2022 12 25 Christmas Day
Alan Storey: Broken Carols
[1 Corinthians 1:26-29; Luke 1:39-56; Luke 2:1-14; Luke 4:16-21]
Cape Town, South Africa
2022 12 25 Christmas Day
Alan Storey: Broken Carols
[1 Corinthians 1:26-29; Luke 1:39-56; Luke 2:1-14; Luke 4:16-21]
Friends,
On 26 June 1952 the Defiance Campaign against unjust laws in SA was launched. Until then in South Africa it was the largest non-violent resistance campaign with more than 8 000 people going to jail for defying apartheid laws and regulations.
Defiance Campaign Volunteers signed the following pledge:
I, the undersigned, Volunteer of the National Volunteer Corps, do hereby solemnly pledge and bind myself … to participate fully and without reservations to the best of my ability in the Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws. … “
Elizabeth Mafekeng and Mary Thipe were two Defiance Campaign Volunteers. Elizabeth Mafekeng was born in 1918 in Tarkastad. Living conditions in her birthplace forced her to leave for Paarl in the early 1930s. Mafekeng left school at the age of 15 to support the family. Her first job was at a “canning factory where she cleaned fruit and vegetables for 75 cents a week”. She married a fellow factory worker in 1941 and joined the trade union in the same year. She became a shop steward and then served, between 1954 and 1959 “as President of the African Food and Canning Workers Union (AFCWU) and branch secretary in Paarl”. Mafekeng was known as “Rocky” among the workers in Paarl. A striking woman, she always began ”her speeches with a song or two, singing in a clear, rich and well-organised voice”. Her speeches were “fiery, militant and witty.”
In 1952 Mafekeng participated in the Defiance Campaign and the South African Congress Trade Unions’ (SACTU’s) 1957 ‘Pound a Day’ Campaign. In 1955, she skipped the country without legal papers to represent the Food Workers Union at a trade union conference held in Sofia, Bulgaria. She was met with police brutality upon her return. In 1959, the Government banished her from Paarl, to a remote government farm in the Kuruman district. Her banishment papers said it was ‘injurious for the peace, order and good administration of Natives in the district of Paarl’ if Mrs Mafekeng remained there. She was given five days (later extended to twelve) to say goodbye to her family, make arrangements for their care, (and) wind up her work … There was, of course, no trial, no public hearing and no possibility of appeal.
She refused to take her 11 children to that desolate place. On the night of her deportation the union leadership organised a large number of workers to bid her a safe journey. She got onto a train and started waving farewell and then quietly walked through two coaches and jumped off the train unnoticed. Rather than being banished to Southey and to “a future of nothingness,” Mafekeng fled to Lesotho with her two-month old baby, Uhuru, and sought refuge at a Roman Catholic Mission at Makhaleng. She was granted asylum and lived in a two-room home with her nine children in the small village of Mafeteng. With the unbanning of the liberation movements in 1990, she returned to Paarl. The FCWU built her a home in Mbekweni Township in Paarl. Elizabeth Mafekeng died on 28 May 2009, at the age of 90, due to ill health.
Mary Thipe was born in 1917 in a village called Ramhlakoane in the Matatiele district. She later moved to Umkhumbane and joined the liberation struggle in 1952, the year of the Defiance Campaign. She was arrested, detained and banned for five years for her political activities.
Thipe took part in the 1959 Potato Boycott – a consumer boycott to end the slave-like conditions of farm labourers in Bethal (Mpumalanga). She was involved in the Cato Manor Beer Hall March in 1960 – a women-led national campaign of boycotting municipal beer halls because their men were drinking sorghum beer while their children and wives starved.
Her activities attracted the wrath of the police. She was put under house arrest for 10 years which meant she could not attend church services, funeral services of her loved ones and was not allowed to be in the company of more than three people.
Every Monday morning, Thipe was required to report at the Cato Manor police station. This did not stop the security branch from harassing her even in her house arrest.
