Author: CMM, Cape Town

Let the truth be unearthed

CMM, Cape Town / / Sunday Letter

Grace and peace to and through you

One of the prophets of our time, Chelsea Elizabeth Manning, currently serving a 35-year prison sentence for violating the Espionage Act in the USA, insightfully wrote in the wake of the Orlando killings at the Pulse nightclub, “[our] response can be more dangerous than the attack”. These words are rooted in the sad truth of history. We only have to think of the USA’s response to 9/11.

In moments such as these there is a temptation to reduce the reasoning for such events to a single source rather than a multiplicity of contributing factors that add up to more than the sum of their parts. Single framing is about scapegoating or exploiting the event for a specific agenda rather than unearthing the truth.

The first response by the authorities to the Orlando killings was to singularly frame it as a terrorist attack. This framing conveniently validates the “safety and security” narrative so often used by those in power to extract more and more concessions from the public, resulting in intrusive surveillance and ethnic and religious profiling. It is the purchase of a nation’s freedom using the currency of its fear. This terrorist framing also feeds Islamophobia as if the act of one is representative of all, which is never the case when a Christian commits a similar crime, then it is quickly labeled the act of a lone-wolf who does not reflect Christian values and teaching.

Using a singular frame to hold this event has more to do with blaming others so we don’t have to deal with our own complicity in the killings. Our complicity includes our religions that continue to marginalise Queer people. This includes the position of the Methodist Church that is both contradictory and hypocritical as it seeks to affirm the dignity of Queer people while at the same time stating that Queer people cannot be married and also be a priest. Further our homophobic culture makes it painfully difficult to come out as Queer and our fear of rejection leads to an internal massacre of our own worthiness often ending in suicide, but seldom making headlines. Our complicity includes our addiction to guns and the fear we have to address this issue. Our intellect crumbles in the face of pathetic slogans like “Guns don’t kill people / People kill people”. When actually it is people with guns who kill people – and we do so more easily and frequently with guns than we would be able to do so without guns. Our complicity includes our passive participation in a culture that is overly individualistic denying our interdependence with each other. Our complicity includes our uncritical acceptance of the segregated and homogenous communities we live in, making it easier to “other” others. Our complicity includes our shallow stereotyped understandings of masculinity as if a “real man” were called to be anything other than gentle and respectful of all.

The Orlando killings took place in a nightclub called Pulse. Pulse … as if messaging to those made to feel welcome there: “You have a pulse. You have a heart. You are human!” This is the affirming truth Jesus calls us to live out.

Grace, Alan

Call to Worship

Grace and peace to you in Jesus, who is killed over and over again when we kill each other,
And also with you.

We gather here in the beauty of this sanctuary to lift up our hearts to you oh Lord and to open our hearts to each other,
As we gather give us assurance Lord that you not only occupy the places of beauty but the places of pain.

 The pain of Soweto ?76,
Carry us Lord as Mbuyisa Makhubo carried Hector Pieterson.

The pain of Orlando 2016,
As thousands gathered to donate blood, remind us you have already donated your blood to transfuse our fear and hate into love and respect.

The pain of family murder,
Let the children who have killed their parents hear your voice: “Let the children come to me…”

The pain of domestic violence,
You hear the screams behind locked doors – even celebrity locked doors.

The pain of a British MP and contesting counselor candidates in our land, shot and killed,
You were killed by some who thought killing was the solution, open our minds to see this lie.

The pain of our paralysis and despair,
May we hear today your liberating and healing words spoken to the paralysed: “Pick up your mat and walk … walk humbly, love mercy and do justice”. Amen.

 

The gift of our imperfections

CMM, Cape Town / / Sunday Letter

There is a strive in life towards perfection that actually can be found in our recognizing our imperfection. Human beings were made in community, realized for community, and wired for it in our very being. The strive for perfection outside of the perfection that comes from the sacred dance of catch and release in community, will lead to an unrealized potential and an isolated reality, rather than the movement towards the community we are called to in the Christian faith.

