Dedication of Emmanuel Church, Umlazi

Sermon preached by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba at the dedication of Emmanuel Church, Umlazi, on Saturday May 19 in the Diocese of Natal:

Readings: 1 Kings 8: 22 -30, Ps 122, 1 Pet 2:4-10, Luke 19:1-10

May I speak in the name of God, Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer of our lives, Amen.
Bishop Dino, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, dear people of God: it is a great joy for me to be here with you as we give thanks to God for this place of worship.
Let me also acknowledge Prince Buthelezi and Fr Ncaca, who presided at Lungi and my wedding 28 years ago.

Emmanuel Church, Umlazi.

It is an honour and privilege to have been asked to celebrate with you at this historic moment in the life of this community and the Diocese. Thank you, Bishop Dino and your entire team for inviting me. Thank you everyone for the wonderful and warm welcome we received on our arrival here. Thank you also to those who gave of their time and were involved in the preparation for today.
I thank God for the unsung heroes and heroines who have kept the gospel light burning here through their lives, their zeal, their prayers and their service and witness.

Christ Church, Kenilworth

Sermon preached by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba at a Confirmation Service of St John's Parish, Wynberg, Cape Town:

2 Thessalonians 3: 6-13, Luke 21:5-19

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:

It is good to be with you today. Thank you, the Revd Rob Taylor and your Churchwardens, for inviting me to be here.  Thank you everyone for your warm welcome.

Sermon at the 150th Anniversary Service of the Cathedral of St Andrew and St Michael, Bloemfontein

Theme: Standing in the watchpost and stationed at the ramparts

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4 Psalm 119:137-144 2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12 Luke 19:1-10

In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who calls us to be faithful. Amen

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, dear people of God in the Cathedral of St Andrew and St Michael:

It is a great joy to be here for this great milestone as you celebrate your 150th anniversary. It is an honour and a privilege to have been asked to share the Word of God with you in this historic place. And what a history you have! I learn that your first foundation stone was laid during the earliest days of the Free State, when you were part of the Orange River Sovereignty, and that the Cathedral was built during the time of the Orange Free State Republic. Your forebears then lived through the years of the Orange River Colony, then in one of the four provinces within the united South Africa, and finally now you are one of nine provinces of the new South Africa.

Sermon for the Easter Vigil, St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

Luke 24: 1-9  
 

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

Sisters and Brothers in Christ, as we hear again the glorious story of the Resurrection and its message of new beginnings, may each one of you experience the fullness of Christ’s gift of abundant life. May you know the joy, the hope and the peace that the Season of Easter brings.

What would Madiba think of South Africa today?

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, on the second anniversary of the death of Nelson Mandela, St George's Cathedral, Cape Town on 6th December, 2015:

In the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,  Amen.

We meet today as people of faith, joining with brothers and sisters around the world, to pause and remember Madiba on the second anniversary of his death.  It is fitting that we should do this at the Cathedral because it is here that we, people of faith and of none, have over the past half century proclaimed a message of justice -- from this pulpit, from the platform below and from the steps outside.

To the Laos – To the People of God, Easter 2015

Dear People of God

Alleluia, Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

I wish you all a blessed Eastertide. This year I have recorded a short Reflection for Easter, particularly on the Gospel reading, Mark 16: 1-8, for our new audio ministry on SoundCloud: you can listen to it online, or download it to your computer or mobile device, here >> You can also read my message at the Easter Vigil at St. George's Cathedral, Cape Town here on the blog.

In a significant development in the life of our Church, we recently licensed the Revd Roger Cameron as the Chief Executive Officer of the Anglican Board of Education in Southern Africa (ABESA). I am exhilarated by this move because ABESA has the potential to reclaim the Church's role in education. I congratulate Roger on his appointment, and I urge you all to support and work with ABESA in its threefold objectives:

• To support existing church schools,
• To galvanize parish and community involvement, and
• To establish high quality accessible Christian schools.

