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.
Showing posts with label St George's Cathedral. Show all posts
Showing posts with label St George's Cathedral. Show all posts
Saturday, 2 March 2019
Sunday, 24 December 2017
Archbishop's Christmas sermon, 2017
The South African Broadcasting Corporation's Christmas Day news report on the Archbishop's sermon - featured below - is followed by the full text of the sermon.
Full text of Archbishop Thabo Makgoba's Christmas sermon, preached at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, December 24, at St George's Cathedral, Cape Town:
Isaiah 62:6-12, Psalm 97, Titus 3:4-7, Luke 2:(1-7), 8-20 or John 1:1-14
May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Full text of Archbishop Thabo Makgoba's Christmas sermon, preached at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, December 24, at St George's Cathedral, Cape Town:
Isaiah 62:6-12, Psalm 97, Titus 3:4-7, Luke 2:(1-7), 8-20 or John 1:1-14
May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Thursday, 6 April 2017
Archbishop prays for "a powerful, united coalition which puts first the interests of the poor"
A prayer offered at the beginning of a memorial service for the late Ahmed Kathrada in St George's Cathedral, Cape Town:
Loving and compassionate God of the Universe, Triune God, Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer,
Whose arm bends the arc of justice towards the poor and the oppressed,
and whose ear is ever inclined to the cry of those who are burdened under the weight of injustice,
Friday, 25 December 2015
'Corruption has infected government in epidemic proportions'
From St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, Esley Philander of the SABC reports on the Archbishop's Christmas homily:
South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba delivered a sobering midnight mass sermon at the Saint George's Cathedral in Cape Town on Thursday night warning that corruption has infected government in "epidemic proportions". (full text follows video clip)
South African Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba delivered a sobering midnight mass sermon at the Saint George's Cathedral in Cape Town on Thursday night warning that corruption has infected government in "epidemic proportions". (full text follows video clip)
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
Archbishop Thabo on the national symbol of St George's Cathedral
In Cape Town, Pippa Hudson of the radio station Cape Talk interviewed the Archbishop on the role that St George's Cathedral played and continues to play in South Africa's democracy. The Cathedral has launched a campaign called Under One Roof to raise money to replace the tiles on its roof.
Monday, 31 March 2014
To the Laos – To the People of God, March 2014
Dear People of God
I am writing this letter after a prayer vigil on the steps of St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town, where a number of clergy, laity and bishops, including Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, retired Bishop Geoff Quinlan and Bishop Garth Counsell of Table Bay, joined us for a memorable occasion.
We stood in silence for 30 minutes, the clergy among us wearing our cassocks, holding flowers and posters. This was because the Cathedral had advertised the vigil under the banner, “A Flower for Thuli, A Message for the President”, referring to the South African Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, and her recently-released report on the upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private residence at Nkandla.
Our placards called on the President to respond to the Public Protector’s report, and on the public to defend our “Chapter 9” institutions, the independent institutions set up under the South African Constitution to guard democracy.
Following this quiet demonstration, we all went into the cathedral to pray. This is what I shared with those gathered in the Cathedral:
Ladies and gentleman, bishops here present, including Emeritus Arch and clergy from the dioceses of the Western Cape,
We have gathered again on the steps of St George’s Cathedral in the footsteps of our predecessors who stood here in the apartheid era. We gather to say that some things are pulling us apart as a nation and we are pained.
In my letter of invitation to come to this prayer vigil, I said let us gather as Church in its broadest sense for a vigil, to pray that the Public Protector be herself protected by all progressives in the religious and NGO sectors and by all freedom-loving citizens; and also that the President, Parliament and the executive should implement in full all the steps which Adv. Madonsela has recommended in her report.
I requested that we gather in vigil and prayer to ask – in the spirit of Lent, in deep prayer and reflective concern – for the President and Parliament to report in full to the nation on precisely how they will give effect to the Public Protector’s recommendations.
Now as we reflect in vigil and prayer, I want to aid your reflections and actions by posing just a few questions instead of a long speech,especially as it is lunch time and some of you need to go back to work:
1. Acknowledging all the political, social and moral conversations and judgments that have taken place inside and outside the country, what can we as a society in South Africa learn from the Public Protector’s courage?
2. How has the Public Protector’s report helped ring a bell to the importance of our national values?
3. 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 that apparently didn’t consider our national values?
4. And lastly, when so many in our communities around our country are asking me, “Archbishop, what should the President do?” I tell them that our President must ask himself, “From the perspective of the 50 million South Africans that I lead, what do our national values suggest for me? What have I learned from the Public Protector’s exceptionally thorough and historic work? How can I more effectively model the values-based decisions that our Constitution clearly and unmistakably tells us?”
The President must do what is in our nation’s best interests.
As a spiritual leader, putting my hand on President Zuma’s shoulder, I say, “What do you have to do to bring our country together at this critical point in our democratic history? What do you have to do to create a renaissance in trust?”
So, dear friends, we have seen the swimming pool, the amphitheatre, chicken runs and cattle culvert – now my appeal is that those that surround the President, as a collective, must take responsibility and tell us they will lead us to the truth.
Also my yearning is for a more concerted effort by the entire faith-based and non-governmental organization community not so much to defend the Public Protector as an individual as to defend the rights of the public – which rights are in fact being protected by the Public Protector – and the integrity of the office of the Public Protector.
Furthermore, South Africans cannot be hoaxed into believing that a Government which erred so seriously can investigate itself. Let us then have the moral courage required at this moment to rise up and support the call for the public’s right to know and take responsibility for making our democracy work.
In that spirit and with renewed courage, I now pray:
Lord, God of Hope,
Restore our brokenness and torn fabric
Heal our divisions and our land
But please begin with me.
Amen
Turning to other matters this month, our Province’s Media Committee has reported that the number of subscriptions to our colour magazine, Southern Anglican, is down, raising the gloomy prospect of having to close the publication if we cannot reverse this trend. I encourage all Anglicans to subscribe to the magazine, which – as a place for sharing news and views – is the only general print publication we still have which reflects our identity as a Province.
And now let me end this letter to you by thanking Bishop Dinis Sengulane of Lebombo for his ministry in our Province and Communion, over 38 years as a bishop and 40 as a priest. Bishop Dinis epitomizes the moral courage and great humility that is missing in most of our leaders. May you have a blessed retirement, Bishop Dinis, and be freed to do the things which you would love to do most in service to the world and your country, Mozambique. Thank you for your courage and belief that God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit is always ahead of us, whatever we face. May this message resonate in all our faithful this Easter and for evermore.
As we continue to be conduits of peace with justice, I pray that the Risen Lord, whose passion, death and resurrection we will celebrate at this time and always, will renew our strength and make us fly on wings like an eagle even as we offer ourselves in service for the common good.
I send you all season’s greetings, proclaiming that we can move from the passion of an Nkandla to the glorious resurrection of Easter by declaring: Christ is Risen!
God bless you,
+Thabo
I am writing this letter after a prayer vigil on the steps of St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town, where a number of clergy, laity and bishops, including Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, retired Bishop Geoff Quinlan and Bishop Garth Counsell of Table Bay, joined us for a memorable occasion.
We stood in silence for 30 minutes, the clergy among us wearing our cassocks, holding flowers and posters. This was because the Cathedral had advertised the vigil under the banner, “A Flower for Thuli, A Message for the President”, referring to the South African Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela, and her recently-released report on the upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private residence at Nkandla.
Our placards called on the President to respond to the Public Protector’s report, and on the public to defend our “Chapter 9” institutions, the independent institutions set up under the South African Constitution to guard democracy.
Following this quiet demonstration, we all went into the cathedral to pray. This is what I shared with those gathered in the Cathedral:
Ladies and gentleman, bishops here present, including Emeritus Arch and clergy from the dioceses of the Western Cape,
We have gathered again on the steps of St George’s Cathedral in the footsteps of our predecessors who stood here in the apartheid era. We gather to say that some things are pulling us apart as a nation and we are pained.
In my letter of invitation to come to this prayer vigil, I said let us gather as Church in its broadest sense for a vigil, to pray that the Public Protector be herself protected by all progressives in the religious and NGO sectors and by all freedom-loving citizens; and also that the President, Parliament and the executive should implement in full all the steps which Adv. Madonsela has recommended in her report.
I requested that we gather in vigil and prayer to ask – in the spirit of Lent, in deep prayer and reflective concern – for the President and Parliament to report in full to the nation on precisely how they will give effect to the Public Protector’s recommendations.
Now as we reflect in vigil and prayer, I want to aid your reflections and actions by posing just a few questions instead of a long speech,especially as it is lunch time and some of you need to go back to work:
1. Acknowledging all the political, social and moral conversations and judgments that have taken place inside and outside the country, what can we as a society in South Africa learn from the Public Protector’s courage?
2. How has the Public Protector’s report helped ring a bell to the importance of our national values?
3. 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 that apparently didn’t consider our national values?
4. And lastly, when so many in our communities around our country are asking me, “Archbishop, what should the President do?” I tell them that our President must ask himself, “From the perspective of the 50 million South Africans that I lead, what do our national values suggest for me? What have I learned from the Public Protector’s exceptionally thorough and historic work? How can I more effectively model the values-based decisions that our Constitution clearly and unmistakably tells us?”
The President must do what is in our nation’s best interests.
As a spiritual leader, putting my hand on President Zuma’s shoulder, I say, “What do you have to do to bring our country together at this critical point in our democratic history? What do you have to do to create a renaissance in trust?”
So, dear friends, we have seen the swimming pool, the amphitheatre, chicken runs and cattle culvert – now my appeal is that those that surround the President, as a collective, must take responsibility and tell us they will lead us to the truth.
Also my yearning is for a more concerted effort by the entire faith-based and non-governmental organization community not so much to defend the Public Protector as an individual as to defend the rights of the public – which rights are in fact being protected by the Public Protector – and the integrity of the office of the Public Protector.
Furthermore, South Africans cannot be hoaxed into believing that a Government which erred so seriously can investigate itself. Let us then have the moral courage required at this moment to rise up and support the call for the public’s right to know and take responsibility for making our democracy work.
In that spirit and with renewed courage, I now pray:
Lord, God of Hope,
Restore our brokenness and torn fabric
Heal our divisions and our land
But please begin with me.
Amen
Turning to other matters this month, our Province’s Media Committee has reported that the number of subscriptions to our colour magazine, Southern Anglican, is down, raising the gloomy prospect of having to close the publication if we cannot reverse this trend. I encourage all Anglicans to subscribe to the magazine, which – as a place for sharing news and views – is the only general print publication we still have which reflects our identity as a Province.
And now let me end this letter to you by thanking Bishop Dinis Sengulane of Lebombo for his ministry in our Province and Communion, over 38 years as a bishop and 40 as a priest. Bishop Dinis epitomizes the moral courage and great humility that is missing in most of our leaders. May you have a blessed retirement, Bishop Dinis, and be freed to do the things which you would love to do most in service to the world and your country, Mozambique. Thank you for your courage and belief that God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit is always ahead of us, whatever we face. May this message resonate in all our faithful this Easter and for evermore.
As we continue to be conduits of peace with justice, I pray that the Risen Lord, whose passion, death and resurrection we will celebrate at this time and always, will renew our strength and make us fly on wings like an eagle even as we offer ourselves in service for the common good.
I send you all season’s greetings, proclaiming that we can move from the passion of an Nkandla to the glorious resurrection of Easter by declaring: Christ is Risen!
God bless you,
+Thabo
Sunday, 27 October 2013
Mayoral Inter-faith service at the Cathedral of St. George the Martyr, Cape Town
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, friends from the Western Cape inter religious group, dear people of this beautiful city, dear friends.
It is a great joy to be with you as we celebrate what we have termed the Mayoral Service.
Thank you, Mr. Dean and your staff for hosting this service and for the Western Cape Religious Leaders' Forum for coordinating this together with the city and the Cathedral: to everyone else who is here, who loves this city or who lives in the city or offers services to the city, feel welcomed.
The ancient Greek notion of the city implied that the polis is about citizenship and the body of citizens. In short, how space and resources are organized in service to the people of the city and how the people in turn engage to shape their destiny collaboratively.
So you, we all matter, for without you, we would not have the mayor to organize the affairs of this city, nor the mayor without the citizens.
May I also, on behalf of the Dean and his staff welcome all the other visitors here today.
Madame Mayor, Patricia De Lille: thank you, also for your leadership and presence with us and for your encouraging and challenging words; thank you for your welcome – we feel honored and humbled that you agreed to be here and to grace us with your presence, for without it we could not have a "Mayoral Service" as an inter-faith congregation.
In the Christian sacred text that was read this afternoon, John 10:10, the Johannine Jesus says, "I came so that you may have life and have it in abundance."
What is life in abundance? What is eternal life? It is about the flourishing of all human beings and not only some who are powerful and connected. It is the flourishing of us all or, put differently, it is about the common good or the public good.
The common good, simply put, is ensuring that what is good and beneficial for me, is also good and beneficial for the other who is my neighbour.
Put in a language understood by most religions, this is about doing what I would like done to me (love, respect, care, compassion) done to the other too. Yes, it is about respecting the dignity of each individual as reflecting the humanity of God and the divine in God.