At the core of it all is trust. Joan Chittister in her book, Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by HOPE, shares:

If we refuse to ask for help, if we distance ourselves from the strengths of Others. If we cling to the myths of authority and power where trust is needed, we leave out a piece of life. We condemn ourselves to ultimate failure because someday, somewhere, we will meet up with the thing we cannot do and our whole public self will depend on our being able to do it. It is trust in the limits of the self that leaves us open and it is trust in the gifts of others that makes us secure. We come to realize that we don’t have to do everything, that we can’t do everything, that what I can’t do is someone else’s gift and responsibility. I am a small piece of the cosmic clock, a necessary piece, but not the only piece. My limitations make space for the gifts of other people. Without the grace of our limitations we would be isolated, dry, and insufferable creatures indeed.(P. 69)

I ordered this book used on Amazon while I was home in the US. When I began to flip through it, I cringed. The person who owned it before me used several different colors of highlighters where I only use one color at a time, preferably lavender or blue—for they are easier on the eyes. The margins of the book were tattooed with writing that frustrated me as I tried to read through the chaos created on the pages.

Yet, somehow through the struggle, there was a blessing. For in the margin near the words above were these words from the previous reader: How can I convince myself that I am a necessary piece? How do I trust others to supply what I don’t have, when I have been so disappointed in the past? When I feel my vulnerabilities have not been met in the past? How do I join, be a part of the human community? Do I really have anything at all to give?

I re-read the book after my first read. This time I looked at all the passages highlighted and scribbled inscriptions carefully. There was such desperation in the reader and the desperation circled around this question, “Will I be accepted, how do I find my way to community?” The call is before us to recognize that if we have found a place, our role is to make a place for others to find their way too and to remember that Jesus was mostly with those who felt cast out. In their imperfections, He claimed them perfect. The Divine lives in each of us, living too alone denies the divinity in the others. Trust is the key. Trust in the love of God and love God gives us to share in relationship with the others we are called to live with in community. Finding our way to that trust is the dance of perfection.

With you on the journey,
Michelle

Drought and Teaspoons

CMM, Cape Town / / Sunday Letter, Third Sunday after Pentecost

Grace and Peace to you …

Last week we were in Namaqualand. Oh what a beautiful beloved country is ours. The never-ending landscape was breathtaking. Rugged rocks pronounced their presence as they punctuated the hard, dry ground forming lookout points to see further of the same. The earth was dusty, dry and hard. Dusty and dry from drought and over-grazing. Even the water was hard.

Adjacent to our Synod venue there was an outside art display created by some of the children from the local Methodist Church. Simple signs planted into the dry, hard earth. One read: “Sê vir God dankie. Hy meet nie genade in teelepels af nie.” (Say to God thank you. God does not hand out grace in teaspoons.)

Talking about teaspoons and drought … read these despairing and hopeful words by J.M. Coetzee in his novel Life and Times of Michael K:

“And if the old man climbed out of the cart and stretched himself (things were gathering pace now) and looked at where the pump had been that the soldiers had blown up so that nothing should be left standing, and complained saying, ‘What are we going to do about water?’, he, Michael K. would produce a teaspoon from his pocket, a teaspoon and a long roll of string. He would clear the rubble from the mouth of the shaft, he would bend the handle of the teaspoon in a loop and tie the string to it, he would lower it down the shaft deep into the earth, and when he brought it up there would be water in the bowl of the spoon; and in that way, he would say, one can live.”

Grace, Alan

Rev. Siphozihle Siwa re-elected as Presiding Bishop

“I received the news of my re-election whilst I was in Namaqualand, the first station among the indigenous people in our Connexion. The Superintendent Minister of the Namaqualand Mission, Rev. Sammy Muller said these words in response: “You are re-elected from the womb of Methodism in Southern Africa, and we are therefore happy to ‘deliver’ you to the world.” I am grateful to you as Methodist people for your faith in God that God can use even me in this ministry. Your affirmation and encouragement serves as an impetus for me to strive to serve you even better. For this I will need your continued prayers and support. May I be quick to say that prayers must not only be for me, but for all of us as we strive to be a “transforming discipleship movement, TOGETHER.” Be assured of my prayers especially for those who are at the coalface of things at the local level, because that is where significant service takes place.

