The Purple Shall Govern

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

Picture from the Exhibition

 

Friends,

There is a hidden treasure right on our doorstep and yet many do not know of it. This treasure is as inspiring as it is challenging. I am referring to the exhibition entitled: Truth to Power by the Desmond and Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation. You will find it at The Old Granary Building – two blocks down from the District Six Museum on Buitenkant Street. The Old Granary itself is an artform to behold – and no less so since it has been transformed to house the Tutu Peace Centre.

“The Truth to Power exhibition is a comprehensive showcase of the life and legacy of the late Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu. It aims to foster the values of Desmond and Leah Tutu among the youth, and to inspire a new generation of leaders who will build peace and justice in South Africa and the world.

The exhibition is divided into six themes which chart Tutu’s life within the context of the painful history of South Africa under Apartheid, where the Archbishop remains the gold thread of hope, outspokenness, faith and healing. It includes his ongoing activism in the democratic South Africa and sets the challenge to all of us to take on his baton of courageous leadership and unwavering values.”

The Six Themes of the Exhibition

Theme 1.               Apartheid Education: The Most Evil Act of All.
Theme 2.               The Struggle in the Church: Fighting a False Gospel.
Theme 3.               Faith in Action: The Campaign for Sanctions.
Theme 4.               Protest and Peace Making: In the Streets and Stadiums.
Theme 5.               Unfinished Business: Tutu, Truth and Reconciliation.
Theme 6.               TU + TU = Freedom.

The Purple Shall Govern

Included in the exhibition is a photo-reminder of the Apartheid police spraying protesters with a water canon of purple dye –
effectively tagging all protesters present (as well spraying the Central Methodist Mission on 2 September 1989). This gave rise to the ingenious graffiti “The Purple Shall Govern”.

I highly recommend taking the time to visit this exhibition. It is not only an important reminder of our recent history, but a beautiful witness of a good and faithful life. Both this important reminder and beautiful witness invite us to surrender our lives into the service of justice and mercy.

With grace,
Alan

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Faith and Finance

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

Friends,

Last week my colleagues and I gathered for our Spring Seminar in Paarl. The theme was: Faith and Finance: Towards a Christ-like Theology of Money. It took the form of 15 TEDx-like presentations, followed by group discussions. Motivated by at least two reasons: 1) In the Gospels Jesus speaks more about money matters than just about any other topic, yet very often the only time ‘the church’ speaks about money is when it needs/wants money – as opposed to helping people live justly and mercifully with money, as was the focus of Jesus’ teaching. 2) We live in the most unequal country in all the world and a country where corruption – the theft of astronomical amounts of money is endemic – by people, it must be said, who are not strangers to the pews within our churches. No doubt 1) and 2) are somehow related.

The seminar was both an enlightening and a startling experience to hear how diverse our theology of money is – and this from a group of 50 odd clergy from within the same denomination. One of the troubling unquestioned assumptions that underpinned many presentations was that giving to God = giving to church. This is a dangerous equation – whether implicitly or explicitly stated. It is simplistic and potentially a very manipulative teaching that has more to do with the sustainability of a religious institution (and pastor’s income) than the practice of Jesus’ justice and mercy. We certainly have work to do as the Methodist Church of Southern Africa to develop a Christ-shaped theology of economics for justice and mercy to be more fully known within the church and society at large.

Little wonder then that John Wesley – the founder of the Methodist Movement – emphasised money matters as Jesus did. It was a consistent theme of his preaching and personal practice. Sadly, when it came to money and Methodists, Wesley was concerned. The conundrum for Wesley was: “… the Methodists in every place grow diligent and frugal; consequently, they increase in goods. Hence, they proportionately increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life. So, although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away.”

It was with this conundrum in mind that Wesley lamented: “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.” (Aug. 4, 1786).

