#Fees Must Fall

I am part of a Methodist tertiary educational institution - and we are one of the very few tertiary institutions open today. Everywhere across the country tertiary education is on strike. I have a daughter studying at UCT,  and a niece studying at Wits University. I also have friends who teach at Stellenbosch University, Pretoria University, University of KwaZuluNatal and the University of South Africa. As I listen to them, the one common theme is that tertiary education is frustratingly expensive. And that people are unable to pay the increases for next year.

These increases are for a number of reasons, including a weakening economy, a steady decrease in Government funding, and the resultant difficulty of funding an educational institution in our South Africa context. I should know, because we are struggling with this issue here at our seminary. And our students - like students elsewhere - are also feeling the pain of increased financial pressure.

At the same time, allow me to offer one comment:

I find it sad that it takes study fees to mobilize people.

·         We have had xenophobic attacks on foreigners in Durban – and no University Students protested

·         We have seen corruption and dishonesty amongst our politicians – and no university protested

·         Our communities experienced women raped and children murdered – and nobody protested.

But the moment something touches our pockets, then we are on fire:

It is tragic that it takes self-interest to mobilize us.  

In the light of this I turn to Jesus for guidance:

Mark 3:31  Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. 32  A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you." 33  And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" 34  And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35  Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

Jesus is not saying that his mother and his brothers and sisters are not important. What he is saying is that those who follow him ought to show the same compassion that they have for their immediate family for others in their community.  Self interest is when we care for our own family’s needs to the exclusion of others. God-interest is when we are willing to make the whole community our family.

So let us protest the increase in fees – but only after we have protested the plight of other poor people in our community! 

Will you go where you are sent?

Sermon preached to the Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary

16 September 2015

John 21:15 – 22

“Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." (John 21:18) 

Every Methodist Minister is asked this one question: “Will you go where you are sent?” This question is asked when a candidate offers for the ministry, this is again posed as one of the conditions of ordination, and this is an implied question every year when the Bishops meet in a stationing committee. The tradition of being willing to go wherever the Methodist Conference sends you is drawn from the ancient monastic vow of obedience – a vow rooted in the Biblical conversation between Jesus and Peter at the lakeside in John 21.

 

The story of John 21 takes place after the resurrection of Jesus, and therefore after the appearance of Jesus at the tomb and later in the upper room. This is no longer a conversation about the good news of resurrection, and about reassuring frightened disciples. Instead this is a conversation about what comes next……

Jesus speaks to Peter:

Peter do you love me?

Yes Lord.

Then feed my sheep

Here is a threefold repletion: “If you love me, then feed my sheep”

Here is the commandment to become a servant of God. In essence, the commandment is to show love through caring and service. And then to make his point, Jesus says these words to Peter: “Will you go where you are sent?”

Well – not exactly those words, but close enough:

Joh 21:18  Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go."

To paraphrase this –

“Peter: when you were young you went wherever you decided was best: but as you mature into a Christian leader, you will need to be willing to go wherever you are needed – even if this means going where you do not want to go! Now - will you go where you are sent?”

It sounds really heroic to stand on the floor of a church Synod and commit oneself to going where you are sent: but as time passes we all begin to think we know best.  We become important and powerful in the church. We become Senior Ministers, and Superintendents, and Bishops. And with this comes the temptation to become powerful:

-      We are consulted by business leaders and politicians

-      We are invited to conduct state funerals and very important weddings

-      We exercise power over who can come to Holy Communion and who cannot

-      We exercise power over who can be baptised and who cannot

Most frightening of all: we even think we have the power to decide who God loves, and who God does not love!

It is at this point that the health of our souls demands that we surrender our power ….. before we use this power to become destructive!

The best way to surrender our power is to remember that we are under the discipline of those who have been placed in leadership over us: In fact nobody should have spiritual authority unless they are under authority. The tool the church uses to remind us that we are under authority is this question: “Will you go where you are sent?” And more importantly – will you do the work that is asked of you by your local leadership, or Superintendent / Bishop / Presiding Bishop?

Just when I think I am a person of status and power, I meet a poor, struggling outcast on the margins of society who asks me to kneel down and care for her.  

“Will you go where you are sent?”

Just when I think that I am an important and powerful preacher – the Superintendent phones me and asks me to take a service in a very unimportant little community.

“Will you go where you are sent?”

Just when I think I am an important and powerful Superintendent – the Bishop phones and asks me to go into another circuit and chair a very difficult meeting.