I accept this call to serve with deep humility, trusting in the grace of the One who called all of us to follow towards the vision of a ‘Christ Healed Africa for the Healing of the Nations.’” (MCSA Ministers’ Monthly Newsletter)

Imam Rashied Omar

It is such a great privilege to have Imam Rashied Omar share the Word with us today. Rashied is a friend and colleague from whom I have learnt much. He has been the Imam of the Claremont Main Road Mosque since 1986. The Claremont Main Road Mosque (CMRM) was established in 1854 and is the sixth oldest mosque in South Africa. It was the second mosque to be built outside the Bo-Kaap. The mosque played a prominent role in the anti-apartheid struggle during the 1980s. This legacy continues to define the role of CMRM as socially responsive in the post-apartheid period.

Missionaries and Martyrs

CMM, Cape Town / / Ordinary Days of the Spirit, Sunday Letter, Synod Sunday

Grace and Peace to you …

Today some of us are in Namaqualand. We have been attending our annual Synod since Wednesday. A few of us cycled up here while others travelled by bus. We are in Namaqualand because it is the 200th anniversary of the Namaqualand Methodist Mission Station – yes the Methodist mission work has been going on since 1816 – the mind boggles!

This building has a particular connection with the Namaqualand Mission because we have Rev. Barnabas Shaw’s tombstone in this building [front left on the floor] and it was Shaw who established the first Methodist Mission Station in Namaqualand in 1816. Barnabas Shaw began his ministry in the country among the Methodist soldiers attached to the various regiments stationed at the Cape – despite the Governor, Lord Charles Somerset’s refusal to grant him permission on the ground that “the soldiers already had their chaplain and that preaching to slaves might offend the ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church who were well established”.

Shaw writes in response to being refused permission: “Having received this answer I therefore left His Excellency and determined to commence reaching without it. My resolution is also fixed never again to ask any mere man’s permission to preach the glorious Gospel … If Lord Charles Somerset be afraid of offending either the Dutch Ministers or English Chaplains, I am not, and will therefore do my duty. In the course of a few days I began to preach, without any hindrance or interruption…” This means that the Methodist work began by an act of civil disobedience, reminding us all that our primary allegiance is never Caesar but God.

He soon left for the “interior”. After a few days on their journey and just beyond the Olifants River they met the chief of the Little Namaquas travelling to Cape Town to seek a Christian Missionary. This was on 4 October 1816. This “desert meeting” Shaw regarded as a “particular providence”.

At Lily Fountain they built the first Methodist Mission Station in South Africa. The first fruits of Shaw’s ministry was Rev. Jacob Links who in 1822 became the first South African to be ordained into the Methodist Church. Sadly in 1825 Rev. Jacob Links together with Rev. William Threlfall and Johanness Jager were ambushed and killed en route to establishing another mission – making them the first Methodist martyrs.

We know that the words and deeds by colonial missionaries were not all innocent or helpful. Sometimes colonial missionaries were patronising, disrespecting traditional beliefs and at times even murderously brutal. So our celebrations for the Methodist Missionary work cannot be without honest critique.

This reminds us that in all we say and do, regardless of how pure our intentions and strong our convictions, we must remember that we may well be hurting people rather than helping them.

May the story of the missionaries give us courage and humble us at the same time.

Grace, Alan

 

A Pentecostal Community

CMM, Cape Town / / Sunday Letter, Trinity Sunday
The Road to Namaqualand

Grace and Peace to you …

Last week we heard that unemployment rose to 26.7%. This figure however, does not tell the whole story because it does not include those who have not looked for work within the last month. So the real unemployment figure is more like 37%. This is a national average figure, meaning that some communities have a much higher unemployment rate. The stress and strain for mere survival for millions of people in our land is frightening and making social stability impossible.

Not surprising many people under these conditions turn to micro-lenders for salvation. I remember a few months ago when I was in Paarl seeing a long line of people queuing up outside a micro-lending office every morning. Here the poor and low-income earners pay more for money than the wealthy. So instead of being a means of salvation it becomes a quick route to damning debt.