For this Ad Laos, I want to share with you my message to the clergy of the Diocese of Cape Town on the occasion of the Chrism Mass on Maundy Thursday, during which we renewed our ordination vows:

Isaiah 61:1-9; Psalm 89:21-27; Luke 4:16-21

May I speak in the name of God, who anoints His only Son –  High Priest of the New Covenant – and gives us a share in His consecration that we might be faithful witnesses to His saving work.  Amen. 

It is wonderful to be amongst all of you at this Service of the Renewal of Vows.  It is a great joy indeed to see almost all clergy and retired clergy of this Diocese. I feel privileged that we are called together to share in His consecration and to be faithful witnesses to His saving power. And I really appreciate the privilege of being here with you all.

My heartfelt thanks to Bishop Garth for his support and outstanding leadership amongst us; to Chapter, kitchen cabinet, diocesan staff and to all, especially the Dean and Canon Precentor who did the preparatory work to make this service a success. We also acknowledge the presence of Bishop Christopher Gregorowski, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond and staff from Bishopscourt.

Listen to Archbishop Thabo's sermon for Christmas

This year you can listen to and download the sermon preached by Archbishop Thabo Makgoba at midnight Mass at St. George's Cathedral.

You can also click here for the SABC Television news report on YouTube, or scroll down for the full text of the sermon.

Welcome the Season of Light by Becoming a Society of Long Spoons

A sermon for Christmas 2014, St George's Cathedral, Cape Town:

Luke 2:1-20

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

A couple of days after my birthday earlier this month, our children drove me up Signal Hill. As usual there were a lot of people up there and, as the children wandered around the hill, I stood watching the sea. It was dusk, the sea was calm and it seemed to be enveloping us. As I looked out, the intermittent flashing of the Robben Island lighthouse could not be missed, and I could not resist the temptation to recall that the island from which that tiny light was flashing was where Madiba and his compatriots languished in darkness for years. Yet this is where the hope of our country was ignited. And as the sun set and it grew darker, the tiny light became even more visible than before.

Our Gospel reading evokes an image of how in the midst of crowds readying themselves for the Roman census, the light of the world, the hope of the world, Jesus is born. God becomes vulnerable, human to illumine our world. God is to be “numbered” or counted, unknown to those who will take the census. We now know the barriers that these lights broke, the tiny light flashing from the island but reaching the top of Signal Hill, and the light and hope born in a stable reflecting God's glory.

And that is where I would like to begin tonight, by welcoming the hope that Christmas brings. The American poet Maya Angelou, who died this past year, once wrote a description of love on her Facebook page which we can appropriate as a perfect metaphor for the advent of the Christ child in our world. Substituting the word “Christmas” for the word “love”, we can read it like this: “Christmas recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.” And hope, as Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu once said, “is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

But hope, as the South African theologian, Denise Ackermann, says, “is not that blithe sense that all will end well (or alles sal regkom) because human progress is guaranteed.” To say as Christians that we must live in hope does not imply that we should sit by passively and indulge in wishful thinking for that which has no prospect of being realized to come about. As Denise Ackermann says, “The way I hope should be the way I live. To live out my hope is to try to make that which I hope for come about – sooner rather than later.” It is “a lived reality in the life of faith, here and now.” It is “never to surrender our power to imagine a better world”. Hope confronts wrong and the abuse of power; it is risky and requires patience and endurance.

In our national life, it’s been a difficult year for South Africa. Many times in our daily lives we seem to have been living in a country whose leaders, despite the emancipation of democracy, do not look after the needs of their people.  Much of the time those leaders don't seem to have a vision, or any sense of destiny – or even a practical plan they are truly committed to implementing. In what I call the “old” struggle – the struggle for democracy – it was the ability of our leaders to see “the light” ahead that drove them. Nowadays, the new generation of leaders seems to govern without any sense of being guided by that light, or for that matter any light at all. In fact, I get confused by the darkness that our leaders bring as the sun rises every morning.

