Ad Laos - to the People of God - June 2019

The text of Archbishop Thabo's June Ad Laos, also to be published in the Cape Town diocesan newsletter, Good Hope:

This month I have the bittersweet privilege of giving God our profound thanks for the ministry of Bishop Garth Counsell as Bishop of Table Bay, and also of saying farewell to him and Marion on his retirement from that position.

Archbishop Thabo backs #Justice4Vernie campaign

A message recorded for the #Justice4Vernie rally held in St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, to honour the memory of Vernie Petersen, a former church worker and later a senior civil servant, whose stand against corruption before his untimely death has been highlighted at a commission of inquiry into government corruption. Below the full text of the message is the news release convening the rally, which gives more details.



Dear Friends, Family and Comrades of Vernie Petersen

On behalf of the Anglican Diocese of Cape Town and indeed of the whole church, it is my great privilege today to support the campaign for Justice for Vernie.

To the Laos - To the People of God - Appeal for the people of South Sudan

Dear People of God

The suffering and challenges of the church elsewhere in Africa turned my schedule upside down for a week last month. Returning from a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Anglican Consultative Council in London, I had to urgently fly to Nairobi at the request of the Council of Anglican Provinces of Africa (CAPA).

There I joined other church leaders at the headquarters of the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) for an emergency meeting on the situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan. Both countries have been plagued by instability and strife in recent years, and both face huge challenges in the coming months. In the DR Congo, President Kabila has at last agreed to step down and hold elections in December, and now unity and reconciliation are an important priority of the church.

When I first became a bishop, I did my month-long “baby bishop” training course in Malawi with the person who now leads the church in South Sudan, Archbishop Justin Badi Arama. Ever since, I have prayed for him, his church and for the freedom of his country. I rejoiced when they attained independence in 2011, but the promise soon evaporated. Two years later, after they had only tasted freedom and independence, two factions of the ruling alliance fell out, and I have previously mentioned the civil war which broke out as a result.

Anglicans in South Sudan (Photo: Jesse Zink, Montreal Diocesan Theological College) 

A few days before we gathered in Nairobi, the national youth coordinator for the Episcopal Church of South Sudan was shot and killed when his vehicle was sprayed with bullets. At the meeting I listened to stories of interventions by local dioceses to try to end the conflict in this resource-rich country. The refrain was that all those born after 1955, when the first of the civil wars started, are children of war, that they have lived in war but they are determined not to die in war. As we met, peace talks had resumed in Addis Ababa and there was great expectation that a new agreement would be signed. This indeed happened soon after we wrapped up our meeting but in the past agreements have come unstuck so there is still great trepidation – there are international, regional and local actors who do not want peace, because conflict has better dividends for them. At our meeting in Nairobi, we looked at ways in which the region could accompany the church in South Sudan and how the AACC can help the county understand and live in freedom. 

Upon my return to Cape Town, I asked clergy – and now through this Ad Laos I ask you as parishioners: please help me put together prayers, Bible verses and pictures as a resource for daily prayer for peace and freedom in South Sudan, beginning at Advent and running for a full year through to Advent 2019. You don’t need to be a professional, or ordained, or a leader in your parish to contribute: whether it's a line, a poem, a sentence, a song or a picture, just write it down and help your archbishop to pray effectively for this country.

The Ven Terry Lester is ACSA's official representative on South Sudan, so you may want to arrange a special meeting or day of prayer with him or others. Since I arrived at Bishopscourt, I have had a group of intercessors who join us regularly for worship – you may also want to also explore having a group of intercessors from the Diocese to pray for peace, justice and progress in South Sudan in their and our lifetimes. Yes, we have our own unresolved social issues of poverty, land, racism, unemployment, inequality of opportunity, crime and others, but I am asking that we also focus on and include these children of God in our prayers. Prayer enables peace within and then we can share this with South Sudan.

At a personal level, I am happy to have Manala, my wife Lungi, back after she did a 30-day individually guided retreat with the Jesuits at their retreat centre at St Lucia in KwaZulu-Natal. I have burnt a couple of her pots as I attempted to cook whilst focused on reading, answering emails etc at the same time. I now appreciate her ability to multi-task without burning things!

Please continue to pray for our church and its response to what God is up to in his world. Also pray not only for South Sudan and the DR Congo, but for other conflict areas as well, and especially Syria.

†Thabo Cape Town

[As published in the October issue of Good Hope, newsletter of the Diocese of Cape Town]

Sermon preached at the 150th anniversary celebration of Leliebloem House, Cape Town

A sermon preached by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba at the 150th anniversary celebration of Leliebloem House, Cape Town, on February 4, 2018.

Readings: Isaiah 40:21-31, Ps 147:1-11, 1 Corr 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39

May I speak in the name of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
It's a great joy to be with you today as we celebrate with Leliebloem 150 years of service to the community. History tells us that in 1868 Bishop Robert Gray established the House of Mercy as a refuge for women in Plein Street. Archdeacon Lightfoot made the initial donation for this initiative and the Society of St John the Evangelist (SSJE) made a generous input to its establishment.

Sermon for Midnight Mass at St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town, Christmas 2016

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba

Lessons: Isaiah 62:6-12, Ps 97,Ttitus 3:4-7, Luke 2:8-20

Welcome to each and every one of you: I am glad you are all here, on this most holy night! 

Archbishop issues appeal for firefighters

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba has commended firefighters and volunteers involved in the battle against the fires in the southern part of the Cape Peninsula.

He has also appealed for donation for volunteer firefighters' services. He said in a statement today:

"We stand in admiration of those who have been fighting the fires and for the volunteers who have worked tirelessly to support them. We express our solidarity with those treated for smoke inhalation and who have lost property in the fires.

"The Anglican agency, Hope Africa, reports that while enough food has been donated, there is still a need for sunscreen, eye drops, throat lozenges, Energades and gloves. They can be delivered to the Lakeside and Newlands fire stations.

"Cash donations can be sent to to Volunteer Wildfire Services: Nedbank Foreshore, Branch code – 108309, Acc. No: 1083321226.

"I urge Anglicans to donate generously."

Archbishop's Charge to Diocesan Synod, Cape Town

The Archbishop’s Charge to the 64th session of the Synod of the Diocese or Cape Town, delivered at the Opening Eucharist at St Cyprian’s Church, Retreat on Thursday, 14 August 2014:

Who is the Church?

Discerning God’s holiness at work and for the living of these days in the everyday life of the saints

Ezekiel 12:1-16

Judah’s Captivity Portrayed

The word of the Lord came to me: 2 Mortal, you are living in the midst of a rebellious house, who have eyes to see but do not see, who have ears to hear but do not hear; 3 for they are a rebellious house. Therefore, mortal, prepare for yourself an exile’s baggage, and go into exile by day in their sight; you shall go like an exile from your place to another place in their sight. Perhaps they will understand, though they are a rebellious house. 4 You shall bring out your baggage by day in their sight, as baggage for exile; and you shall go out yourself at evening in their sight, as those do who go into exile. 5 Dig through the wall in their sight, and carry the baggage through it. 6 In their sight you shall lift the baggage on your shoulder, and carry it out in the dark; you shall cover your face, so that you may not see the land; for I have made you a sign for the house of Israel.

7 I did just as I was commanded. I brought out my baggage by day, as baggage for exile, and in the evening I dug through the wall with my own hands; I brought it out in the dark, carrying it on my shoulder in their sight.

8 In the morning the word of the Lord came to me: 9 Mortal, has not the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said to you, “What are you doing?” 10 Say to them, “Thus says the Lord God: This oracle concerns the prince in Jerusalem and all the house of Israel in it.” 11 Say, “I am a sign for you: as I have done, so shall it be done to them; they shall go into exile, into captivity.” 12 And the prince who is among them shall lift his baggage on his shoulder in the dark, and shall go out; he shall dig through the wall and carry it through; he shall cover his face, so that he may not see the land with his eyes. 13 I will spread my net over him, and he shall be caught in my snare; and I will bring him to Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, yet he shall not see it; and he shall die there. 14 I will scatter to every wind all who are around him, his helpers and all his troops; and I will unsheathe the sword behind them. 15 And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I disperse them among the nations and scatter them through the countries. 16 But I will let a few of them escape from the sword, from famine and pestilence, so that they may tell of all their abominations among the nations where they go; then they shall know that I am the Lord.

Matthew 18:21-19:2 

Forgiveness

21 Then Peter came and said to him, “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22 Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times.

The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant

23 “For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. 24 When he began the reckoning, one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; 25 and, as he could not pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and all his possessions, and payment to be made. 26 So the slave fell on his knees before him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ 27 And out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the debt. 28 But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, ‘Pay what you owe.’ 29 Then his fellow slave fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ 30 But he refused; then he went and threw him into prison until he would pay the debt. 31 When his fellow slaves saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their lord all that had taken place. 32 Then his lord summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. 33 Should you not have had mercy on your fellow slave, as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And in anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt. 35 So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he cured them there.

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

Dear members of the Diocese of Cape Town, dear sisters and brothers in Christ, dear friends, I greet you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and welcome you to the 64th Session of our Diocesan Synod. I extend a warm greeting to all our special guests, including Archbishop Brislin, my Roman Catholic colleague and friend; thank you for being with us. We also greet Prof Geoff Everingham, thanking God for his faithful service, for which it is our privilege to honour him today with the Order of St Simon of Cyrene. Welcome to your family too, Professor Everingham.