The famous words are from the Christian sacred text, love you neighbor, with all your mind, soul and body, and love the Lord your God with the same mind as you love yourself and neighbor.
Life in abundance is life lived with a mentality of abundance and not a mentality of poverty; life lived mindful that it is not useful to amass riches, thinking that when your end comes, you will take these with you; it is life lived with contentment and generosity, wanting to make profit but not ignoring people or the planet that generates your wealth.
How might this life pan out in our beloved city? Our city is doing relatively well. You only need to look at the Currie Cup final, even though we are sorry the Sharks won. Visitors and tourists to this city bring a lot of revenue.
Or you can look at our status as world design capital or at the film industry, conferences, tertiary education, media, the financial sector, small grassroots enterprises such as B&B’s, NGOs, industry, including thriving and not so thriving small industries, and the large number of companies with head offices in this city. The economy is indeed thriving here in spite of challenges elsewhere, heralded by Minister Pravin Gordhan and his belt-tightening for ministers.
Economically, we are doing relatively well compared to the majority of the other provinces of our country and countries in our continent. For this, we are grateful to our city and mothers for the flourishing of the local economy.
However, as religious leaders, as we give thanks for this flourishing, we need to also ask deeper questions:
-- Who is benefiting from this economic flourishing?
-- Is it serving the common good or benefitting only some who are powerful, politically and economically well connected?
-- Is this result of this flourishing what Jesus envisaged in the passage from John: I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance?
-- Are the people without a voice in the city benefitting as well?
-- Are we reaching out?
-- Does the economic benefit bring joy and benefits to those on the margins, not just trickle to them?
-- Are the dividends of our democracy and freedom benefitting all, and are those who benefit helping others to have access to this boom?
In this past week, I did "huisbesoek" to Auntie Pat Gorvalla* in Durbanville, then licensed a new priest in Christ Church Claremont and visited Mfuleni. I could not help but feel torn by the feeling that this abundant life in our beloved city is still skewed in favour of those of us from a particular race and class and not for all as Jesus wished for, suffered for and died for.
The work is thus enormous. I must confess that we in the religious vocation often overlook these challenges. We are often tempted by the trappings of power, money and proximity to politicians and the potential for personal or denominational gain from such proximity.
Whilst we need to affirm the good that the city does, we equally need to raise critical questions about who benefits from the city’s flourishing, and why spatial apartheid for instance is so stubborn 20 years into our democracy. We need to raise these questions without fear, for ours is not a political mandate but a vocation to serve all in spite of power, status and political affiliation.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, friends from the Western Cape inter religious group, dear people of this beautiful city, dear friends.
Often, we are too aligned, or our mouths are too full of resources, personal or for our churches, that we are afraid to speak out clearly and prophetically for the cause of those marginalized and excluded, and plead their cause in attaining this abundant life in the here and now, and not only in heaven.
We confess our failures today and ask for pardon from God, from the poorest of the poor and all who are marginalized, be it materially, due to their sexual orientation, class or race. We say Lord have mercy on us and pardon us, our sins.
Two weeks ago at the National Church Leaders' Consultation, we confessed this sin of omission, the lack of coherence in our prophetic audibility and our courage to speak. We committed to being part of the solution, especially in education, and resolved to seek an audience urgently with SADTU and other teachers' unions as we look together at ways we can make education the tool of liberation it is supposed to be.
As we confess and acknowledge our own shortcomings in our city too, we should not be navel-gazing and becoming trapped by this sin of omission or our helplessness for not doing and speaking for the cause of the poorest of the poor.
We should equally engage with all for their sake as we plead for respect for their human dignity and for their true freedom. Let us re-commit to taking seriously our God-given mandate to serve others.
We commit to working as a collective with the city , the polis, in serving God's people and in bringing hope; hope that nothing will separate God's people from the love and care of God even in the midst of pain, suffering and squalor.
We commit to the ministry of reconciliation, reconciling communities and different faiths, rich and poor, and we encourage the spirit of generosity and cohesion amongst all people of this city and province.
We commit to walks of witness alongside the people of God to highlight: janitorial services gone wrong; poor school infrastructure; poor conditions of service and remuneration for farm and domestic workers; the need to investigate the effectiveness of policing in our townships; the impact which endemic corruption has on service delivery and social cohesion; as well as the many glaring economic disparities in our city.
We will continue to care for the xenophobically displaced, those trapped by drugs and the impact of gangsterism. We will continue through the Electoral Code of Conduct Observer Commission (ECCOC) to demand that our political leaders behave aptly as we all pray for, and ensure, a free, robust and fair context for electioneering and elections next year and beyond, as well as open the question of who funds political parties and demand transparency in this area.
Returning to the Christian sacred text as I conclude, the Lucan God, in Luke 4, reminds us as people of faith and in this city , that the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, he has anointed me and all of us to proclaim boldly without fear or favour good news to the poor....
Let us dare to do so.
May this mayoral service bring hope and courage to all in the city and a recommitment by us all to bring life in abundance for all especially those in the margins of the city?
Amen
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba
27 October 2013
* A leading citizen of Cape Town and former president of the Anglican Women's Federation.
It is a great joy to be with you as we celebrate what we have termed the Mayoral Service.
Thank you, Mr. Dean and your staff for hosting this service and for the Western Cape Religious Leaders' Forum for coordinating this together with the city and the Cathedral: to everyone else who is here, who loves this city or who lives in the city or offers services to the city, feel welcomed.
The ancient Greek notion of the city implied that the polis is about citizenship and the body of citizens. In short, how space and resources are organized in service to the people of the city and how the people in turn engage to shape their destiny collaboratively.
So you, we all matter, for without you, we would not have the mayor to organize the affairs of this city, nor the mayor without the citizens.
May I also, on behalf of the Dean and his staff welcome all the other visitors here today.
Madame Mayor, Patricia De Lille: thank you, also for your leadership and presence with us and for your encouraging and challenging words; thank you for your welcome – we feel honored and humbled that you agreed to be here and to grace us with your presence, for without it we could not have a "Mayoral Service" as an inter-faith congregation.
In the Christian sacred text that was read this afternoon, John 10:10, the Johannine Jesus says, "I came so that you may have life and have it in abundance."
What is life in abundance? What is eternal life? It is about the flourishing of all human beings and not only some who are powerful and connected. It is the flourishing of us all or, put differently, it is about the common good or the public good.
The common good, simply put, is ensuring that what is good and beneficial for me, is also good and beneficial for the other who is my neighbour.
Put in a language understood by most religions, this is about doing what I would like done to me (love, respect, care, compassion) done to the other too. Yes, it is about respecting the dignity of each individual as reflecting the humanity of God and the divine in God.
The famous words are from the Christian sacred text, love you neighbor, with all your mind, soul and body, and love the Lord your God with the same mind as you love yourself and neighbor.
Life in abundance is life lived with a mentality of abundance and not a mentality of poverty; life lived mindful that it is not useful to amass riches, thinking that when your end comes, you will take these with you; it is life lived with contentment and generosity, wanting to make profit but not ignoring people or the planet that generates your wealth.
How might this life pan out in our beloved city? Our city is doing relatively well. You only need to look at the Currie Cup final, even though we are sorry the Sharks won. Visitors and tourists to this city bring a lot of revenue.
Or you can look at our status as world design capital or at the film industry, conferences, tertiary education, media, the financial sector, small grassroots enterprises such as B&B’s, NGOs, industry, including thriving and not so thriving small industries, and the large number of companies with head offices in this city. The economy is indeed thriving here in spite of challenges elsewhere, heralded by Minister Pravin Gordhan and his belt-tightening for ministers.
Economically, we are doing relatively well compared to the majority of the other provinces of our country and countries in our continent. For this, we are grateful to our city and mothers for the flourishing of the local economy.
However, as religious leaders, as we give thanks for this flourishing, we need to also ask deeper questions:
-- Who is benefiting from this economic flourishing?
-- Is it serving the common good or benefitting only some who are powerful, politically and economically well connected?
-- Is this result of this flourishing what Jesus envisaged in the passage from John: I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance?
-- Are the people without a voice in the city benefitting as well?
-- Are we reaching out?
-- Does the economic benefit bring joy and benefits to those on the margins, not just trickle to them?
-- Are the dividends of our democracy and freedom benefitting all, and are those who benefit helping others to have access to this boom?
In this past week, I did "huisbesoek" to Auntie Pat Gorvalla* in Durbanville, then licensed a new priest in Christ Church Claremont and visited Mfuleni. I could not help but feel torn by the feeling that this abundant life in our beloved city is still skewed in favour of those of us from a particular race and class and not for all as Jesus wished for, suffered for and died for.
The work is thus enormous. I must confess that we in the religious vocation often overlook these challenges. We are often tempted by the trappings of power, money and proximity to politicians and the potential for personal or denominational gain from such proximity.
Whilst we need to affirm the good that the city does, we equally need to raise critical questions about who benefits from the city’s flourishing, and why spatial apartheid for instance is so stubborn 20 years into our democracy. We need to raise these questions without fear, for ours is not a political mandate but a vocation to serve all in spite of power, status and political affiliation.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, friends from the Western Cape inter religious group, dear people of this beautiful city, dear friends.
Often, we are too aligned, or our mouths are too full of resources, personal or for our churches, that we are afraid to speak out clearly and prophetically for the cause of those marginalized and excluded, and plead their cause in attaining this abundant life in the here and now, and not only in heaven.
We confess our failures today and ask for pardon from God, from the poorest of the poor and all who are marginalized, be it materially, due to their sexual orientation, class or race. We say Lord have mercy on us and pardon us, our sins.
Two weeks ago at the National Church Leaders' Consultation, we confessed this sin of omission, the lack of coherence in our prophetic audibility and our courage to speak. We committed to being part of the solution, especially in education, and resolved to seek an audience urgently with SADTU and other teachers' unions as we look together at ways we can make education the tool of liberation it is supposed to be.
As we confess and acknowledge our own shortcomings in our city too, we should not be navel-gazing and becoming trapped by this sin of omission or our helplessness for not doing and speaking for the cause of the poorest of the poor.
We should equally engage with all for their sake as we plead for respect for their human dignity and for their true freedom. Let us re-commit to taking seriously our God-given mandate to serve others.
We commit to working as a collective with the city , the polis, in serving God's people and in bringing hope; hope that nothing will separate God's people from the love and care of God even in the midst of pain, suffering and squalor.
We commit to the ministry of reconciliation, reconciling communities and different faiths, rich and poor, and we encourage the spirit of generosity and cohesion amongst all people of this city and province.
We commit to walks of witness alongside the people of God to highlight: janitorial services gone wrong; poor school infrastructure; poor conditions of service and remuneration for farm and domestic workers; the need to investigate the effectiveness of policing in our townships; the impact which endemic corruption has on service delivery and social cohesion; as well as the many glaring economic disparities in our city.
We will continue to care for the xenophobically displaced, those trapped by drugs and the impact of gangsterism. We will continue through the Electoral Code of Conduct Observer Commission (ECCOC) to demand that our political leaders behave aptly as we all pray for, and ensure, a free, robust and fair context for electioneering and elections next year and beyond, as well as open the question of who funds political parties and demand transparency in this area.
Returning to the Christian sacred text as I conclude, the Lucan God, in Luke 4, reminds us as people of faith and in this city , that the spirit of the Lord God is upon me, he has anointed me and all of us to proclaim boldly without fear or favour good news to the poor....
Let us dare to do so.
May this mayoral service bring hope and courage to all in the city and a recommitment by us all to bring life in abundance for all especially those in the margins of the city?
Amen
Archbishop Thabo Makgoba
27 October 2013
* A leading citizen of Cape Town and former president of the Anglican Women's Federation.
Sunday, 31 March 2013
Easter Vigil
This is the sermon from the Easter Vigil on 30/31 March 2013, at the Cathedral of St George the Martyr, Cape Town.
Rom 6:3-11; Luke 24:1-12
“Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ”
Alleluia, Christ is risen! – He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ – it is a great joy to be sharing this Easter celebration with you, in the mother church of the Diocese. It is particularly special to be sharing with ou Archbishop Emeritus, Desmond Tutu, safely back from his ‘Semester at Sea’, and looking so young and relaxed. Father, I am jealous of the life you are enjoying in retirement, you look so well on it!
Mr Dean, clergy, wardens, lay-leaders of the Cathedral (both licenced, and those who conduct the music, and all the other ministries that are run from here) – thank you, for all you are, and all you do. And thank you, everyone, for being partners together in the good news that, as St Paul reminds us, Jesus Christ has died and been raised from the dead, so that we too may share in his resurrection to newness of life.
As you probably know, I have had a unique start to this year. Normally, there is barely enough time after Christmas to recover from the exhaustion of the old year, before being thrown into another year of busy activity. This year I took a very different route. Just after mid-January, I went away ‘to the desert’. In fact it was frozen rural North Wales! Including travelling, it was pretty much 40 days in this ‘secluded place’ – 38 of them in a tiny attic room of the retreat centre (with wonderful views over the mountains of Snowdonia, the Irish Sea, and, if I leaned out into the cold and snowy air, even to Liverpool).