But did Madiba ever lose a sense of hope in the way I have just described it? Did Robert Sobukwe lose hope? Did Oliver Tambo lose hope? Did Steve Biko? Or Beyers Naude, or Trevor Huddleston? Did my ancestor, Kgoši Mamphoku Makgoba, who was killed while resisting settler incursions on our land, lose hope? We can look and learn from the lives of all of our anti-apartheid heroes and say none of them ever, ever lost hope.

But there is another characteristic they shared that is particularly powerful in converting hope to reality, and that is courage. Courage is like fire. It was courage which ignited the old struggle and kept it burning until we emerged from the darkness of apartheid. Courage enables us to set ourselves, our community and our nation on fire. And it's the light of courage that we need to rekindle this Christmas.

The South Africa that I have been living in these last years has forgotten how to be courageous. We have allowed ourselves to live in and accept a society that is punished, penalized and severely disciplined for being courageous. I had the privilege of being asked by Mama Graça Machel over the last few years of Madiba's life to visit them every now and then in Bishopscourt, in Houghton and in Qunu, and to pray with them. My time with him reminded me of so many of the lessons which he tried to share with us, but none was more important than that encapsulated in these words, which have inspired so many:

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

He also reminded me that it also takes courage to grow up and become who you really are. So with his wisdom as guidance, I want to share with you some thoughts for the holidays on this Christmas Eve.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said that “Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that.” And I might add, courage. Courage and light can break the cycle of poverty, crime and the growing underclass of young people ill equipped to be productive citizens. Only light will enable to us to be repulsed enough by what we see around us to say, “My children and grandchildren deserve better.”  Only by being pro-courage can we really be anti-corruption. We truly begin living when we say, “Enough is enough and I want more for my family, my community and my country!” It's at that moment that we step up and take responsibility for not only ourselves but for our country's destiny. It's at that moment that, as I have been saying recently, that we stop being a country of “me” and become a country of “we”.

Our purpose on earth is for all of us to become part of something bigger than ourselves. But we are not living as if we believe that. We become so discouraged about the injustices we see everywhere that we give up and say, “That’s their problem.” We have become a “me”-driven society which accepts and perpetuates the cruel weight of the massive inequalities we have inherited; a “me” society which accepts economic inequality, the service delivery inequality, the healthcare inequality, the education inequality and most seriously, the inequality of opportunity.

At this time of the year, as we celebrate the birth of Christ, how do we channel the joyousness, the spirit of feeling connected with one another into a spirit of reflection which empowers us to focus not on the “me” but rather on the “we”- the body of Christ?  How can we use the model of this month's behaviours, attitudes and convictions to define how we live the other 11 months of the year?

The fundamental question being asked of us in South Africa today is: What is the difference between an open-hearted, giving society and an open-handed, taking society? I’d like to ask the question a little differently: What is the difference between an open-hearted life where we see ourselves part of a greater collective community (which I will call heaven on earth) and an open-handed life in which we accept social income without accepting the responsibility for our decisions (which I will describe as hell)?

The answer lies in the Parable of the Long Spoons. It is said that both in heaven and in hell, people are forced to eat with long spoons. In hell, people starve because they are unable to lift food to their mouths using such unwieldy cutlery. But in heaven, each person takes the long spoon and feeds another across the table. And that's how in heaven God ensures, through the actions of those there with him, that everyone has plenty to eat.

In the end, the message is that we should feed, respect and care for each other, both in a practical and collective sense. That is what a genuine community of communities does. Because that is what we are: a community of communities, the baptised – the body of Christ as Paul says. Another word for it is a nation; a “we” society. This is our challenge if we are to channel the joy of this birth as recorded in Luke’s gospel, into the joy of a lifetime.