“Will you go where you are sent?”

Just when I think that I am a very important Chaplain at a Seminary – the Presiding Bishop phones me and tells me that he is moving me out of the seminary...

Will you go where you are sent?

The Apostle Peter’s reaction to this question reflects his human frailty: He looks over his shoulder and sees John sitting next to Jesus and says “But Lord what about him?” Is this not true of all of us? When we are asked to be obedient – we look around to see if anyone else is being asked to make the same sacrifice. And we might say something like “Lord this is unfair – what about him / what about her? They are getting a better deal than me!!”

Will you go where you are sent?

The way we test whether we are willing to surrender our power to God’s plans is by asking this one simple question:

“Will you go where you are sent?”

Failure

“…the goose pimples of rejection run up and down your spine.” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn [1]

I have failed – and have spent the last two months licking my wounds.

I entered the 2015 Comrades Marathon, run on 31 May. This is an annual 90km road race between Durban and Pietermaritzburg that has to be completed inside of 12 hours. I last ran it ten years ago – my 12th run - and upon finishing it I said I would never again run it.  But this year was the 90^th edition of the race, and the whisper of the challenge saw me entering the race again. I worked hard, running 1200km of training between January and May. I ran two marathons, and three ultra-marathons and when race day came I felt that I was ready to prove my mettle. I set off at sunrise along with approximately 17000 other runners as we wound our way from Durban to Pietermaritzburg. And this uphill run became a mental ‘uphill’ for me – because I had a bad day and every step became an effort. I found myself running with the 12 hour ‘bus’ of Vlam Pieterse, which carried me to the halfway mark. However, when they pulled away from me on the Inchanga hill I knew that it was all over. I dejectedly walked all the way up this painful hill, found some momentum on Harrison Flats, but was pulled off the road at the Umlaas Road cutoff – 57km completed but 30km short of the finish. I felt relieved and deeply disappointed. I had struggled all the way and was glad to stop, but had never before had I failed to finish this race – in fact any race. I had worked so hard at preparing for this race, and I felt the crushing weight of failure.

This has given me an opportunity to reflect on how I feel about failure.

  

Let me begin by saying it as it is: I do not like failing! Since I was a child I have been acutely aware of the feelings associated with failure: shame, embarrassment, humiliation and inferiority – what Solzhenitsyn has so evocatively described as that moment when “…the goose pimples of rejection run up and down your spine.”   The reason I know this so intimately is because these feelings have often visited me: I was a reserved child who hung back and hoped that someone else would be asked to speak/play/run/shine, just in case I failed to do it well. To make matters worse, I did not attend schools big enough to have many winning teams. I played rugby for the teams that got beaten by other schools, and got thrashed by the tennis teams of the bigger schools.

I have found two conflicting reactions to attempting anything that has a prospect of failure: the one choice is to avoid doing anything that might cause me to fail. However, in contrast, maturity has produced a stubborn streak in me that whispered “try it” when a challenge was presented. It is not that I lost my aversion to failure, but rather the greater debilitation of the knowledge that I did not try, has motivated me to face my fears. So when I did my compulsory military service I volunteered to do the Physical Training Instructor’s course, precisely because it was tough and I feared it. When my friend Alan began postgraduate studies I again heard the aggravating whisper of the difficult endeavour and enrolled for further study. And when a friend mentioned that he was running the Comrades Marathon, I knew that I would have to do it – in order to pacify that internal challenge. To my amazement I discovered that I could rise to these challenges. Truth be told, I have generally succeeded beyond what I deserved or believed myself capable of.

This is not to say that I have never failed. I failed my Biblical Hebrew exams – twice! Which means that I graduated from seminary two years after my class. I have lost many league tennis matches, and come at the back of many road running events. A big one was when I applied for a position that I really, really wanted – and was turned down. I have learned that the fear of failure does not go away. It sits out there as a beacon that mocks me, entices me, and sometimes seduces me. Which brings me to my most recent failure.

It has taken me some time to recover. My running shoes mostly collect dust in the corner. I have been back on the road – but now have niggling injuries. It is therefore easier to stay in bed in the morning. I have just seen that the theme for the 2016 Comrades Marathon is IZOKUTHOBA - IT WILL HUMBLE YOU.   Ironically I was humbled this year! So do I put my hand up to be humbled again next year? Right now I do not have an answer for this question. It is in this space that I hear the echo of Winston Churchill’s observation that "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."  This reminder of the impermanence of both success and failure challenges me to embrace my journey through life as an adventure, rather than a competition. It is this that is drawing me out of my self-imposed hibernation. It is this that now enables me to think of trying new things. So here is my resolve:

·         I will continue to choose to live a curious life, something that might lead me to attempt difficult things.

