Address
to the 2023 Algemene Sinode van die Nederduitse
Gereformeerde Kerk
Voorsitter,
Ondervoorsitter,
Aktuarius,
Algemene
Sekretaris,
Addisionele
lede van die Moderamen,
Geagte
Afgevaardigdes,
Broers
en susters,
Ek
groet julle in die heilige naam van onse Here en Verlosser, Jesus
Christus: Goeie Dag!
Baie
dankie vir die uitnodiging wat oorspronklik deur my vriend, Dominee
Nelis, uitgereik is; ek en my kerk waardeer die baie en dit is 'n
besondere groot voorreg om hier te wees. Ek is net jammer dat ek nie
persoonlik saam met julle kan wees nie. Soos ek vir die Sinode Wes
Kaapland vroeër in die jaar gese het, alhoewel die nuwe tegnologie
ons help om meer verpligtinge in ons skedules in te pas, kan dit nie
persoonlike kontak tussen ons vervang nie.
As
'n mens die geskiedenis van ons twee kerke inagneem, is my
teenwoordigheid hier as 'n verteenwoordiger van die Anglikaanse Kerk
miskien 'n historiese gebeurtenis. In die vroeë twintigste eeu het
baie mense die Anglikaanse Kerk as die kerk van die Britse
"establishment" in Suid Afrika gesien; later het hulle die
NG Kerk as "the National Party at prayer" gesien. Nou
beklee nie een van ons daardie posisies nie, en ek waag dit om te sê
dat dit ons in staat stel om die Evangelie baie meer effektief te
verkondig.
Dit
is ook belangrik dat ek hier staan as President van die
Suid-Afrikaanse Raad van Kerke. Vyf-en-viertig jaar gelede het wyle
Biskop Desmond Tutu, destyds die Algemene Sekretaris van die Raad, en
wyle Dr Frans O'Brien Geldenhuys, die direkteur van ekumeniese sake
van die NG Kerk, 'n gesprek begin in baie moeilike omstandighede. Ek
hou daarvan om te dink hulle sou opgewonde wees om die uiteindelike
resultate van hul toenadering te sien.
Before
I continue, please allow me to speak briefly of the situation in the
land we call holy, the place where Jesus was born, nurtured,
crucified and raised, and the place which Judaism and Islam also call
holy. We all agonise over what is happening there, shocked and
disturbed at the levels of hatred we see, where Palestinians are
oppressed in ways we once experienced here and where Israeli
civilians are brutally attacked and killed in scenes reminiscent of
the anti-Jewish pogroms of Europe in the Middle Ages.
Last
week the Anglican Church sent to our parishes a prayer for the Holy
Land, in which we asked God to grant the people of Palestine and
Israel – and I quote from the prayer – we asked God to grant
them:
Wise
leadership,
Gentle
hearts, and
A
new beloved community, embodying
love,
truth, justice, peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Last
Saturday we celebrated the 90th
birthday of Mama Leah Tutu, and I told them that I am sure that at
this moment, ninety-nine of every one hundred Palestinians and
Israelis would say that anyone who believes that God will grant us
that wish of a new beloved community is crazy. But we in South Africa
have shown the world that it is not crazy to envisage a time when, in
that beautiful biblical phrase, common to both the Jewish and
Christian scriptures, “The wolf shall live with the lamb,” and
“the leopard shall lie down with the kid”. (Is. 11: 6) It might
be hard for us to imagine today, but just as it was possible for us
in South Africa to overcome the hatreds and bitterness of the past,
it is possible for Israelis and Palestinians to do the same, and all
people of faith need to work and pray tirelessly to that end.
Turning
back to South Africa, ek hoop die afvaardiging van Wes-Kaapland sal
my vergewe as ek hier – en ook later – verwys na wat ek 'n paar
maande gelede aan hul Sinode gesê het. I read that passage in
Chapter 28 of Matthew's Gospel, which tells us how, on that first
Easter, after Mary Magdalene and the other Mary had found Jesus's
grave to be empty, an angel appeared to them and said: “Do not be
afraid... he has been raised from the dead.” The women then left
the grave, and hurried to tell the disciples the Good News. In one
translation, it says that they left the tomb “met vrees en groot
blydskap”, but in the translation I preferred, it says, “Hulle
het toe haastig van die graf af weggegaan, bang maar baie bly...”
I
told the Western Cape Synod that as we contrast what is happening in
our beloved country today with the joyful message of Easter, we
too can feel, “Bang, maar baie bly” – alhoewel ons is bly vir
die opstanding van ons Here en Verlosser, Jesus Christus, ons is ook
bang vir die toekoms van ons land.
And
indeed, there are many reasons to be afraid for the future of our
land. Although we have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights which are
the envy of the world, the promises of our Constitution have not been
fulfilled. We are a country scarred by the most glaring inequality
experienced anywhere in the world, the gap between the rich at one
end of the spectrum and the poor at the other end being wider than in
any other country. We are mired in the mud of corruption. Services we
built for our people have collapsed in some areas and money budgetted
for new services and infrastructure is too often stolen, misdirected
or inefficiently spent. Too many public servants have forgotten they
are servants of the public.
Recently
I have joined other religious leaders in what we call “Walks of
Witness” to areas in which people are suffering because of
government failures. I first went to the site of the gas explosion in
the Johannesburg city centre. A few weeks later, I was at building,
also in the Joburg city centre, where nearly 80 people died in a
terrible fire. Black South Africans like me who grew up in Joburg
under apartheid knew that building, number 80 Albert Street, as the
Johannesburg pass office, where, at the thump of a stamp in your
“dompas”, you were either allowed to stay in the city, or were
endorsed out to try to eke out a living in your rural Bantusan. To
see one kind of suffering in that building replaced by another kind
of suffering under democracy made me want to weep.