Many feel that for our nation to have survived under apartheid and to have been reborn was a once-in-a-lifetime miracle. I used to believe that. But not anymore. Our achievements have been gained through struggle, guided by hope and following the light. In our faith, that light is Jesus, who at this time breaks into our lives and gives us courage to break all barriers.

So this Christmas let us commit ourselves to a new struggle; a new struggle for a new generation; a struggle to end the economic inequities and related consumerism, to end the inequalities of service delivery, health care and education – but most of all a struggle to bring about equality of opportunity. Human progress is never guaranteed unless there is struggle. Every step we take towards the goal of ending inequality requires sacrifice, requires suffering, and most of all requires struggle. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. The good news is, as Christians we struggle with a firm hope, that Christ our light and our hope, has already triumphed and broken all barriers.

So whether “in this Roman census”, you are recorded as being 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 or 70 years old, the question is, do you have the courage to take up this challenge? Are you ready to define your children's destinies? Then, metaphorically speaking, light up your lamps and become bearers of hope this Christmas season.

God bless you, your family and South Africa, and may you have a blessed Christmas.

Archbishop Thabo's Reflection on the Fourth Sunday in Advent

The final reflection on Advent 2014.

Readings: 2 Samuel 7: 1-11 & 16; Romans 16: 25-27; The Song of Mary (Magnificat); Luke 1: 26-38

Sermon at the Easter Vigil, St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

Sermon prepared for the Easter Vigil at St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town:

Christ is risen! We are risen indeed, Alleluia!

Thank you all for being here on this most holy night, when we recall and celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. A special welcome to those with blisters after running the Two Oceans Marathon or those who choose the option of the much gentler Walk of Witness or even those who did both. Thanks to the Cathedral staff and the Dean and all the regular worshippers here, who ensure through their sacrificial giving, that we have such a beautiful place in which to worship God.

I now ask you to observe a moment of silence, as we call to mind our own Lenten journeys, our personal or communal journeys, up to this Easter vigil.

When I lit the fire earlier in the service, I prayed, “Father, we share the light of your glory, through your Son, the Light of the world. Inflame us with new hope and purify our minds by this Easter celebration and bring us to the feast of eternal light.”

What does this mean? What is the Easter message from us to the world and what are Word and liturgy as well as the sacraments tonight saying Easter is? For me, Easter is an opportunity for us to turn ourselves inside out and expose our body, souls and mind to Christ the light of the world. Because as individuals, as families and as society, we need healing, consolation and transformation. We need our lights to be rekindled so that we can re-imagine the feast of eternal light.

We thus enter this celebration cognisant of our Lenten laments but confident that new hope is possible. We are renewed and purified as we rise with Christ from the dead for we were baptised with him in his death.

Easter then is also the assurance that our pain, despair, hollowness, distrust, fear or anything that takes us away from the love of Christ is now in the grave, buried – and that the risen Lord, the Christ, like an earthquake that rolled the grave stone away, bursts anew into our lives.

Easter for me then is a celebration of restoration and transformation. It is a time of rebirth. Christ forgives us, the penitent; He heals our brokenness and refocuses our vision. (Luke 24:5: Why do you look for the living among the dead?) Easter is also a time for renewal and holy recall, a remembering or renewal of our minds.

Luke 24:6-8, states, "Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” Luke further tells us the women remembered this and they reminded the eleven disciples of it, but the men mistakenly dismissed the women's reminder as "an idle tale".

The women in Luke's Gospel powerfully demonstrate the message of Easter. Let us walk with them briefly in today’s Gospel – from an act of service, they took the spices to the tomb, they encounter a transformed grave, they express their true feelings of fear, and emotions are then transformed and they too encounter the Lord when they are reminded of the Word. Then, renewed and with this knowledge, they go and share the news.

In this Easter celebration, as you share the light of God’s glory, through the Risen Lord, the Light of the world, may you be inflamed with new
hope and be purified to continue to take His message into the world until he brings us to the feast of eternal light.

