A Tribute to a Lamplighter: Finding Hope and Comfort in Grief - Funeral of the Revd Canon Dr Mongezi Guma

 A Tribute to a Lamplighter: Finding Hope and Comfort in Grief

FUNERAL OF THE Revd Canon Dr MONGEZI GUMA

Holy Cross Anglican Church, Orlando West

ARCHBISHOP THABO MAKGOBA

14th NOVEMBER 2025

Readings: Wisdom 13:1-9; Psalm 23 ; Luke 17: 26 - 37

May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, our comforter and sustainer whom Canon Guma so dearly loved and faithfully served.  Amen

​Sisters and brothers in Christ; dear Mrs Nomawethu Guma, your children, your grandchildren, Canon Guma’s siblings and the entire Guma and Somhlahlo families and friends, dear colleagues and guests from far and near:

It is heart-rending that we are here today to offer our condolences to you for the passing of a highly valued and distinguished veteran of our church, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a brother, an uncle, a colleague and a friend.

​When I received the news of Canon Mongezi's passing whilst away from home, I was deeply distressed, but at the same time moved in a special way. Distressed because like you, I always find it difficult to accept the loss of a loved one. But also moved because of the singularly prominent role that he played in our church Province of Southern Africa, in Botswana and in the United States, in both the church communities which he so dearly loved and in communities beyond the church. And, I have to say, I was also sad because even in his senior years, there was still more that he could offer the church and our nation.

​As we bid farewell, and give thanks to God for his life and witness today, be comforted by the words of St Paul, so movingly at the heart of our liturgical mourning (Rom. 8:38-39): “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ our Lord”. Dear friends, indeed we know that Canon Mongezi has not been separated from the love of God, and neither are we; if these words are true for anyone, they are most certainly true for him.

I have been deeply touched by the accounts of his encounters with many as a pastor and priest. Thank you, Mlungwana, Sibanyoni, Jubisa for being his support system during the most turbulent years of his ministry.

Canon Guma tirelessly served the church and the communities in which it was based, from a very young age and through the 50 plus years of his ministry, acknowledged in the recent celebration of the Golden Jubilee of his ordination. I knew him as a theologian and a scholar, deeply concerned with the challenges faced by any of the communities, here and abroad, in which he ministered, but especially with the challenges faced by our newly liberated country.

​The obituary published with the liturgy for this service gives a superb survey of his life and ministries, and I will not attempt to repeat it today, safe to underscore his commitment to the wider ecumenical community reflected in his co-editorship of the book, An African Challenge to the Church in the Twenty-first Century, published soon after our first democratic elections. 

The  book has been described as “part of the continuing effort of especially black theologians to come to grips with the new South Africa,” and, as one reviewer wrote, it underlined that “the heritage of the unjust and criminal past remains to be dealt with. Not only will this be a political and economic project, but it also needs to be theologically undergirded.” Perhaps the reviewer wants us as church 30 years into our democracy to wake up, not to be silent when we hear the cries of the poor; not to  be a Church that seeks comfort rather than truth, because if we do we become powerless; to be a church that reminds those in power that leadership without justice is an insult to God.

Let me reflect on the readings set for today , and other scripture lessons- Psalm 23, Wisdom 13  and Luke 17. 

Mongezi taught Philosophy, Ethics, Religion and Humanities in North Carolina. So it is apt to perhaps start with John Ruskin the great English writer, critic, and essayist. Ruskin tells how as a little boy, he grew up on the one side of a deep valley, and how – as it grew dark on his side, often frightening him – he would look through the window across the valley and see little pricks of light appear on the opposite side. Those pricks of light would break the darkness and he would know that the lamplighter had been doing his rounds on the other side, and as he made his way through the darkness, lighting one lamp after another, he left a trail of light behind.  As we bury our brother today, that's the tribute of my heart.

That is what I remember, of Mongs , a man who in many epochs of darkness, a man who in his own life and witness was a lamplighter for our time, a man who as priest, as family man, as public figure, and as a community builder, sought that one great task that we are all meant to fulfill, and that is to leave behind us, as John Ruskin understood, a legacy of light. Or as the Psalmist says ( Ps 23) “though I walk through death’s dark vale , yet will I fear none ill.”

And so we gather to pay tribute, to remember, and in remembering, we are comforted and, as Paul writes to the Church at Thessalonica, we do not mourn like those who have no hope. Or as Wisdom 13:1-9 beautifully depicts, we will not be ignorant of the Lord who is the author of life and beauty and we will not go astray while seeking God and desiring to find him.

Luke 17:26 repeats the words, “As in the days of Noah, as in the days of Lot," perhaps reminding us, that there's a part of Lot and a part of Noah in all of us, as there was in Mongezi. a part of the Noah that has to take the Word on faith, and pursue the ministry God gives us and build arks in a time when there's drought. We may seem to be foolish in the sight of the world, but yet we are called to do the thing that God has told us to do. And there's of course a part of Lot in our own lives that reminds us that sometimes we make bad decisions, sometimes we say things that are odd, that we don't always get things right, but we end up in a place where we are safe.