·         I will continue to risk the possibility of failure by trying things that frighten me or stretch me beyond my current experience.

·         I will continue to embrace the opportunity to learn new things – even if it mean falling flat on my face and learning how to get back onto my feet.

Throughout my struggle with the vicissitudes of success and failure I have treasured the encouragement of Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He is a man whose writings and life embodies the courage to rise above the rejections of life: 

"Live with a steady superiority over life ...
don't be afraid of misfortune, and do not yearn after happiness: it is, after all, the same: the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.
It is enough if you don't freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don't claw at your insides. If your back isn't broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes can see, if both ears hear, then whom should you envy? And why?
Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart - and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well. Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from any of them in anger; after all, you simply do not know: it might be your last act ... "

- Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “From Island to Island” The Gulag Archipelago

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[1] Alexander Solzhenitsyn: “From Island to Island” The Gulag Archipelago

The Black Methodist Consultation – from a white perspective.

I am part of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa. There is a black caucus within my church called The Black Methodist Consultation, which has just met in Johannesburg. These are some of my random thoughts about an organization that has nothing to do with me, but at the same time has everything to do with my church. Its 2015 programme notes that the “BMC exists for the Transformation of the MCSA into a truly African Church (in character, doctrine, ethos, identity and practice) by challenging and equipping Black Methodists to contribute meaningfully, actively and intelligently in the MCSA given the context of Africans”.[1]

The BMC was founded in September 1975 in response to a Methodist Church that “was a mirror image of the apartheid society in which it laboured”.[2] Despite a black majority of members, the MCSA was dominated by a white clergy, white administrators and white financial muscle. In the words of the BMC: “The BMC then had to deal with issues that negatively affected the majority of the people called Methodists”.[3] This year it celebrates 40 years of a history that has succeeded in ensuring that the MCSA now has a majority black leadership: the MCSA has a black Presiding Bishop, black General Treasurer, black Lay Leader, and a majority of black Bishops, Superintendent Ministers and Circuit/Society Stewards. It must be acknowledged that the BMC has succeeded spectacularly in transforming the MCSA from a white led church to a black led church.

I do not for one minute think that this is the end of the road. There is still much work to be done in transforming our theological reflection and practice to represent an African context. The MCSA is captive in many parts to a western, materialist theology that is driven by wealth and glamour: we honour those ministers who are good fundraisers; we choose to hold our conferences and conventions in places of glitz and glamour; and we want to see our leaders dressed in the garments of the powerful. We also betray our own African roots by so easily singing songs written in other parts of the world, while ignoring our African rhythms and idiom. We still need to engage the split spiritual personality of our members who are Methodist by day, and African Initiated Church by night. This includes the way we use traditional cultural practices at home, but hide them from our Methodist community as if being African was not acceptable in the Methodist Church.  This practice also leads us to adopt anything from our culture into our spiritual practice without thorough theological interrogation – precisely because we do not allow the MCSA into this part of our lives. So I look to the BMC to help us to reflect on how we become a “truly African Church”.

That said – I am wondering if the BMC has been too successful in the work it has already done. What I am seeing emerge is not a black-led church. I am seeing a black Methodist Church. White members of the MCSA are a dying breed – literally! We are getting older and greyer, with our younger white membership dwindling to insignificance. Some of this attrition is a reflection of the general ageing of Christian Churches in our country: in general we as the MCSA are becoming older. But in addition to this, younger white members are leaving – some to other churches, and some to no church at all. Simply put: white people do not feel like they belong. They feel excluded from the MCSA, because the ethos of the MCSA has become black. It does so by using uniforms, rigid collective organisation, black caucuses, and organisational conventions. This is essential to black spirituality, but means nothing to white identity. So I am experiencing ‘white flight’ from my church: some white colleagues have joined other churches, and some are leaving for other countries. Those who stay have disinvested from Synods and Conference: they choose not to engage in debate, but instead grumble together on their own google websites. White members have withdrawn into white local church, and leave the national church to the black majority. So we struggle to get any white members to leave their local church meetings and go to Synod or Conference. And we have no white candidates for the ministry. In fact we have had no white candidates for the past three years.  