I was there to follow the ’30-days Full Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola’. St Ignatius was the founder of the Jesuits, and it is his spirituality that guides the new Pope – with his firm commitment to a deep prayer life that finds expression in a humble ministry of service, especially to the poor.
I travelled to this secluded place in order to make an inward journey – to explore what God was wanting to do in my life. Through the 30-day retreat, we followed various themes, and were guided in our reflections by the Bible.
The journey, the retreat, began with an invitation to recognise the enormity of God’s love – and to accept more fully, how much we need God and God’s love. I found this, in itself, a profound challenge. We then spent more than week ‘walking with Jesus’, in Spirit-led prayerful imagination, with passages from the Annunciation through his life and ministry – praying to be caught up into sharing in Christ’s ministry. And then we spent another week-plus contemplating Holy Week and the Passion: praying to see, feel, touch, smell – and so understand – more clearly all that Jesus bore for us; all that Jesus won for us. Finally we came to the Resurrection – and to the time to return, in the midst of this exploration of the Resurrection, to our normal lives.
The way God met me, challenged me, and changed me, in that time away 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. 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. 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.
And so now, I am back in Cape Town feeling a little wobbly at times – and wondering how God will lead me to integrate all I’ve experienced and learnt into my ministry and life. I have to admit that though life is very plain and simple on retreat, there is an element of luxury in being at a distance from all the pressures of daily life! And I certainly came back to find an awful lot had been going on. There were so many terrible 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 chaos and conflict continue – in Syria, and on our continent: with only last weekend the deaths of South Africa’s soldiers in the Central African Republic (there for reasons that are certainly not clear to us all). 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] launching of a new political platform. More than that, I had also missed the test series v Pakistan, and the scandal of kangaroo-meat-in-boerewors!
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. Furthermore, coming home almost in the middle of our reflections on the resurrection drove home this point: wherever there is greatest need for resurrection, that is where we are most likely to discover Jesus at work, and find our own invitation to join him. If you truly want to know what Easter is all about, look at the places where there are tough challenges, difficult issues, hard wrestling, painful contexts – and where God’s people nonetheless dare to go, and to stay for as long as it takes, witnessing to light and hope and life.
I know that in the Cathedral – especially for the Clergy, Wardens and Council – you must often wish you could just focus on beautiful music, beautiful liturgy, beautiful sermons – and forget the strains of money and building and personnel and so forth. But for us to bear witness to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord means to be ministers of his resurrection in wherever there is sin and death, negativity, difficulties, hardship and pain, in our own lives – as individuals, within our families, in our congregations. If we are ready to go – even in fear and trembling – into those painful places, bearing the light of Christ, we will find his resurrection power at work. We cannot preach this to the world around us, if we are not prepared to live it for ourselves. And when we live it for ourselves, we will find that it is not something we merely claim to know in our heads. We will also feel in our hearts – and so be able to proclaim with the directness and conviction that come from personal, powerful, experience.
Pope Francis washed the feet of young people in a correctional facility – young people who probably felt they were headed on a downward spiral, with society giving up on them. His message was that the church is in the service, especially, of those who think that hope has run out – because Jesus offers hope to the hopeless, faith to the despairing, light in the darkness, love to the unlovely.
This is resurrection at work among us. This is the resurrection work to which we are called, for, as St Paul wrote, we have been buried with Christ in Baptism, and so will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Therefore, let us be bearers of hope, beacons of light, spreading the Easter message far and wide.
Tonight, especially, join with me in declaring this Easter message of hope and light in a special way to those who are about to be baptised.
And let us also declare this Easter hope and light – with much love and many prayers – to Madiba, and his family, asking for God’s tender, healing touch, on him.
“Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ.” Amen. Alleluia.
Rom 6:3-11; Luke 24:1-12
“Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ”
Alleluia, Christ is risen! – He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ – it is a great joy to be sharing this Easter celebration with you, in the mother church of the Diocese. It is particularly special to be sharing with ou Archbishop Emeritus, Desmond Tutu, safely back from his ‘Semester at Sea’, and looking so young and relaxed. Father, I am jealous of the life you are enjoying in retirement, you look so well on it!
Mr Dean, clergy, wardens, lay-leaders of the Cathedral (both licenced, and those who conduct the music, and all the other ministries that are run from here) – thank you, for all you are, and all you do. And thank you, everyone, for being partners together in the good news that, as St Paul reminds us, Jesus Christ has died and been raised from the dead, so that we too may share in his resurrection to newness of life.
As you probably know, I have had a unique start to this year. Normally, there is barely enough time after Christmas to recover from the exhaustion of the old year, before being thrown into another year of busy activity. This year I took a very different route. Just after mid-January, I went away ‘to the desert’. In fact it was frozen rural North Wales! Including travelling, it was pretty much 40 days in this ‘secluded place’ – 38 of them in a tiny attic room of the retreat centre (with wonderful views over the mountains of Snowdonia, the Irish Sea, and, if I leaned out into the cold and snowy air, even to Liverpool).
I was there to follow the ’30-days Full Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola’. St Ignatius was the founder of the Jesuits, and it is his spirituality that guides the new Pope – with his firm commitment to a deep prayer life that finds expression in a humble ministry of service, especially to the poor.
I travelled to this secluded place in order to make an inward journey – to explore what God was wanting to do in my life. Through the 30-day retreat, we followed various themes, and were guided in our reflections by the Bible.
The journey, the retreat, began with an invitation to recognise the enormity of God’s love – and to accept more fully, how much we need God and God’s love. I found this, in itself, a profound challenge. We then spent more than week ‘walking with Jesus’, in Spirit-led prayerful imagination, with passages from the Annunciation through his life and ministry – praying to be caught up into sharing in Christ’s ministry. And then we spent another week-plus contemplating Holy Week and the Passion: praying to see, feel, touch, smell – and so understand – more clearly all that Jesus bore for us; all that Jesus won for us. Finally we came to the Resurrection – and to the time to return, in the midst of this exploration of the Resurrection, to our normal lives.
The way God met me, challenged me, and changed me, in that time away 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. 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. 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.
And so now, I am back in Cape Town feeling a little wobbly at times – and wondering how God will lead me to integrate all I’ve experienced and learnt into my ministry and life. I have to admit that though life is very plain and simple on retreat, there is an element of luxury in being at a distance from all the pressures of daily life! And I certainly came back to find an awful lot had been going on. There were so many terrible 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 chaos and conflict continue – in Syria, and on our continent: with only last weekend the deaths of South Africa’s soldiers in the Central African Republic (there for reasons that are certainly not clear to us all). 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] launching of a new political platform. More than that, I had also missed the test series v Pakistan, and the scandal of kangaroo-meat-in-boerewors!
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. Furthermore, coming home almost in the middle of our reflections on the resurrection drove home this point: wherever there is greatest need for resurrection, that is where we are most likely to discover Jesus at work, and find our own invitation to join him. If you truly want to know what Easter is all about, look at the places where there are tough challenges, difficult issues, hard wrestling, painful contexts – and where God’s people nonetheless dare to go, and to stay for as long as it takes, witnessing to light and hope and life.
I know that in the Cathedral – especially for the Clergy, Wardens and Council – you must often wish you could just focus on beautiful music, beautiful liturgy, beautiful sermons – and forget the strains of money and building and personnel and so forth. But for us to bear witness to Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord means to be ministers of his resurrection in wherever there is sin and death, negativity, difficulties, hardship and pain, in our own lives – as individuals, within our families, in our congregations. If we are ready to go – even in fear and trembling – into those painful places, bearing the light of Christ, we will find his resurrection power at work. We cannot preach this to the world around us, if we are not prepared to live it for ourselves. And when we live it for ourselves, we will find that it is not something we merely claim to know in our heads. We will also feel in our hearts – and so be able to proclaim with the directness and conviction that come from personal, powerful, experience.
Pope Francis washed the feet of young people in a correctional facility – young people who probably felt they were headed on a downward spiral, with society giving up on them. His message was that the church is in the service, especially, of those who think that hope has run out – because Jesus offers hope to the hopeless, faith to the despairing, light in the darkness, love to the unlovely.
This is resurrection at work among us. This is the resurrection work to which we are called, for, as St Paul wrote, we have been buried with Christ in Baptism, and so will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. Therefore, let us be bearers of hope, beacons of light, spreading the Easter message far and wide.
Tonight, especially, join with me in declaring this Easter message of hope and light in a special way to those who are about to be baptised.
And let us also declare this Easter hope and light – with much love and many prayers – to Madiba, and his family, asking for God’s tender, healing touch, on him.
“Consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ.” Amen. Alleluia.
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
St George's Cathedral: Heritage and Witness
Remarks made at the book launch of 'St George's Cathedral: Heritage and Witness', edited by Mary Bock and Judith Gordon, at the Cathedral on 19 November 2012.
Thank you, Dean Michael, thank you Mary, for your words of introduction. Thank you also, John, for your reflections, and for reminding us of who we are; from where we’ve come, and where we ought to be heading. As I start, I’m just checking that I have the right notes – having just come back from New Zealand, being in Swaziland at the weekend, and having spent today in Worcester listening to farmers and farm workers and their families. I ask your prayers for the whole situation.
I am particularly grateful for the invitation to say a few words this evening, since it is here that I have my ‘Cathedra’ – my seat, as Bishop of the Diocese of Cape Town, and as Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. And so it has been since 1847, when the Church of England decided to send Bishop Gray here, to establish Southern Africa as a Province of the Anglican Communion.
This was, of course, after a visiting Bishop of Calcutta, stopping at the Cape on his way to India, commented ‘The Church in this colony wants a head. Everyone does what is right in his own eyes’ (pp.19-20). And though we have come a long way since then, perhaps the continuing legacy of that characteristic of Cape people is what led Dean Ted King to remark that more Christian charity had been lost in the Cathedral’s car park than anywhere else – something I recognise today when I come here, often to the 8am Sunday Eucharist, on those days when I am not required elsewhere.
This place and its people have a very special place in my heart. It is wonderful to come and be quiet in this building, and to breathe in its history – and the longer history of this site – as a place of worship, and also as a place of equipping for ministry and mission, and being sent into the world. Here God has, again and again, met people, and sent them out to proclaim his truth, with clarity and courage, through difficult and challenging times.
Earlier today, at Morning Prayer, our reading from the Letter of St James told us firmly that ‘faith without works is dead’. Well, now we have a wonderful record of some of the godly works of this community of faith, especially through the hard years of the struggle. So thank you – to Mary and to Judith – who themselves have had faith, since 2007, to continue the hard work of commissioning chapters, conducting interviews, collecting photographs, and getting to grips with all the details of publishing! Thank you for all you have done – and thank you to everyone else, who has contributed their time and their talents to this project.
Reading through, though I see the firm guiding hand of the editors, I also see it as a labour of love of so many who hold this place and its people in their hearts. Without the whole Cathedral community, and its wider circle of friends past and present, I doubt there would be any book at all. It is wonderful that so many voices, in such variety, are given space to speak; and that we have a glimpse of the rich tapestry of the stories of so many different lives, woven together to reflect the vibrant history of St George’s.
Mary and Judith, I know you have both worshipped here for close on 40 years, and been more than active. I ought to tell everyone here, if they don’t already know it, that, even today, alongside all the work for this book, you, Mary, are the current President of the Friends of the Cathedral, and you, Judith, are the Cathedral Archivist. So thank you again, for your hard work and dedication – and especially for your selflessness, in that all profits from the book will go to the Cathedral.
Let me also, on behalf of us all, express thanks to Brian Gannon and Martin Stabrey of PreText, the publishers – whom I know well from a project we did together in 2004. I was not surprised to hear that you have been enthusiastic supporters and wise guides to the whole project since its early days. Thank you for all you have contributed, in so many ways, to enable the production of this excellent publication, at such an affordable price.
It is my hope and prayer that many will buy this book, and be inspired by it:
• not just by the splendour of the building,
• or the beauty of the windows,
• or the recollections of stirring music,
• or the moving poetry of Harry Wiggett and others,
• or even by the fascinating accounts of how the history of the Cathedral and its people intersected with the wider history of our nation.
Of course, all that, and much more, is to be found within the covers.
But it is my hope that people will also see through to the deeper truth behind it all – which is best summed up by quoting some words of Ted King, from the chapter on ‘What is a Cathedral’. He wrote in Gateway: ‘… it is a grave mistake for Christians ever to believe that we can somehow separate human and social life, as it happens, from the life and death of Jesus Christ’ (pp.165-166). For it is to God to whom our greatest thanks are due today – for his faithfulness over more than 160 years; and for the outworking of his redemption, won for us through Jesus Christ, and declared and experienced in so many different ways through the Cathedral, in the generations before us, and even in our own times.
And so I want to end by recalling other verses set in our lessons today – from the Eucharist, where we heard the letter to the church at Ephesus from the Book of the Revelation to St John. It begins ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance ... I also know … that you have not grown weary.’ Yes, I thought, as I heard the passage read this morning, these are words that might equally be said to St George’s Cathedral today. But then, for the Ephesians came a warning ‘you have abandoned the love you had at first.’ I hasten to add that it has not been the case here – as Dean King attested; and reading further in that same chapter there are many personal accounts of the way the Cathedral has been a place of deeply encountering God, and of spiritual growth and renewal, through the times of Colin Jones and Rowan Smith and to today. It is my fervent prayer that it may continue so into the future.