Today at the Walk of Witness from District Six to Parliament, I shared the Lenten laments that God’s people bring to me; I wish also to share these with you, so that together we may bring them before the risen Christ for healing and transformation.

In the past six months, many people have said to me: "Your Grace, I'm so very tired of seeing the moral pollution. I am so tired of seeing the pervasive unethical contamination. It is so painful to see the inequality." They ask. They plead: "Archbishop, we should be joyfully celebrating the 20th year of democracy and liberation... but I've never felt so depressed by the crisis of distrust in our country's government." They ask, "Where do we go from here?"

Where do we go from here?

The welter of emotions to which their questions give rise is what the disciples and the women at the tomb might have felt. Using our language in South Africa today, the women at the tomb may have asked the authorities, "How much longer must we live out our daily existence, suffering from such a lack of transparency? When is President Zuma going to break his silence on the Nkandla report?" They could be asking, "How have we in South Africa found ourselves in such a void of morality? Why have we seen a collapse in the moral navigation our leaders are supposed to give us? And why has there been such a collapse of trust in government and political parties?"

As followers of Christ and the Easter Message, how are we to meet the demand that we go and tell that he has transformed our fear into knowledge and courage?

I want to pose tonight one of the questions I asked outside Parliament earlier today. On this most holy night, as I pray for the transformation of our country, especially at this time, I ask: Since our values should guide every decision made by our government leaders, and our historic Constitution clearly articulates our national values, what can our government leaders learn from the flawed decisions on Nkandlagate, that apparently didn't consider our national values?

As we prepare for the celebration of our 20th year of democracy and liberation, let us also hold a vision before us, of the resurrected Christ who has overcome. Let us approach those places and issues, the tombs, with renewed courage, and ask the difficult questions as we prepare to go out to inflame others with Christ our light.

Let us illumine this light not only in our country. On behalf of our brothers and sisters in Nigeria, where dozens are being killed in massacres every week, let us boldly ask: “Who is Boko Haram? Who benefits from their killings and the senseless kidnapping of young schoolgirls?” On behalf of our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, let us ask: “Is aggression to be rewarded? How should the international community respond to ensure the legitimate desires and demands
of all the people of that nation are met?”

Let us in unison decry such atrocities as are being perpetrated in northern Nigeria, and seek such knowledge as the women in the tomb displayed, knowledge that will draw men and sceptics to the risen Christ.

To conclude, I want to make a call to all Anglicans in our country, to exercise their hard-earned privilege and right to vote. After prayerfully reflecting on the party you want to vote for, please go to the polls and vote. And vote we must: too many people have suffered and died for us to stay away from the polls out of apathy.

While nothing stops you from spoiling your ballot paper out of protest, in the coming week the Independent Electoral Commission is due to publish the full list of parties which are standing in the election. We will have dozens to choose from: let us examine their policies, their behaviour and the behaviour of their leaders. Above all, let us engage with our consciences and be guided by these rather than by fear and blind loyalty when we make our mark on the ballot paper.

Christ is risen! We are risen indeed! Alleluia!

Amen

+Thabo Cape Town

[UPDATED] Sermon at Midnight Mass, George's Cathedral, Cape Town, December 25, 2013

Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14 and Luke 2:1-20

May I speak in the name of God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of endless Peace, whose authority grows continually in His world! Amen.

What a joy and privilege it is to be here and share this Christmas Eve service with you all! Thanks to the Dean and his staff, all who make our fellowship and worship in this Cathedral Church such a great occasion for peace and joy! Congratulations too, Mr Dean and Bonita, on your 29th wedding anniversary.

We join you in thanking God for the gift and sacrament of marriage and of family life, all the more so today, for tonight we ponder on the news of the holy family starting their family life with a child born in a manger.

Wow, what an end to the year – especially with regard to the passing on of Madiba our icon. Let us be silent for a while as we further acknowledge the 9th day since his burial in Qunu and especially as we lift Ma Graca Machel and Madiba’s broader family in our prayers. [Silence]

Let me continue, for in the midst of death we have life in Jesus Christ our Lord and believe that both the living and the dead are in his hands, and are comforted with these words.

