Christmastide ends on the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6, but
because many people in our Province are still on their summer
holidays, it is one of the feasts we observe least.
This year, as we enter the Season of
the Epiphany – in which we celebrate the revealing of God's gift
of Jesus to the world – let us tirelessly pursue the goal of
reigniting trust in one another, both in our personal and our
corporate lives.
We are living through an era of profound distrust, which is
contributing to an historic level of intolerance in the world,
reinforcing inequality of opportunity and a growing trend to
cancel out the voices of those we don't agree with.
To those who are taking the Middle East and the Gulf to the brink
of war, and to those in South Africa who are preparing to mark the
anniversary of the ANC, our governing party, I appeal: put your
focus on acting in such a way as to build trust and break down
division between nations and within societies. To be trusted is
more important to the survival and well-being of humankind than
being popular.
Please join me in my New Year's resolution to try to build trust.
Also at this time, please pray with me:
For the health and lives of the young initiates in South
Africa who are so distressingly and unnecessarily put at risk of
injury and death every initiation season;
For the people of Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo reports that conflict has broken out once again between ethnic groups, and where the state government is trying to bring about peace;
For the people of Australia, devastated by fire in so many
parts, and for the Anglican Church in Australia, headed by Archbishop Philip Freier;
For the families of those who have died, and for those left
homeless, in the floods in Indonesia's capital, Jakarta.
Mrs. Matlotlisang Mototjane of the Provincial Executive Office recently represented the Archbishop at the International Water Week (IWW) Conference and the Water Symposium in
Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
A sermon preached on the Fifth Sunday of Easter at St. Paul's Chapel in the Parish of Trinity Church Wall Street, New York: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148:1-3, 7, 9-11, 13; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35
We hear these incredible words of possibility in our foundational texts today in a wonderful space, in a chapel and a parish that have towered over the city’s and the nation's history, whose graveyards hold the bones and the memories of some of its founding parents; a parish located in an area that once boasted a barrier, usually described as a wall, to keep out those seen as “the other”; a parish that witnessed the struggle to establish your democracy; and a chapel in which your forebears and your founding president thanked God for his inauguration. [Continues below the video...]
And of course more recently the inner sanctuaries of the churches of this parish provided refuge and ministry during and after that fateful day when the Twin Towers were attacked and then collapsed, a day forever etched in our memories as evil was let loose. Today, at a time when there seems to be a renewed threat of war involving this nation, I count it a particular privilege to be preaching here in St. Paul's, which in the difficult months and years after nine-eleven represented to the world the best of American values – values of hope and healing as you brought to your city and nation a ministry of pastoral care, of reconciliation and of peace.
Speaking of your contributions to the nation and the world, I cannot continue without referring to what you have meant to us in the church in Southern Africa, and indeed across the whole continent of Africa. We too were colonised by the Dutch, and people of my heritage were kept out of the suburb where I now live by a barrier – in our case an impenetrable hedge – by the Dutch. In our case too, the church has played a part in bringing about democracy, and you made a direct contribution to the inauguration of our own founding president, Nelson Mandela, by responding 30 years ago to the pleas of Archbishop Desmond Tutu to divest from companies which did business with apartheid South Africa. Responding to our plea for help probably ran counter to the instincts of Wall Street financiers, but you put your relationship with us, your partners, first and for that we are deeply grateful. I see in the congregation an honorary canon of our Province, Canon Jamie Callaway, and acknowledge the role he played in supporting us.
It is with pride and pleasure that I can report to you that the young democracy you helped us establish is flourishing. It is true that until 15 months ago, we had a president whose influence badly corrupted the executive branch of our government, and that our legislature failed to hold him to account. But the combined power of the media, civil society and the judiciary forced his party to remove him from office before the end of his term, and our new president has begun to clean up our government. So we have faced huge challenges in recent years.
Beyond your contribution to our liberation, you have enabled and continue to enable important ministry in dioceses of the church in Southern Africa, and in other Anglican provinces in Africa. As the longest-serving Primate on the continent, I make bold to speak on behalf of all of us, and to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all you have enabled the church in Africa to be and to do. By sharing your resources, you demonstrate that you are following Jesus' new commandment.
Returning to the witness of this chapel and of Trinity – through the unfolding of the layers of history, amidst the contestation of ideologies and memories of walls, this place has continue to maintain its rhythm of prayer, to contextualise the sense of the Holy, to explore God's words and to discern its echo in the community of lower Manhattan. Above all you hold out, day in and day out, the promise of God which we pondered today: “See, I am making all things new!” “To the thirsty I will give water…” and “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
What an awesome sacred space! I feel that deep emotion that Jacob felt when he sensed that despite the limitations of his own history, he had a dream of a God who promised a new beginning, crying out: “Surely the presence of God is in this place, it is none other than the house of God, this is the gate of heaven!” It is for that reason, as well as the shared elements of our histories and of your sharing in love that I feel at home here today, in this space that speaks of our shared worship, shared dreams and a shared commitment to the work of making all things new.