Dean Michael, your chapter, which ends the book is also in many ways a beginning. ‘Seeding God in our Midst’ you have titled it – looking back at the many unknown individuals who reflected the gospel in some way. And yet is it also a call to go forward – sometimes clearly hearing the call of Christ to follow; sometimes journeying in perplexity but finding the risen Christ alongside as on the road to Emmaus. But through it all, it is a reminder that, much though we may be taken up with the work of the Lord, we must never forget that, above all else, it is the Lord of the work to whom we first owe our hearts, our minds, our spirits, our lives. And it is his joy to bring us newness of life, and a message of hope for the world.
So, finally, I heartily commend this book to you all. Please buy it – it will make a wonderful Christmas present for yourself, or your friends and family! And may it inspire you, as individuals, and as part of the Cathedral community, or wherever you may be – may it inspire you in your own life of witness in God’s world. Thank you.
The book is available at the Cathedral Book and Bric-a-brac shop at R190, or by telephoning 021 689 1800. It can also be bought on line, at www.pretext.co.za/shop, at R220 including postage and packing, and R390 for overseas orders.
Thank you, Dean Michael, thank you Mary, for your words of introduction. Thank you also, John, for your reflections, and for reminding us of who we are; from where we’ve come, and where we ought to be heading. As I start, I’m just checking that I have the right notes – having just come back from New Zealand, being in Swaziland at the weekend, and having spent today in Worcester listening to farmers and farm workers and their families. I ask your prayers for the whole situation.
I am particularly grateful for the invitation to say a few words this evening, since it is here that I have my ‘Cathedra’ – my seat, as Bishop of the Diocese of Cape Town, and as Metropolitan of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. And so it has been since 1847, when the Church of England decided to send Bishop Gray here, to establish Southern Africa as a Province of the Anglican Communion.
This was, of course, after a visiting Bishop of Calcutta, stopping at the Cape on his way to India, commented ‘The Church in this colony wants a head. Everyone does what is right in his own eyes’ (pp.19-20). And though we have come a long way since then, perhaps the continuing legacy of that characteristic of Cape people is what led Dean Ted King to remark that more Christian charity had been lost in the Cathedral’s car park than anywhere else – something I recognise today when I come here, often to the 8am Sunday Eucharist, on those days when I am not required elsewhere.
This place and its people have a very special place in my heart. It is wonderful to come and be quiet in this building, and to breathe in its history – and the longer history of this site – as a place of worship, and also as a place of equipping for ministry and mission, and being sent into the world. Here God has, again and again, met people, and sent them out to proclaim his truth, with clarity and courage, through difficult and challenging times.
Earlier today, at Morning Prayer, our reading from the Letter of St James told us firmly that ‘faith without works is dead’. Well, now we have a wonderful record of some of the godly works of this community of faith, especially through the hard years of the struggle. So thank you – to Mary and to Judith – who themselves have had faith, since 2007, to continue the hard work of commissioning chapters, conducting interviews, collecting photographs, and getting to grips with all the details of publishing! Thank you for all you have done – and thank you to everyone else, who has contributed their time and their talents to this project.
Reading through, though I see the firm guiding hand of the editors, I also see it as a labour of love of so many who hold this place and its people in their hearts. Without the whole Cathedral community, and its wider circle of friends past and present, I doubt there would be any book at all. It is wonderful that so many voices, in such variety, are given space to speak; and that we have a glimpse of the rich tapestry of the stories of so many different lives, woven together to reflect the vibrant history of St George’s.
Mary and Judith, I know you have both worshipped here for close on 40 years, and been more than active. I ought to tell everyone here, if they don’t already know it, that, even today, alongside all the work for this book, you, Mary, are the current President of the Friends of the Cathedral, and you, Judith, are the Cathedral Archivist. So thank you again, for your hard work and dedication – and especially for your selflessness, in that all profits from the book will go to the Cathedral.
Let me also, on behalf of us all, express thanks to Brian Gannon and Martin Stabrey of PreText, the publishers – whom I know well from a project we did together in 2004. I was not surprised to hear that you have been enthusiastic supporters and wise guides to the whole project since its early days. Thank you for all you have contributed, in so many ways, to enable the production of this excellent publication, at such an affordable price.
It is my hope and prayer that many will buy this book, and be inspired by it:
• not just by the splendour of the building,
• or the beauty of the windows,
• or the recollections of stirring music,
• or the moving poetry of Harry Wiggett and others,
• or even by the fascinating accounts of how the history of the Cathedral and its people intersected with the wider history of our nation.
Of course, all that, and much more, is to be found within the covers.
But it is my hope that people will also see through to the deeper truth behind it all – which is best summed up by quoting some words of Ted King, from the chapter on ‘What is a Cathedral’. He wrote in Gateway: ‘… it is a grave mistake for Christians ever to believe that we can somehow separate human and social life, as it happens, from the life and death of Jesus Christ’ (pp.165-166). For it is to God to whom our greatest thanks are due today – for his faithfulness over more than 160 years; and for the outworking of his redemption, won for us through Jesus Christ, and declared and experienced in so many different ways through the Cathedral, in the generations before us, and even in our own times.
And so I want to end by recalling other verses set in our lessons today – from the Eucharist, where we heard the letter to the church at Ephesus from the Book of the Revelation to St John. It begins ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance ... I also know … that you have not grown weary.’ Yes, I thought, as I heard the passage read this morning, these are words that might equally be said to St George’s Cathedral today. But then, for the Ephesians came a warning ‘you have abandoned the love you had at first.’ I hasten to add that it has not been the case here – as Dean King attested; and reading further in that same chapter there are many personal accounts of the way the Cathedral has been a place of deeply encountering God, and of spiritual growth and renewal, through the times of Colin Jones and Rowan Smith and to today. It is my fervent prayer that it may continue so into the future.
Dean Michael, your chapter, which ends the book is also in many ways a beginning. ‘Seeding God in our Midst’ you have titled it – looking back at the many unknown individuals who reflected the gospel in some way. And yet is it also a call to go forward – sometimes clearly hearing the call of Christ to follow; sometimes journeying in perplexity but finding the risen Christ alongside as on the road to Emmaus. But through it all, it is a reminder that, much though we may be taken up with the work of the Lord, we must never forget that, above all else, it is the Lord of the work to whom we first owe our hearts, our minds, our spirits, our lives. And it is his joy to bring us newness of life, and a message of hope for the world.
So, finally, I heartily commend this book to you all. Please buy it – it will make a wonderful Christmas present for yourself, or your friends and family! And may it inspire you, as individuals, and as part of the Cathedral community, or wherever you may be – may it inspire you in your own life of witness in God’s world. Thank you.
The book is available at the Cathedral Book and Bric-a-brac shop at R190, or by telephoning 021 689 1800. It can also be bought on line, at www.pretext.co.za/shop, at R220 including postage and packing, and R390 for overseas orders.
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Easter Vigil at St George's Cathedral, Cape Town
The following sermon was preached at the Easter Vigil Service at St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, on 7 April 2012.
Romans 6:3-11; Mark 16:1-8
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Sisters and Brothers in Christ, may all the fullness of Easter resurrection life be yours!
I was reflecting earlier that this is my fifth Easter with you, and I realise that I am more than well settled, because I am now finding that the sort of questions I get from journalists at this time of year are beginning to sound all too familiar.
So, for example, I’ve had one journalist asking what my Easter message would be to MTN, given the accusations that they are undermining South Africa’s values, in their relationships in Iran; and another asked me what I thought of the Red Bull advert; and then there was the question about ‘halaal’ hot cross buns – where, perhaps a little flippantly, I answered that Christians should take this as encouragement to share them with their Muslim neighbours!
And then came the Sunday Times, asking for my response to the news that Pastor Ray McCauley’s Rhema Church is planting a congregation at Silverstar Casino on the West Rand. Well, I hope they carry that part of my answer in which I say that the Holy Spirit leads God’s people to proclaim the gospel anywhere and everywhere, and so if the Holy Spirit has led Rhema to open a church at the casino, well, I hope they won’t gamble, but I also hope they will persevere in preaching the good news of Jesus Christ as I’m sure people there need to hear it!
For this is our Easter good news: Jesus, who was crucified, has been raised! And we who have been united with his death in baptism, are united within him also in his risen life! Yet what does it mean for you to be united with him in his risen life? What does it mean for me, and in my responding to the sort of questions I’ve just outlined?
The gospel of St Mark, probably the oldest account we have in Scripture, tells us of how the women learnt that Jesus had been raised; a whole new way of life has begun – but it does not tell us what happened next. There is a lesson here for us. We know Jesus has been raised, and so we have been raised too. Yet it is for us to find out what this resurrection means for us, here and now.
The young man points us in the right direction. He says to the women at the tomb ‘He is going ahead of you.’ Jesus leads us on, on whatever life’s journey has in store for us. All of us must be ready to be led onwards in our spiritual pilgrimage. Some of us will do that through actual physical pilgrimages, for example to the Holy Land. Perhaps coming to the Cathedral tonight is a step on your journey of faith.
Outer journeying is often accompanied by inner journeying. It may just be to a quiet day with the Centre of Christian Spirituality, or for a weekend away. Some go on longer retreats. Perhaps earlier this week you walked the ‘Stations of the city’ in the company of others – from other churches, even from other faiths. Companions on the journey are often important in helping us seek the face of God – as the two disciples found on the road to Emmaus, when they realised that it was Jesus with whom they had walked.
Our gospel reading reminds us that Easter has come to us all – and yet we are also called forwards, into new life, by Jesus who goes ahead of us. What might this mean for you, together, as the Cathedral family. You too are at a point where a whole new way of life has begun. It is less than a year since I installed your Dean, and here is he now with a completely fresh clergy team. A new way of life has begun for the Cathedral and its people – but, like the first disciples, we too are still finding out what this will mean for us.
Some of you may know the group development model described as ‘Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing’. This lays out helpfully the sort of stages that people go through, when some new chapter is begun. Let me explain. First comes ‘forming’ – when a new reality is created, with all its exciting hopes and expectations! People get to know one another, but are all still on best behaviour as we start to consider the challenges ahead from our new perspectives!
And there are certainly plenty of challenges – not least, the roof! But there are also questions about what it means to be at the heart of the city, at a time of so many political and socio-economic changes. And what of our role in the Diocese, the Anglican Church in Southern Africa, and within the world-wide Anglican Communion, where we have so many friends, such strong ties – and yet where there are also many changes happening. We must not forget what is perhaps the primary calling – as a Christian community, which must be nurtured in its life of worship, witness and service.
You may have noticed that I am using the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ rather a lot! For I too have a spiritual home here – not only on festivals, but also often at the 8am Sunday service, when, if I am not busy elsewhere, it is a joy to slide quietly into my seat, and be fed through being part of this family of God. And therefore it is my commitment to help you in discovering and living out God’s vision for your lives. So I share with you, in this process of wrestling with the questions of the Cathedral’s new calling.
And alongside all these challenges come the other questions, of what new beginnings come with this new Dean, to whom God has given many different gifts, different experiences and skills, a different personality and character, to his predecessor – and the same is true of the full time clergy team.
There is much promise of newness of life – but such change can be very unsettling, once the honeymoon period is over. And so then comes the storming! All the different ideas about who we are and what we should be doing come into the open, where they compete for consideration. This needs to happen, if we are to go forwards. At best it is constructive brainstorming – but sometimes it can be more tempestuous, as it stirs up unspoken assumptions, and forces us to look more radically at who we are and where we should be going.
Yet we should not be afraid. As the young man at the tomb said to the women, ‘Do not be alarmed.’ For the risen Christ may well be deliberately leading us on a more profound journey of reflection and discovery than we had anticipated. We can be confident that – by his grace, and holy trust, tolerance and patience growing among us – God will help us take on this deeper task of discernment, and find his way forward for us together.
As we seek the face of God himself, we will come to see in him a shared vision and common goals, and so develop shared understandings of how we should pursue these. This is called the ‘norming’ stage. We establish a ‘new norm’, a common view of our vocation and how we will give expression to it, within our walls and in engagement with the community around.
And the better we can establish such a new norm, the better we are likely then to do in ‘performing’ – in actually achieving this vision – in living it out in fruitful lives. For we know that our ultimate calling, in following Jesus, is to abide in him and ‘bear the fruit that will last’.
Yet following Jesus can be demanding – for, as he tells us, this means taking up our crosses. As we go forward, there may be aspects of our old life that we have to leave behind: which we have, so to speak, to put to death. When this happens, we should not be surprised to find ourselves grieving. This is natural. But God comforts those who bring their griefs to him – as Jesus promised in the beatitudes. The sorrow of Good Friday gives way to the joy of Easter. And the joy of Easter flows through us to the world – it is the basis of our ‘performing’, bearing fruit wherever we are called.