Let me also convey my greetings and acknowledgements, and my profound thanks to everyone who helps the Diocese and me with our ministry: to Lungi, and our two teenagers at home; to the staff at the Diocesan Office – especially to the team headed by Archdeacon Horace Arenz who ably organised this Synod; to the other teams – the synod advisory and small groups teams and the legislative team – who helped us prepare for it; to Bishop Garth and the Dean, for your friendship and support always; to Mr Francis Newham our Diocesan Registrar; to the Provincial staff, especially those in Rob Rogerson’s office; and to all my staff at Bishopscourt, Gail Allen and especially John Allen, who aids me in communications matters. 

My thanks also to Chapter and all the diocesan bodies, the Diocesan Standing Committee and all the ministry teams, our schools and homes, our chaplaincies, the warehouse and the media teams. Thanks to the heads and chaplains of our Anglican schools here present and the work they do for our country in education.

Congratulations too to our own Trevor Pearce and the team which supported him, especially from this Diocese, for hosting a successful Anglicans Ablaze conference last month. Archbishop Justin Welby, as he left for OR Tambo after his visit, told us: “This Anglicans Ablaze is a good ministry”. My challenge to you all now is to organise a diocesan “Ablaze” on liturgy and ministry, and on all forms of worship and teaching, both traditional as well as new forms of doing things the Anglican way.

I also want to extend a special thanks to clergy, their spouses and their families, for making this Diocese of Cape Town a Christian community that enables us and others to experience tangibly the redeeming love of God at work in us. I never cease to thank God for the privilege of being your archbishop and serving God with and through you. Thank you all for your prayers and support, for this very daunting but deeply rewarding vocation of witness, worship and service. We meet in the Month of Compassion, and I want to commend parishes for their continued efforts to observe this important ecumenical initiative every August, which it is so easy to overlook amid our busy parish activities. Just a few days ago I was reading about how St Stephen’s, Pinelands, has been organising “Hunger Suppers” at which participants eat simply then donate their savings to works of compassion. It is also of course Women’s Month in South Africa, and it is with great pleasure and pride that we congratulate the Revd Dr Vicentia Kgabe of Johannesburg on her appointment as the new Rector of the College of the Transfiguration from January next year. 

In this vocation, there is never a dull moment – and I will refer later to some of the frustrations of being an archbishop in this litigious age in which some lawyers appear ever too ready to encourage clergy and laity to ignore the injunction that Christians should not threaten to drag one another into the courts. But equally there are uplifting times, for example when I ask my intercessors’ group to focus their prayers on a particular matter, enabling me to get a better perspective on it, or getting feedback on bishops’ forums. There are exciting moments too – such when we raised our first one million rand for the Archbishop’s Theological Education Endowment Fund, or launched the e-Reader project – and encouraging moments such as I experience during Clergy Formation Week, at archdeaconry teas, or parish visits for confirmations, or when we license clergy, lay ministers or hold children’s parties at the end of the year.

Some of you know that I enjoy orchestral music, jazz, theatre and of course rugby too. I have in recent times enjoyed the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, the KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic conducted by Richard Cock, Maria Schneider’s jazz compositions at the National Arts Festival, visits to museums in Britain and the United States, the Tate in London and walks in botanical gardens and forest slopes in Aspen and Makgobaskloof. All these inspire me and give me the space and permission to imagine and sometimes to touch that which I imagine. 

Recently at a jazz performance I attended, a player had dropped his saxophone on his way to the venue and was anxious that it would not play well – but, heartwarmingly, the conductor affirmed him. He produced good music. Key to music at its most uplifting is that all play their part to the best of their abilities, celebrating their different gifts together in a way that brings harmony and joy to their listeners.

Over the next three days, we have been given verses from Matthew’s Gospel to ponder and reflect upon: from Matthew 18 and 19 tonight, in which we look at forgiveness; from Matthew 19:2-12 tomorrow, in which we will look at grounds for divorce and understanding sexuality in God’s law; and from Matthew 19:13-15, in which we look at protecting children and beyond that at the cost of discipleship. 

But before I look at Matthew, we might do well to ponder together, what is a Charge? Here I run the risk of being told, as my children do: Dad, get to the point! But the question is worth asking. Is a Charge about where we have been or come from? Or where we are now? Or where are we going and what is missing in our actions, and perhaps from our vision? I suggest that even if we don’t seek to address all of them explicitly, we need to keep all three in the back of our minds, but seek especially to focus on the third. Please see my reflections in this Charge as a work in progress, an unfolding story, just as our journey in faith is an unfolding story as we catch in a mirror dimly the riches of God’s grace.

So what is missing? Let’s first look at our vision. We are guided by our diocesan and provincial mission statements: in the Province we say we are– 

Anchored in the love of Christ, Committed to God’s mission and Transformed by the Holy Spirit (ACT); 

and in the Diocese we aspire– 

To be a community rooted in the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ, To bring God’s Healing with Joy and Compassion.

I want to assert that at the core of these aspirational statements, which we call vision, is the question: Who is the Church? – which is the theme I have given to my Charge this evening.  The Psalmist evokes for us a sense of the longing we experience to fulfill God’s aspirations for us – notably when he tells us that “By the rivers of Babylon – there we sat down and there we wept, when we remembered Zion... How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” and also in Psalm 39:12-13, “Hear my prayer, O Lord… do not hold your peace at my tears… that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more.” The Eucharist too, is about this holy longing, a vision of where we want to go and what is missing. Archdeacon Groepe in his circular about Synod to his archdeaconry representatives, writes, “Synod is a Pentecost event. We gather as the varied people from the Diocese to seek the mind of Christ, to hear, listen and act together on what God puts in our hearts and minds at this Pentecost.” Yes, as we are in the season of Pentecost, let us be reassured that there is no reason for excessive worry: we have been carried all the way by the Holy Spirit, and we will get where we are going through the work and power of the Holy Spirit. Of course that doesn’t mean we can afford to lounge around; in seeking to follow Jesus, we need actively to work to identify what it is that is missing.

You will recall that from Chapter 17, the Matthean Jesus, as he moves towards suffering, death and resurrection, spends a lot of time teaching or disciplining his core group of followers. With his imminent departure at hand, in Chapter 18 the succession debate raises its head, as well as questions of rank, status and position. If you want greatness in the kingdom of heaven, we learn, you must have childlike humility: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

We bandy this virtue around too easily, often expecting that the humble should be timid and allow us always to have our  way. When we admire our neighbour, saying, “Ain’t they humble,” we actually mean, “Ain’t it great that others are timid,” letting us get away with perceptions, stereotypes and sometimes unhelpful attitudes. In an attempt to answer the question I have posed, Who is the Church? I want to argue tonight that the church is called to be a community which is childlike in its exercise of radical and true humility. What might that true and radical humility entail for the saints in the living of these days?

True humility in the Christian community is displayed when we care less about power, status and wealth and become known for our redemptive actions and attitudes towards our brothers and sisters who have wronged. I spend a lot of time reading notices of court action in which, as Metropolitan, I am named as the first respondent. I am always challenged to the core of my being when I read these. My immediate response, the unmediated one, is to pull rank and deploy all the best canon lawyers, registrars and chancellors at my disposal to protect my rank and status from these wretched erring clerics or laity. And I suspect I am not the only one who struggles with this instinct – it probably happens to clergy who are challenged by laity, and to laity confronted by clergy. But then who is the Church, and what of the forgiveness we have read about today, and the humility I am advocating?

The Church is a Christian community whose vocation, amongst many, is to live and display the true humility which is seen in redemptive actions and attitudes to neighbour, to foe and to all of creation. The challenge we face is: As church, how should we live with the in-between – in the knowledge of the reality of incarnation on the one hand, and the certainty, in eschatological terms, of the end on the other. This tension is key to the redemptive attitudes and actions which should be at the core of being a Christian community. Like a coin, redemptive actions and attitudes – which I call true humility, childlike humility – have two critical sides to them: reconciliation and forgiveness. As I shared the implications of this with a small group that met with me to think aloud through this Charge, over and above the question I was posing, “Who is the church”, we came up with the sub-theme: “Discerning God’s holiness at work and for the living of these days in the everyday life of the saints”.

So what does humility in the Christian community involve? Let’s get away from the metaphor of a coin, especially as we seek to honour Matthew’s teaching on denouncing power, rank, status and wealth. I want instead to suggest that as Christians we replace the word “coin” with the word “heart” for our metaphor. So tonight and forthwith, I will talk about both sides of the heart instead of both sides of the coin; asserting that the heart, as opposed to Caesar’s symbol of power, the coin, is more biblical. Heart is the source and seat of life (“mpilo”) and true power. 