The implications of our faith are that you do not need to engage the secrets of heaven, or fathom out deep theological propositions, or speculate endlessly on eschatological nuances. That won't help us see and understand God. It is much easier than that: experiencing God, to the degree that we humans can do so, is quite simply done in acts of love, even just in random deeds of kindness.
You carry in your parish's name a commitment to live out practically and contextually our Christian understanding of the Trinity. At the heart of that understanding is the abiding truth about three persons in every way equal. It is the metaphor that the Gospel writers seek to express in different ways, but always by returning to a fundamental notion of “self-gift”. As that great African saint, Augustine, argued time and again, God loves because that is the divine nature, not because creation deserves it. In parable after parable, statement after statement, the “meaning of God” is revealed as the “One who is perfectly self-giving”. Thus the Trinity is also the story of self-giving in love and of belonging in love. We become more fully what we are meant to become by entering into loving and life-giving relationships. In Africa we express this in what we call ubuntu, or in the languages to which I am closest, botho. We hear this at the very heart of the Gospel today.
The Lutheran theologian, Samuel Torvend, asks the question that we who gather for prayer must ask. He asks: “Who is hungry at the feast?” and then answers it for himself. “To be honest,” he says, “I think I am. I yearn for, I am hungry for the word, the image, the lyric and the prayer that will invite many others and me to redress the terrible injustices, deprivations and imbalances that surround us.” “Who is still hungry at the feast?” he asks again, and answers for himself: “The many who will never hear this sermon or read this text because they must work two or three jobs each day, six days a week in order to feed their children in a society that rewards the wealthy and stigmatises the working poor.” Who is still hungry at the feast? “The people of this world deprived of food, capital employment and land.”
One could and should add to that litany the victims of domestic violence, the women and children who suffer abuse, refugees from conflict in places such as Bangladesh, and – as we have seen in our own sub-continent of Southern Africa in recent months – those who are refugees as a result of the devastating effects of climate change.
In the last few years, the people of the three dioceses of our Province which lie in neighbouring Mozambique have been hit alternately by drought and by flood. Twice during April, I had to pay emergency visits to two of the dioceses and witnessed the aftermath of Cyclone Idai. Homes, churches and schools in settlements and towns across the countryside were destroyed, people's crops were swept away and families had to climb trees to escape the water and wait for helicopters to rescue them. Hundreds died, many of them people who survived the hurricane but not the wait for rescue. Swathes of rural countryside were turned into vast lakes, and scattered rural villages have been replaced by concentrated tent townships to which people have been relocated. These agrarian communities are at risk of losing their identity and their way of life. Those who are worst affected by climate change are not the citizens of the materially wealthy countries who contribute most to it; no, it is those who are already poor and vulnerable.
Wherever we are in the world, in our churches every Sunday, let us remember that our worship is not merely an act of forgiveness, a spiritual sacrifice, a moment of thanksgiving, an intimate union with Christ, but that it is an ethical practice that expands outward into the world, offering life in the midst of diminishment and death. St. Theresa of Avila captured this call to love, to be about the business of making all things new and providing fresh water, when she wrote: “Christ has no body but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassionately on the world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, the feet, yours are the eyes. You are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” That’s the challenge of love.
The key moment in the post-Resurrection story of the disciples on the road to Emmaus came when, after recognising the Lord, they were faced with the choices that we all face. They could have sat back, finished their meal and congratulated themselves on the special epiphany they had received from the Lord. They could have created a safe, comfortable, spiritually warm place of personal intimacy and memory. Or they could have taken fright. After all, the Jesus whom they had just encountered was a wanted man in Jerusalem. It was a very dangerous moment and they might have decided to run away.
But no; instead they got up straight away and returned to Jerusalem, to the place where their dreams had been shattered, where hope was in short supply, and where their friends were locked in the Upper Room, imprisoned by fear. It was to Jerusalem they returned with their word of hope, with their testimony of new possibilities, with their vision raised beyond the exigencies of the moment, to proclaim that something new is possible. They did not have a blueprint and could not provide firm assurances but they could keep the good news alive.