So let us share in reflecting on how to make the Easter message tangible within and beyond these walls. Please pray with and for me too, as I consider how to share the good news that Christ is risen in concrete ways some of the areas to which I am called. Easter people, like the Old Testament prophets, are to be a prophetic and consistent voice in our land: a voice of prayer to God, and of conscience to our leaders. We are both to intercede, and to demand justice and mercy for all. Informal settlements are especially on my heart – from Khayelitsha’s water and sanitation needs, to the people of Langa, or Kennedy Road near Durban, following devastating fires last month, last week. Therefore let us pray, and work, for proper housing, safety, sanitation and water for everyone, as part of the abundant life which the Risen Jesus Christ offers.
So, finally, dear people of God of St George’s Cathedral – may all the fullness of Christ’s resurrection life be yours! And do not be alarmed, if new life is unsettling. Know that the risen Christ is going ahead of you – and as you follow him, you will find that all he has told you, all his promises, are true.
Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Romans 6:3-11; Mark 16:1-8
Alleluia, Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Sisters and Brothers in Christ, may all the fullness of Easter resurrection life be yours!
I was reflecting earlier that this is my fifth Easter with you, and I realise that I am more than well settled, because I am now finding that the sort of questions I get from journalists at this time of year are beginning to sound all too familiar.
So, for example, I’ve had one journalist asking what my Easter message would be to MTN, given the accusations that they are undermining South Africa’s values, in their relationships in Iran; and another asked me what I thought of the Red Bull advert; and then there was the question about ‘halaal’ hot cross buns – where, perhaps a little flippantly, I answered that Christians should take this as encouragement to share them with their Muslim neighbours!
And then came the Sunday Times, asking for my response to the news that Pastor Ray McCauley’s Rhema Church is planting a congregation at Silverstar Casino on the West Rand. Well, I hope they carry that part of my answer in which I say that the Holy Spirit leads God’s people to proclaim the gospel anywhere and everywhere, and so if the Holy Spirit has led Rhema to open a church at the casino, well, I hope they won’t gamble, but I also hope they will persevere in preaching the good news of Jesus Christ as I’m sure people there need to hear it!
For this is our Easter good news: Jesus, who was crucified, has been raised! And we who have been united with his death in baptism, are united within him also in his risen life! Yet what does it mean for you to be united with him in his risen life? What does it mean for me, and in my responding to the sort of questions I’ve just outlined?
The gospel of St Mark, probably the oldest account we have in Scripture, tells us of how the women learnt that Jesus had been raised; a whole new way of life has begun – but it does not tell us what happened next. There is a lesson here for us. We know Jesus has been raised, and so we have been raised too. Yet it is for us to find out what this resurrection means for us, here and now.
The young man points us in the right direction. He says to the women at the tomb ‘He is going ahead of you.’ Jesus leads us on, on whatever life’s journey has in store for us. All of us must be ready to be led onwards in our spiritual pilgrimage. Some of us will do that through actual physical pilgrimages, for example to the Holy Land. Perhaps coming to the Cathedral tonight is a step on your journey of faith.
Outer journeying is often accompanied by inner journeying. It may just be to a quiet day with the Centre of Christian Spirituality, or for a weekend away. Some go on longer retreats. Perhaps earlier this week you walked the ‘Stations of the city’ in the company of others – from other churches, even from other faiths. Companions on the journey are often important in helping us seek the face of God – as the two disciples found on the road to Emmaus, when they realised that it was Jesus with whom they had walked.
Our gospel reading reminds us that Easter has come to us all – and yet we are also called forwards, into new life, by Jesus who goes ahead of us. What might this mean for you, together, as the Cathedral family. You too are at a point where a whole new way of life has begun. It is less than a year since I installed your Dean, and here is he now with a completely fresh clergy team. A new way of life has begun for the Cathedral and its people – but, like the first disciples, we too are still finding out what this will mean for us.
Some of you may know the group development model described as ‘Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing’. This lays out helpfully the sort of stages that people go through, when some new chapter is begun. Let me explain. First comes ‘forming’ – when a new reality is created, with all its exciting hopes and expectations! People get to know one another, but are all still on best behaviour as we start to consider the challenges ahead from our new perspectives!
And there are certainly plenty of challenges – not least, the roof! But there are also questions about what it means to be at the heart of the city, at a time of so many political and socio-economic changes. And what of our role in the Diocese, the Anglican Church in Southern Africa, and within the world-wide Anglican Communion, where we have so many friends, such strong ties – and yet where there are also many changes happening. We must not forget what is perhaps the primary calling – as a Christian community, which must be nurtured in its life of worship, witness and service.
You may have noticed that I am using the words ‘we’ and ‘our’ rather a lot! For I too have a spiritual home here – not only on festivals, but also often at the 8am Sunday service, when, if I am not busy elsewhere, it is a joy to slide quietly into my seat, and be fed through being part of this family of God. And therefore it is my commitment to help you in discovering and living out God’s vision for your lives. So I share with you, in this process of wrestling with the questions of the Cathedral’s new calling.
And alongside all these challenges come the other questions, of what new beginnings come with this new Dean, to whom God has given many different gifts, different experiences and skills, a different personality and character, to his predecessor – and the same is true of the full time clergy team.
There is much promise of newness of life – but such change can be very unsettling, once the honeymoon period is over. And so then comes the storming! All the different ideas about who we are and what we should be doing come into the open, where they compete for consideration. This needs to happen, if we are to go forwards. At best it is constructive brainstorming – but sometimes it can be more tempestuous, as it stirs up unspoken assumptions, and forces us to look more radically at who we are and where we should be going.
Yet we should not be afraid. As the young man at the tomb said to the women, ‘Do not be alarmed.’ For the risen Christ may well be deliberately leading us on a more profound journey of reflection and discovery than we had anticipated. We can be confident that – by his grace, and holy trust, tolerance and patience growing among us – God will help us take on this deeper task of discernment, and find his way forward for us together.
As we seek the face of God himself, we will come to see in him a shared vision and common goals, and so develop shared understandings of how we should pursue these. This is called the ‘norming’ stage. We establish a ‘new norm’, a common view of our vocation and how we will give expression to it, within our walls and in engagement with the community around.
And the better we can establish such a new norm, the better we are likely then to do in ‘performing’ – in actually achieving this vision – in living it out in fruitful lives. For we know that our ultimate calling, in following Jesus, is to abide in him and ‘bear the fruit that will last’.
Yet following Jesus can be demanding – for, as he tells us, this means taking up our crosses. As we go forward, there may be aspects of our old life that we have to leave behind: which we have, so to speak, to put to death. When this happens, we should not be surprised to find ourselves grieving. This is natural. But God comforts those who bring their griefs to him – as Jesus promised in the beatitudes. The sorrow of Good Friday gives way to the joy of Easter. And the joy of Easter flows through us to the world – it is the basis of our ‘performing’, bearing fruit wherever we are called.
So let us share in reflecting on how to make the Easter message tangible within and beyond these walls. Please pray with and for me too, as I consider how to share the good news that Christ is risen in concrete ways some of the areas to which I am called. Easter people, like the Old Testament prophets, are to be a prophetic and consistent voice in our land: a voice of prayer to God, and of conscience to our leaders. We are both to intercede, and to demand justice and mercy for all. Informal settlements are especially on my heart – from Khayelitsha’s water and sanitation needs, to the people of Langa, or Kennedy Road near Durban, following devastating fires last month, last week. Therefore let us pray, and work, for proper housing, safety, sanitation and water for everyone, as part of the abundant life which the Risen Jesus Christ offers.
So, finally, dear people of God of St George’s Cathedral – may all the fullness of Christ’s resurrection life be yours! And do not be alarmed, if new life is unsettling. Know that the risen Christ is going ahead of you – and as you follow him, you will find that all he has told you, all his promises, are true.
Alleluia, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia!
Thursday, 25 August 2011
Charge to the Diocese of Cape Town Synod
The following Charge to the Diocese of Cape Town was delivered at the Opening Eucharist of the 63rd Session of Diocesan Synod, at St Cyprian's Retreat, on 25 August, 2011
Matthew 24:42-51Matthew 24:42-51
42Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
45‘Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time? 46Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. 47Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. 48But if that wicked slave says to himself, “My master is delayed”, 49and he begins to beat his fellow-slaves, and eats and drinks with drunkards, 50the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know. 51He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
6But Timothy has just now come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love. He has told us also that you always remember us kindly and long to see us—just as we long to see you. 7For this reason, brothers and sisters, during all our distress and persecution we have been encouraged about you through your faith. 8For we now live, if you continue to stand firm in the Lord. 9How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? 10Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.
11Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. 12And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. 13And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Dear members of the Diocese of Cape Town, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, dear friends, I greet you in the precious name of God, who calls us to live holy and blameless lives of love and faith with him and with each other. I also extend a warm greeting to all our guests. Thank you for being with us.
As I begin, let me also thank Bishop Garth and the Advisory Committee; everyone in the Diocesan Office; all at Bishopscourt; Archdeacon Anthony Langenhoven and his team at St Cyprians; and everyone else who has contributed to this Synod, and to my Charge. As always, my family deserve particular gratitude for their patience and support – along with the nearest and dearest of others heavily involved in preparations. Let me pay special tribute to Tony Hillier. We give particular thanks for his work over many years, and wish him every blessing as he prepares for retirement.
The theme of my Charge is ‘The Good News of Faith and Love’. St Paul writes to the Thessalonians that Timothy has brought him the good news of their faith and love. Faith and love are always good news. When brothers and sisters in Christ live together in faith and love, they encourage one another, and build one another up in Christian maturity. When the people of God are full of faith and love, they are a beacon of light and hope to the surrounding community. When churches overflow with faith and love, they encourage Christians throughout the body of Christ – as the Thessalonians encouraged St Paul.
But the best ‘good news of faith and love’ is that both start with God – the God who is love, the God who is faithful. Our faith, our love, owe everything to his overflowing generosity. ‘We love’ says St John ‘because he first loved us’ (1 Jn 4:19). ‘God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us,’ writes St Paul (Rom 5:8). The Psalmist recounts God’s faithfulness nearly forty times. And the writer to the Hebrews describes Jesus Christ as a ‘faithful high priest in the service of God’ (Heb 2:17).
There is no greater good news than discovering God’s love and faithfulness for ourselves: that it is not just a general attitude towards creation and humanity, but it is for you and for me! Our knowledge and experience of God, and our ability to reflect his love and faithfulness to others, should keep growing throughout our Christian lives. We will never find their limits – no matter what life brings, God’s love, God’s faithfulness, are greater.
So the central question of my Charge is this: how we can grow in this good news of faith and love?
Growth can, and should, involve both quantity and quality: growth in numbers and growth in depth, in maturity, in Christlikeness. Both are challenges to an historic church like ours, in a city of many denominations and Christian groups. We should not despise the inevitability that much of what we do is in ‘maintenance’ mode. We have a rich heritage – in people, liturgy, buildings, schools, homes, resources – and we must uphold and preserve and pass on the best of it. Overall we are in pretty good shape. We may have deficits or surpluses from year to year, but the big financial picture is sound. For this we have much to thank God – and firm foundations from which to tackle the challenges of growth with confidence.
Earlier this month I attended the Classic Pops concert that Bishops holds every three years at the City Hall. It was wonderful: well prepared and well executed, with committed boys who were exuberantly joyful in what they were doing. We left with our hearts singing.
And I asked myself – how often does our worship do this? Surely we should expect to have our hearts set on fire with the Spirit, to find ourselves fed and filled with Christ’s holy, healing, wholesome body and blood – and uplifted not just for an hour or two, but strengthened for the whole week ahead. Do we come to church – and give others reason to come to church – hungry for more of God, and expecting both to find our hunger met, and to be stirred to yearn even more deeply for him?
Perhaps for those of us who are long-term church leaders – clergy or laity – the risk is that we are not entirely expecting the Son of Man to turn up in our midst. It is easy to get comfortable running things in his absence – as Jesus’ parable warned! So we must be awake and alert; and expect the Master to come, even though he will probably upset our comfortable routines. Yet only in his presence will we find true life.
So then, let us, above all else, seek his life-changing presence evermore fully for ourselves and for those around us. As St Paul prayed for the Thessalonians, let us ‘pray earnestly that God will restore whatever is lacking in our own faith.’ We must seriously consider opportunities for renewing, deepening and sharing the good news of vibrant faith and passionate love for God, his creation, his people.
Two synod motions point to valuable resources: ‘Small Christian Communities, Renew Africa’; and ‘Church Growth, Fresh Expressions’. Both focus on growth rooted in Scripture and deepening spirituality – growth rooted in the love and faith of God for us, and our desire to know it and share it, more and more.
We must also consider the sort of leadership we need to encourage among each other now, and for the future generations. I cannot emphasise strongly enough the importance of the Endowment Fund in ensuring we leave a legacy of well-trained Clergy and laity. The motion on Lay Training is another key element.
Our gospel reading has more to say about the particular expectations placed upon those of God’s servants who have responsibilities of both leadership and care over others: ‘Who then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time?’ (Mt 24:45).
