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.