Each of us can do that much. We do not know precisely who all those who are hungry at the feast are, and we certainly cannot do everything. Maybe like those disciples in Emmaus, all we can really do after every service of worship is go back into the city and look upon it and our fellow human beings with new eyes, so that our perceptions of generosity, humanity, justice and mercy become clearer and freer. For when that transpires, slowly will we become known by our love for one another.
God loves you and so do I. God bless each one of you. God bless America, and God bless Africa.
MISSION OF MERCY, HOPE AND SOLIDARITY TO MOZAMBIQUE (LEBOMBO AND NIASSA DIOCESES) AFTER CYCLONE IDAI
A report for Archbishop Thabo Makgoba by Mrs. Matlotlisang Mototjane, Provincial Executive Administrator and a former Manager in the Lesotho Disaster Management Authority.
Engaging people, via a translator, on their experiences.
Archbishop Thabo
blogs on the final day of his visit to the disaster-stricken area
around Beira in the Diocese of Lebombo:
Wednesday April 3: The words,
“Archbishop, we are hungry,” stayed with me overnight as I
battled with sleep even after a long day on Tuesday. The instruction
from Jesus replayed in my mind, especially during Compline – “Feed
my lambs,” and “Feed my sheep,” (Jn 21:15-17), as did Jesus's
words in Matthew's Gospel that when we feed those who are hungry, we
feed him. (Mt 25:37-40).
Archbishop Thabo blogs from Mozambique, where he is visiting Bishop Carlos Matsinhe and the Diocese of Lebombo: Monday April 1 - After waiting for four hours to get clearance to enter Mozambique airspace, we left Pretoria for Beira, accompanied by the SANDF Chaplain-General and the Administrator in the PEO's office, Matlotlisang Mototjane (who is also a disaster management expert).
We were received in Beira by a representative of the governor of Sofala Province and Col Zurich of the SANDF, and then were whisked into St George’s Anglican Church, where Bishop Carlos Matsinhe was leading Mass.
The Archbishop recently participated in a 24-hour webcast dealing with climate change, hosted by the former American president, Al Gore. This segment on South Africa was described by the producers as follows:
Cathedrals and churches on four continents have come together to raise awareness and activism about water by launching the JustWater website.
This website is part of a new project focussed on celebrating,
protecting and ensuring equal access to the gift of water for all, with
an international programme organised by St George's Cathedral (Cape
Town); St Paul's Cathedral (London); St Paul's Cathedral (Melbourne);
and Trinity Church Wall Street (New York). Archbishop Thabo spoke at the
launch of the initiative in London.
Water is Life, Sanitation is Dignity
JustWater 2017
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba
London, February 2017
Thank
you Dean David and your team for inviting me here to help launch this
initiative. Hillary and David are spoiling me at the deanery – thank you
for your generous hospitality. Barbara thanks for all the practical
arrangements.
As
I was preparing for this event, we learned in Cape Town that as a
result of diminished rainfall over the past year, the dams supplying
water for our metropolitan area are only 29 percent full, this at a time
when we cannot expect our winter rains to begin before May. While I
won't go here into the linkages between the El Niño phenomenon and
global warming, our water crisis had the effect of concentrating my mind
on how precious water is and on how devastating the effects of scarcity
can be.
In our Bible study on chapter 4 of Ruth on Friday, verse 10 was the one which stayed in my mind. The equivalent for me is the need to keep preserved, beyond my tenure, my and our heritage at various levels: family, clan, ACSA and the Anglican Communion.
I am writing to you just as we complete the February meeting of the Synod of Bishops, where we continued to travel together as we wrestled with our episcopal leadership of the Church. When we meet, we do so conscious that our vocation is not simply to serve you, the people of our Church, but to serve God through you -- a tiny distinction perhaps, but an important one.
Walking Together in the Service of God in the World
The meeting of Anglican Primates, the senior bishops of the 38
Anglican Provinces, joined by the Archbishop of the Anglican Church of
North America, took place in Canterbury between Monday 11 January and
Friday 15 January at the invitation of Justin Welby, the Archbishop of
Canterbury. The first morning was spent in prayer and fasting.
A homily for Christmas Eve 2015, preached at St George's Cathedral, Cape Town:
Isaiah 62: 6-12, Psalm 97, Titus 3: 4-7, Luke 2: 8-20
Thank you, Dean Michael and your staff, who always make this Christmas Eve Mass such a great occasion. As the hymn says of this night of the year, “O Holy Night, the Stars are brightly shining, it is the Night of our dear Saviour’s Birth.” It is a night on which we experience God’s love for us, a love so great that God, in his pursuit of us, becomes one like us, risking all so that we might receive God’s boundless mercy.