The one side of the heart of redemptive action is reconciliation. Matthew 18:15-22 paints a picture for us. It is the opposite of vengeance. It is a heart-rending process. You have to look at the erring nearest and dearest, the wrongdoer and allow them the opportunity to recount their mistakes and perhaps repent of them. Without going into details, I recently had to look at the colleague in the eye and listen to him tell me why he betrayed the confidentiality of one of the processes laid down by our canons, costing us thousands of rands in legal fees. I was deeply disappointed, fuming in fact and had the right to show him the door. Two of us sat with him for hours, listening to him tangle, then finally untangle himself, and come to a point of confessing and asking for forgiveness. You may want to call this indaba, as I have argued elsewhere in the Anglican Communion. Over the last couple of years, I have come to realise how litigious we have become as a society and of course as the church as well, wasting money that should be used for mission on lawyers. My call is that we should respond in accordance with this Matthean passage. If we don’t, Jesus says the consequences are dire in the here and now and at the end. At the provincial level, we have set up the Canon Law Council, whose task is to be Matthean in approach and remind us of “Who is the Church” when it comes to brothers and sisters who have erred. In the Diocese, we have set up a legislation committee as a result of our last Synod. 

Forgiveness as a redemptive action cannot be a legal matter only. So, within the Church and the wider world, we also promote redemptive attitudes and actions in many other ways, either unseen on a one-to-one basis or publicly in high profile initiatives. We do it, for example, when we hear confessions as clergy, intervene in Manenberg’s gangster conflicts, campaign against the scandalous peddling of drugs in poor communities, pursue initiatives in our social responsibility groups, share God’s love through our ministry to people living with HIV and Aids, show our concern for the environment, undertake walks of witness to where people are suffering, whether as a consequence of fires or flooding in Langa and other places, or forced evictions in Lwandle, and even when we arrange events to honour Nelson Mandela Day, or Madiba’s life when he died. The openness with which we challenge one another – whether across divides of gender, race, religion, culture, or in our Walk of Witness from District Six to Parliament on Holy Saturday – can also bear witness to the kind of redemptive actions by which we can pursue reconciliation with one another and with our difficult past.

At the heart of living redemptive attitudes and actions must be a special concern for the dispossessed. During the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown last month, I was asked to speak on housing and family life at the SpiritFest Winter School organised by the cathedral. It led to vigorous discussion, which confirmed my view that we as the Church need to take far more seriously the call to engage in reconciling acts that bridge the kind of inequality we see in our physical living conditions in South Africa. We all know only too well the broad outlines of the appalling conditions in which huge numbers of our people live, but some of the challenges are worth restating, again and again – not only here but in our pulpits, our Bible studies and our social responsibility groups.

Not only has our government in the democratic era inherited a legacy of very low rates of formal housing; society has been urbanising rapidly over the past 20 years. In 2004 already, the government noted that a fifth of people who lived in urban areas were first-generation residents and that this trend was set to continue. The backlogs in housing have generated overcrowding and squatter settlements, and led to land invasions in urban areas. Most of us who are in the middle classes become inured to the suffering involved in the way many people live, because the legacy of segregation has served, in the words of one expert, to “hide debilitating poverty.”

The desperate shortage of housing is of course but one of many challenges in our communities; another is the woeful lack of services in informal settlements. Poor sanitation and the failure to deliver safe water in under-developed communities is a stubbornly persistent problem, not only in Cape Town but across the country. We have heard more than enough about open toilets in the Western Cape and the Free State – some people call me “the toilet archbishop” because of my concern over water and sanitation. In some parts, we still have a bucket system of removing sewage. Not too long ago a school child died after falling into an open latrine in Limpopo. And we can’t even always maintain the infrastructure we do have, as shown when people in Bloemhof died from contaminated water. 

As I said in Grahamstown, our failure as a society – and I would add here, as the Church – our failure to get to grips with these challenges is a failure to address ourselves to upholding basic human dignity. I am no fan of the tactics of some activists and politicians in Cape Town in drawing attention to these problems, but we cannot deny that in one sense the excesses of Cape Town’s toilet wars have been a good thing: they have woken us up to the reality of how our brothers and sisters live. John tells us that the truth will set us free: well, we know that reconciliation which tries to gloss over the effects of past inequality is but avoidance and untruth – it is not reconciliation at all. If Christian communities are not up to facing this challenge, then who will? 

Nor should we limit our ambitions to speak out and act where we can to issues of housing and sanitation. We have seen in the platinum miners’ strike how some of our fellow citizens feel so squeezed and so desperate that they have to resort to actions that can bring the economy to its knees. Their plight is but one example – seen closer to home in the conditions facing seasonal workers on farms – of how we have come to be one of the countries in the world where the gap between rich and poor is highest. Yet many of us spend more time bemoaning how the strike has caused ratings agencies to downgrade us as an investment destination than analyse how this shocking inequality has come about. And we have seen recently that concern about the environment – so well reflected in our Diocese – is not simply a concern of the wealthy, but that it is the poor and the un-empowered who are often most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and the contamination of our natural resources. 

William Edgar Stafford, an American poet, in a poem A Ritual to Read to Each Other, ends by saying, and I quote:

For it is important that awake people be awake,

or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;

the signals we give - yes or no, or maybe -

should be clear: the darkness around us is deep. 

Put differently, how can we make a contribution to addressing these challenges which is distinctively Christian, reflecting our faith in Jesus? Well, we could start by practising the same openness and transparency that I demanded of President Zuma on our Holy Saturday Walk of Witness. The moral pollution I spoke of then, the collapse of values and standards which infects parts of our government, is not confined to government. The absence of transparency which generates a lack of trust is also seen outside government too. When I addressed President Zuma, I was also addressing all South Africans, including ourselves. 

And the questions which I put to Mr Zuma can be adapted for all of us: 

• Are we willing to explain to our constituencies how we make decisions involving our common welfare?

• In our public lives, which constitutional values do we use in reaching those decisions?

• How do we plan to respond to the historic levels of distrust that permeate our society?

• What is our plan for holding conversations about our values, so that we can make our decisions in good conscience?

I am calling for a Renaissance of Trust in our society. Trust is the cornerstone of reconciliation. Redemptive actions build trust in God, in each other and help us to forge a common destiny as a Christian community in South Africa. If we don’t ask these questions, build trust and teach our parishioners to speak out truthfully to power, we are planting the seeds not of reconciliation but of destruction, and we will reap what we have planted. 

The other side of the heart of redemptive action is forgiveness. We can move forward here if we repent and reconcile, not to immobilise the Christian community, but to pierce the smelly, festering wound that no one wants to face because it may spoil our artificial context, and so to heal ourselves and move forward. Forgiveness means that we don’t hold grudges. We don’t hoard ill feelings. We forgive without measure. The story we heard in tonight’s Gospel has this at its core. The consequences of not forgiving are dire – dire for individuals, families, children and communities. Forgiving someone 70 times seven – a total of 490 times – is a radical expression of humility in a Christian community, a redemptive action and attitude required of us.

When I was a newly-consecrated suffragan bishop, my diocesan, Bishop David Russell, quoted our archbishop emeritus, Desmond Tutu, so powerfully that it has remained with me ever since. We had gone to the place of King Sandile of the amaRarabe to offer an apology for how the British had treated him in the 19th century, holding him on Robben Island and forcibly sending his children to Cape Town – first to Bishopscourt and then to Zonnebloem College – to be educated in Western ways. How do you say, “Sorry, please forgive me,” when you have forced your will on a people in this way; when you have rewritten their place in history and made them poor and uneducated in the country of their birth? Bishop David told the story of the bicycle: of how you can’t steal someone’s bicycle, then ride it to the person’s home, say forgive me for stealing it, and then ride it back home. You have to give the bicycle back first, and then ask for forgiveness for stealing it. Showing redemptive attitudes and taking redemptive action as in the Matthean examples involve the equivalent of returning the bicycle. They heal both the wronged and the wrongdoer. They create a space for indaba, for humble listening, for two hearts to hear the same pulse, for one to get to know the other’s story, and for the two to take the walk to Emmaus together, leading to the full realisation of Jesus’ power to heal the divisions we have created. We are humble or we show humility as a Christian community when we live and enact these redemptive virtues.

The importance of this focus on redemption is shown in our first reading tonight, from Ezekiel. We need to be careful to avoid being like the prince and the people in the passage we have heard, who fail to get with the plot. They fail to understand God’s servant, Ezekiel, as he signals the pre-exilic signs, the discord and disharmony that are about to befall the people of God. My dream and longing for God’s church and people is never to miss the Ezekiel signs of our disconnectedness from God, from our neighbours and ourselves but to be ministers of reconciliation and forgiveness. This is who the church is called to be in our times.

However, if we are serious in exploring and implementing what it means to live out redemptive attitudes and actions, we can live in confident hope for the future. But just as I said earlier that we cannot lounge around waiting for the Holy Spirit to act, we must talk about hope with caution. Denise Ackermann says that hope is a lived reality in the life of faith, here and now; that its means never surrendering our power to imagine a better world – but also that hope is not magic; it confronts wrong and the abuse of power and it is risky and requires patience and endurance. 

From what do we derive our hope and confidence in pursuing reconciliation and forgiveness, and why do we do this? In the segments that we will read over the next two days, the answer is: for the common good. Because, as a Christian community, we have commitments and a responsibility to one another other and to Christ. We seek the flourishing of all and of ourselves in the here and now and the hereafter. 