Members of Synod, these words, and the advice and warnings that come with them, are for us. How are we doing in the leadership we offer to the Diocese of Cape Town? How are we doing in the way we run our parishes, our churches, our diocesan bodies, including homes and schools, and in how we use our resources? In church jargon, we might talk about good stewardship, collegiality, and being answerable to one another within the body of Christ. In the language of the secular world, these are matters of good governance and accountability. These are the standards to which we regularly call politicians and other leaders across all sectors of society. But we can only provide a moral compass for others if our lives are directed by God in this way. For the world’s standards of good governance and accountability are merely a secular reflection of the holy and blameless life to which St Paul called the Thessalonians; they are one aspect of the wise and faithful service which Jesus asks of his followers.
We must be ready to learn from the best of secular practices. Therefore, several Synod measures propose improvements to our structures and practices. These include renaming the historic Archdeacon to the Ordinary more accurately as the Archdeacon to the Bishop of Table Bay. Second, we must ensure a clear and transparent relationship between financial and administrative tasks in the work currently undertaken by the Diocesan Secretary. Third, in line with the King III report, we propose to establish an Audit Committee, a Remuneration Committee and a Legislation Committee. These will help ensure we operate in ways that promote our desire to be wise and faithful servants, of our God, and of those to whom he sends us. In responding to this calling, we also propose amending the Diocesan Resource Teams chapter of the Diocesan Acts, to strengthen our commitments to the Environment, and to the pressing and severe needs of Social Development and Social Responsibility.
Yet, let me hasten to add, we are not environmental activists, nor social workers, nor politicians, nor moral commentators – though we may contribute in all these areas and many more. Our unique calling is to do what no-one else can do: to live out our baptismal promises in lives of faithful worship, witness and service. How can we best bring the good news of Jesus Christ, his healing touch, his redemptive power, to areas of need, suffering and deprivation? Sent by God, at his direction and in his power, we can roll up our sleeves, and get our hands dirty, and confidently engage with the messy realities, and the dire needs, of so many of God’s children alongside whom we live and work in this city. This is the lesson of Jesus’ incarnation.
And I am sure that the all-encompassing breadth of Jesus’ redemptive death and resurrection should press us not only to address symptoms but also causes. Reflecting on some of contemporary society’s persistent and pressing problems led me to write in my diary one day:
‘When it comes to true leadership in our times, NGO development projects and charities do little more than scratch at the surface of poverty. The disparity between rich and poor continues unabated, even grows; and poverty reaches pandemic proportions. Interventions to reverse this trend will not come through democracy and elections alone. While these are critical for an open society, so far they have shown no signs of translating into prosperity for all – especially the poor who remain outside the economic mainstream of the world.’
It seems to me that what is required is a reconceptualization of leadership – and here I am not talking only about Christian leadership, but about all leadership.
We need a reconceptualization of leadership as stewardship of God’s resources; stewardship as in Jesus’s parable, which entails ensuring that all those over whom one exercises authority receive ‘their allowance of food at the proper time’. In other words, leaders across all sectors must act intentionally to ensure there is equitable access to, and sharing of, the God-given resources of our planet.
The last 50 years have brought widespread political emancipation across Africa – but economic emancipation has all too often benefited a narrow political elite, while largely entrenching previously advantaged minorities. The poor majority do not even get the crumbs.
Everyone needs clean water, basic sanitation, decent housing, and effective access to adequate education and health care. Economic empowerment must promote mass employment. This is primarily governments’ task – but the private sector must also come to the party, if we are to ensure a true ‘broad-based’ approach that encompasses those excluded by current economic models. Others look to the Church also to play a significant role – earlier this month, the Minister of Health sought our support for his efforts to make a decent and affordable level of health care to all South Africans. But the question remains of how we can best play a significant, tangible, role in economic development and emancipation – and help bring the authentic good news to the poor which Jesus promised.
My challenge to you is to bear this question in mind, over the next two days, most of all, in our worship and in our seeking of God’s directing. But hold it also in your mind in conversations over meals, in debates, in group work – as we consider matters raised in measures and motions, as well as other priorities from theological education to children and young people; from Anglican Communion affairs, including the crisis facing the church in Zimbabwe, to those who are dying of hunger in Somalia; from the Communion’s listening process, to gender and Provincial Guidelines for pastoral care of those in, or affected by, same-gender Civil Unions.
As we seek God’s answers, I am sure that we will find that our social ills or lack of wellbeing require solutions rooted as much in spiritual health as in economic policy-making. By God’s grace, the gospel readings for the next two days provide us with more food for thought. These will provide the basis for my reflections in the morning homilies, and a spring-board for our Bible Studies.
As we consider these, I hope we can bear in mind the deeper question of how we can make our parishes centres of the good news of faith and love, and of encountering Christ in daily life – in ways that not only touch our hearts and souls, and the domestic arenas of family and personal life, but also help us to follow Christ’s leading in every public area of life, including work and economics. How can we go beyond providing the crumbs of charity – important though these are – and start changing the systems that leave so many in need of help, rather than empowering them to help themselves? How do we become part of God’s solution – identifying and rooting out all that impedes his command that humanity, and every human individual, should flourish; and that creation should be fruitful? What biblical values might this journey demand, what sort of questions do we need to ask and what sort of activities do we need to engage in? What type of leadership do we need to nurture the Churches’ contribution in this area, and enable this to happen?
Reflecting on my ministry since coming to Cape Town, I have felt intensely that the underlying theme running through my busy life is the call to be a leader who is above all else a pastor. I feel my call to be pastor on occasions like today, and in archdeaconry teas, as well as in the joy I feel when visiting our churches, organisations, schools and homes, across the Diocese. It is what I feel when we open Bishopscourt for an annual party for those at our Children’s Homes. Let me here publicly thank Patricia de Lille, as, formerly MEC for Social Welfare, and now Mayor, for her support; and also thank our Anglican Schools for their help. I feel it in many areas of working with Bishop Garth and Tony Hillier – and I am looking forward to exploring fresh ways at the Cathedral with our new Dean.
I have also felt the importance of pastoral leadership when walking with the poorest communities of our Diocese and City. Nothing I experienced growing up in Alexandra township prepared me for the dire conditions I have encountered in areas of Khayelitsha. Through practical engagement on issues like sanitation I have often found close fellowship and growing partnership with leaders of other churches and faith communities. Their experiences and perspectives also help my own grappling with how to tackle the many social and economic challenges that confront us on a daily basis.
Let us continue that grappling together in Synod in the days ahead, placing ourselves in the hands of the living God. Let us seek his direction that we may better make the unique contribution he asks of us – as pastoral leaders, or however he calls us – to strive as fully as possible, for the building of his kingdom, for the redemption of creation and all within it, and the glorifying of his holy name. Let us be faithful and wise, let us be awake, alert and expectant – as Jesus expects of his servants. Let us, as St Paul exhorts, pursue holy and blameless lives, of earnest prayer. And let us increase and abound in love for one another, for our God, and for his world.
Let us be people who grow in knowing and sharing the Good News of Faith and Love. Amen.
Monday, 23 May 2011
Sermon for the New Dean - To your Name, Lord, Give the Glory
This sermon was preached at the Induction and Installation of the Very Revd Michael Weeder as Rector of the Cathedral Parish of St George the Martyr and Dean of Cape Town, on 22 May 2011.
Psalm 115; Leviticus 8: 1- 12; Matthew 7:7 -14
Alleluia, Christ is risen – He is risen indeed, Alleluia
May I speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Dear people of God, dear people of the Cathedral Parish of St George the Martyr, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, dear friends from near and far, I greet you in the name of the God who delights to give good gifts to his children.
What a joy and pleasure it is to share today with you all. Thank you for being here. [Further words of welcome and thanks.]
As my text this afternoon I am taking the first verse of our Psalm, which reads, in more modern translation: ‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give the glory’ (Ps 115:1).
One thing that Cathedrals are very good at doing, is putting on a show! This is true of days like today, and the great feasts of the Church, like Easter and Christmas, as well as the many other special events that happen here for people and organisations from across Cape Town or farther afield.
Archdeacon Michael – soon to be Dean Michael – you will find that, whatever the occasion, you will be there, at the heart of it all, a focus for everything the Cathedral stands for. It is a responsibility that you will also shoulder on far quieter occasions, at the early morning Eucharists; in the pastoral care of individuals; and through passing conversations with the many visitors to this wonderful place. Whether events are great or small – whether directed inwards to the life of the Church, or outwards to city and beyond – these all illustrate the immense breadth that is typical of the ministry of our Cathedrals and their Deans.
And yet, the show that we put on is not about the place, nor about the person. It is not for our own benefit. It is not intended to draw attention to ourselves and the Anglican Church, nor to advertise the splendour of this building (though I must admit, we are keen to advertise the appeal for much needed repairs to the roof!).
But what matters most is this – that in all that a Cathedral and its Dean are called to be and do, above everything else stands the call to follow the Psalmist’s words: ‘Not to us, but to your Name, O Lord, give the glory.’
Cathedrals occupy a very particular place in the life of the Church, one that is both alike, and unlike, that of parish churches. You are like our parish churches, in that this is the home of a faithful Christian community, who – day by day, week by week – offer prayer and praises. You gather together so that, feeding on the Word and Sacraments, you can build one another up as the Body of Christ centred upon this place; and encourage one another in the lives of worship, witness and service to which you are called, and to which you pledge yourselves, by the power of the Holy Spirit, in Confirmation. You have all manner of groups and projects – from the choir and book-club, to the shop and outreach activities, especially in support to the homeless of the city centre, and to those infected and affected by AIDS and HIV.
All this is much like any other parish. For this is the Cathedral Parish of St George the Martyr; and you, Michael, are, first of all, to be its Rector. So draw on all your years of experience in the many parishes in which you have served. It is wonderful to have them all represented here today. Remember, Michael, that it is first of all, as Rector that I institute you; and it is as Rector that you are to serve the people of this parish – and to serve those to whom you and they together are called in ministry and mission. So, in the life of this Cathedral parish, may your motto be, ‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give the glory.’
But Cathedrals, as I said, are also very much unlike most parish churches. The Diocese of Cape Town looks to the Cathedral as our Mother Church. The seat of the Diocesan Bishop is here. And we look to the Dean as our Senior Priest, sharing in the collaborative leadership at the heart of our Diocese. As Dean, and as Cathedral Parish, we ask you to exercise this position of leadership in the service of the Diocese. We come to the Cathedral for the major events of Diocesan life – particularly consecrations and ordinations – and we will look to you, as our Dean, to be our host. We also look to the Cathedral to provide both a central focus, and a place where every member of our Diocese can come, and feel that they belong here, and feel welcome and at home. So my prayer too is that in the life of the Diocese, God’s name will be glorified through the life of this Cathedral.
While Cathedrals are at the heart of the life of the church in a way that no other parish is, they are also on the edge of the church in the way no parish is. For Cathedrals stand in that ambiguous place where the church meets the world and the world meets the Church. This has been especially true of St George’s, which has played such an enormous part in the life of our city and our country, over more than a century.
Everyone who comes within these walls should encounter the active presence of God. Here people should find the dramatic embodiment of the mysteries in which we believe and trust, and by which we live. They should know themselves to be in a place made holy by the habitual prayer of a faithful Christian community. Those who enter this building must hear it declared, and not necessarily in words: ‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give the glory.’
But we do not proclaim ‘our God is God of all’ only within these walls. This Cathedral has a proud history of taking the initiative and proclaiming the lordship of God loud and clear to the city and nation. Giving glory to God is the starting point, and the context, for the Cathedral’s ministry and mission to the world around. This was the basis on which it stood firm during the struggle years. This is the place from which it speaks to the world today.
Whatever circumstances face us, whatever the situation that we find in the city around, it is God’s message that we must declare, in words and actions. This is illustrated in our first reading. Moses received the command of the Lord, and he called the people together, and declared God’s command, and carried out God’s command. We too pass on what we have received from God. And so we preach the gospel of our Saviour Jesus Christ, and declare the Kingdom in his name.
And in giving glory to the name of the Lord, we declare God’s character.
• He is the God of love, we proclaim to those who feel marginalised, excluded, rejected.
• He is the God of hope, we proclaim to those who despair, who fear, who think their life has hit a dead end, or their problems are insoluble.
• He is the God of healing, we proclaim to the suffering, the wounded, the broken-hearted.
• He is the God of forgiveness, we proclaim to those burdened by their own wrongdoings, their guilt, their shame – as well as to those who bear anger and hatred.
• He is the God of freedom, we proclaim to all who feel trapped – perhaps by circumstances, or drugs, or alcohol, or abusive relationships.
• He is the God of peace, we proclaim to all who are troubled, anxious or in turmoil.
• He is the God of justice, we proclaim to those who suffer discrimination, oppression, prejudice, unfairness.
• He is the God of judgement too – and we are not afraid to proclaim this also: wherever there is injustice; wherever the rich exploit the poor, or the strong exploit the weak, or the powerful exploit the marginalised, the voiceless, the excluded.
God stands in very particular solidarity with people who are in any sort of need; and this Cathedral has a long history of being unafraid to stand where God stands. This is why it has won the title of The People’s Cathedral. May you continue to earn it.
This election week, we are particularly aware of the call to serve others with justice and dedication, that comes to all who bear elected office. So, let me say to all those who are newly elected – we have you in our prayers as you take up the reins of office; and we will continue to uphold you in prayer in the months and years ahead.