So, a happy and blessed Christmas to all of you who are present in this service, for you too are part of the broader family of God through the birth of Jesus Christ, which we are celebrating tonight. To our regular cathedral family members – even if for some, “regular” means attending midnight Mass regularly every year – welcome, we appreciate your presence tonight.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, now Lord Rowan Williams, used to tell a story which I am paraphrasing – and which my wife says I have told you too many times. Rowan would say, if someone rushed hurriedly into this cathedral, and yelled “Shut the door, run for cover, or dash out," very few would remain seated.

Today’s Gospel passage speaks into this situation, to our fear of the unknown, or a fear of the known which we have kept closely guarded. The Lucan gospel announces boldly tonight: "Do not be afraid."

In modern IT language - which of course is not apt theological language, but as an archbishop in a family raising two teenagers at the moment, I can use colloquial language - God is declaring, through his billboard, or his App, for the the whole world to see and hear, "I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people” – not just some people.

God declares, in the company of his heavenly host that he has seen in our world religion being politicised and the persecution of Christians globally escalated;

He has smelt the rot and pain of inequality in our midst and the resultant humiliation and exclusion of many from the economic order in his world of plenty;

God declares that he has sensed our anxiety and fear, our shame and disgrace when we cannot afford a maternity ward and have to give birth in a shack or a taxi after being sent off home from a local clinic;

God puts his feelings on his sleeve and opens up his heart, and his heart is as heavy and broken as are ours by our personal struggles and the global systemic problems of this mortal life. God sends us his heavenly host to call us back from our straying away from what creation was intended to be; to unveil a road back home.

Throughout our lessons, the consistent theme for today is: I am intervening, I am not an aloof God who is untouchable, distant and unresponsive to your longing.

As the Psalmist says elsewhere in the Bible, God says to us, "I will unloose your bonds." Today's passage from Isaiah puts this declaration succinctly, God declares: I will break the bar across your shoulder, lift your burdens and cast off darkness and fear and illumine you with Christ our light!

Christmas can thus be understood as the birth of good news. It is appropriately celebrated when we proclaim, in words and action, this good news, that God who is love, has pitched his shack in our midst for all people and his creation.

God loved us so much that his son, Jesus Christ, is born of human flesh and blood and encounters the joys and also the angst of human life.

In entering this world of time and space, he holds before us a mirror so that we catch a glimpse of both the divine and a true and full humanity. His birth as one of us transforms and offers us an opportunity to be moulded into the image of his holiness.

That is why we have reason to celebrate this day, this good news, even if life has dealt us a blow in one way or the other in human terms.

God, in this birth that we are celebrating tonight, declares that we can never be alone in our anguish or want, nor will we be left to our own devices, to discriminate against or to lord over the other, until we are wiped off the face of this earth. He is Emmanuel. He is with us. He is the one to whom we sing throughout Advent, “O come, o come Emmanuel!” and frees us from all that keeps us in captivity. In Christmas it is as if he says, "I am he! I am cometh!"

How should we respond to this Revelation, to this good news? Luke's passage from today gives us a way: the heavenly host responded to the news by breaking into worship and praise, saying (Luke 2:12 ff), “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!" The shepherds too in (Luke 2:20) “returned, glorifying and praising God..."

Our faith response to this good news of great joy should thus be to worship God, as we are doing right now, with awe, joy and reverence. In fact our ACSA vision statement has as one of its priorities “transformative worship”.

Yes, our faith response should be to worship God and use liturgies, hymns and prayers that transcend our everyday-ness into a realm in which God in Jesus Christ, through the quiet whisper of the Holy Spirit, reigns and utters the words, “Do not be afraid, for I bring you good news of your liberation.”

