Archbishop Thabo welcomes new Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has responded to the news of the choice of Bishop Sarah Mullally of London: 

 

"On behalf of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa and on my and my family's behalf, my warm congratulations to Archbishop-elect Sarah Mullally. The historic appointment of the first woman as Archbishop of Canterbury is a thrilling development. We heartily welcome the announcement and look forward to working with her as we all try to respond prophetically and pastorally to what God is up to in God’s world."

 

Sermon for Desmond Tutu Memorial Mass, St John's College, Diocese of Johannesburg

ARCHBISHOP THABO MAKGOBA
PRIMATE and METROPOLITAN OF THE ACSA
Desmond Tutu Memorial Mass, Diocese of Johannesburg
St John's College
2 October 2025

Readings: Micah 6: 1-8; Matthew 5: 3-12

 

May I speak in the name of God, who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.
    Brothers and sisters, thank you so much for inviting me to this Memorial Service this morning as we remember Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.  Thank you for your warm welcome on our arrival. Amongst his many ministries, the Arch exercised a ministry of gratitude. Let me then start by expressing our thanks to God and acknowledging Mr West and his wife, Joanne West. Stuart has been a friend and support of our family, especially when he was head of Herschel, and he has served our Anglican independent schools over a long period of time as an outstanding leader. Mr West, and Joanne, thanks to you both and to your wonderful team for hosting us. Many thanks to the parents, learners and educators for gracing this early morning service. Thank you, Fr Thapelo Masemola, School Chaplain and your team for preparing for this service in this beautiful chapel and for ensuring that a liturgy is crafted perfectly in memory of the Arch Emeritus. 
    As we remember him this morning, in our Anglican Church calendar we commemorate the 19th century British philanthropist, Anthony, Earl of Shaftesbury, whom we remember as a fervent evangelist and  campaigner against the appalling conditions in which people lived and worked in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Following in the footsteps of William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery campaigner, Shaftesbury championed the under-privileged and oppressed, advocating legislation which aimed to improve life in the factories and the slums—a cause, like that against slavery, which in its day generated as much controversy as did Desmond Tutu, in and outside this school community, when he fought against the injustices of apartheid. In our case, of course, we have won political, although not economic, liberation, and we need to continue a New Struggle to achieve that. In the case of the UK, I am glad to say that the Church of England has acknowledged its sad past in collaborating with slavery in the West Indies by earmarking 100 million pounds for reparations, with the objective of boosting it to a one billion pound investment. 
    Turning to our readings, the Old Testament prophet Micah is perhaps known best for those words which concluded today's text: 

“He has told you, O mortal, what is good,
    and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice and to love kindness
    and to walk humbly with your God?”