She had trained her children that each time police came in the middle of the night, they would wake up and stand behind her. She had also trained them to look at the police in the eye and not flinch. When one of her grandsons went into exile, the police intensified their terror on Thipe and her family. When the police threatened to find her grandson and kill him, she retorted by requesting that they bring his head back to her. She refused to show fear and flinch at their threats. In 1986 the police used a gang which was known as the A-team to burn Thipe’s house down. Thipe died of a stroke but not before voting for what would be her first and last time in 1994.
All information about Elizabeth Mafekeng and Mary Thipe are from South African History Online.
– – –
Now, long before Elizabeth Mafekeng and Mary Thipe volunteered to solemnly pledge and bind themselves to participate fully and without reservations to the best of their ability in the Campaign for the Defiance of Unjust Laws, there were two others who shared their spirit of defiance, as well as their first names. The Gospels tell us that the Spirit of God had come upon Elizabeth and Mary, and what is the Spirit of God if it is not the Spirit of defiance against all that is unjust in the world?
Christmas is the original Defiance Campaign against inequality and injustice: Divinely inspired, complete with surprising strategy… subversive recruitment… angelic agitation… stabled safe-house… star-guiding civil dis-obedience… shepherding allies… all set to song – Mary’s Redemption song… that still sounds: Won’t you help to sing / these songs of freedom / Cause all I ever have / Redemption Songs…
May the courageous lives of Elizabeth Mafekeng and Mary Thipe give us insight into the courageous lives of Elizabeth and Mary of long ago.
In grace,
Alan
Christmas Day Sermon
Alan Storey
Became Flesh to Fit into a Fraction of a Millimetre
[Psalm 96; John 1:1-14]
Prayer for Peace, Hope and Justice by Peter Storey.
Christmas Day Sermon
2020 12 25 Alan Storey
Christmas Light
[Scriptures: Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:1-14; John 1:1-5, 9-14]
2020 12 25 Candle Prayer ~ Levi Daniels
As we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ today, we are reminded of the journey the pregnant Mary and Joseph had to make on a mission to meet with the requirements of their Home Affairs Department at that time, to be part of the census process.
They too must have suffered from much discomfort and displacement; with no close biological family structure to support them. We are told that Mary had her Baby Jesus and I want to believe that during this birthing and tiring time, someone reached out to assist her. Someone who was loving and kind to offer her the gift of hospitality and to tenderly wipe her brow.
Yes, God was with Joseph and Mary on the journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem and then of course while they were on the move, with the baby again, to Egypt because of a political decree.
Our Christmas journey with God is one that says: don’t be tied down by traditions and customs that limit and suffocate you. Ask questions that inform your decision-making process. Do these decisions bring life or death? Following the example of Jesus’ way of life demands that we pay attention to the present, to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. We are also reassured of God’s ever-engaging presence in every kind of experience. “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
We have been part of the suffering of our fellow sojourners together in sharing in the discomfort in our Gothic sanctuary. We give thanks to God for the experience of sharing and in the creation of new memories which will become a part of our church history. While at the same time, the pain and slowness of immigration reform in our country will leave a blight on the history of all the relevant authorities, who were loath to make decisions, regarding the welfare and treatment of all who needed help. Yes, we were required to make space, to sing new choruses in other languages which we enjoyed.
Our Scriptures remind us that we are not placed on this earth to be comfortable. God’s voice is heard when we are most uncomfortable through the desperate prayers that we pray, and this is hard because most of us long to be comfortable, to be accepted to belong, and most of all to be in control. We can all be included and this requires an openness and willingness to adapt, to adjust for the greater good of humanity and our community. I fully understand that it is very easy to judge, to be intimidated, and fearful and not to understand; but we are required in our spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ to embrace the values of inclusion, diversity, compassion and a sense of justice for our country and especially our continent Africa. We have to learn to come to terms with the requirements too of our Constitution and especially the fullest implementation of it. “Welcome the stranger in your midst! I am with you always”, says God.