And God does indeed pursue us. The English poet Francis Thompson reminds us of this in the poem in which he describes God as a “Hound of Heaven” who pursues us “down the nights and down the days.” C S Lewis says that thinking that we are pursuing God is like imagining a mouse chasing a cat. Both make the Advent point: that God will never stop seeking us out and loving us into fuller life.
Not only that: we don’t have to earn God’s love. As Paul says in his letter to Titus, “...when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Our archbishop emeritus says it more colourfully. One of his favourite Bible verses is that in Paul’s letter to the Romans which reads: “Whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” In typically vivid language, Desmond Tutu adds: “If Jesus had waited until we were die-able for, then he would have waited until the cows came home.”
The constant prayer of that great African saint, Augustine of Hippo, was this: “Because you have loved me O Lord, you have made me lovable.” Christmas is the reminder that all of us are lovable because, by coming amongst us, God has made us lovable. In a world in which so many harbour poor self-images, one of the greatest Christmas reassurances lies in the reminder that we are loved by God without reservation. The shepherds of Jesus’s time were despised by the religious and social elites because their calling demanded that they respond all the time to the needs of the sheep, and thus they could not comply with religious rituals. Yet it was to them that the angels made known the wonderful message. We might well conclude from this that God delighted more in their response to the needs of the sheep than in their ritual purity. It might well be that this Christmas too, God will manifest Godself and rejoice more in our responses to the cries of the world, to the pain of the poor and lonely, than in any rituals.
Tonight we live in a world and a country in which cries are rising from many quarters. Our Anglican sisters and brothers are among those in South Sudan and Burundi who cry out for peace. Our sisters and brothers, Christian and Muslim alike, in northern Nigeria, the Central African Republic, Mali and Burundi, cry out for peace. The peoples of Syria, Palestine and Israel cry out for peace and justice. We cry out for climate justice – and have been encouraged by the milestone agreement reached in Paris, which gives us hope for a climate-friendly, resilient and more equitable future.
In South Africa, after the events of the last few weeks, our cry is that the sacrifices which we and our forebears made for our liberation will not be squandered in the pursuit of false gods and in our worship at the altar of greed and corruption. It is not easy tonight to bring good news of great joy or say, without inhibition, “Happy Christmas”. Many are asking: Where is the joy? How can we put aside our daily cares to celebrate the birth of Christ? Growing, deepening discontent is palpable in South Africa, a discontent that is causing even the most beautiful of days to be invaded by the pervasive smell of the rot which is being spread by the moral pollution of our public life.
The #FeesMustFall campaign reflected the dark clouds of restless unhappiness, frustration and rebelliousness against the increasing inequalities that contaminate our daily lives. But whether or not you agree with the government’s response to that, at least it was rational. The sheer recklessness of the firing of Nhlanhla Nene, the failure to consider the needs of the nation, and particularly the needs of the poor, was staggering. Since then, we have seen the shocking revelations by City Press of how corrupt leaders and members of a teachers’ union have captured large parts of our educational system for personal gain rather than our children’s welfare. Frighteningly, our nation’s moral pollution has infected sections of our government in epidemic proportions. If not purposefully and vigorously addressed, this pollution will disorient us, engulf us and eventually overwhelm us, and will deny us the possibility of achieving our unique potential as a nation.
It sometimes feels as if some of our leaders stopped their fight for a new South Africa at the point at which they joined the ranks of those who corruptly and immorally amassed wealth under colonialism and apartheid. Our struggle now should not be for the new, multiracial middle class to live as the white elite lived under apartheid: it should be for a new society, a more equal society, a society of equality of opportunity in which the wealth that comes from new economic growth is shared equitably among all. And let us not make the mistake of thinking that the solution to our problems lies simply in replacing one leader with another. The new struggle is about values and institutions rather than about personalities, which is why, when church leaders went last week to see President Zuma, we said we agreed to work with the Presidency to restore trust in government. Working with the Presidency means working with the institution, no matter who the incumbent happens to be. We know that the abuse of our institutions for political reasons did not begin with President Zuma’s incumbency, so whether or not he is replaced before his term ends, we need to build strong systems and institutions which cannot be undermined by one party or person’s whim.
Some of our readings for this season allude to frightening signs and apocalyptic visions - signs and visions which have seduced many followers down the centuries into strange doctrines, unusual expectations and relentless fear. Yet a close reading of the scriptures reveal a comforting truth, that no matter what the circumstances, no matter how dismal the outlook or how bleak the diagnosis, we are heirs to the unshakeable promise that God is always with us. In the midst of our trials and tribulations, God is waiting to be born, or waiting to be discovered again no matter where we are in our lives.