Wesley further lamented that even his sermon on “The Use of Money” that he had preached (and re-preached) had been ignored, if not totally misinterpreted. The sermon included the following catchy points: “Gain all you can, save all you can and give all you can”.

Not one to mince his words, Wesley later wrote: “Of the three rules which are laid down … you may find many that observe the first rule, namely, ‘Gain all you can.’ You may find a few that observe the second, ‘Save all you can.’ But how many have you found that observe the third rule, ‘Give all you can’? Have you reason to believe that 500 of these are to be found among 50,000 Methodists? And yet nothing can be more plain than that all who observe the first rules without the third will be twofold more the children of hell than ever they were before.”

Remembering that to give to God is not to be equated to giving to Church, we must therefore not reduce “Give all you can” – to what we contribute to the Sunday offertory. Rather, to give to God is to give in such a way that the poor will hear good news. This means the focus of all our generosity is to bend the structures of society towards justice while at the same time mercifully caring for those wounded and marginalised within society. There are many avenues that invite our contributions to do justice and love mercifully within society at large. I believe one of the most Godly avenues of ‘give all you can’ is education – starting with pre-school education all the way through to university. Education gives life! Education really is a gift that keeps on giving – for generations! Here is a prayer we can pray: “Jesus, give me opportunities to give towards a person’s education. Amen.”

With grace,
Alan

P.S. In today’s sermon we will reflect on one of the many parables Jesus shared about economics. We will see how this parable alone was enough to get Jesus killed by the authorities. We will see how Luke’s Gospel (and I would argue – the entire Bible) is best understood as an economic textbook rather than a religious book.

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Daniel Erlander

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

 

                 

Friends,

Dan Erlander, the artist-author of MANNA and MERCY: A brief history of God’s unfolding promise to mend the entire universe, died last Sunday. I join many whose hearts are filled with grief and gratitude for his life-giving living.

I remember the first time I came across MANNA and MERCY. It was a ring-bound copy that my dad had been given in the early-to-mid 90s. I read it in one go and thought it was sheer brilliance and so I started using it in retreats from 1996. It was hands down the best thing I had ever read and I am convinced that it’s Jesus’ favourite version of the bible J. I am convicted and disturbed and inspired every time I open MANNA and MERCY – which is often!

All of Dan’s work reveals his astounding ability to draw the big picture of God’s dream for the universe small enough for us to digest. With clarifying and humorous simplicity Dan would hold the radical challenge of Jesus’ liberating ways before us – so simply drawn and described that none of us can ever use the excuse that we do not understand what Jesus is on about. Unlike much of what passes as “Christianity” today, Dan resisted the temptation to dilute Jesus’ message of ‘justice and mercy for all’ to make it more palatable for our individualistically indoctrinated lives and consumer driven society (and church) to swallow. Dan truly trusted that the so-called “hard sayings of Jesus” – the one’s we usually wish-to-God Jesus never said – about loving money too much and loving enemies too little – was not only good news but also the only way of living life that would save Life on planet earth.

In MANNA and MERCY we are called to face our “BIG DEAL” tendencies and our addiction to building our piles of stuff into bigger and Bigger piles of stuff. Basically, what the world calls success – the scriptures call suicide. In the space of just two simple drawings, Dan showed how the “Big DEALing” tendencies of our heart systematically shaped society and therefore Salvation demanded both confession on our knees and resistance on the streets to transform the hierarchical structures of privilege and power for a few into a banquet of fairness for all. Privilege and power that Dan showed was baptised by a type of religion that was in the pocket of the king and the supportive shadow of the military. True to his carrot (religion) and stick (military) analysis of what underpins oppressive power, Dan published BY FAITH ALONE – A LUTHERAN LOOKS AT THE BOMB in 1983, exposing the clear contradiction between the gospel and the “system called the arms race” and in which Dan humbly invites the reader: “As an American, I am part of a people who have been seduced into idolatry – we believe in the power of violence … and that is our darkness. Lord have mercy.”