But we also say to you, never forget that this power and responsibility is given for the service of the whole country. It is especially to be used for those in greatest need. It is not for the benefit of those who are elected, their friends or family, nor is it to be used to advance the interests of one’s own political party. It is to be exercised with honesty, truthfulness, and hard work. Promises are to be kept. Services must be delivered. And there must be accountability – the voices of the people are to be heard, not only at election time, but always.
This is the justice that the Cathedral will, I am sure, continue to pursue – often working together with other Christians, our brothers and sisters of other faith communities, and with other civil society organisations and individuals. We pursue this, because this is a task we have received from the Lord.
And we know that what God calls us to do, he also equips us to do. Our second reading spoke of how he delights to give his good gifts to his people, as they call on him. Reliance on God’s call, and on God’s gifts, directed and empowered the Cathedral in the primary role it played in the struggle years. Reliance on God’s call, and on God’s gifts, has directed and empowered the Cathedral in pioneering a ministry to those infected and affected by AIDS and HIV.
And now I say to you, Dean Michael, and to the people of the Cathedral: follow the lessons of this reading from St Matthew’s Gospel. Ask, and you will be given, search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened.
Today a new chapter begins in the life of this Cathedral Parish, and in the life of its calling to serve God’s church and God’s world. Let God write that chapter for you. Let him direct you. Let him empower you. Ask his leading, seek his guidance, knock that he may open the door of the narrow gate – and be ready to walk through it, knowing that it is the pathway to life: life for the people of the Cathedral community; and life for the people to whom he sends you. The gate is narrow, and the path may sometimes be strewn with challenges, difficulties and setbacks. But be confident that as you journey with the Lord, he will give you all that you need. For everyone who asks, receives; everyone who searches, finds; for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
May it be so – for you, Dean Michael, and to everyone who has ears to hear these words. Amen
Friday, 20 May 2011
Installation of New Dean of Cape Town
The following statement was issued on 19 May 2011.
On Sunday 22 May 2011, at 3pm, at the Cathedral of St. George the Martyr, the Most Revd Dr Thabo Cecil Makgoba will institute the Very Revd Michael Weeder as Rector of the Cathedral Parish of St George the Martyr and install him as 15th Dean of Cape Town. Various dignitaries from all walks of life are expected, including from the political, civil society and diplomatic worlds, and representatives of other faiths.
Further details of the appointment, together with the new Dean’s CV are available at . A note giving some background information on the service is appended below.
Issued by the Office of the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town. Inquiries: Wendy Tokata on 021- 763-1320 (Bishopscourt, office hours); St George’s Cathedral 021 423 3371 (office hours); Revd Terry Lester 073 402 0064 (Cathedral Sub-Dean); Very Revd Michael Weeder 083 384 4854 (Dean-elect)
A note on the Service of Induction and Installation
The service reflects the continuity of the past in the life of the Church today. It is made up of two distinct rites: the Office of Evening Prayer, in the form found in Book of Common Prayer (South Africa), with the canticles sung to the form found in the Anglican Prayer Book of 1989; and the Service for the Institution of a Priest to a Pastoral Charge. The South African Book of Common Prayer is based on the English Book of Common Prayer of 1662, which itself drew on ancient Latin liturgical texts. The continuity of the prayer life of the church is shown through these forms of service, from different ages, being used as a harmony.
We are a church in Africa, so the lections for this service are being read in Arabic and Nama, declaring the continuity we share with the oldest cultures of both our continent and our country. One of the processional crosses used today gives witness to the oldest Christian Church in sub Saharan Africa – the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
On Friday the 23rd May, 1958, Fr Ted King was instituted and installed as Dean of Cape Town. One day short of 53 years later we celebrate a further point in the continuing story of the Cathedral and Anglicans in Cape Town. When Fr Rowan Smith was instituted and installed as Dean, on the 13th October 1996, the Precentor was Fr Christian Hartnick. Archdeacon Hartnick plays that role on Sunday.
Within the service we celebrate today, there are also those elements which show that we are a church living and bearing witness in the third millennium of the Christian era. We hold these things together as we serve our God, who is the same, yesterday, today and forever.
The Magdala Cross: The Processional Cross used for the Archbishop’s procession is usually kept in the Cathedral Treasury. It was found on the battlefield after the destruction of Magdala in Abyssinia in 1868, and was presented to the Cathedral in 1898. It is believed to be over a thousand years old. This is the first time it has been used in over a century.
Friday, 22 April 2011
Sermon at the Service for the Renewal of Vows
The following sermon was preached at the Service for the Renewal of Priestly and Diaconal Vows of the Clergy of the Diocese of Cape Town on Maundy Thursday, 21 April 2011.
Isaiah 61:1-9; Psalm 89:21-27; Revelation 1:4b–8; Luke 4:16-21
May I speak in the name of God, who anointed His Son High Priest of the New Covenant. Amen! Dear colleagues, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, our Collect boldly claims that “we are consecrated to share as faithful witnesses to Christ’s saving work”. What might this mean, as we renew our vows today?
Before I turn to this, let me first say what a delight it is to be here, and to see almost all the clergy of this diocese and some retired clergy as well. Thank you all, for your ministry and our partnership in what God is up to in the various communities that we serve and in the world. A special thanks to Bishop Garth for his leadership among us – to Chapter and all the various bodies and ministries within the diocese. Archdeacon Karl Groepe, Fr Isaac Haynes and your parishioners, thank you for opening St James’ parish for us today and for all the preparatory work for this service. On the 22nd May 2011 at 15h00, we will be instituting Moruti Michael Weeder as Dean of our cathedral of St George. You are all invited. Pray for Michael, Bonita, and their children Chiara, Andile and Khanyisa, as they assume this specialized ministry. Please pray for us as we prepare for our diocesan Synod, to be held from 25 to 27 August at St Cyprian’s Retreat. The Summons for Synod has been sent and I hope you have elected or soon will elect your representatives to synod.
What might it mean being consecrated to share as faithful martyrs to Christ’s saving work, as we renew our vows today? It might mean that we are renewing our commitment to serving: renewing our identity in serving, as well as deepening our understanding of why we are serving. We serve for Christological reasons, because Scripture says “the Son of man came to serve and not to be served”; and our ecclesiological understanding is to build the body. The Anglican Prayer Book and the introduction in today’s liturgy, just before we renew our vows both say that the body is built when we show forth in his name the sacrifice of our redemption, as we set the Eucharist before God’s family – that is, through the paschal meal; as we lead His Holy people in love, nourishing them with His Word; and as we help strengthen them with the sacraments. This is an enormous responsibility that gives us a new self-understanding: an understanding that our (human and often feeble) work and will, through the grace of God can and do mediate the work and will of God. We, thus, are rededicating ourselves anew to the continuation of the mystery of the Incarnation, and our role in these mysteries. We gather as those “consecrated” or set apart to share as faithful disciples of his saving acts and as priests of the New Covenant. St John Chrysostom says “if you are renewed, you can’t remain the same.” We too cannot remain the same.
Anglican Archbishops Ramsey, Fischer, and Williams, as well as our own Archbishops Tutu and Ndungane, in their writings and ministries provide a helpful context within which we can understand ourselves as we continue this faithful work of service, worship and witness. Their work and theological understanding of God in the public space, endow us with sound biblical, ecclesiological and Christological bases for self understanding as we renew our vows. Their work is aptly summed up in a very readable book by Ramsey – The Christian Priest Today – when he refers to the ‘4 in 1’ unchangeable marks of a priest. That is, a priest is: a minister in teaching; a minister for reconciliation; a minister for prayer; and a minister of the Eucharist. Put in missiological terms, in these tasks we recognize what Bosch described as the three dimensions of the Church, the body of Christ, namely the ministries of kerygma – proclamation, preaching and teaching; of diakonia – serving; and of koinonia – communion with God and the rest of God’s community.
With this understanding, it makes theological sense to combine the renewal of the priestly vows and the vows of those called to the diaconate. By doing so, we are affirming that all of us are able to exercise the ordained ministry because, through our baptism, God befriended us. We too befriended God. Through his Son’s atoning and redeeming work, we continue as His disciples in spite of ourselves and who we are, and of what we may want to become. Through his saving grace and his Holy Spirit, our dismembered body (that is, our identity) is healed, formed into His likeness and made whole.
However, today, I want to focus on our role as ministers of the Eucharist: those who show forth in his name the sacrifice of our redemption, as we stand before God’s family; and on our role as ministers of reconciliation. Of course both of these roles are undergirded by prayer and scripture. As ministers of the Eucharist, each time bread and wine are sanctified, we too are sanctified. We are made one body with Him and, as we always pray, we are one with his people of this and every age. Thus, in celebrating the Holy Mysteries, the Mass, the historical – with its anamnetic and epicleptic realities – is renewed and turned into the “now”, into how we are called to be and ought to be. As someone said, a human being is a human being and must be a human being; and so we catch a glimpse of what is “to come”, that is, the eschatological perspectives. Together with those that the Eucharist is offered for, present and not present, we become incorporated into this mystical union and catch a glimpse of the “grace and peace from Him who is and who was and is to come ...” Rev 1:4b
As we receive the Word and Sacrament, the incarnate God – in the Father’s incarnate Son – dwells in us. The Holy Spirit gives us a new identity, in their likeness. In this way, we cannot and dare not privatise faith. When God, who is community, dwells in us or when the Spirit of the Lord God is upon us, (Luke 4:16ff / Isa 61:1), as the Spirit was also upon Jesus, the impact is felt beyond us. Our neighbours feel it too.
What impact does our neighbour feel when the “unrestricted presence of God, the creative and life giving Spirit” is upon us? Our hymn today reminds us, the hands that Holy Things have taken are “strengthened for service”. For where the incarnate word of God – the incarnate Christ – is, there is His scarred and wounded body: healing the sick, comforting the sad, accepting the excluded and marginalised, and driving demons out through his Word and his closeness to God the Father. Surely, this is what we are renewing ourselves for! We are recommitting ourselves to peace-building in his steps; to reconciling others after his example; to bringing hope and dispelling fear following the demands of his Word; to renewing the face of the world; and to building His body.
When we preside over the paschal meal, God’s family meal, the meal for all, we are showing forth the sacrifice of our redemption. We are made in harmony with a God who transcends race, sex, class and all artificial man-made divisions. We are renewed by the Spirit of the Lord God, sparing (or empowering?) us to continue to challenge individualism, arrogance, corruption, greed, self-serving or serving only friends and family at the expense of the poor. When the Spirit of the Lord God is upon us, we are called and sent, over and over again, to make Christ’s being real in our world and to share the implications of the paschal meal in our world. Being fed and nurtured by this meal in transformative worship constantly sends us into the world to build communities of love, compassion, and fearlessness, because we are not doing our will and work, but continuing in the will and work of God.
After celebrating a lunch-hour Eucharist on Monday at the Cathedral, I confirmed the invitation to go to Ficksburg on Tuesday. I went there to visit the Tatane family, following the brutal murder of their loved one, Andries, by our police. I went as the Anglican Archbishop, but also as patron of the Election Monitoring Network and chair of the Eminent Persons’ Group. Please join me in praying for our poor communities like Meqheleng, and Khayalitsha and our informal settlements in particular, and support them in their call to have their human dignity respected and their basic needs met. Join me in loving our neighbour as ourselves, including the police who killed Andries, even as we challenge their disproportionate use of force and their militarized approach that ‘shoots to kill’ even an unarmed Ficksburg civilian. Let us affirm and call for a renaming of our police services back to ‘safety and security’ and not a police ‘force’, for this force seems to maim and kill rather than offer safety and security.
St John Chrysostom says “what plunges us into disorder is not so much our sins as our despair”. Therefore, as those set apart and consecrated to witness to His saving acts, and strengthened for service, we cannot shy away from becoming signs of the divine, of the hope we find in the broken and risen body of Christ in the world. As ministers of the Word and Sacrament who “take, bless, break, and give” in remembrance of his saving act, we must will and work for Christ’s atoning and redeeming work; remembering that when one suffers, we all hurt. We thus cannot afford to leave any area without witnessing to Christ’s liberating presence.
The list is long but let me mention a few examples as I end. We cannot allow Julius Malema, and his gun-wielding theatrics, to compromise the space where justice is perceived to be uncorrupted. We cannot fear to raise the ethical/moral dilemmas of our day, even as unworthy servants: issues such as drug abuse and related crimes; abuse of power and state resources; and the cancerous greed of the elite in South Africa, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, to mention but a few. We cannot remain silent in the face of wars and killings in Libya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere; or the illegitimate development and use of power; or the post-election burning of Churches in Nigeria. We can’t be indifferent in the face of inequality; or at the marginalisation of religion and morality in schools; or where the environment continues to be polluted and energy wasted by a few in the world.
The Spirit of Lord God is upon us, refreshing our tired bodies and restoring our true identity in Christ; in alleviating the hurt, pain and suffering among His people through us; and in continuously consecrating us as faithful martyrs of His saving acts. May you be blessed this Good Friday and have a good, and joyous Easter. And please don’t forget to vote – and vote responsibly! Amen.