So as we face 2016 with all its uncertainties, with its governance challenges, and with its threats to our well-being as a nation, we must hold onto the belief that we can overcome them. And then let us act on that belief: join together, organise, lobby and embark on what I call the New Struggle, the struggle to ensure that the sacrifices that so many made for our liberation are not wasted, the struggle against greed, corruption and nepotism, the struggle for true justice, including economic justice, and the peace from God that flows from justice.
That New Struggle began in 2015, when we saw a national mobilisation of young and old alike against the failures of leaders who are allowing the corruption epidemic to rob the people of South Africa of the fruits of their hard-won freedom, gained over many decades by the old struggle against apartheid. We must use our words and our actions against those who put their own personal interests ahead of those of the people, promoting a culture of “Me” instead of a culture of “We”. We must oppose those who take and don’t give, those who use hateful racist and xenophobic language, those who ignore the needs of our students, our neighbours and communities. Against all of this, we must rise up. If we learned anything from the courage of our students who said “enough is enough”, it is that we are able to create a society rooted in human love and in God’s care for us and all people everywhere.
In that spirit, let us light candles of hope across the country -- mindful that there are those who cannot afford even a candle. This Christmas, let us recognise that if we are to be signs of the new dawning Kingdom, it will involve a journey away from all that blinds us to the suffering and misery of others, from inherited forms of privilege and wealth, and from a world view that is comfortable with excluding from the resources of the world the other who is different to us. It will involve, instead, a commitment to works of justice and peace, to building relationships that are gentle and nurturing, and to doing that which the Angels did, bringing good news of great joy for all people.
And let us draw hope from the prophet Isaiah. Addressing circumstances in which the Israelites had been feeling despondent after their return from exile, and Jerusalem was in shambles, the prophet reminds the people that they needed to be persistent in their faith, and adds:
You who remind the Lord, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it renowned throughout the earth.
God will not take rest until South Africa is again renowned throughout the earth. May that day come soon. God bless you, your family and South Africa, and have a happy, hopeful and blessed Christmas. AMEN
My last day at COP21. As one of those who have been fasting for climate change - and in solidarity with those who don't have food - on the first day of every month, I today joined a group who have been doing this fast for two years.
To drive the point home, at lunchtime we set a table with a "menu" in a passageway at the talks, and took turns to sit there, 10 of us at a time in 10-minute shifts to comply with a police regulation prohibiting gatherings of more than that. Our plates were empty and our cutlery unused as we shared why we were fasting, drawing from the wealth and plenty of our spiritual wells.
Well, the United Nations climate summit known as COP21 is under way here in Paris, with world leaders speaking first to kick off the negotiations.
Eleven governments today, Monday, pledged nearly 250 million U.S. dollars towards support for vulnerable communities to adapt to climate change, and the ACT Alliance - for whom I am acting as an ambassador - said in a statement today that this signals hope for an ambitious agreement that will secure the planet’s future.
Here at the United Nations climate summit, COP21, in Paris, I spoke to a representative of African pilgrims who covered 6,000 miles cycling across nine countries, collecting signatures calling on the world's leaders to deliver climate justice.
At COP21, the UN climate summit in Paris, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba
joined other members of the international ecumenical grouping, the ACT
Alliance, in handing over petitions signed by 1,7 million people, urging
political leaders to take decisive action to curb global warming and
deliver a strong, fair deal that helps poor countries adapt to their
changing climate.
In the photo below with Archbishop Thabo is Christiana
Figueres, who as executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change is the UN's top official dealing with the issue.
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, in Paris for the UN climate change conference, has called for an agreement to be reached at the talks which promotes renewable energy, helps people to adapt to climate change and where that is not possible, to give them assistance to mitigate its effects.
Whew! What a rushed few weeks, travelling to meet commitments in Johannesburg, Lesotho, London, then back to South Africa to talk to protesting students, then to Washington, back to Swaziland and finally, unexpectedly, to the Diocese of Umzimvubu.
Let me start with the news that fire has devastated Umzimvubu's diocesan centre at Glenthorne farm, outside Kokstad, on the very day the Diocesan Council was meeting to plan the way ahead under the interim leadership of Bishop Sitembele Mzamane of Mthatha, who is Vicar-General while the future of Bishop Mlibo Ngewu is decided.
The Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, has called on Anglicans everywhere to join Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran and other Christians in a World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation on 1 September.
Genesis 3:8-15; Psalm 113; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 11:27-28
May I speak in the name of God who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.
Dear Nomfundo and Kwini family, what a joy it is for Lungi and I to share in today’s celebrations! Thank you for your invitation to preach and celebrate at this farewell Mass on the Feast of St Mary the Virgin.