According to one micro-lender’s website, I can borrow R1 000 for 30 days and repay the loan with R1 288.56 at the end of the month. But if my life ran into a speed bump and I was unable to pay the R288.56 interest at the end of the first month, within four months my interest bill would be up at R1 000, to be paid within 30 days. Imagine buying something and within four months the interest on whatever we bought was equal to what we paid for it!

With the pensioners from the Eastern Cape living in the Sanctuary we have been reminded first hand how some people are treated as invisible, like they do not matter. Marginalised and excluded without fair means to live. I hope this situation among us has prodded our consciences to work for the day when all people have enough to eat and live and flourish.

Last Sunday was Pentecost. Pentecost takes place 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus. 50 is the biblical symbol for Jubilee. Jubilee is the biblical concept of economic justice that includes the redistribution of wealth making sure that those who have much do not have too much and those who have little do not have too little. A community that seeks economic fairness is a Pentecostal community. This is what we are called to be.

Grace,
Alan

P.S. If anyone has any contacts with the city to secure public toilets (at least some of them) to be open 24/7 please speak to me. The fact that homeless people have nowhere to go to toilet after 5 p.m. is criminal. This structural criminality turns the homeless into criminals when they are forced to go to the toilet in public.

“The radicals are really always saying the same thing. They do not change;
everybody else changes. They are accused of the most incompatible crimes, of egoism and mania for power, indifference to the fate of their own cause, fanaticism, triviality,
want of humour, buffoonery and irreverence. But they sound a certain note. Hence the great practical power of consistent radicals. To all appearances nobody follows them,
yet everyone believes them. They hold a tuning-fork and sound A, and everybody knows
it really is A, though the time-honoured pitch is G flat. The community cannot get
that A out of its head. Nothing can prevent an upward tendency in the popular tone
so long as the real A is kept sounding.”

~ John Jay Chapman (1862-1933)

 

Creation Song

CMM, Cape Town / / Pentecost, Sunday Letter

Life is mysterious, it presents great challenges and incredible moments of wonder, but ultimately life is to be lived as gift. The unfolding of each new day presents for us opportunity to be a part of something so much greater than ourselves. There is wonderful music being threaded together all around us and our opportunity is to be still and quiet and see if our spirit can get caught up in the spirit of the music that is the sacred song meant for all of God’s creation. There is a song that is beautiful enough for the inclusion of us all.

During my travels, I sat with a man who taught me so much about the Spirit of God at work in the world, Rev. Keith Tonkel. He is celebrating his 80th birthday this year and his 48th year ministering at Wells Memorial United Methodist in Jackson, Mississippi. It is unheard of for a United Methodist Minister to serve so many years in one place. Keith believed his ministry was to grow a community lived love. Love is the ultimate creation song.

During the Civil Rights years, Keith was one of 28 ministers who signed a statement called the “Born of Conviction” statement. They were naming their commitment to spend their lives working to end segregation in the church. Keith was sent to Wells Memorial UMC as punishment for signing the document. The church was understood to be a dying congregation. He shares there were 13 people there when he arrived. His sermon was prepared and ready and when he touched the handle of the front door of the church something in his spirit made him think there was another sermon he was to preach.

Keith began to preach a sermon on the valley of the dry bones. After he was done, a member of the church came up to him and slapped him on the back and said, “We had decided if you didn’t have the courage to preach to us from that very text we were going to close the doors of this place.” Over the years, Wells has grown in number and the congregation is described to be the most inclusive congregation in the state of Mississippi.

Keith is one who truly drinks life. Outside of his house sits a cooler that says, “Drinks here are for postal workers.” When I shared I loved the cooler, he said, “Baby, you can’t have their drinks, but I have your favorite coffee right here, just for you!” I smiled and drank my coffee and drank the joy of being with one who reminds you to drink life and who knows how to live love!

Sitting with Keith, one might think his full spirit comes from an easy life, but that would not be true. His spirit song has lived through cancer, the death of his wife, the illness of children, and the harsh reality of being thought odd in a state like Mississippi for singing a song his whole career long that is a song that has rhythm and harmony for—ALL!