Tuesday, 11 January 2011
Announcement of New Dean for Cape Town Cathedral
This statement was released on 11 January 2011
I am delighted to announce publically that we have appointed the Venerable Michael Weeder to succeed Dean Rowan Smith as the Dean of the Cathedral of St George the Martyr, Cape Town.
Fr Michael is currently the Rector of St Phillip the Deacon and St Bartholomew, Woodstock, and Archdeacon of the Groote Schuur area. A son of Cape Town, he is one of our most senior priests, with over 25 years in ordained ministry. Alongside extensive parish experience, he has a longstanding interest in social responsibility, community organisation, and the role of the church in the public arena – not only in this country but around the world. For example, he has conducted workshops in democracy across this continent, and been an election observer as far afield as Pakistan and Romania.
Closer to home, he is a founder member of the December First Movement, which has considered the impact of slavery’s legacy on questions of contemporary identity. He also has a longstanding interest in working with young people, within and beyond the church, and in encouraging and mentoring those moving through the process of ordination. Fr Michael brings together a deep spirituality, rooted in Jesus Christ, with a wide awareness of God’s world and its needs. There’s even a bit of the Barack Obama about him – in his experience of community mobilization, especially on behalf of the wounded and marginalised!
I am sure he will continue the great tradition at St George’s, of being ‘the people’s Dean’ – both serving the Cathedral community, and encouraging the Cathedral in its calling to serve God’s world. I am sure he will be a courageous and spiritual leader, who will take the Cathedral forward into a new chapter in its significant life within our church and city.
It is my intention to install him as Dean on 22 May. Between now and then, may I ask you all to pray for him, and his family – his wife Bonita, and children Chiara, Andile and Khanyisa - as they prepare to take this new vocation and ministry.
+Thabo Cape Town
Issued on 31 December 2010 by the Office of the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town. For further information contact Ms Sisanda Majikazana on 021-763-1320 (office hours)
Fr Michael’s CV follows below, together with some ‘Reflections on being Dean-Elect’ which he has written in response to various questions that have come to him, since his appointment was announced to the Cathedral community in December .
Curriculum Vitae – The Venerable Michael Ian Weeder
C/o St Phillip the Deacon, 101 Roger Street, District 6, Cape Town, 8001. Tel/fax 27-21-462 6355; cell: 083 384 4854; e-mail: mweeder@icon.co.za.
Personal Information: Born in District Six, on 30 October 1957 (53 yrs old); South African nationality; married to Bonita; three children, Chiara (23 yrs); Andile (20 yrs); Khanyisa (19 yrs).
Summary of Qualifications: Matriculation from Good Hope High, Kuilsriver, 1975; Dip. Theology at St Paul’s Seminary, Grahamstown, 1981, 83, 34; BA (Hons) in History, UWC, 2002; MA (cum laude), UWC, 2006.
Employment: Anglican Diocese of Cape Town, in the following Parishes: St Philip the Deacon, District Six in plurality with St Bartholomew, Walmer Estate, 2008; St Michael & All Angels, Observatory, April 2007; St Philip the Deacon, District Six in plurality with St Bartholomew, Walmer Estate, 2000; St Michael & All Angels, Ottery, 1997; St Francis, Zweletemba, 1995; St Columba, Guguletu, 1994; The Parochial District of Ashton & Montagu, 1989-91; The Cathedral of St John’s, Portland, OR, USA, 1988; St Timothy’s, Factreton, December 1985; St Clare’s, Ocean View, December 1984.
Extra-parochial responsibilities from 1997 until 2007 included the Diocesan Post-ordination Training Programme (facilitating the ongoing formation of newly ordained clergy) and the Diocesan Vocational Conference (assisting in the selection of candidates for the priesthood).
Project Vote (PV): Served as Director from 1993 to1997, seconded from the Anglican Board of Social Responsibility (BSR) to PV, established to research South Africans elections readiness; and to develop and coordinate a national voter education programme for the 1994 elections.
The Board Of Social Responsibility: served as Director, 1991, to co-ordinate the social justice programme of the Diocese of Cape Town, as part of the staff of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Community Organiser In Mitchells Plain: 1980, employed by the Parish of Christ the Redeemer, Westridge to work with young people in the church and the community.
Young Christian Students (YCS): Schools’ Organiser, 1979, employed to promote formation of action-reflection groups at schools. Extensive use was made of an analysis that integrated the experience of race into a class perspective on South African society.
The Department Of Coloured Affairs: Clerk, 1978.
Some Indicators Of Interest And Influences:
Lebanon & Nicaragua: To study the role of religion & revolution, 1982; A Faith & Order Commission of the WCC visit to Nicaragua, 1988; Election Observer to Romania & Pakistan, 1994; Elections Consultant for the US based National Democratic Institute in Lesotho, conducted workshops on democracy in Swaziland, Mozambique, Malawi and Ethiopia, 1995/6; Peace & Solidarity Tour to North Carolina & Chicago as guest of the Quaker American Friends Services Committee, 1997; Co-produced Lydia Williams: A Fervent Simplicity, a documentary on slavery, 1998; A founder member of the December First Movement: a socio- cultural deliberation on identity, established to explore the impact of slavery on consciousness and practice, 1997; Organiser for the ANC - Eastern Boland Region, 1992; Secretary of the Black Anglican Clergy Fellowship, 1986; Co-ordinator of an ANC unit in the Western Cape and de facto chaplain to members of the underground in my care, 1986-88.
Some Reflections on Being Dean-Elect, Prompted by Questions put to me.
Background
My mum was an Anglican from the Parish of St Athanasius, Garden Village, my dad was Catholic, a member of Sacred Heart, Somerset Road, Green Point. The paternal part of my origins is well rooted in Cape Town and my DNA reflects the history of a port-city: slavery and nineteenth immigrants personified in our case by one Louis Evon, my great-grandfather. His death certificate identified him as a “French Creole from Bourbon”, the present day island of Reunion. He was a fisherman. My mother’s lineage tells a similar story prefaced by the proud insignia of the San. We lived in District One, till I was about 5 years and then we moved to Kensington via a brief stint in Bridgetown.
Calling, the City and the Cathedral
My mother and I would often commute into the city on a Sunday to worship at St John’s on Waterkant. It was there that I had my first sense of being called to the priesthood. I remember seeing the priest, sub-Deacons and altar-servers, haloed by the luminous early morning light, processing along the aisle … the smell of the incense, its rising smoke garnishing their way. That memory still speaks to the presence of God in my life then and now. When St John’s was de-hallowed and closed down in June 1970, I was thirteen years old and we were living in Elsies River. The Cathedral, the new home of many of the ex-St John ‘s parishioners, was too far and we made our new spiritual home at St Andrews, Eureka Estate.
The eighties found me part of a generation of young people who had grown up in the Cape Flats and found new meaning in Christianity, refracted as it was through the biblical values of justice and by our experience of the struggle against apartheid. In the hey-day of this period our faith was tested by our experience of our Mother church. The occasion was in October 1982 when Vernon Peterson and I stood outside the Cathedral Vestry door. The previous week or so the SADF has invaded Lesotho and South Africans and Basotho nationals had been killed in the attack. I was part of a group of Mitchells Plain activists who had secured permission from the Cathedral leadership to observe a 48-hour fast in its precincts, to register our protest against this atrocity on the part of the Apartheid government. That Friday a local daily carried an article under the heading ‘ANC fast at the Cathedral”, or words to that effect. We hurried to the Cathedral in the belief that I, a first-year seminarian, along with the quiet diplomacy skills of Vernie, could convince the Dean of our faith-based intentions. One of the then Wardens, firmly and without malice, guarded the Vestry entrance with the words, “the Dean is not available”. We relocated our action to the Church of the Good Shepherd, Kensington. One of the ways the love of God is expressed is the manner in which he raises us up from defeat and the often accompanying emotion of despair. But in a similar manner he tickles our fancy-stoked egos. Maybe our God of perfect timing and humour is suggesting, “Okay, okay … Here’s the Cathedral and its doors are open to you. Djy wil mos hie’ gebid het … nou daar! (You wanted to pray here … so here it is!). Get on with it.”
To be Dean of this great Cathedral has been beyond my imagination (or desire) and I will embrace the ministry here with delight and happiness, and, I pray, with a good dollop of humility. A comrade and brother-priest, Fr Austin Jackson, notes that “the Anglican Cathedral in South Africa has evolved into a post ecumenical space in the religious and sociological imagination of the nation (in) …. the way in which its liturgical tradition has over many years served as a refracting instrument for the different social and political pathologies and blisses in our society”. I recognise therefore that inasmuch that my life as a priest has resonated with the best practice social justice tradition of our Cathedral, my election as Dean also has a collective component to it. I sense that, given the history of our city, people and country, that a person such as I am is representative, perhaps in a small way, of the many communities exiled from its bosom and alienated from their legacy. The cathedral provides a distinguished and hallowed space for the projects and the loves that viscerally motivates us.
My Family
I have been married to Bonita for 26 years and we have been blessed with three children, Chiara (23), Andile (21), Khanyisa (19). Bonita is director of the District Six Museum.
The Liturgy
I am Rector-in-Plurality of St Philip the Deacon in District 6 and St Bartholomew in Walmer Estate. I was instituted here in 2001 but subsequently did a stint in St Michael and All Angels, Observatory (July 2007-March 2008). This re-awoke in me an appreciation of liturgy and reminded me of the extent to which we have sometimes been negligent of our specifically Anglican tradition in our haste to embrace the new. I have never experienced the sheer joy of the Sung Mass and the majesty of worship as I did many a Sunday at St Michael’s. It is a special place. I am more inclined to a contemporary liturgical expression of Anglo-Catholicism but my township upbringing (and later priestly ministry in those areas) socialised me in the spirituality of the mid-week bid-uur, the mission outreaches of the many evangelists who graced our lives with koortjies and the necessity of personal piety, and the blessings of the charismatic movement. Evensong remains the most beautiful service in our tradition.
The Heritage/Tradition of the Cathedral
The Cathedral by virtue of its place in the continuum of South Africa’s history from its colonial inception to its gradual and active response to the injustices of society has achieved a significant visibility and a related value-associated place in the life of the city. It is where the Archbishop has his parish home and it is the custodian of his Chair, the symbol of his authority and hence the place he would often declare the mind of the Church in matters of our faith and contemporary issues of concern. Given its locality in relation to the Houses of Parliament, the Cathedral has a coterminous role as the indicator to government of our faith-based understanding of the needs of our people and a listening post for the nation. It is thus also a national asset. It is also a parish, a spiritual home to which people travel from all over the Peninsula and the Cape Flats Sunday in and Sunday out. It is also a place of faith for those for whom Cape Town is a seasonal domicile – diplomats, parliamentarians, business people and a regular influx of professional tourists associated with various philanthropies, entertainment industries service sectors and so on.
You were strongly involved in the struggle against apartheid. Can you share with us a moment in that period that marked you for life?
Meeting Aunty Ivy, the mother of Ashley Kriel, at her home in Bonteheuwel and listening to her account of how she learnt of the death of her son. It was a Thursday evening as she travelled on the bus home from Mowbray. She read in the SOUTH of how he had been shot and killed and that he had actually been in Cape Town for a while, unbeknown to her. The callous reference to Ashley by her fellow passengers as “a terrorist vark”. For me she represented the quiet strength of the many, many mothers of children who never lived to see this New South Africa. I remain grateful to them, our country’s young martyrs.
Are you proud of the Anglican Church's role in the struggle against injustice or do you think it should do more?
As a Church we have benefitted from our colonial past and with that privilege comes a special responsibility to correct the compounded, accumulated, systemic injustices that bedevil our country. We can never be smug about our esteemed status. We could have done more and we should be clear-eyed about our selective response to apartheid. Given that Diocesan property such as its churches and schools were white-owned, the Group Areas Act could not have devastated our communities to the extent that it did without a measure (albeit without malice) of co-operation from our then leadership. Leliebloem Children’s Home; Walmer estate; St John’s, Waterkant; All Saints, Robertson; St Mildred’s, Montagu … all speak of either our silence or our acquiescence. But the roll of honour of those who defied and led by examples of solitary and sacrificial courage is immense. They opened the way for the many who came into the fold of the resistance to apartheid. Present day examples include the involvement of Hout Bay Parish, its Rector, Fr Godfrey Walton; Archdeacon of the Waterfront, Fr Karl Groepe; and Jessica Fortuine, a Churchwarden. I recently read a comment on Facebook which bewailed the fact, it said, that Anglicans would rather support other causes and neglect those of their own Church. The response of a friend of mine, Belinda Jackson, sums up our true stance: “The causes of others are the causes of Anglicans”.
How do you relax?
I love Jazz, a music form distilled by timing and rhythm. Spirituality likewise is about proportion and perspective. Over time I have come to a better balance between my calling as priest and as husband and father – my family, and my children in particular, help me not to take my seriousness too seriously!
The previous Cathedral Dean has played an important role in reaching out to the gay, lesbian and transgender community. What will you do to uphold that tradition?
My experience as a priest informs me that new beginnings must be located in prayer. In the accompanying listening (mostly to God but also to the faith community and to the needs and blessings of society at large) one must try and find what is your place and role in God’s agenda. My calling is to serve and contribute to my and the collective quality of life. I hope and believe that in doing that we make God happy.
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