In God’s scheme of things, nothing is a nuisance factor! We have been on an emotional roller coaster together with our African brothers and sisters, like their lives have been uprooted so have our roots been shaken. This has been a real wake-up call where we have had to interact and interface with the world right on our doorstep and inside our sanctuary. Yes, it has been uncomfortable. But also a reminder that the human condition is present with and among us all the time. While we had to worship God together as a community; through the courage, compassion and consistent theological integrity of our minister Alan Storey; our lives are the richer this Christmas. We have been exposed to a real object lesson; (and the word became flesh and dwelt among us) in our journey with the humanity of Jesus Christ, that the poor and displaced are always with us, regardless of class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, creed or problems. We are All God’s children.
This displacement has been a challenge and a gift for all of us as we make sense of our world and as we try to make a difference in God’s world. May God’s gift of the birth of his Son Jesus Christ, make us eager to be instruments of Hope, Peace, Love, Compassion and Justice in our community and our country. May the Spirit of Jesus Christ be born in each one of us today.
Jane Lawrence
Christmas is about Jesus. And Jesus is about the Utterly-Loving-Creator-God’s determined desire for all of creation to know that we are utterly loved.
Like Edwin Markham’s poem: Outwitted
He drew a circle that shut me out –
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout,
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.
Christmas is God’s outwitting move – drawing the largest of circles that take us in. I hope that each and every one of us will know God’s loving encirclement today.
In this loving encirclement healing resides.
Knowing we live and move and have our being in God’s circle of love liberates us from the fear to love and be loved. And when all is said and done – to love and be loved is what each of us is born for.
We love because we have first been loved. We literally have to be loved into loving. This is the mission of Jesus: to love us into loving.
“Accepting Jesus” means accepting that we are loved…and thus lovable. We are saved from ourselves. “Following Jesus” means loving others as we have been loved…and thus loving. We are saved for others…especially those the world considers unlovable.
In loving encirclement,
Alan
Helpless God as child and crucified,
laid in a cradle and cradled on a cross:
help us discern in your submission
not weakness but the passionate work of love.
You tell us you are poor in every age:
naked, hungry, and without a home.
Help us in your poor cradle of today
to see what is of you and what is not:
that suffering does not often save,
or helplessness redeem our sorry lives.
And so forbid us sing when we should weep.
Yet come to us and all of ours,
O child of Mary and of God,
in all the poor who saw you first,
and laughed with you, and heard you well.
And now run back from nowhere with their news,
to plant their seeds of hope in our dry ground.
~ Michael H. Taylor
As with the birth of any child, knowing their parents will help us to understand who they are. A baby’s earliest and most intimate influences can be powerfully determining of the whole of their life. Thus if we want to understand this baby Jesus – then we would be wise to get to know his mother.
Before Jesus is able to speak, he listens. Jesus listens to his mother Mary singing songs of radical economic transformation that will become for him the principles and purpose of his living and eventually be the cause of his dying. Mary’s song is not a lullaby but rather a wake-up call for the world:
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness
of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call
me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things
for me, and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who revere him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts
of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from
their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant people,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our
ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’
What enabled Mary to sing such a socially subversive song was that she had surrendered her life to Love’s call: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Only those who fully surrender to the call of Love can sing such a song – not as popular rhetoric – but as a truthful expression of the desires of God’s own heart.
Mary is moved to surrender to Love’s call after she is convinced that “nothing will be impossible with God”. In other words, with God even an economy that forever favours the rich and exploits the poor can be turned up-side-down.
Baby Jesus learns from his mother about surrendering to Love. Baby Jesus learns that authentic loving restructures society in favour of justice for the poor. Baby Jesus learns to trust that though many believe the world will never really change for the good and for the least, that nothing is impossible with God.
Application of Mary’s song is one of the most desperately urgent tasks of our time – in our land and throughout the world. As soon as Jesus is able to speak he will call each of us to live out his mom’s song.
Grace, Alan
News24.com article on the Christmas Complications #RememberKwezi: Kwezi Sermon was outside the brief
There were complications at birth.
Yes.
Mary nearly lost the baby.