Both Anthony in the 19th century and Desmond Tutu in the 20th were indeed shining examples of Christian witness who, in the face of the cruel ill-treatment of God's people, indeed did justice, loved kindness and walked humbly with their God. In fact, the preacher at the Arch's funeral in 2022, the retired Bishop of Natal, Michael Nuttall, used this verse as the foundation of his sermon.
    I wonder how many of you know of the role this school played in Desmond Tutu's first major public act in calling for the apartheid government to do justice? It was nearly 50 years ago, in May of 1976, when as the Dean of St Mary's Cathedral he joined other clergy from the Diocese of johannesburg for a week-long silent retreat here. He had refused to live in his official residence, the Deanery, which was just around the corner from here in Houghton, choosing instead to stay in Soweto, and he was deeply worried about the situation there. Since the beginning of the year, teachers were being forced to teach maths and social studies in Afrikaans even though there weren't enough teachers fluent in Afrikaans. In response, 14-year-olds at the  Phefeni Junior Secondary School, close to the Tutu home in Orlando West, had begun a slowdown, then a strike, dumping their Afrikaans textbooks at the principal's door.
    So anxious was the Arch that, sitting in what has been described as his schoolboy's cell-like room at St John's, he spent the week here in silence, feeling called by God to write a 2,600-word letter to Prime Minister John Vorster. In the letter, which he said “more or less wrote itself”, he addressed the prime minister, and I quote, “as one Christian to another, for through our common baptism we have been made members of and are united in the Body of our dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ... who has broken down all that separates us... such as race, sex, culture status...” In the course of the letter, he warned that “I have a growing nightmarish fear that unless something drastic is done very soon then bloodshed and violence are going to happen in South Africa almost inevitably.” The prime minister ignored the letter, five weeks later the Soweto uprising began and in the months that followed, at least 650 young people were killed, most of them under 24. South Africa was never the same again, and the Arch's prediction, written here at St John's, propelled him into the front ranks of religious leaders who were opposing apartheid. 
    (As an aside, if you were to ask me where I was in all of this, I was 15 and my family had been forcibly removed from Alexandra Township, alongside Sandton, to Pimvlle in Soweto. So I was spending a lot of my time every day travelling from Pimville to town by train, then by bus to school in Alex, and back again after classes. I only joined the rebellion when it spread to Alex two days after June 16.)
    In Desmond Tutu's letter to John Vorster, he was following the example of the prophet who summoned Israel to repent, recalling God’s mercy at the Exodus, invoking a scene in which God lodges a formal complaint against the people Israel and summons them to listen to His accusation and to prepare their defence against the charges that follow. God remonstrates with His covenant people for their ingratitude and faithlessness, telling them they have treated the Lord as if He had been guilty of injustice towards them; yet they cannot cite any wrong He has done to them, except perhaps in giving them benefits they did not deserve and having delivered them from danger and from all their foes since the days of Moses and Aaron, whom He sent to lead them out of bondage in Egypt.
    Friends, a true and living faith will be evidenced by a will, firstly, to work for justice in accordance with the principles of Scripture revealed as God’s will; and secondly, to love kindness or steadfast love, whether it involves those closest to us, our neighbours or those of God's children who may not share our faith or our nationality. Thirdly, a true and living faith will be judged by whether we are prepared to walk humbly with our Lord, in utter dependence upon God, recognising that any goodness within ourselves is merely a reflection of the goodness of God, not the result of our personal ability or our own merit.
    Moving from the Old Testament to the New, what we heard in the reading from Matthew's Gospel (Mt 5:3-12) is Jesus spelling out in practical terms what it means to do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God. In what we call the Beatitudes, Jesus in his teaching ministry unites the exhortations found in the Old Testament into one integrated narrative of a life of Christian character; a life in which the poor, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, and the peacemakers—just to take a random selection—will, as Jesus goes on to say further down in this chapter, become the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
    I must keep this homily short, so let me end by saying two things, firstly—and importantly—by wishing each one of you all well, whether learners, parents or staff—indeed, the whole school community—as you prepare for end-of-year exams.
    Secondly, I leave you with a personal testimony. I have sometimes been asked, especially overseas: Why, in a country in which those such as John Vorster, and others like him, chose in the name of Christianity to inflict upon us colonialism and apartheid—why in such a country do I choose to be a Christian? My reply is that I do so because, to adapt what I said in Faith and Courage, a memoir I wrote some years ago,

“I am a Christian and I remain a Christian because I remember that our faith begins with a young Palestinian on a donkey in Jerusalem, riding to Calvary. Since Roman times we have perverted the Word and the mission of Jesus Christ, and its message about what God is up to in our country and 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, to the AK-47, and dare I say to Make America Great Again.

        “But that is not the Gospel. Christianity is not imperialism. Christianity is not colonialism, nor is it apartheid. 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 a borrowed donkey. He is humble and he is marginalised, but his message of love and simplicity is powerful; powerful enough to challenge the perversion of common humanity that empire and power engender.”

    May God bless you, our country and the world.

    God loves you and so do I. Amen.

************

St Cyprian's Anglican Church, Sharpeville 70th Anniversary Celebrations

ARCHBISHOP THABO MAKGOBA
PRIMATE and METROPOLITAN OF THE ACSA
St Cyprian's Anglican Church, Sharpeville 70th Anniversary Celebrations
Diocese of Christ the King
28th September 2025

Readings: Jeremiah 32: 1-3a; 6-15; Psalm 91:1-6,14-16;1Timothy 6: 6-19; Luke 16:19-31