Now this is perfectly acceptable if we have decided that the MCSA is to be a black church. In some ways it feels like we have done so. The Presiding Bishop and the General Secretary of the MCSA have just visited the BMC as if it is an official gathering of the MCSA. This is the non-statutory caucus that makes decisions for our church. What puzzles me is why the black voices – who dominate the church – need the BMC to help them to be heard in the church. The annual Conference of the MCSA is a black majority voice! It is not necessary to mobilise against white oppression, because the whites are leaving. I predict that within 20 years the existing loyal white members will have died, and the next generation will have moved elsewhere because they find no space in the MCSA. In my experience black Methodists do not care whether we lose all our white members or not. And why should they? For 140 years black members were oppressed by white members before we had our first black President of Conference. I have sympathy for the fact that the black agenda right now is about occupying positions of power and influence in the MCSA. I am tempted to adapt Steve Biko’s famous phrase and hear the new slogan: “White man you are on your own”.

So should I dream of finding ways to help white people find a home in this church? Should I form a White Methodist Consultation to help us find identity? Because our culture and race really do affect the way we think and behave, and those who make the claim “I am not racist” are often the most racist of all! It is only in acknowledging my race/culture/history that I can authentically engage people who are not like me. But a caucus of ‘white Methodists’ fills me with horror, because I cannot bear those insensitive, self-righteous white members of my church who demand that the MCSA must run according to ‘their’ norms. I cannot stomach the white members who use their wealth to patronise poor black churches; and I hate the way my white colleagues make absolutely no effort to understand their black colleagues – or to support them in their work. I want no truck with those white members who whine about ‘the good old days’ and complain about their loss of privilege. I abhor those white people who sneer at the way black people practice their faith, and who keep telling our black leadership how to do things.  

What I am reaching for is how to define my church. I embrace the fact that I live in a black majority country in a black majority church. However, when I encourage young white people to enter the ministry of the MCSA, do I tell the prospective candidates that they must learn how to ‘do church’ like a black person – or find another denomination.  I cannot help thinking of the way St Paul dreamed of a church where in Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, slave nor free……. And dare I say it: neither black nor white?  I am reminded of the John 17 prayer of Jesus that his disciples should be one. Should we as the MCSA not be an example to our country of a “one and undivided” people? Surely one contribution we can make to bring healing to our land is for us to model a community who respects, cares about and loves one another – irrespective of race and culture?

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[1] The 2015 programme – to be found at http://methodistbmc.yolasite.com/resources/BMC2015_resources/BMC%202015%20Information%20Brochure%20-%20PRODUCT%20-%20SERVICE%20-%20FINAL.pdf

[2] Cited from the 2015 programme

[3] From the 2015 programme.

A Time for Everything

The Seth Mokitimi Methodist Seminary had our Graduation today. This is the devotion I used: 

Ecclesiastes 3:1  For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2  a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3  a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4  a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5  a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6  a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; 7  a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8  a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

Moreover:

there is a time to come to seminary and a time to leave seminary

a time to learn and a time to put learning into practice

a time to make much noise in chapel and a time to be silent

a time to work in the garden and a time to watch the plants grow

a time to ride in the seminary vehicle and a time to walk

a time to eat seminary food and a time to eat KFC

and there is a time to study and a time to graduate;

Ecc 3:14  I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him.

Holy Week 2015

This past week I have shared in the life of the Goodwood Methodist Church. I was invited to teach at their Holy Week services, and found myself deeply enriched.

This is a working class community of people of various generations, life experiences, and cultures. These people are the ‘salt of the earth’: generous, hospitable and spontaneously spiritual. I count myself privileged to have been allowed to share in this life of this community. I made new friends, renewed old friendships, and was refreshed by the wonder of God at work in the lives of people.

What makes this congregation especially interesting is that the Cape Town Korean Church joined us for the week. This raised the unique challenge of being inter-culturally sensitive in a way that allowed for unity while not imposing uniformity. The Holy Week Services included the Korean Church choir leading us in an anthem, Pastor Lee leading prayers in Korean, and the reading of the Bible in Korean while English words were displayed on the screen. This morning’s service was enriched by the Korean choir leading an Easter Cantata which, while sung in Korean, was a moving testimony to our shared faith in Jesus Christ. What I found particularly poignant was the way the Goodwood Methodist people rose to their feet in enthusiastic applause when the choir offered their concluding bow of greeting.   

 Easter is a moment when our common faith in Jesus enables us to simply be human together. And I am grateful.