Psalmist calls us to praise, an anthem of praise becomes a prayer of faith, a faith which empowers us to draw on our worship to lead us into an inward experience of trust and hope. And as we journey through this time, may the finished work of Jesus on the Cross provide for us a constant spring of intense joy as we reconcile one with another.

As God so loves Nyameko Barney Pityana, Mama Dimza Pityana and all their family, so he loves each and every one of you here today, and so do I. Amen.

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