A Eulogy for the Right Revd Luke Pato

Eulogy for Bishop Luke Pato

The Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba

Archbishop of Cape Town

September 16, 2026

Readings: Isaiah 35: 1-2 and 8-10; Romans 8:31-39; and John 14:1-7

May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Essie and whole family, I bring you my condolences and that of Manala and whole church on the passing of Bishop Luke. I think of the many, many of Luke’s gifts and ministries, the one which for me stands out is his ability to be a minister of reconciliation.

You can probably think of a number of examples, but let me offer just a few.

Born in the year after the after the Nationalist Party’s coming to power, the first half of Luke’s life was lived under what is called grand apartheid. His family knew forced removals. In his schooling and university career he knew years of rising black consciousness met with rising state oppression. He and his father knew the church’s own apartheid. And yet Luke chose a way of reconciliation with white colleagues.

Then in 1993, with the closure of St Bede’s and St Paul’s, Luke accepted Archbishop Desmond’s request that he head up the new College of the Transfiguration. There he met with two opposing hostile student bodies, and church leaders who wanted to see the College fail and chose to undermine it, particularly be withdrawing funding and students. And yet he managed to mould a coherent student body and set the College on a foundation which has allowed three decades of students to encounter one another across racial, cultural and gender divides, to be prepared for their own calling to be ministers of reconciliation.

Later, in his role at the South African Council of Churches, he was instrumental is setting up along with the World Council in Geneva, an Ecumenical Accompaniers programme in Israel and Palestine.

Then as Bishop of Namibia, he moved countries, into a new culture, where he did not speak any of the local languages, and with energy set about building a community in one of the most far-flung and impoverished dioceses in our Province.

In his personal life, he did not hold grudges. Even those who had been in deep conflict with him, were forgiven and met with cordiality and gentleness.

Luke, of course, was not a saint. Like all of us he had his fallibilities. But as he forgave and reconciled, he also knew himself forgiven, loved by God along with all his weaknesses and failings. Secure in that knowledge, he was able to offer others forgiveness and to be that minister of reconciliation that he was.

Given this extraordinary ministry, offered over more than 50 years, we could be forgiven for being disappointed that Luke was not given more years to enjoy retirement, family life, friends and good health. So we might also be somewhat upset that the Prayer book sets these lessons for a funeral:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled” John 14:1. “The desert and the dry land will be glad, the wilderness will flourish....sorrow and sighing will flee away” Isaiah 35.

Where is the acknowledgement of pain, sorrow and regret?

Yet the church in its wisdom sets these verses for us. And, as always with the scriptures, they invite us to dig a little deeper. As Luke taught many generations of students and preached in many hundreds of sermons, one cannot simply read these ancient words superficially. Fine theologian that he was, I am certain that Luke would encourage us, even in this time of sorrow, to pay deeper attention to the tradition of the church and her teaching of the scriptures.

The verses from Isaiah form a part of the prophet’s vision, Isaiah’s message of hope, for his bereft people in exile in Babylon. Drawing on the image of the exodus, Isaiah imagines, not a 40 years of wandering, but a highway, a straight road home to Jerusalem.

“Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the wobbly knees, be strong do not fear,” the prophet writes. Can you imagine his listeners in Babylon. They must have said: This is no prophet. He is a man out of his mind. We are in exile. As the psalmist wrote: by Babylon’s rivers we sit down and weep. And yet, and yet, says Isaiah “your God will come.” Even when there seems no hope, we must hope beyond hope.

And in words that I think would gladden Luke’s environmentalist heart, the prophet uses images of a flourishing creation to describe how wonderful this hope is. Like the crocus bursting into bloom, the desert will rejoice and blossom. Water will gush in the wilderness, as it did from the rock in the exodus journey.

And then in the gospel of John: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Doesn’t that seem an impossible ask? Yet these are Jesus’ words to his friends on the night before his violent death. Having predicted his betrayal by Judas and having predicted Peter’s denial of him, Jesus tells the disciples not to be troubled. I am preparing a place for you and I will come to take you with me, he tells them. None of this sidesteps the betrayals, the trials, the crucifixion and death. But it promises a oneness with Jesus. Like Isaiah’s audience, I imagine the disciples too, must have felt pretty sceptical. But like Isaiah who promises a way through the desert, Jesus promises a way -- through him. I am the way.

What a travesty that this verse: “I am the way the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father but by me,” has been used to made exclusivist claims for Christians and even to condemn people of other faiths.

At the most basic level, we must recognise that Jesus never called himself a Christian. When Jesus lived there were no Christians. Jesus was a Jew, he kept the Jewish law, he taught his disciples according to the teachings of the Jewish rabbis. No one called themselves Christians until about 15 or 20 years after Jesus’ death. So quite simply, when Jesus says “I am the way the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father but by me” he could not have been talking about being a Christian.

So what was he talking about? I think he was talking about a way of living. I think he was talking about living in loving relationship with God. Jesus is trying to explain to his friends how, just as he lives in complete union with God, so too can they.

Often when we think about being in union with God, or at one with God, we think we need to escape out of our everyday human life and enter some super-spiritual realm. Jesus directly challenges this. He says to his friends: “if you know me, you know the father.” In other words all we need to know about God can be seen in this human life. We don't need to escape our ordinary lives in order to be with God. God has already entered our everyday lives and we can be at one with God even when we are grieving and confused, as we go about our everyday lives.

If we put these two readings together, we might summarize them like this: For the depressed, miserable Hebrew people in exile, for Jesus’ troubled, fearful disciples, the message is the same. In the worst of situations, God makes a way. For those of us fearful, grief-ridden, sorrowful, God makes a way. As impossible as that might seem right now, can we trust this? How do we make any sense of this?

Perhaps we can do so in the memorable words of Paul: I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither the present nor the future can separate us from God’s love; neither angels nor demons, nothing in all creation will separate us from God’s love.

When Paul talks of this love of God, or really this love that IS God, he isn’t thinking about an old man with a beard in the sky. Rather he is talking about something much more profound. Because there is nothing at all that is outside of God, can we see ourselves in God? All of us in God. This congregation gathered this morning, those we love, those who have died, yesterday and tomorrow – all are wrapped in this wholeness we call God. God who does not just love but is love. We come into being in God-love, we live in God-love, we die in God-love and we are raised in God-love. And in love that we call God, we are separated from nothing or anyone.

So whether we feel like it or not, we are never separate from God. It also means we are never separate from one another. It’s just that sometimes we forget this. We feel separate and alone. That feeling is real. But the deeper reality is that in God we are never separate from one another, including those who have died.

Though we grieve Luke’s death, we have this assurance that we continue as part of one another, as we are together in God’s love, or more accurately in the Love we call God. Neither death nor life, nor angels, nor powers, nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God.

Could it be that even in death, Luke is exercising this ministry of reconciliation as he brings us together with each other, with him, with all creation, in God whom we call love?

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