Jesus nearly didn’t see the light of day.
I am not talking about any complications during her pregnancy or during labour or the moment of delivery.
I am talking about life-threatening complications of a different type. These complications were the consequence of at least three things that, when mixed together and stirred almost always result in death. This remains as true today as it was 2000 years ago.
Life is threatened:
Once we have explored these three complications – witnessing how they conspire to threaten life – we will turn our attention to what it was that enabled Mary and the baby to survive – and thereby receive a few hints at how we need to live today in order to engage the same life-threatening complications of our time.
1] The first life-threatening complication – according to the text for today – occurs when the powerful use their power exclusively for their own benefit.
King Herod was such like. He employed his power for his own privilege and protection. In other words: The No.1 priority of No.1 was to look after No.1 . This determined every one of Herod’s policy decisions that he signed into law. It also informed every cabinet re-shuffle. For Herod, self-preservation was the only real item on every meeting’s agenda that he attended.
This meant that Herod violated the constitution of God who implored all leaders – especially No.1 – to shepherd God’s people – all people. In other words to lead with pastoral care which meant to take special care of the poor, the weak, the foreigner and the vulnerable. This meant it was the king’s responsibility to provide green pastures of food and still waters to drink especially in times of drought. It meant that No.1 . was to safeguard and guide the people through the shadowed valleys of death and to successfully negotiate with enemies around a table and provide housing for all … all the days of their life. King Herod was however more focused on building his holiday home and housing the homeless poor who surrounded him.
Though the Roman State-owned media gave him a free ride, the people on the ground grew in resentment. On a few public occasions king Herod was booed – so he soon stuck to his popular ghettos of support. King Herod was hyper vigilant ever adding to his army of personal bodyguards. He was more than a little paranoid with his speeches sounding like strange riddles. The police were on permanent standby and he relied heavily on spooks for the latest info.
One day Herod was informed that there were three so-called “clever people” looking for the king. But they weren’t looking for him … they were looking for another king! As this news were told in the ancient text that “Herod was frightened … and all the people with him”. Yes, because when the elephants fight the grass suffers.
Herod was afraid. A fearful leader is a very dangerous leader because fear casts out love. Therefore a fearful leader is a loveless leader. And a loveless leader is a ruthless ruler. Herod did not care how many casualties as long as he stayed No.1 . Some called for him to resign, but he lived by the motto: “If I go down all will go down”.
So we read that Herod called the priests and scribes to enquire of them where the Messiah is to be born. They correctly state – “it will be in Bethlehem”. King Herod then arranges a secret meeting with the three so-called clever people requesting they search diligently and if they are successful, to return to him with the address so he too can go and worship.
But it was a trap. Herod had never worshipped anyone besides himself and he wasn’t going to start now.
2] The second life-threatening complication according to our ancient story is when those who are called to hold the powerful accountable, simply don’t.
Here we see the priests and the scribes (the public protectors of their day) forsake their sacred duty. Their primary role was to hold the powerful, especially the king, accountable for his pastoral responsibilities and by doing so to uphold God’s constitution of care for the poor. Yet in our text we find them living in comfort and ease close to the king. Some investigative journalists named this “priestly capture”. It still happens to this day.
Instead of fearlessly speaking truth to power – they turn out to be praise-singers for the king. They tell the king what he wants to hear rather than what God wants him to hear. In this way, religion is used to validate and condone what it should challenge and correct.
Note, according to the story we see that these priests and scribes knew the constitution. They knew where the true king was to be born – in Bethlehem, yet they were happy to remain in Jerusalem. Go figure? To forsake the single most important task of one’s vocation can only mean that Herod’s system of patronage must have been extremely lucrative.
3] The third life-threatening complication according to our ancient story is when discrimination is written into law or at least saturates the dominant culture.
The system of discrimination – that was legal at the time – was the system of patriarchy. Patriarchy is simply understood as the belief and practice that men are superior to women. That women are inferior to men. That women are not their own person, but gain their human worth by either belonging to their father or husband.