Lot and his daughters ended up in a cave in a place that was safe. They knew that they would come through hard moments, difficult times, and make bad choices, all of those things, because God's grace holds us in times of difficulty, in times of pain, in times of emotional buffering. God's grace is always there to hold us. And our brother's life is a testimony that God's grace is always there to hold us, to care for us, to promote us, and to give us courage so that light might shine.

And so it's interesting that we have today the reading that tells us all will be well at the end of the day. For Noah, all was well. For Lot, all was well. For our brother, all is well. And that is the message that we really celebrate today, because as I said before, Paul says, "We do not mourn like those who have no hope." He doesn't say we don't mourn. He doesn't say that we won't have to deal with sadness, pain and the difficulty of loss, but he does give us the promise that at the end of the day, deep down, we won't be overwhelmed by it.

There are three things in the story that should give us comfort: and what I would wish for you as the family, and for us as friends, to explore today is this: where is the God of comfort standing in your time of grief? For Lot, it was necessary to keep an open heart. As things were falling apart around him, as bad choices were being made, he  still the capacity to extract himself from the despair and destruction that was to happen. It's really wonderful to think this.

In spite of it all, despite it all, even when voices of criticism raged around him, Lot was able to keep a very open, a very teachable heart. I'm not saying that of Mongezi, but I am saying that of all of us who gathered here, that when we face the tribulations in life, when we face moments of demise in other ways, if we've kept an open heart, we will still find the voice of God in the strangest of spaces and in the most difficult of places, because our God doesn't leave us.

To the Guma and Somhlahlo familes, God will not leave those who mourn, and God will not leave those whose memory you will carry in your hearts. God assures those in pain that our beautiful memories will continue in our real, day-to-day lives. As in the Noah story, sometimes you have to collect and gather around you the signs of life. As you take your ark and venture into hard places, uncharted waters, as we do that, remember Noah had to take for the new season in his life and in the world's life,  those other signs of life, the animals that went in two-by-two.

He had to take his family with him into this unknown area. As we mourn and grieve, we have to take with us into the new area where we will dock the ark in the storms of life, those wonderful signs of life. Our relationships, the things we draw courage from, our inspiration, our words of faith, the stories of faith we've been told before, those lines of the great hymns that have buoyed us through all the changing scenes of life and have given us hope and have allowed us to grow more deeply into our convictions.

Noah didn't leave them behind. He took them with him. we can't leave those things behind and say they're part of a past that is now finished because our loved one is dead. No. As we go into our grief and our mourning, we take those things with us because they will continue to inspire and breathe new life into us. 

Finally, there is Jesus. There is Jesus who is the Lord of the grave and the Lord of life, who comes to Mary Magdalene in the moment that she's most grief stricken, Jesus who comes to the disciples in the upper room when they were most confused, and who in coming to them, comes through locked doors.

We are  told that the doors were locked, the walls were thick, and yet he comes through. So today, as we mourn, as we remember, as we lay our brother to rest, nothing, no wall in our hearts or in our minds or in our emotional turmoil will be enough to keep love and the God of resurrection from entering our situation. 

As the great Teresa of Avila, that theologian of the Middle Ages, said so beautifully, "Even this will pass." The grief will pass, but the memories, and the joy, the hope, and the courage, will live on.

And so we gather to do all of this in the Eucharist. We gather to do all of this while we break bread and lift the cup of blessing, because it's there that we find our deepest meaning. It's there that when the Lord says, "Do this in remembrance of me," he uses the word that means put this together in me. Put all that you've gained through the broken bread of your life, all this, the cup of suffering and of the hardship that you've had to drink, take that and allow it in my hands to become something new, something redeeming, something hopeful, something that can show you the way forward.

Because in every Eucharist, we are drawn fully into him just as he fully inhabits us.  In this Eucharist which our brother has celebrated for so many years, we now find comfort. We hear that ancient cry of the early church, that dying you destroyed our death, that rising you restored our life, Lord Jesus come in glory. That's our prayer and that's what we believe in. And later in the service, that's what we shall say Amen to.

Sisters and brothers, let me end with the words from the letter attributed to Peter (1 Pet 1:3ff): “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In God's great mercy he gave us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade… for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

​Friends, the hope embodied in this passage assures us that our brother and friend, Canon Dr Mongezi Guma, a dedicated priest in God’s church, has earned him an inheritance that will not perish, spoil or fade. Well done, good and faithful servant. May you rest in peace and rise in glory! You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. 

​God bless the Guma and Somhlahlo families and friends. God bless all gathered here today. God bless this Diocese, Province and our beloved nation, South Africa.