We live in a world where people need to hear music rising above the chaos, music that rises above anxiety filled hearts, and music that is a witness that stands against any doubt that there is a God with love great enough for all. This is our story. This is our song.

With you on the journey,
Michelle

Jesus is Lord

CMM, Cape Town / / Seventh Sunday of Easter, Sunday Letter

Grace and peace to you …

Thursday was Ascension Day. Ascension Day takes place 40 days after the day of Resurrection. As you know almost everything in the Bible takes 40 days or 40 years. This is because 40 is more than a number – it is a symbol. It is a symbol of new life being born after a full pregnancy because as you know a pregnancy that reaches full term is exactly 40 weeks.

Ascension Day is therefore the celebration of new life – the new life that comes from knowing that Jesus reigns on high. That Jesus reigns on high – higher than any other. This was radical good news for a people who were oppressed by the Roman Super Power. It was extremely subversive to state that there was one greater than Caesar the great. In fact it was an act of treason because to declare Jesus is Lord means that Caesar is not – and this is normally a problem for Caesar-like-people.

Pensioners protest outside parliament’s gates.
Jenny Evans News24

Ascension Day is therefore profoundly political in that it places all power (including social, economic, political and religious power) on notice. This is how the author of Ephesians put it:

“God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” [Eph. 1:20-23]

In summary: Jesus has power over everything that has power over us. This is good news! It is also liberating news! If we trust the truth that Ascension Day boldly declares, we will be filled with courage to challenge the powers that be whenever they fail to be used to bring life as they are meant to.

Joseph and Nicole sharing their love of music after worship last Sunday..

On Ascension Day our parents from the Eastern Cape, who have been living inside this sanctuary for the past few weeks did a courageous thing. They lay down on the roads and blocked the entrances to parliament seeking justice in regard to the non-payment of their pensions. Their bold action said to the politically powerful “we are not afraid of you … we serve the greater power of truth and justice … you think we are powerless … we are not … we will show you how powerful our bodies are”.

Our parents from the Eastern Cape continue to gift us as they practice the Ascension and live out the Gospel.

Remember: Jesus has power over everything that has power over us.

Grace, Alan

 

Assumptions and Misunderstandings

CMM, Cape Town / / Sixth Sunday of Easter, Sunday Letter
Thank you Eric Yamani for revitalising our garden!

Grace and Peace to you …

So the other day I was in a meeting. Well actually a couple of meetings. The first meeting was with a person who was the leader of his organisation. A group of us met with him. We had contacted him directly requesting to meet concerning a matter of mutual concern. The meeting began. The meeting ended. All fine.

Then I had another meeting. This second meeting was with different people. During this meeting a person informed us that should we ever want to meet with the leader of the organisation we had met with in the first meeting in the future, we should go through him first.

Okay I thought to myself … we have ourselves a bit of a power struggle going on here.

Then a few days later we had a third meeting. This third meeting included both the leader of the organisation from the first meeting as well as the person who said we must go through him from the second meeting. So I was all eyes on the dynamics between these two – wondering how the power dynamics were going to play out. To my surprise there didn’t seem to be any power dynamics at play between the two of them. In fact just the opposite – they complemented each other throughout.

I was a little confused until all light was shed on the situation by the person from the second meeting who said we must go through him to get to the leader of the organisation. In short, it was more about protocol than power.

I made an assumption based on what I thought was obvious but which in fact was incorrect. Not only did I carry in my mind thoughts about these two people that were not true, but it also influenced how I prepared for the third meeting, namely, less open and more guarded.

This got me thinking how often we may assume to know the reasons for things when in fact we don’t. Making assumptions so often leads to misunderstanding which in turn leads to hurt. As Mr. Wesley said in his “Rules of a Helper: Believe evil of no one unless fully proved; take heed how you credit it. Put the best construction you can on everything. You know the judge is always supposed to be on the prisoner’s side.”

Grace, Alan

“You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives. It doesn’t require modifiers, it doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It’s enough. It’s PLENTY.”

~ Courtney A. Walsh