The shepherds in our Gospel passage (Luke 2:17), we are told, "Made known (proclaimed) what they had been told and seen, about this child.”

We too are urged to proclaim anew and afresh, in our time and context for all to hear, this good news, this loving and saving act of God in Jesus Christ. This good news cannot be for private consumption only. We need to go out and tell, as we sing occasionally in this cathedral at the top of our voices, the good news that God's kingdom has come!!!

So first, let us in unison create melody as we sing to God, joining the beautiful voices of our choir and the organ accompaniment - as well as those who have worshipped here and are now at rest, and indeed the heavenly host, angels and shepherds - in thanksgiving and praise.

We cannot end here in this safe worship space, we can always start here, old or young, healthy or sickly, poor or rich, and by word as in the letter to Titus, we should also clothe ourselves with all that is more loving and peace-giving towards humanity and the whole of creation. We should, as I have said in the secular media, "peel off those scales in our lives that are old, cynical, tired and negative," and even fearful, and be ready to be light-bearers in God's broken but hopeful world.

In our Gospel reading tonight, the shepherds never sought permission from Emperor Augustus or Governor Quirinius to tell the good news, nor should we in times such as these. The shepherds became new persons, transformed and touched by the news and sight of Jesus Christ.

We too are constantly touched by the mystery of his birth each time we eat his bread and drink his cup until he manifests himself again. So like the shepherds, let this transformative encounter with Jesus Christ in Word, Worship and Sacrament, "compel you to go out and tell the good news."

Go and proclaim the demands for peace with justice and uphold these demands in your lives and community; go and proclaim in loving service the demands for equality, fairness and dignity for all, where the “emperors and governors” in church or state, in business or labour, are corrupt and abusing their power instead of serving God in his people.

As those whose plight God has seen and heard, and also as those fed by the body and blood of our Lord and Saviour, as those who are hearers of the good news tonight, and as those who are empowered for witness and service, we are sent to go and ask God's transformative questions and demand answers for God's sake in his created world.

What shall we ask?

Ask, who is benefitting from the new conflict in South Sudan, from the discord in the Central African Republic, from the killings of Syria, the bombings in Egypt, the xenophobic violence inflicted on economic refugees in our country and continent?

Ask deeper and piercing questions, without fear: about the extent and level of poverty, militarisation and corruption – for when you encounter Jesus Christ, the Comforter, Prince of Peace, the liberator who transforms us, you can never be superficial, nor be the same again.

My message to you is our gift on this special birthday, that we are all being sent to go out then and plead for the cause of the poor, of those without proper sanitation, of those learning in mud schools, the cause of the abused and those affected and infected by HIV and AIDS; for those suffering the pain and humiliation of economic inequality, or those exploited by economic practices. We have to ask, who are the investors and shareholders in exploitative companies, especially in the extractive industries, following the Marikana massacre?

Do not be afraid, for the zeal of the Lord will do this. Good news indeed! You are not alone and so go out, proclaim this celebration of God's utter and unreserved self-giving, the divine Word, mysteriously both human and divine, as the Word transforms your fears and makes you ready to be his salt and light in the here and now.

This birthday gift is a God who transforms us by his presence in our midst and calls us to imitate his holiness.

So let me end by going back to where I started:

Do not be afraid, for the zeal of the Lord will do this; it will enable you to speak for those like the holy family upon whom we are pondering tonight; for those who have no homes, those whose tin and plastic shacks have burnt down today in Valhalla Park, Cape Town, or those who have failed to pay their mortgage instalments and whose only homes the banks have repossessed.

May renewed courage be your gift and special grace this Christmas.

May you yearn earnestly for justice and peace, holiness of life and joy, as you bring his light to this created world.

Finally, may His conception, birth, life, teaching, passion, death, resurrection and ascension transform you and us this day and for evermore.

Amen

+Thabo Cape Town

This text has been updated since first published to reflect the sermon as preached, with minor changes for readability in written form.