At this moment in human history, pursuing climate justice has become one of the ways in which we are called to exercise our responsibility to one another and to Christ. Next year, God willing, a number of bishops from dioceses around the world which are already experiencing the impacts of climate change will come to Cape Town to help develop a global strategic plan on the environment, as part of a Communion-wide effort which has been dubbed the "eco-bishops initiative". And I commend for debate in the coming days the resolution on encouraging our people to become “eco-congregations”. These initiatives demonstrate, as a joint Lutheran/Anglican statement has said, and I quote, that 

“As Christians, we do not live in the despair and melancholy of the tomb, but in the light of the Risen Christ. Our resurrection hope is grounded in the promise of renewal and restoration for all of God’s Creation, which gives us energy, strength and perseverance in the face of overwhelming challenge. For us, this promise is more than an abstraction. It is a challenge to commit ourselves to walk a different course and serve as the hands of God in working to heal the brokenness of our hurting world.” - Joint statement of the Episcopal Church, the Church of Sweden, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, May 2013

The flourishing we desire is for everyone, not only South Africans, so we should also give attention to situations beyond our borders. Pray for justice, reconciliation and the peace that will flow from those everywhere. Pray for the girls kidnapped in northern Nigeria, and for the victims and families of those killed in the almost daily attacks ravaging that country. Surround and lift up the people of Palestine, including Gaza, and Israel, in prayer. What we have seen on our television screens during the Israeli bombardment of Gaza is deplorable and deeply shocking; just as shocking is the fact that similar indiscriminate killing of men, women and children in Nigeria continues month after month with a fraction of the outrage expressed over the conflict in the Middle East. We might ask: Why does the United States not erupt in outrage over what is happening in Gaza? And why do Africa and the world not erupt in outrage at the slaughter in Nigeria?

Many articles and books have been devoted this year to the lessons of World War I. Margaret MacMillan, a Canadian historian who is now the warden of St Antony’s College, Oxford, has written that the war still haunts us 100 years after it began partly because of the scale of the slaughter – 10 million combatants and countless millions of civilians died – but also because experts cannot agree on how it happened, and therefore on how to avoid such a catastrophe in the future. Pointing to how our great-grandfathers miscalculated the significance of changes in the nature of warfare, she gives us this sobering warning: “A comparable mistake in our own time is the assumption that because of our advanced technology, we can deliver quick, focused and overpowering military actions – the ‘surgical strikes’ with drones and cruise missiles, ‘shock and awe’ by carpet bombing and armored divisions – resulting in conflicts that will be short and limited in their impact, and victories that will be decisive.” Far from seeing easy victories, she adds, we are seeing wars with no clear outcomes, in which well-armed forces fight what she describes as “a shifting coalition of local warlords, religious warriors and other interested parties” across countries and continents.

In this context, Who is the Church? Let us go back to the parable of the unforgiving steward: as the followers of Jesus, we can avoid being too quick to judge others and their motives, we can have mercy on those who have wronged us, and we can forgive our sisters and brothers from our hearts. As Robert Kennedy said at the University of Cape Town in 1968, few of us will, in his words, “have the greatness to bend history; but each of us can work to change a small portion of the events, and in the total of all these acts will be written the history of this generation…” We too can contribute to what he called the “numberless diverse acts of courage” which shape the history of humankind. 

We will be judged by how we contributed to making this a forgiving and reconciled world: by whether, when we saw war, we tried to stop it; by whether, when we saw wrong, we tried to right it; and by whether, when we saw need and suffering, we tried to bring healing. And succeeding is not as important as acting: As Madiba put it, “Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”

Let me end with a confirmation blessing that I regularly use, but slightly rephrased as follows: 

“Go into the broken and unreconciled world as the Christian community, sow the seeds of reconciliation and repentance so that you may in joy reap the fruits of forgiveness and fulfillment. 

“For Christ’s sake, Amen.”

21

St Dominic's, Hanover Park - 40th Anniversary Celebrations

This sermon was preached at the Patronal Festival of St Dominic's, Hanover Park, Cape Town, as they celebrated their 40th anniversary, on 4 August 2013.

Hosea 11:1-11; Col 3:1-11; Luke 12:13-21 (Good News Bible / New International Version)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, dear People of God of St Dominic’s Hanover Park, let me say again what a great delight it is to be with you, and to share in the celebrations of your patronal festival and 40th birthday! Congratulations! Thank you, again, to you, Fr Gilmore Fry, to your wardens, for your invitation, and to everyone who has welcomed me so warmly, and who has contributed to this wonderful service – and what I am sure will be the equally wonderful refreshments afterwards! I also acknowledge Councillor van Rheede.

Today we join together in thanking God for the great faithfulness of the people of St Dominic’s over the last 40, turbulent, years. And we also give thanks to God for his great faithfulness, in giving the strength, the perseverance, the courage, the hope, that has kept you going through all the ups and downs of life, and through all the challenges, past and present.

The gospel account gives us a wonderful story and picture that I want to unpack today. Money itself is not a bad thing but there is more to life than pursuing millions. I guess we all know that. But having more does not necessarily make us happier. And if our lives become focussed just on getting more, evidence shows we will probably be less happy – and then, because we don’t understand the dynamic, we’ll just think we need even MORE, and so get into an even worse spiral.

As St Paul wrote to Timothy, the love of money (not money itself) is the root of all evil (1 Tim 6:10). If we have a false treasure at the centre of our lives, then pursuit of it is always going to take us further away from the real, genuine, treasures of life.

Real treasure, life in all its abundance, comes from growing into Christlikeness – into the life that Jesus models for us and offers to us. It is a life that is based on living in love with God, in our hearts and souls and minds and strength; and living in the same love with our neighbours. In other words, we are to grow in Christlikeness in our hearts – in our emotions and how we feel; in our minds – in the way we think; in our souls – in our spiritual lives; and in our strength – in the way we treat our bodies, in the way we live within the physical world around us.

And all of this then spills over into how we live as neighbours – as members of the community of Hanover Park, as colleagues, as friends, as family members. So then, how shall we go about pursuing growth? How do we work to encourage mature emotions, mature thinking, mature spirituality, and maturity in how we life – I might even say, mature citizenship?

The answer lies in nurture and education.

Our Old Testament Reading, from the prophet Hosea, paints the most wonderful picture of God as our tender parent – father or mother, even. God is there, helping, encouraging the small child, the toddler, to stand on its feet, and to walk for itself. God is there, always ready to catch us when we fall – and it is true, isn’t it that we are always falling, always stumbling, like the weak person in the gospel, pursuing millions or narrow interests and forgetting the bigger picture. The good news is, however, when we don’t get it right, he puts us back on our feet and encourages us to keep on going. His tender encouragement is the same for us all.

I was thinking about this earlier this week. One of the delights of Bishopscourt is the garden – and all the animals and birds that visit and make their home there. I know they can be a bit of a pest, but I am rather fond of the Egyptian geese. There is a pair which nests in the garden. A couple of weeks ago, they had three babies, three goslings. This week, alas, there is only one gosling left. So I spent a bit of time watching the mother goose and her baby.

Whenever the mother goose nibbles at the grass, her gosling nibbles at the grass. Whenever the mother goose flaps her wings, runs, swims her baby also follows the actions, flapping, running and swimming. The goose was showing her gosling exactly how to live well. And the gosling was wise enough to copy whatever its mother showed it.

Surely here is a deep spiritual lesson for us too! For we are to follow the pattern of Jesus. And also, maturer Christians are to be the pattern for younger Christians; and adults for children; throughout our communities.

In other words, it is all about ‘Education, education, education’ – to quote British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, when he was asked what were his three priorities for government. Well, I often don’t agree with Tony Blair, but on this I think he was 100% right. We all need education - our country, our communities, our churches, our children – indeed, children of every age, because God does not want any of us to stop learning, or to stop growing, into a greater knowledge and love of himself, and of his Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Of course, here I am, saying all this, in a community that knows these truths very well! For I know that you are very active in supporting education in many different forms. I know you have very active youth work, and many organisations for people of every age – from the choir and servers guild, through the AWF, CMS, band and dance groups, through to holiday clubs and more besides.

All these support and encourage and teach the life of Christian worship, witness and service – the life to which we pledge ourselves when we affirm our baptism promises at confirmation. This is what it means to say that we have died and our lives are hid with Christ in God – so that we can reveal Christ truly to the world!

Thank you for all you do with Back to School Sunday. Thank you for your support of the Upward Bound initiative, which I also support. Thank you for walking alongside learners – as Hosea spoke of God walking with us – to encourage them, especially to stick with school, to stick with education, and to be the best they can be.

Education is one of the top priorities of my own ministry. It is not just education for the classroom, though it includes this. The ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, said that ‘Education that only teaches the mind, but does not teach the heart (and here I would add ‘soul’, also), is no education at all.’ As the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, we firmly believe this.

And so I launched the Archbishop’s Initiative in Education, to make our commitment more focussed, and, I hope, more fruitful. We have three priorities, which we affirmed last year at Provincial Standing Committee, and on which we shall build again at Provincial Synod in October. The three priorities are:
• To strengthen what ACSA is already doing in the field of education
• To encourage parishes in the on-going up-liftment of all their communities through partnership with local public schools
• To create more excellent church schools for all.
And so we are taking various steps, including restructuring the Anglican Education Board, so we can make these commitments concrete. In Gauteng we are piloting various projects, including ways of strengthening initiatives at parish level, which I hope we will be able to roll out in places like Cape Town before too long.

So be encouraged – you are doing a great job, because God in his grace has given you this understanding of what true riches are, and how they are to be pursued. Keep up the good work, because education, in its broadest sense, is what we most need – the nurturing of individuals and communities, so we may keep on growing as part of the true vine, Jesus Christ, so we can bear fruit that will last.

