Message for the Memorial Service for Bishop John Osmers

Message for the Memorial Service for Bishop John Osmers in Christchurch Transitional Cathedral on Saturday, June 26. Bishop Osmers, born a New Zealander, died aged 86 of Covid complications in Lusaka on June 16. During the liberation struggle he lost his right-hand to a bomb sent by apartheid security forces: 

John Osmers was an exemplary pastor, prophet and priest who selflessly dedicated his life to the liberation and welfare of God’s people, especially in Southern Africa. Although we mourn his death, we also – along with the many thousands of people to whom he ministered – celebrate an extraordinary life.

As the Church in Southern Africa said when we conferred upon him the Archbishop’s Award for Peace with Justice , Bishop John achieved distinction in multiple countries for multiple reasons as a consequence of his lifelong work as a faithful servant of God. First in Lesotho, then in Botswana and then in Zambia, he served as a chaplain to South African exiles, by whom he is fondly remembered. 

I can do no better than to quote the words of one of them:

“John Osmers gave his home, telephone and meagre food supplies to all of us.

His little van carried young refugees around... He remembered their birthdays,

took them to the hospital when ill and took them blankets… in winter. He

arranged the all-night vigil yearly on 16 June... He took our traumatised

children to stay with him… South African parents whose children were exiled in

Lesotho, Botswana and Zambia owe John Osmers a debt that can never be

repaid.”

To that ministry, he added sterling service in our neighbouring Province of Central Africa, where of course he became the first Bishop of Eastern Zambia, Rector of St John’s Seminary and and Dean of Holy Cross Cathedral in Lusaka. 

Our condolences go to Elizabeth and all in his extended family. To John: well done, you good and faithful servant. Praise be to God for a life well lived. May you rest in peace and rise in glory.

Archbishop commends Holy Land studies

The Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem’s hospital in Gaza provides emergency care in the conflict.

My dear sisters and brothers of ACSA,

In September 2019, our Provincial Synod passed a resolution expressing our strong support for justice for the Palestinian people.  In order to give effect to our Provincial Synod resolution, one of the actions I have taken is to commission a series of studies for use in parishes around the Province.  Those studies are now ready and are available freely on our Provincial website or here>> I commend them to you and would strongly urge that as many Bible study groups as possible make use of them.  

The issues of the Holy Land and its conflict are deeply complex and there are no easy answers. But before we express opinions it is a good spiritual discipline to try and understand more clearly and listen to one another more carefully.  It is my belief that these studies will facilitate this understanding and listening process.

Since the passing of the Provincial Synod Resolution and my recent Pentecost letter concerning the conflict in Israel and Palestine, I have received a number of comments both commending and condemning our Provincial decision.  It is very clear that there are strong feelings about the issues which divide the people of the Holy Land.  It is my hope and prayer that the use of these studies will assist us all to make more informed opinions and thus contribute to peace and justice rather than fuelling divisions and conflict. 

As always, I implore you to pray for a just peace in Palestine and Israel.

God bless,

+Thabo Cape Town

LINK to the studies: 

https://anglicanchurchsa.org/justice-for-the-palestinian-people-five-studies/

BACKUP LINK to the studies>>

Southern Africa mourns Kenneth Kaunda

"The night has passed, rest in peace KK." This was Archbishop Thabo Makgoba's response to the death announced yesterday of former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda. He is remembered in the Province of Southern Africa especially for his wise and unstinting support for the liberation of all our nations. The following is the text of the citation of the Archbishop's Award for Peace with Justice, conferred upon KK on April 16, 2016, while the Archbishop was in Lusaka for a meeting of the Anglican Consultative Council: 

Archbishop’s Award for Peace with Justice

Kenneth David Kaunda

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

   and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

   and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

The role played in Southern African history by his Excellency Kenneth Kaunda, former President of Zambia, epitomises how a statesman can fulfil the injunction in Micah to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with our God. 

Born the son of a minister and a teacher, President Kaunda was steeped in the values of the Gospel from an early age. From early adulthood, his life revolved around service to his fellows, as a teacher, a community activist and a founding member of the liberation movement in Zambia. His commitment to service found its highest expression in his term as founding president of Zambia and in his unwavering commitment to liberation for others, making exceptional sacrifices as a consequence of harbouring fellow liberation fighters who were branded by white minority regimes as “terrorists”. At the end of the Cold War, he achieved new distinction as an exemplary leader when he became one of the first leaders to allow multi-party elections and afterwards to step down from power. Respected and loved by Nelson Mandela and the other liberators of Southern Africa, he was rightly honoured with an important role at Madiba’s funeral.

Supported by the Archbishop of Central Africa, the Bishop of Lusaka and the Dean of Lusaka, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa is honoured to present the Archbishop’s Award for Peace with Justice to President Kenneth Kaunda. 

“The inability of those in power to still the voices of their own consciences is the great force leading to change.” – Kenneth Kaunda

A Pastoral Letter on the tragic situation in Palestine and Israel

My dear Sisters and Brothers,

In September 2019, our Provincial Synod passed a resolution expressing our strong support for justice for the Palestinian people. We did not do this lightly: our own experiences and the way the Christian faith was manipulated in the service of apartheid meant that we could not keep silent in the face of similar developments elsewhere.

Our resolution was a cry from the heart aimed at avoiding new outbreaks of violence such as that we have seen recently in the Holy Land. The indiscriminate attacks on whole communities which we saw are to be condemned in the strongest of terms, particularly when aimed at the blockaded territory of Gaza, which has taken on the nature of a huge open-air prison.