In other words – it’s a man’s world and women exist in it to please and serve men while men get to decide about the role of women in society and this includes men having control over women’s bodies. This system of patriarchy was underpinned by the Scriptures – with numerous verses being quoted by men to support the view that it was in fact God’s design that women submit their worth to men.
One example, pertinent to this Christmas reflection is that some ancient texts state that if a woman is pregnant yet unmarried or worse still pregnant from one man while engaged to another man – she could be flogged or stoned to death for this “sexual deviance” that brought shame on her or her in-laws’ family. And don’t think for a moment that back then anyone was buying into the virgin birth – which would have been deemed “fake news”.
Mary’s life was in deadly danger resulting from the patriarchal laws and culture of her time. Not dissimilar to the terrifying vulnerability of gay and lesbian people in our land today as we were gruesomely reminded a few weeks ago with the murder of Noluvo Swelindawo – a lesbian woman almost certainly targeted specifically for being lesbian – by men. By insecure men. By men who locate their masculinity in their sexual domination of women and who are therefore offended by lesbians who by denying them sex deny their manhood. Despite our liberating and protecting constitution the dominant culture remains anti-gay and this is in no small measure a result of how the Scriptures have been used to validate such discrimination – enabling people to do evil while believing they are doing good.
For the combination of these three reasons stated above, Mary nearly lost the baby.
To see how she and the baby survived we must take note of the following three things:
1] First, we see the Magi – the three so-called clever people. They were not fooled by the charm of No.1 . They defy his order to return to him with the information he requested. This is a risky act of civil disobedience. Here we see the power of principle trump the abuse of power. It would prove to be costly returning home another way – certainly no royal tenders coming their way in the future.
Note that the three so-called clever people were from the East. In other words they were outsiders. In other words not necessarily religious but they were truth seekers. They carry a longing to know – for the R2K where true power lies. In their truth seeking they shame the religious insiders who had long since exchanged the search for the truth for personal comfort.
2] Second, we see that the discriminatory law and culture of his day did not determine Joseph’s behaviour. Joseph’s character was one of compassion and mercy – his humaneness revealed in how he honoured the humanity of Mary. He respected her. Whenever someone refuses to discriminate against another – especially when law or culture encourage one to discriminate – life is saved.
3] Third, we see Mary’s own courageous imagination. Mary dared to imagine another world. A world true to the ancient constitution of God. A world where the powerful exist to serve the least. A world where the public is properly protected from the abuse of power. A world where women and men are respected and treated as equal and of sacred worth – each bearing the priceless image of the Creator.
Mary’s courageous imagination released the first Christmas Carol – which is very unlike the soppy and sentimental carols we sing today. Hers was a carol about knowing of her own favoured worth despite the demeaning laws of her land. Hers was a song about God who rules above the kings of the earth. A song about mercy and not judgment for the vulnerable. A song about the powerful falling from their thrones. (Mary was the first “fallist”.) A song about the hungry being filled and the rich sent away empty handed.
In other words Mary pre-dated Jean Jacques Rousseau who said: “One day the poor will have nothing left to eat … but the rich”.
Mary pre-dated Frantz Fanon: “What counts today – the question which is looking on the horizon – is the need for a redistribution of wealth. Humanity must reply to this question or be shaken to pieces by it”.
Mary pre-dated Martin Espade in his poem “Imagine the Angels of Bread” when he imagined: “Squatters evict landlords”.
She pre-dated the four women who in silence loudly called the nation to #RememberKhwezi. Fezeka Khuzwayo – publically known as Kwezi wrote a poem. Her poem is no less courageously imaginative than Mary’s song of a different world. And she like Mary also had to flee for her life. The poem is called: “I am Khanga”.