I am sure that within the Cape Flats, it is education that has the greatest potential to be a vehicle for the social changes that we so earnestly desire. It will do this through schools, through colleges, through continuing education, through training in practical trades and the skills of our technological age.

And we, God’s people, are to be at the heart of this – sharing, and promoting, our understanding of holistic education of the whole person. For God’s delight, above all else, is in human beings who are ‘truly alive’, flourishing and bearing fruit, in heart and soul and mind and body, as individuals, and as communities. And we are called to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world – God’s instruments, and channels of God’s love and blessing and hope, for one another, and for the wider community.

Therefore I challenge you to consider the call to plant your own chapelry, with a school – just as you were planted – and in this way to sow seeds that can flourish in the next 40 years.

As I end this sermon, I want to ask again ‘Where does true treasure lie?’

Where does true treasure lie? It lies here – right before my eyes. You are God’s great treasure in Hanover Park! God has blessed you, and blessed Hanover Park for 40 years – may he bless you in the 40 years, and all the centuries, ahead! Amen.

Diocese of Cape Town Family Fun Day

This sermon was preached at the Diocese of Cape Town Family Fun Day, held at 'Bishops', Diocesan College, on 1 May 2013.

Deuteronomy 33:13-26; Psalm 89:1-8; Philippians 4:5-8; Matthew 13:53-58
(Lections for St Joseph)

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

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ – what a joy it is to see you here. Let me repeat the Chaplain’s welcome to you all. You are all very special. And a particular welcome to Donald Grant, MEC for Education. Thank you for being with us. It is good to see so many of you here – and so early in the morning on a public holiday!

You are certainly not like the rector who woke up early on a Sunday morning, and the weather was SO beautiful that he felt he just HAD to play golf. So he phoned the curate, and said he was feeling unwell, and that the curate must take the services – and then he drove to a golf course where no-one knew him, and started his round. But he should have known that Jesus was watching, with St Peter at his side. ‘You’re not going to let him get away with this, are you?’ said St Peter. ‘Wait and see’ said the Lord.

The rector hit the ball off the tee on a par 4 hole. It was the perfect shot. It went straight down the fairway, bounced on fresh springy grass, and just kept on going, until it reached the green and rolled right into the hole. It was the most amazing ‘Hole in One’. St Peter was appalled. ‘Lord?’ he said ‘How could you let that happen?’ The Lord smiled, and answered ‘But who is he going to be able to tell?’

Well, here we all are! So let me first thank everyone who is working hard on their day off, to organise today. Thank you to Mpho Mashengete and your team for all your preparations. Thank you, Fr Terry, and Bishops, for your hospitality. Thank you, Bishop Garth, for enabling the whole process. Thank you to everyone participating in this service, and to everyone helping with all the other arrangements.

It is wonderful to share this celebration of the life of the Diocese of Cape Town. It is a celebration, first of all – as every Eucharist is – of new life in Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, which we are called to share. And it is a celebration of God’s faithfulness and presence among us, in the Diocese of Cape Town and in the life of his Church.

It is a celebration too, of the faithfulness of so many of God’s people, in this Diocese: not just in the past, but today also. Through the faithful lives of ordinary Christians – you, and people like you – God continues to build his kingdom, and spread the good news of Jesus Christ that is for the whole world.

This is the faithfulness we commemorate today, of St Joseph – often called, St Joseph the worker. We think less of him as a carpenter, however, and more as a fellow-labourer in God’s vineyard. This is the work in which all sons and daughters of the living God share. And whoever we are, we can make a great and significant difference to God’s world – even if, like St Joseph, most of what we do is behind the scenes. St Joseph’s openness to hear God’s voice, and his readiness to respond in obedience – even when he was taken way outside his comfort zone – made all the difference.

As St Matthew tells us, he was an ordinary man, a righteous man – just an every-day decent chap, like so many here today. Suddenly, his life seemed to go pear-shaped. The woman he was engaged to marry was pregnant, with a child he knew was not his. It takes a better man than most to decide to break it all off, very quietly, without public scandal. But then God, through a dream, challenged him to go one step further – to marry, and raise this child, who, God told him, was from the Holy Spirit. Later, in another dream, the angel of the Lord told him to take his wife and child to Egypt. Can you imagine the upheaval? And yet he went, at once.

In St Luke’s gospel we read that Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover each year, and that, when Jesus was about 12 years old, they took him with them. St Joseph saw to it that Jesus was raised in a safe, settled, home where faith was woven into the whole of life. He provided the context in which Jesus was able to discover what it truly meant to be the Son of God, the anointed one, the Messiah.

What can be more important than to provide contexts in which others can grow to become the people God created them to be?

This is the every-day faithful obedience to which all of us are called, in the home, in our communities, at work, wherever we find ourselves. For the most part, it is not very spectacular – in fact, it is easy to take for granted, and even look down on. Simple habits of daily prayer, reading our Bibles, Sunday worship, and following Jesus’ example, all help form the foundations on which everything else is built.

In our gospel reading, we heard how the people of Nazareth felt they knew Jesus well, took him for granted, and looked down on him. I think that there is something about being an Anglican that connects with this. People look at us, and see an old, familiar, historic church. They think that we are just ordinary and boring, and nothing special. They may even think that we have lost our spark, lost our life.

And it is true that our primary concern is not to lay on a big and exciting show.

But our critics fail to see that we aim for something far more important!

We want to promote deepening, maturing, lives of faithful obedience: of individuals and communities who grow in knowledge and love of God, and in making God better known and loved. Such faith in action is what makes the biggest difference in the long term.

Jesus too, was not in the business of performing miracles to satisfy the curious, or ‘prove’ his identity to sceptics. Rather, as we read through the gospels, Jesus’ words and actions are so others might recognise what it means for the kingdom of God to come among them; and so they might respond to the invitation to follow him, as their Messiah.

Jesus calls us for the ‘long haul’ – to persevere in a life-long experience of growing in his love and joy, and in sharing it with others, so his kingdom of justice for all, and true peace, may increase in our world. This is what our second reading, from St Paul’s letter to the Philippians, is about. ‘Let your gentleness be known to everyone’ St Paul writes. ‘The Lord is near.’ Doesn’t St Joseph’s life, as a righteous man, remind us of such characteristics?

St Paul then writes ‘Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made know to God.’

Life has many challenges – as Joseph found – even tough ones of having to flee the country. But, with God in control, we can take even the toughest situations in our stride, if we trust in the Lord. For – as the next verse says – when we entrust everything in prayer to God, then: ‘The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’ This is not a promise that our problems will be solved in the way that we want. But it is a promise that God will see us through – as individuals, and as his Church.

We have a lot of issues to face in the Diocese at the moment.

Some of these challenges, we are rising to meet, with great joy and confidence. We are making wonderful progress towards building up an Endowment Fund, to ensure resources for training future clergy. We still have a long way to go – but we are firmly headed in the right direction. We are already over R800,000, so, close to our first million. Thank you! to everyone who has contributed! Mind you, we still have quite a way to go to reach our goal of R20m. But long slow steady giving of small amounts will ensure we get to our target. What I call ‘boring faithfulness’ of the sort that the people of Nazareth despised, is the best way to reach our goal!

Within the Diocese there are other big challenges.

We have been carrying a big deficit in running costs, as you know. We have been reviewing all we do through a long process – discussed for some 3 years, through Diocesan Synod and Diocesan Standing Committee meetings, and the Budget Review Group and various Boards, and of course Chapter. The biggest challenge arises from the multiplication of the Diocese. We need to look not only at staffing levels, but, more fundamentally, at how to integrate the old inherited structures of the suffragan bishop with those of the diocese as a whole.

Yesterday, Tony Hillier retired as Diocesan Secretary. We had a wonderful service of thanksgiving at Zonnebloem yesterday. With his departure, we are now grasping this painful nettle of restructuring the Diocesan Office, and embarking on a period of consultation and discernment. It is going to be a difficult and painful process, with some very hard decisions along the way, and the potential for redundancies.

Let me say the same as I said yesterday: all you who are here today, I cannot ask you strongly enough, to keep us all in your prayers. Pray that God may guide us all, and give us a double measure of wisdom. Pray especially also for Bishop Garth, whom I am asking to lead the pastoral processes that must happen alongside the more technical management tasks. Most of all pray for those who are most directly affected.

It is always especially hard to take such decisions within the church – when employees are also brothers and sisters in Christ, parishioners alongside us, part of God’s family. Pray that, as St Paul teaches in today’s reading, we may act with gentleness. Pray we may do everything ‘by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving’. Pray that God’s peace, which ‘surpasses all understanding’, may fill this situation.

May this peace guard our hearts and minds, so that it may protect our feelings, our thoughts, so that we are held in the will of God, and don’t get tossed about with destructive emotions, or words or actions, as we work through the various steps still before us. And may we focus on ‘whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable’.

This is God’s call to all of us, not just for restructuring the Diocesan Office, but also in faithfully following the example of St Joseph. Lives of faithful obedience, of growing love and joy and peace and hope, are best served by ‘thinking about these things’: everything that is excellent and worthy of praise.