The rise in tensions which lay behind the recent violence is partly attributable to attempts to evict Palestinian families from their homes in a largely Palestinian neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and to replace them with Jewish settlers. It shocks the conscience to learn that Israeli law gives Jewish people the right to return to property said to have belonged to them before the state was established in 1948, but that Palestinians have no such right.

The dispute over land goes to the heart of the conflict: because Israel has been declared a homeland for the Jewish people, those of Jewish descent who have no connection to the land other than that biblical Israel was the historic home of their faith have the right to settle there. Yet Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes in 1948 have no right to return to their land and properties. And in recent years, the invasion of Palestinian territory occupied by Israel in 1967 by Jewish settlers renders any “two-state solution” even less viable than our Bantustans were.

The current state of affairs is unjust and evil. We therefore call for an arms embargo to be placed on all fighting forces in the region, just as there was a United Nations arms embargo on South Africa. We also call for other pressure, including sanctions, to be imposed to bring all the parties around a conference table to negotiate a just peace.

God must be weeping when God sees what is happening in the place where Jesus was born, lived, died and rose again. The “Holy Basin” should be a place where God’s reconciliation is showcased, but the current imbalance of power means that the Palestinians are suffering disproportionately.

We pray for those working for change. We pray for citizens across the world as they rise up in protest. We pray for a united response from across the world and we pray that the Holy Spirit will intervene and unite us across all barriers so that what happens in the Holy Land will surprise us and that we will glorify God because of it. It is possible. We must not lose hope. We must not become cynical. Let us hold onto faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is always love.

May God bless you during Trinitytide.

†† Thabo Cape Town

A Pastoral Letter to the Diocese of Natal

The text of a letter sent to Anglicans of the Diocese of Natal for Pentecost, 2021:

Pentecost Pastoral Letter to the Laos of Natal

It was such a privilege to spend three days in the Diocese early this week, two of which were at the Elective Assembly with representatives of the parishes, where we broke bread together and shared both laughter and tense moments as we discerned the future together. Discernment, as you may have noticed, can be robust and even frightening but it does not necessarily have to be that way. 

Thank you for that special time together. Thanks too for your hospitality in allowing the Ministry of Health to enter our space. We are grateful for those who were able to join me in being vaccinated. I will always cherish my visit and the proceedings of the assembly, and I thank God without ceasing for our experiences together. I know that some of you as lay people were hurt by the fruit of our discernment, but discernment goes with vulnerability, and vulnerability inevitably means hurt for some. 

Despite everything, God remains the Lord of the Church. The Gospel reading on Tuesday was powerful and put things in perspective for me: “Jesus spoke about glorifying God and pointing us to God.” Yes, considering the challenges of Covid-19 and having four vacant dioceses at present, I wish that the assembly could have made an election. But you discerned differently and have used the relevant provisions of the Canons to ask the Synod of Bishops to join you in discernment. Many rush to brand a decision to delegate an election to the bishops as a failure to elect. It is far from that – I regard it as a spirit- and God-filled request, an invitation issued after eight ballots that you wish the bishops to accompany you in your journey. It is an invitation that the Synod and I take very seriously. 

I have also heard your fears about the vastness of the Diocese and your concern that one person cannot fulfil the enormous task of shepherding it. I agree with you. You have a huge Diocese led in the recent past by three bishops, each in their own region. No one bishop can manage this big and precious Diocese. Synod of Bishops will elect a bishop for you, possibly sooner rather than later, so you don't need to be stressed about that. (I am exploring calling an early meeting of the Synod to hold the election.) But as your Diocesan in the interim, I suggest that we explore taking a venture of faith and passing an enabling resolution in terms of the Canons, asking the Province to multiply the current Diocese into two, or even three.  

Other dioceses have successfully taken this journey. Johannesburg, which once stretched from the Botswana border to the Swazi border, birthed three new dioceses in 1990. Mthatha birthed two, Cape Town two and Grahamstown one more. This coming year, ACSA will, God willing, birth a new Province – Igreja Anglicana de Moçambique e Angola (the Anglican Church of Mozambique and Angola). 

So, I invite you to be courageous, to trust God and to learn from your financial challenges that such a step would not be about trimming clergy numbers, but rather about creating more manageable entities, each able to address those challenges in a more focussed and efficient way. I will discuss with the diocesan leadership the calling of a diocesan conference or Synod to discuss this, chaired either by me or by your new bishop. 

As I have said before, the Diocese of Natal is in my heart and sinews. It is too important to fail in our time. Although it is in danger of heading towards congregationalism, and some are gripped by fear for the future, it is not in ruins and Nehemiah calls us to rebuild. May the spirit of Pentecost give you strength and courage to dream God’s dream through his church.

God loves you, and so do I. 

God bless. 

 

 

 

 

 

RIP Martha Makgoba-Nkoana, Archbishop's Sister

Bishopscourt regrets to announce that Ms Martha Makgoba-Nkoana, who celebrated her 80th birthday recently, died of coronavirus complications on Ascension Day.

The oldest sister of Archbishop Thabo, she was a member of the Mothers' Union and of St Hilda’s Parish, Senoane in Johannesburg. She is surived by two sisters, Archbishop Thabo, two daughters and about 12 grandchildren. 

She was a nursing sister for many years and taught nursing at both Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital and Wits University. She saved lives and loved life. With the Makgoba family, we give thanks to Jesus as we weep.