So
we face crises on every side, almost too many to count. But we should
remember that church leaders warned us that this might happen. Back
in the early years of democracy, Desmond Tutu said: “Even
a freely-elected democratic government is still made up of frail,
vulnerable human beings who may or may not succumb to the
blandishments of power.” Our
Oom Bey,
Dr
Beyers Naude, alerted us to the danger of complacency in 1996, when
he said: “People
tend to say that now that we have a new government, now that we have
a new Constitution, now that we have solved our political problems,
for the time being, there is no prophetic role for the Church at the
moment. I think such a perception is a very serious mistake.”
Back
in the 1990s, we avoided what could have been a bloody war, the likes
of which we now fear seeing in the Middle East. That was due to the
efforts of many South Africans, with Nelson Mandela and FW de Klerk
of course playing the central role, but the churches also played an
important role, both at congregational level and through leaders like
Dr Johan Heyns. Like Moses
and the children of Israel in that great story of the exodus, we
liberated ourselves and escaped the bondage of Egypt. But now we have
to make sure we don't spend the next 40 years wandering in the
wilderness. The church has an important role to play if we are to
reach the promised land.
We
need to take the warnings of Desmond Tutu and Beyers Naude to heart.
We still have a prophetic role to play, and as people of faith we
need to work out, here and now, how best to mobilise our energy, our
courage, our imagination, our skills and our political will, and
channel them into a coordinated effort to support those in our
society who are committed to fulfilling the promises of the
Constitution. We need to work together to answer the cries of the
poor, to complete tasks half-done, and to respond to new obstacles
that have emerged.
Returning
to my message to the Western Cape Synod, let us consider again the
response of the women at the empty grave that first Easter morning.
Despite their conflicting emotions of grief and joy, despite their
confusion and fear as they tried to take on board the meaning of what
they had seen and heard, they summoned up the courage to move
forward. Faced with the might of the religious and political
establishments which had crucified our Lord, they were not
intimidated. They faced down their fears, and went out bravely to
proclaim the Good News of the Risen Christ.
As
the Christian churches of South Africa, we need to summon up the
courage shown by those women, summon up the courage displayed by
Desmond Tutu, Beyers Naude, and Johan Heyns, and take the lead in
setting an example of moral courage to our people and our political
and community leaders. As a nation, we face probably the biggest
challenges of the democratic era. But just as the disciples on Lake
Galilee were reassured by Jesus in the middle of a terrifying storm,
we too can be reassured by his words to them: “It is I, don’t be
afraid.” He will be with us, strengthening our resolve.
Many
of you may know that since the failures of the Zuma administration in
South Africa, I have been repeatedly calling on all South Africans to
join what I call the New Struggle, a new struggle for a new era, a
new struggle for a new generation, a struggle to regain our moral
compass, a struggle to end economic inequality, and a struggle to
ensure that the promises of our Constituion are kept. And I am
hopeful that if the churches, other religious bodies and civil
society join this struggle, we can succeed in turning South Africa
around and putting us back on the path on which Nelson Mandela set
us.
For
if we compare ourselves to many parts of the world, and especially to
regions such as West Africa, we come to this struggle with advantages
that others don't enjoy. We have a strong and independent civil
society, we have an independent media, we have term limits for our
presidents and, very important, we have a democratically-elected
Parliament.
That
is why I have been using whatever influence I have to urge all South
Africans, and especially young South Africans who have never voted
before, to register to vote in next year's elections. As I have said
often this year, I understand why many, many young South Africans,
both white and black, are disillusioned with politics. The behaviour
of our politicians discourages them from joining the political
process and they can't see a way of making a difference in public
life. But if they register to vote, then go out and vote in their
numbers, they can
and will
bring about change.
And
a number of us, including former President Mbeki and the SACC General
Secretary, Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana, are concerned that white South
Africans – and especially the Afrikaner community – are becoming
alienated from our national life. It is very important that you
exercise your rights to speak out, to join debates on our future and
to organise politically if we are to secure our future. Don't be
silent because of concern you will be called a racist; every single
one of us, black and white, has the same rights under our
Constitution, and we all need to exercise them if our democracy is to
truly reflect the concerns and wishes of all our people.
I
am sure that many of your members are concerned about land reform. As
I told the Western Cape Synod, we need sensible policies of land
reform which will not prejudice our economy. The government's land
reform programme is clearly failing, and my own belief is that we
need to introduce Gospel values into the debate around it: sharing,
reconciliation, healing and taking care of our neighbours.
A
fully-developed policy of redistribution needs both to take into
account that there is more demand for urban than for rural land, and
to provide an economic model for developing rural land, including
education and practical help for those who want to work the land. We
should decentralise the process by allowing people to work out local
solutions appropriate to local situations, and it should be a tool
for real transformation, to address the inequality of opportunity and
the high rate of unemployment from which we suffer.
In
summary, as I said in the Western Cape, sensible land reform policies
can find compromises which both protect our economy and meet the most
urgent needs of those who want to farm the land and produce food for
our people.
I
conclude by urging you to claim the place in our society which our
Constitution guarantees you, namely one of critical participation in
our democracy. Jesus tells us in John's Gospel (10:10): “I came
that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” It is my prayer
that as we walk together into the future, we will build a South
Africa in which all will have life, and have it abundantly.
God
bless you, and God bless the deliberations of this Synod.
Archbishop
Thabo Makgoba