I am Khanga
I wrap myself around the curvaceous bodies of women all over Africa
I am the perfect nightdress on those hot African nights
The ideal attire for household chores
I secure babies happily on their mother’s backs
Am the perfect gift for new bride and new mother alike
Armed with proverbs, I am vehicle for communication between women
I exist for the comfort and convenience of a woman
But no no no make no mistake …
I am not here to please a man
And I certainly am not a seductress
Please don’t use me as an excuse to rape
Don’t hide behind me when you choose to abuse
You see
That’s what he said my Malume
The man who called himself my daddy’s best friend
Shared a cell with him on [Robben] Island for ten whole years
He said I wanted it
That my khanga said it
That with it I lured him to my bed
That with it I want you is what I said
But what about the NO I uttered with my mouth
Not once but twice
And the please no I said with my body
What about the tear that ran down my face as I lay stiff with shock
In what sick world is that sex
In what sick world is that consent
The same world where the rapist becomes the victim
The same world where I become the bitch that must burn
The same world where I am forced into exile because I spoke out?
This is NOT my world
I reject that world
My world is a world where fathers protect and don’t rape
My world is a world where a woman can speak out
Without fear for her safety
My world is a world where no one, but no one is above the law
My world is a world where sex is pleasurable not painful
‘This is also my home’
The Magi’s power of principle together with Joseph’s humaneness together with Mary’s courageous imagination are what saved Mary and her baby.
And to the extent that we imitate them will be to the extent many others will be spared from the life-threatening complications of the abuse of power and the failure to hold the powerful to account as well as the presence of deadly discrimination.
_______
Alan Storey
Central Methodist Mission – Cape Town
Christmas Day broadcast service for SAFM – click on link to listen to the full recording of the sermon as recorded 0n 2016 12 11.
Text in red and italicised was edited out of the broadcast.
Christmas can be one of the most difficult times of the year for people. The expectation to be “happy” as in “Happy Christmas” is sometimes at complete odds with our lived experience and this can provoke an even greater despair than usual. So this is for all of you in despair at this time. David Whyte writes in Consolations on Heartbreak:
“Despair takes us in when we have nowhere else to go; when we feel the heart cannot break anymore, when our world or our loved ones disappear, when we feel we cannot be loved or do not deserve to be loved, when our God disappoints, or when our body is carrying profound pain in a way that does not seem to go away.
Despair is a haven with its own temporary form of beauty and of self-compassion, it is the invitation we accept when we want to remove ourselves from hurt. Despair, is a last protection…
Despair is a necessary and seasonal state of repair, a temporary healing absence, an internal physiological and psychological winter when our previous forms of participation in the world take a rest; it is a loss of horizon, it is the place we go when we do not want to be found in the same way anymore. We give up hope when certain particular wishes are no longer able to come true and despair is the time in which we both endure and heal, even when we have not yet found the new form of hope.
Despair is strangely, the last bastion of hope; the wish being, that if we cannot be found in the old way we cannot ever be touched or hurt in that way again. …Despair is the place we go when we no longer want to make a home in the world and where we feel, with a beautifully cruel form of satisfaction, that we may never have deserved that home in the first place…
Despair turns to depression and abstraction when we try to make it stay beyond its appointed season and start to shape our identity around its frozen disappointments. …Despair needs a certain tending, a reinforcing, and isolation, but the body left to itself will breathe, the ears will hear the first birdsong of morning or catch the leaves being touched by the wind in the trees, and the wind will blow away even the grayest cloud; will move even the most immovable season; the heart will continue to beat and the world, we realize, will never stop or go away.
The antidote to despair is not to be found in the brave attempt to cheer ourselves up with happy abstracts, but in paying a profound and courageous attention to the body and the breath, independent of our imprisoning thoughts and stories, even strangely, in paying attention to despair itself, and the way we hold it, and which we realize, was never ours to own and to hold in the first place. To see and experience despair fully in our body is to begin to see it as a necessary, seasonal visitation, and the first step in letting it have its own life, neither holding it nor moving it on before its time…
Despair is a difficult, beautiful necessary, a binding understanding between human beings caught in a fierce and difficult world where half of our experience is mediated by loss, but it is a season, a wave form passing through the body, not a prison surrounding us. A season left to itself will always move, however slowly, under its own patience, power and volition.”
May we discover the grace of despair,
Alan