May I speak in the name of God, who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.
    Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, people of God in the Diocese of Christ the King, it is an honour and a privilege to have been asked to celebrate and share with you the Word of God in this wonderful service. Today, we celebrate a remarkable milestone as we recognise 70 years of worship and witness in this church, named after Cyprian – Bishop of Carthage and Martyr. On behalf of the whole Province, meaning the Anglican Church across the whole of Southern Africa, I bring you our warm congratulations! 
    Thank you to Bishop Mkhuseli and to you, Archdeacon David Mahlonoko, together with your leadership team, as well as the community of Sharpeville, for inviting me to join you in your celebrations. Thank you also to the Matshaneng family who hosted the dinner last night, provided transport for me and before dinner accompanied the Rector on a visit to my grandparents' home and on a tour of Sharpeville. Some of you will know that when I was young I spent many happy summer holidays here when I took a break from everyday life and school in Alexandra Township or Soweto. 
    Thank you too, all of you who have worked very hard behind the scenes to prepare for this celebratory service. I want to acknowledge Bishop Peter Lee and Gill, also my Rector when I was young at St Michael's  in Alexandra township, as well as Bishop William Mostert and Canon Eric Ephraim, both of whom were at St Paul's together with me, and their spouses. Finally a special welcome to distinguished guests, fellow clergy, and to all of you, the whole wonderful family from all corners of this Diocese. 
    Your record of witness, service and ministry through God’s love and grace in this Diocese is inspiring, especially during these challenging times in our country and the world. I want to acknowledge and congratulate you for using your premises to partner with SANCA as they offer support and counselling to people with addiction challenges. This is a progressive initiative and is indeed what more of us should be doing,  especially in an environment in which the teachers complain that some of their learners come to school completely disoriented due to substance abuse.
    We meet today to celebrate your anniversary, recognising the centrality to your witness of the life, ministry and witness of Cyprian, whose name you bear. Our little book, Saints and Seasons, tells us that Cyprian, a scholar and someone learned in the law, was elected Bishop of Carthage at a time when the church was troubled by much schism. During his time, he reflected on how the apostolic ministry of bishops, when they were bound together with bonds of love, could secure and preserve the unity of the church.  St Cyprian was martyred, together with members of his diocese, at the hands of the Emperors Valerius and Gallienus in A.D. 258 for refusing to offer sacrifices to them rather than to God. We give thanks to God for this giant leader of the church, and for the example of unsparing dedication to our Lord to which he gave witness.
    In the story of Lazarus and the rich man which we heard in the Gospel of Luke today (Lk 16:19-31), both   Egyptian and Jewish sources have furnished similar stories in describing how the fates of uncaring rich people and those who are poor are reversed in the world to come. The parable told in Luke implies that the rich man did scarcely anything to alleviate the beggar’s distress. When the latter died, he found a place of honour beside Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation and a friend of God, while the rich man found himself in Hades, in torment and agony. He appealed to Abraham as a father, begging for mercy, but Abraham refused to offer him help.
    Thus far the story follows traditional lines, but now there is a fresh element. Could the rich men’s brothers, presumably rich and careless themselves, be warned before they reached Hades? Abraham's reply was very clear: the teaching they had learned in the Old Testament should be enough. For those who shut their ears to the voice of God in the Scriptures, not even the miracle of somebody returning from the dead to warn them would have any effect. It is a moot point whether the parable is intended to give literal information about the next world, but whatever the case, while the language of the story is surely symbolical, it speaks clearly to a warning in the scriptures that a failure to practise love and mercy will lead to bad consequences.
    It is for this reason that Paul, in his charge to Timothy (1 Tim. 6:19 ff) exhorts him to be true to his Christian calling, to keep clear of such ensnaring things as the love of money, and to sustain the pursuit of Christian virtues. In those memorable words which resonate across the ages, and across societies wherever Christ is confessed, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil...”
    As the people of Sharpeville, of Gauteng and of South Africa, I come to reassure you that all of you here, members of St Cyprian's Parish and of the Diocese of Christ the King, are part of God’s plan for the world, just as Lazarus, Paul and Timothy were part of God’s plan for the world. So what can we draw from these lessons and use as building blocks to build ourselves, our families, our parish, our communities and the world? What do the lessons mean to us in the here and now?
    Well, I suggest we begin by looking at the readings and asking what it means in South Africa today to practise the Gospel imperative to show love and mercy, in particular to those who are poor and oppressed. And what does it mean to recognise, as the reading from Timothy says, that “in their eagerness to be rich, some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains”? 