As some of you may have heard me say before, it has taken psychologists and others two millennia to catch up with this powerful Biblical truth. It is a truth in our own lives. It is a truth in the life of the Church. And it is true when it comes to politics and nation – for example, in relation to the terrible problems of education in the Eastern Cape which I saw on my visit last week.

If we focus most on the problems, on what is wrong, on everything that stands in our way and holds us back – then, studies show, we are likely to be dragged down, become pessimistic, feel helpless, and be overcome by negativity.

But if we focus on the good things around us, and God’s wonderful promises – then they become a magnet, pulling us upwards. If we put aside our fears about deficits or restructuring or even our own mortality, and let God’s vision shape our future planning, we are far more likely to go forwards, living and acting positively, and we are far more likely to go forward, growing into all that is good.

And this is the heart of our celebration today – our belief that God has good plans for our Diocese and good plans for each one of us. As the prophet Jeremiah writes, the Lord says ‘I have plans to prosper you not to harm you, plans to give you a future and hope’ (Jer 29:11). This surely is the life to which our Diocese, and all its people, are called. Let this vision take root within us, and grow and flourish!

So, to conclude: today is a day of celebration – of the life we share as the family of God’s children in the Diocese of Cape Town. We do not have to live spectacular lives. The great miracle of God is that he does marvellous things through ordinary people, living ordinary lives of faithful obedience.

So, with confidence and joy we can live out this steady calling to be good Anglicans! We can stand firm in our heritage of supporting God’s work through lives of faithful worship, witness and service. We can build one another up in gentle, loving fellowship. We can also live for others outside our walls – engaged in the daily business of promoting healthy society; contributing to democracy; standing up against corruption in small and big ways; calling government to account at every level from local council wards to nationally.

And in all of this, through a rhythm of grateful prayer and Bible study, we can allow God to shape our lives so that we too may be righteous people, used by God for the building of his kingdom and the glory of his name.

It is my humble and deep prayer that it may be so for this Diocese. Amen

Sermon on the Retirement of Anthony Hillier, Cape Town Diocesan Secretary

This sermon was preached at the service of Thanksgiving, on the Retirement of Anthony Hillier, Diocesan Secretary for the Diocese of Cape Town, at Zonnebloem on 30 April 2013.

Acts 14:19-27; Ps 145:10-13,21; John 14:27-31a

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

Today is both a day of celebration and a sad day.

It is a celebration, first of all – as every Eucharist is – of the new life in Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, in which we are called to share. And it is a celebration of God’s faithfulness and presence among us, in the life of his Church.

It is a celebration too, of the faithfulness of so many of God’s people, in his Church – and today, especially, is a day of thanksgiving for the long years of hard work that Tony has given to us, and for the selfless support through it all of Ann, and the family.

And it is also a celebration of the common life we share together in the Diocese of Cape Town over the years, in spite of all the challenges that come our way.

This brings me to the sadness.

We are sad because, although we are celebrating and giving thanks for all these wonderful things we have experienced and received as a Diocese, it is sad to say farewell to Tony. We shall really miss you Tony, your quiet perseverance, your dedication and your thoroughness. I shall miss the expanded agendas which have been such a help to me in staying in touch and knowing what is going on throughout all the structures of the Diocese, despite my busy schedule. I shall miss your painstaking attention to detail. And I shall miss your love for the Lord and for his Church. We are so sad to see you go.

And we are also sad, because along with Tony’s departing, we are setting in motion the tough actions for restructuring the Diocesan Office – actions we know we ought to have addressed some time ago. But knowing that we have little option does not make it any easier, either to take difficult decisions or to implement them.

Everyone who is here today, I cannot ask you strongly enough, to keep the Diocesan Office in your prayers as we now embark on this period of consultation and discernment. Pray that God may guide us all, and give us a double measure of wisdom. Pray especially also for Bishop Garth, whom I am asking to lead the pastoral processes that must happen alongside the more technical management tasks; and most of all pray for those who are most directly affected.

When hard decisions must be taken and implemented within the Church, which is so much like family in so many ways, it can sometimes all seem so much harder and more painful. Indeed, it can sometimes feel like a failure of faith within the Church as an institution, when we face times like this.

Our rational minds tell us about the tough economic environment around us. They tell us that we always needed to make adjustments to structures and staffing after the multiplication of the Diocese.

But our hearts are sore, and I guess we always hoped that, through prayer, through faith, through trust, we might somehow be spared having to come to this point. For myself, part of me really hoped that I might avoid it all by being away on retreat – though I knew this would not happen!

Our first of today’s readings have helped me – and I hope can help us all – in finding our bearings.

St Paul is completing his first missionary journey. It is about 18 years after Jesus died and rose, so we might know the flourishing, abundant, life which triumphs over sin, death, and all that is destructive.

Yet St Paul – like so many other apostles – has suffered spiritual opposition, expulsion from the city of Pisidian Antioch, the threat of stoning in Iconium, and actual stoning in Lystra. Even so, St Paul and St Barnabas return to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch. And, writes St Luke, they ‘strengthened the souls of the disciples and encouraging them to continue in the faith’ by telling them that ‘it is through many hardships, many tribulations, that we must enter the kingdom of God.’

Well, on the face of it, one might think that assuring people that they will face ‘many troubles’ is hardly the best way to encourage and strengthen them!

But then again, perhaps it is.

Because perhaps what the congregations of Lystra, Iconium and Antioch most needed to hear, was the reassurance that what they were going through was ‘normal’; and furthermore, that it was not in any way their fault, or brought about by any failing on their part.

From reading through the New Testament, it is clear that, even within a few years of Jesus’ life and death, resurrection and ascension, there was a tension over what it meant to become his follower.

Some verses can be read to imply that, when you give your life to Jesus, all your troubles will be over, provided you have enough faith, pray hard enough, and live with enough obedience. We hear that still today, in some places, don’t we! And if life is not all roses and rainbows, we draw the conclusion that we have failed, in our faith, our prayers, our lives, and are fully responsible for our misfortunes.

On the other hand, from the example of St Paul’s life, it can seem as if the opposite is true: that becoming a Christian opens the floodgates to trials, tribulations, and persecutions!

But taking a more careful look at Scripture, what do we find? We find the words of the Living Word made flesh.

St John’s account of Jesus speaking at the Last Supper, ends his main discourse, before he turns to prayer, with these words:
‘I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, for I have overcome the world’ (Jn 16:32b,33).

This is the context of today’s gospel reading, with its promises of peace, and reassurance not to be afraid. This peace, this reassurance, come to us precisely because the world is full of struggles, for all of us.

We should not be surprised when they happen to us as individuals. And we should also not be surprised when the Church itself, at various levels, takes a battering from the way the world is – from our social, political, and economic context.

We are not immune from the same problems others face. Stuff happens. Stuff happens that is not our fault – it just happens. And we have to deal with it.

The Bible calls us to face whatever life brings, head on, with Christian courage. Our ability to do this is the greatest testimony we can give to the world.

Christian courage comes from these promises of Jesus Christ: the promise that we need not be afraid, and the promise of his peace. For God’s peace is not an event-free life. Rather, in the midst of life happening, his peace that passes all comprehension will come to us, and sit with us in each present moment, allowing us not to be afraid, not to panic, but to take each next step as it comes to us, guided by Jesus, who still says ‘follow me’.

This peace brings reassurance, in our deepest selves, of greater promises – of Jesus Christ’s presence with us, and of God’s immeasurable love for us, and the assurance that the kingdom of God is among us.

Therefore we dare to celebrate the Eucharist together today, even in the midst of sad farewells, and the processes of consultation and discernment around the Diocesan Office, its restructuring, the potential for redundancies, and all the uncertainties ahead these bring.

We come to the Lord’s Table, not despite, but bringing with us, these things.

We come bringing prayers for Tony and Ann in the unknown future ahead of them, though we pray for a blessed retirement, after such long years of hard work as God’s faithful servant.

We come bringing with us our concerns for the Diocese and its staff. We come with the pressures that our parochial units – our pastoral charges – face, both among their members; and within the communities they serve. We bring the needs for more ordinands, and funding for their training.

We come with bold courage in the risen Christ.

We also come with the big problems of our nation: from inadequate education – of which I saw so much in the Eastern Cape, last week – through to the sweeping issues of democracy and freedom of speech.

But most of all we come, with hearts open to receive Christ’s peace, Christ’s Easter joy, Christ’s newness of life – to receive bread and wine as strength for the journey ahead. We receive them as the foretaste of the kingdom into which, as St Paul taught, we are invited to enter ever more fully, not despite the troubles of the world, but by living through them, held in the infinite love of God.

So let me end where I began – by saying thank you, Tony, from the bottom of my heart. I still remember the first day we met, in September 2007, just after my election. The look on your face clearly said to me ‘Young man, I’m praying for you – you don’t know how much you are letting yourself in for!’ I thank you, and I thank God for you, and for all you have been to me, as a friend, a colleague, and a father.

May he bless you now and always. Amen.

Chrism Eucharist

These are the notes from the sermon at the Chrism Eucharist for the Diocese of Cape Town, held on Maundy Thursday, 28 March 2013, at St Aidan's, Lansdowne.

Introduction

‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news…’ (Lk 4:16)

This morning I want to share with you something of my personal spiritual journey so far this year.