As Dan calls us to break partnership with the BOMB (and all systems of violence in the world), he invites us to be YHWH’s Partner People. Fancy that – God decides to need us to bring healing and liberation in this world. What could be more humbling and affirming than this? What greater responsibility and privilege could there possibly be in this life?

And now I have really good news for you. Instead of a long sermon from me this morning, I will be reading a few short stories from another work of art by Dan – called: Tales of a Pointless People. Do I hear an Amen?

With gratitude for Dan – friend and teacher,
Alan

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Evangelism

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

Friends,

There are two diagrams below. The first diagram depicts probably the most common Christian understanding of evangelism. The idea being that Christians must encourage every person who is not a Christian to become a Christian. Here is a quote that sums up this typical understanding:

Evangelism means preaching, announcing, or otherwise communicating the gospel. It’s delivering the message that Jesus Christ is not only the Son of God but also gave His life as a sacrifice for our sins. In doing so, He ensured eternal life for anyone who believes. Accepting that good news and then telling others about it, so they know too, is the definition of evangelism.

Other language that goes with this understanding is that once you accept the truth about who Jesus is – then you are “saved” and the reward is “eternal life”. Within this understanding, “eternal life” is understood as life after death and spent in “heaven”. The flip side of this is as devastating as this is lavishing: If you do not believe the message that Jesus is the only Son of God and that he gave his life as a sacrifice for us then we are not “saved” but instead face “eternal damnation” in “hell” as punishment. Even though the people who promote this view say they do so “out of love”, the motivating fear that underpins it, casts out the love for those who are on the receiving end. Furthermore, it is not surprising that this perversely violent belief has led to so much trauma and abuse of so many, for it is a small step from supporting exclusion and violence in the next life to enacting it in this life. How this patently anti-Christ understanding manages to persist in the name of Christ is really frightening. I mean can you really hear Jesus – who teaches us to love our enemies – say amen to placing people in an everlasting holocaust?

I don’t think Jesus is too concerned about the religion, if any, that we subscribe to. I say this because for most of us the random geography of our birth overwhelmingly influenced our choice. Besides, I can’t find it anywhere in the gospels where Jesus enquires about someone’s religion. Jesus certainly doesn’t line up all the blind and lame and say – okay all those who believe in me as your personal Lord and Saviour be healed – and to the rest – sorry for you.

I am also convinced that Jesus is not really concerned whether we believe in him or not, for the simple reason that Jesus is not an egotist. Jesus never asked to be worshipped. He asked that we follow his way of life. A way of life that brings life. A life-giving way of living. In other words, far more important to Jesus is whether we believe in what he believed in. He believed in justice, mercy, humility, equality, gentleness and generosity. Jesus invites us to have faith that when we live these values out in the world, life in all its fullness will come to us and through us.

This is where the second diagram of “evangelism” comes in. Instead of trying to get people of other religions or of no religion to believe in ‘our’ religion (diagram 1), we are to work towards a different kind of conversion within the world. This conversion is from the ways of death to the ways of life. The ways of death include: injustice, vengeance, pride, inequality, violence and greed.

Here is the thing, all religions and those who profess none – have examples of both living according to the ways of death and examples of living according to the ways of life. History teaches us that none have a mono-poly on either. Apartheid history is an example of some within the Christian religion choosing a way of death – a way of injustice and violence, etc. At the same time there were other Christians, but also others of every other religion and those of no religion who chose to resist Apartheid and follow a different way – a life-giving way of justice and mercy, etc. To this I am convinced Jesus would say: Amen.

With grace,
Alan

—

P.S. Today Ruth Leverton is attempting to run her 20th Comrades Marathon.

This is a serious accomplishment.

What is more, Ruth will be turning 70 in four weeks’ time.

This is next level serious accomplishment!

I encourage you to please generously support Ruth’s BackaBuddy page: Dignity for Zandise.

 

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