    Can we really say that all of those who wield power in South Africa today, whether political power in government structures or economic power in the corporate world, are taking any heed of these scriptures? Or are they like the rich man and his brothers in the story of Lazarus, men who shut their ears to the voice of God?
    Nearly eighty years ago, Trevor Huddleston, the priest who led the way in urging our church's leaders at the time to take a more radical stand against apartheid, used our Gospel reading to try to shock the civic leadership of Johannesburg into action. Preaching at a celebration of the founding of the city of Johannesburg, he called attention to the terrible living conditions of black South Africans in its townships. Calling them “stinking backyards”, he said they were the result of, and I quote, “a criminal, a sinful, lack of vision in the years that are past, [in that] whilst Lazarus has been lying at the gate unheeded and full of sores, [the rich man] has fared sumptuously, has built himself skyscrapers and laid out for himself pleasure gardens every day...”
    Eighty years later, and 31 years after our liberation, we have made a lot of progress, yes, but not nearly as much as we could have, were it not for the corruption, self-dealing and nepotism that we see at every level of society. And even when people are not guilty of this kind of criminal or sinful behaviour, as I have said times without number, it remains true in our society that the sons and daughters of the wealthy flourish, while the sons and daughters of the poor are caught in a self-perpetuating spiral of inadequate education, too few jobs and debilitating poverty.
    Sometimes it’s difficult to see that we are part of God’s plan, especially when we are inward looking. Is the infrequent, close to non-existent, collection of waste in Sharpeville part of God’s plan? Is sewage running in your streets part of God’s plan? Is incorrect billing of accounts, which sees people suddenly owing large amounts of monies to the municipality, part of God’s plan? Is the total collapse of services, partly because of the deployment of cadres without the requisite technical skills, part of God's plan? Indeed, is  the corruption and bad government that we see at every level of government across Gauteng, and indeed across the length and the breadth of South Africa, part of God’s plan?  Of course not. 
    To fulfill God's plan for South Africa, we need to embark on what I call the New Struggle for a new South Africa, a struggle which replaces the old struggle against apartheid, a struggle in which we overcome the huge wealth gap between the rich and the poor, a struggle in which we restore water supplies, fix our roads, ensure the rubbish is collected, clean and maintain your graveyard, and create environments in which all of us can live decent lives in all our communities. One of the ways in which we can do this is to reject the pessimism that we see in the media around the National Dialogue, and take control of the dialogue ourselves. I have said it before, and I will say it again: If corrupt politicians think they can take control of the process and seize it as an opportunity to benefit themselves, they have another think coming. 
    I know some are sceptical about the dialogue. But the mistakes which beset it at the beginning can be fixed, and it was interesting to hear at last week's meeting of our church's Standing Committee that there is widespread support for the dialogue as the best chance ordinary people have to make their voices heard. The co-chair of the Eminent Persons' Group, Professor Tinyiko Maluleke, addressed the Standing Committee later during our proceedings, and it was clear from his address that controversy and contestation is to be expected, and in fact without it,  the dialogue won't be a proper dialogue. He emphasised that it is meant to be the people's dialogue, to be owned and guided by ordinary South Africans, expressing their different views. And he underlined a point I have been making, which is that I think the cynics tend to be those who are more comfortable with the status quo than those who are trapped in urban ghettos where services don't work, or in rural areas starved of resources and services.
    The dialogue will involve nearly 14,000 community dialogues at ward, district and sectoral levels, so I urge you in this community to go and make  your voices and your needs heard. The Sharpeville community does not deserve the kind of treatment you receive from government and the municipality. Nor should people have to wait in long queues to be treated in hospitals, especially Sebokeng Hospital. When that happens, it's no wonder some are tempted to blame migrants for our problems, but we must put the blame for inadequate services and bad living conditions where it belongs in what is a much wealthier country than those the migrants come from. We should not be attacking them. 
    Your founding fathers planted this parish and Diocese through tempestuous times of colonialism, oppression, pandemic and sometimes of wars in our country. As you move forward into the next 70 years and beyond, you will be challenged to revisit your vision and mission for this parish and the Diocese for the years to come. 
    With all our daily challenges in this journey, our assurance is that God has, again and again, met people and sent them out to proclaim his truth, with clarity and courage, through difficult and challenging times in the past. And God will do so again today and in the future at St Cyprian's and Diocese of Christ the King. 
    Finally, let me congratulate you once again and wish you well on your 70th anniversary. Celebrate it, and build upon it for the sake of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
    God loves you and so do I. Amen.