But let me first say ‘Thank you’: to all of you in this Diocese, for the part you play – often in the little things you do – so that God may be revealed in, through, and among, you. Especial thanks to Bishop Garth, who, I like to say, does all the practical work so I can spend more time in prayer! A deep thank you to him, and to Chapter, for taking on the every-day business of the Diocese.

Normally, after the busyness of Christmas, I’ve hardly recovered of the past year when New Year holidays are over, and it is back to work again. This year was wholly different. I went ‘into the desert’, travelling to a secluded place in rural Wales. For 38 days I stayed in a tiny room, with the most beautiful views over the mountains of Snowdonia, the Irish Sea, and, if I dared put my head out into the snowy cold, Liverpool.

A Journey

I travelled to this secluded place in order to make an inward journey – in order to explore what God was wanting to do in my life.

The journey, the retreat, began with an invitation to recognise, and accept more fully, the enormity of God’s love – and to recognise and accept more fully, the enormity of our need of God and God’s love. I found this, in itself, a profound challenge. I realised that, as Archbishop, it is far too easy to fall into seeing myself as ‘playing God’, for in so many ways I find myself as a ‘last court of appeal’ with people asking ‘Archbishop, please decide for us.’

Through the 30-day retreat, we followed various themes, and were guided in our reflections by the Bible, with texts from Genesis and creation, onwards. We spent more than week ‘walking with Jesus’, in Spirit-led prayerful imagination, with passages from the Annunciation through his life and ministry.

The way God met me, challenged me, and changed me, was strange, even weird, but amazingly powerful. Often it was very uncomfortable, because I know that I like to be cerebral, and to think about these passages and what they convey. But it was as if God kept saying ‘Thabo, I want you to feel what is happening!’

Letting myself connect with the feelings that these passages stirred up in prayer, touched my innermost being, in healing and liberating ways. I am still trying to make sense of these encounters with, and lessons from, God – and expect I will go on absorbing them, drawing on these deep wells, for the rest of my life. Some of what I encountered shook me to the core of my being, as passages I thought I knew well, and had preached and taught, impacted upon me in new ways, with new meaning.

Palm Sunday, Holy Week, the Passion

As we reflected on Jesus’ ministry, we had prayed to be called to love and serve others as he does. Then we came to pray through the Passion. At this point, the way we approached our prayers changed. We were ‘to watch and observe’. For someone like me, who I often think has undiagnosed Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, because I am always looking for action, this was very hard.

We asked God for the grace to help us, in our prayer times, to see Jesus more clearly– so that we might grasp more fully all he has done, and at what cost. We asked to be ‘taken captive’ by the readings and live inside them.

For, when we have a greater understanding of what it means for Jesus to be incarnate, take on mortality, and embrace sin, suffering and death, then we have a greater capacity to grasp the promise of resurrection and redemption: newness of life in our humanity, in the face of our sin, suffering, mortality.

If you had asked me to talk about the incarnation, I would readily have done so, with help from google, and drawing on various papers where I’ve written and spoken about it in the past. But now we were invited to walk alongside the incarnate Son of God, to smell, touch, taste, feel, the challenges that he faced, as he embraced sin, suffering and death – including our own sin, and the sin of the world of which we are a part.

My spiritual director invited me to mourn and weep for my own sin, and the corporate sin around. I said to him that he should have asked the opposite, because often when I should weep, I dry up, and when I should dry up, I weep. But I found myself walking around the hills of North Wales, crying and crying, often for things I’d thought were dealt with in my life. I even cried for things that happened before I was born, such as the beheading of King Makgoba in 1895, and the fact that his head has still not been found.

I felt touched by sins of the past, and old hurts, that I thought I’d put behind me. Perhaps I had, in my head. But many pains were still buried deep. And in our week of praying through the Passion, God brought them to the surface, to my conscious awareness.

And he challenged me to bring each one to the cross – to the illuminating light of Christ, which liberates us from sin and death into newness of life. I have now come back feeling I have found a true freedom, able to walk as my true self with Jesus.

The Call to Serve Jesus – 1 – Renewed Vocation

It may sound odd for an Archbishop to say this – but I feel fresh, I feel renewed, in my vocation.

When I look back, I can see that I had often been trapped in understanding ordination too much as being about ‘doing’, about being a ‘professional’. And so I worked hard at the best presiding at the Eucharist with every detail correct, making the best pastoral visits, conducting the best funerals… At times, it was as if I saw myself as a sort of NGO in the religious sector.
It felt as if I’d got my mandate from God, and now he could step back while I got on with it myself. But this retreat helped me see what I had been doing, and has changed that perspective, I hope, for ever.

God touched my heart with an amazing sense of the privilege of ordained ministry. This is something of course I’d known in my head – but I’d never integrated my head with my heart in this way before.

God calls us in a remarkable way. He invites us to allow ourselves to be set apart, for a particular life of faithfulness. It is above all, fidelity to God, the Holy Trinity – and to abide in God’s love, as those days in St Beuno’s enabled me to do in a new way. Through abiding in their love, we come to see and hear and feel, more clearly, more dearly, the God who is Trinity

We also come see and hear the Trinity in ourselves, and in other people who are also made in God’s image. When we truly see the beauty of God in others, and in nature, we can serve God in them in new ways. Indeed, it is as if I and the other are together caught up into the love of the Trinity, as the ‘God in me’; and ‘God in the other’ resonate together in holy love. This is a very precious mystery.

My spiritual director, Stan, who was in a wheelchair, insisted that I spend time drawing what I was feeling through my praying. I objected! How can one draw what is abstract? But he was adamant that I should draw them, or take clay and mould them. Well, I worked at it, and though I cannot say that I came back having discovered a hidden artistic talent, I did discover what it means for creativity – and also walking – to be part of my praying life.

When I came home, my daughter, who knows that I am prone to talking at length in abstract ways, asked me ‘Dad, in summary, what did you do while you were away all that time?’ I said ‘I was caught up in a precious mystery.’ ‘Yes, Dad, but what did you DO?’ Ignatian spirituality is sometimes described as ‘A mysticism of love and service’. It encourages us to express the love of God in deeds, more than in words; and prayer is fundamental in our ability to do this. But unless we pray with resolve to work for justice and peace in society, we will find our praying and our whole prayer life lacks a vital element.

Throughout our retreat we were encouraged to pray for the graces of openness, humility and freedom – especially freedom to step back from being driven by status, power and wealth. So I have returned to Cape Town feeling a little bit wobbly – wanting to be faithful to what I have learnt in the context of the Diocese, the Province, and Southern Africa. I am praying that I can still strive and pray to know that openness, humility and freedom in my life and ministry here.

It was a particular privilege to be in England last week, and participate in the enthronement of the new Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a chance to weave in all that comes from my Anglican roots and identity with what I have been learning on my St Beuno’s journey.

The Call to Serve Jesus – 2 – The Life of Ministry

You may have been reading about Pope Francis and his Jesuit spirituality, with its focus on deep prayer and discernment that is then lived out in serving others, especially the poor. It is rooted in precisely these ‘Spiritual Exercises’ I have undertaken.

I know we all have different spiritualities, but if you can, I do urge you to find time to ‘go into the desert’ for such an encounter with God in some way. For when we experience his love this deeply, and feel ourselves carried by his love, then we will be enabled to share his love in the life of ministry.

This is an important balance to remember – because, on retreat, there is a particular joy of being ‘in the desert’, away from all the hassles of everyday life, family, parish, church, etc! And I certainly came back to find an awful lot going on, and a lot of catching up to do. There was the heartbreak of so many deaths. Anene Booysen, the Mozambican Taxi driver, and Reeva Steenkamp, so tragically killed by our sporting star. were just the tip of the iceberg.

I came back to find the Farlam Commission still unfolding, with heart-breaking agony, the events at Marikana. Around the world, Syria remains in desperate chaos, with millions, half of them children, suffering – and we hope the BRICS summit this week will make a difference so aid can get to them.

I found I had missed Jacob Zuma’s state of nation address, and I even missed one of our own parishioner’s [Mamphela Ramphele’s] launch of a new political platform. More than that, I had also missed the test series v Pakistan, and the kangaroo-meat-in-boerewors scandal!

But the over-riding lesson of my retreat is that God, in his redeeming love, is everywhere. Nothing is beyond his care, or his desire to bring healing and new life to you, to me, to everyone. Indeed, one of the overriding lessons I learnt on retreat is that wherever we most find a need for resurrection, that is where we are most likely to find Jesus at work, and our own invitation to join him.

The Call to Serve Jesus – 3 – Equipping for Ministry

This was a huge undertaking – once in a lifetime. It is definitely not to be attempted more than once a decade! Earlier this week, I was speaking with someone who followed this 30-day retreat 15 years ago, and says that she is still drawing on that time. Not all of us can do it, but all of us can keep walking the journey of deeper inner exploration, led by God.

Within ACSA we have designated 2013 as ‘The Year of Theological Education’. This is not only for our educating heads, but for our whole formation. We need to spend time with God, to let ourselves be challenged, let God take us outside our comfort zones.

Perhaps you can read a book that stirs us up. Perhaps, instead of going to Wales, you can make a pilgrimage, even to Zonnebloem where Bernard Mizeki was baptised. Perhaps you should go to where you were born, or the place from which you were forcibly removed, and claim it in prayer: feel and claim and own the pains that you still carry, and then bring them to the cross so you can find healing for the hurt, and be set free to move on. Perhaps you can go to the Holy Land – though, I emphasise, not as a tourist! We need to travel ‘naked before God’, with a Bible in one hand, and newspaper in other

May today – at Maundy Thursday services this evening, Good Friday, Easter – be the first steps of this journey for you.

Conclusion

As I conclude, I am thankful that I have been able to hold in check the welter of emotions around this journey that I have made, while still being able to share with you something of the depths of what I have felt and experienced on this journey.

Today we are here to renew our ordination vows: to hear afresh his call of love to us
• We say Yes: to this privilege of profound mystery, lives set apart for fidelity and grace.
• We say Yes: to let God love us more, and catch us up into the life of the Trinity
• We say Yes: to let God heal us more, to bring us greater liberty, freedom
• We say Yes: to let God reveal himself to us more deeply, in ourselves, in others
• We say Yes: to letting ourselves be called to join in Christ’s redeeming work

‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news...’

Chrism Eucharist and Renewal of Clergy Vows

The following sermon was preached at the Chrism Eucharist with the Renewal of Clergy Vows, at St Thomas' Church, Rondebosch, on 5 April 2012.

Isaiah 61:1-9; Revelation 1:4b-8; Luke 4:16-21

May I speak in the name of the living God, who is, and was and is to come. Amen.

[Expressions of thanks to all who share in the work of the Diocese, and to all who helped in the preparation of this service.]

Once again we hear those familiar words, from Old and New Testaments: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me’. The Spirit of the Lord comes upon Jesus Christ, so that he might fulfil his calling. And we believe that the Spirit of the Lord comes upon us, so we, in our turn, too may fulfil our own God-given vocation.

God’s Spirit comes upon all Christians – dwelling within each one of us, as signified in our baptism. And we pray for God’s Spirit to come in a particular way upon those called to ordained ministry. But we also believe God’s Spirit comes upon the body of Christ, so that together, we, his church, may also fulfil our God-given calling.

It is easy to forget this, in our individualistic society. But today is a good day to consider this, as we come together specifically in the Eucharistic fellowship of the Diocese, in the koinonia of communion, in which we are inevitably bound with one another through together being ‘in Christ’. Looking back, and looking ahead, as my fifth year here begins, I am confident of the work of the Holy Spirit among us – indwelling our structures, our processes, our institutional life.

I reflected on some of this at Diocesan Standing Committee – how we have moved forward with a sense of doing ‘service delivery with the gospel’ within our churches, within our city, especially through the life that God’s Spirit is breathing into Chapter 20 of the Diocesan Acts, with its provisions for various task teams. We have made huge progress with the Social Development Forum. We are taking important steps forward with music and liturgy; and with corporate governance practices – King III, the Audit Committee, and the Remuneration Committee. We are now seeking out skilled individuals to serve on these, and on the Stewardship Giving Committee. And though we are budgeting for a deficit in running costs this year, this does not undermine the bigger picture which is that our overall Diocesan finances are actually in a very good place. Through all of these, and through the ‘Renew Africa Season’ that will begin later this year, we are strengthening our capacity for renewal and growth.

And so we see the Spirit’s work among us, not only in what we see as the obviously ‘spiritual’ - being rooted in Scripture and in prayer – but also across the whole breadth of the life of faith, the life of ‘worship, witness and service’. This calls us to be faithful stewards of our resources – and I don’t just mean the environment, though that is vital, but in the ordering of our time, our working lives, our critical engagement with society. We must use all these resources well, so that we can strive towards our God-given potential, to fulfil our God-given vocation of preaching redemption from sin and death, and demonstrating God’s limitless loving care for God’s people, and God’s creation.

God’s Spirit is upon us, calling us forward, often into untrodden territory. God’s Spirit challenges us to use old tools to dig deep and find newness of life. God’s Spirit is pressing us to have a prophetic ministry – perhaps declaring the gospel in new areas.

For myself, I had not expected when I came to Cape Town to spend so much time on questions of water and sanitation – which has led some to call me ‘the toilets Archbishop’! Yet I am sure that Jesus, who was not afraid to embrace unclean lepers, would not have held back when seeing people in such need; with their safety and dignity compromised by the lack of these basic constitutional provisions.

And I did not expect to spend so much time with the Press Freedom Commission (and I am happy to say we have now sent our report for editing and printing; and I hope you will read it when it is published). The same is true of opposing the Protection of State Information Bill. Yet Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life – and so how can we allow the suppression of the truth, which will only undermine the ability of our society to live in ways that promote abundant life for all?

Within the Church, as both ACSA and our Diocese move from vision and planning to implementation, I find myself called to spend more time and energy on fund-raising. I also find I need to do more reflecting and acting on how faith relates to money and wider economic questions – which, I have to say, is an area I generally prefer to leave to others!

To be a Christian, to place ourselves in the hands of the living God, to be open to his Spirit coming upon us, is a risky business! It is to lay ourselves open to being taken outside our comfort zones. This is as true of us as congregations and Diocese, as it is of us as individuals. And it is as true of our outer lives as it is of our inner spiritual journeys.

There is no part of our lives – together, or as individuals – in which God’s Spirit will not interfere! He interferes for our own good, and for the good of those to whom he sends us! Therefore, today, we recommit ourselves to live dangerously, following wherever God’s Spirit leads!

This requires us, in our busy schedules, in the turmoil of changing society, to make space and time to be open to the Spirit coming upon us; to listen to that still, small voice; and to be ready to respond when we hear the call ‘follow me’. There should be no tension between preaching the good news of eternal life and the coming of God’s kingdom; and the living out of the kingdom’s eternal values, such as justice and mercy – in whatever circumstances we find ourselves.

Sometimes, I know, I get the balance of life wrong – in my spirituality, and in how I direct my time and energies. And when I get it wrong, I feel it. Imbalance in my spiritual equilibrium tells me; unease in my body tells me – and my staff and my family tell me too, often in more explicit ways!!

But the answer is not to draw back, and attempt to live a safe life on the surface. There we are too much at the mercy of being tossed about on the ups and downs of the waves caused by the fickle changing winds in today’s turbulent world. Instead, we need deeper sea anchors – that reach down into the bottomless depths of God’s flowing Spirit – depths where we perhaps cannot see clearly, but where we feel the certainty of God’s presence, steadily engaging us.

St Augustine said that the presence and knowledge of God is ‘both sought in order that it may be found more sweetly, and found in order that it may be sought more eagerly’. The more we find him, the more we yearn for him, and the more we seek him – this is surely the pattern of our lives. For, as St Augustine also said, if we think we have understood God, then what we have understood is not God – for God is always taking us beyond ourselves, and beyond our capacity to pin him down.

We need to remember this, for sometimes it can be dangerous to say ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me’ – for it can tempt us to believe that we have somehow ‘arrived’. Yet becoming a Christian, or being ordained, is not an arrival – it is a beginning!

So, on the one hand, all Christians are to follow Jesus Christ, empowered by the same Spirit, in bringing good news wherever there is impoverishment; in proclaiming release to all who are held captive, imprisoned, trapped and confined; in declaring the recovery of sight to the blind, and so forth. But on the other hand, we also still need to keep hearing this good news, in finding release, in having our blindness healed, and so on.

Indeed, I have been personally challenged by this realisation, in pondering what it means to do ‘service delivery with the gospel’ at the level of parish / pastoral charge and local community; and of individuals within parishes / pastoral charges and local communities. If we want individuals and communities to know and experience for themselves what such promises mean, it is not enough for us just to declare them. We too must model what it means to receive the gospel, and go on receiving it in ever greater fullness.

Do we, as clergy, as Christian leaders, show our people what it means to acknowledge our own poverty and receive God’s good news? Do we demonstrate in our own lives God’s release, God’s liberty, from what holds us back, from what oppresses or traps or constrains us? Do we live allowing our own blind spots to be touched, and have our eyes opened to new ways of seeing? Do we show that we are prepared to be taken outside our comfort zones – in our inner life, and in our outer life – following God’s calling, however disconcerting? And do we help the communities within our local churches demonstrate what it means to receive the good news of the gospel – so that we can be a model for the wider communities around us to receive this good news?

I suspect it is sometimes far easier to preach these things to others, than to receive them ourselves! But if we are not open to receive, how can we expect others also to receive?

Perhaps this Triduum, the challenge for us who are preaching and teaching is to listen for ourselves to the word we believe God is giving us to share with others! Perhaps in the next few days we need to reflect more not on how we can bring this good news to others, but more on where we need to receive it ourselves. For we know that there is no limit to the redemptive work that God desires to do among his people – until everything in heaven and earth is reconciled to God by the blood of the cross (Col 1:20).

So this year, let our lives not only reflect what it means to communicate the continuing work of Christ’s passion, his death and resurrection – but also what it means to receive that continuing work within our own lives: as clergy, as Christians, as congregations, and as a Diocese. In the coming days, we shall, with great solemnity and great joy, commemorate the glorious story of our redemption through Christ’s death and resurrection.

My prayer for us all is that our lives may be places where the unfolding of this glorious story, this holy mystery, may be truly visible.

So may we be those, of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke in the last verse of our first reading: ‘All who see them shall acknowledge that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.’ And may we bless others, by showing them how they too may receive God’s blessing. A holy and blessed Easter to you all. Amen