Collaring

The Methodist Church has a tradition of “collaring” student ministers, which is the moment when the student is allowed to wear a clerical collar. Within our tradition a clerical shirt is worn as a sign of being under the discipline of an order of preachers. Over time we have allowed those who are studying for ordination to wear a clerical collar as part of the process of a personal commitment to this discipline. Not only does it remind the student of the calling that they are exploring, but it allows them time to physically experience the depth of this commitment every time they put on their clerical shirt.

Today we concluded our Seminary Covenant Service with the collaring of Philippa Cole, who describes herself as “fully human, perfectly flawed” and writes a blog at  http://blissphil.wordpress.com/. It was an occasion of joyful celebration of one who is growing into her calling to be a Methodist Minister. There was singing, dancing, tears, and a special moment when her clerical collar was inserted into her shirt. She commented: “I am excited because this for me is a validation of my journey so far. It’s a reminder that I have committed my life to being a servant for God and for Her people.”

Please pray for her – and for all those who are newly “collared” as they train for their final ordination vows.

A day off

Jenny and I have spent a week unpacking into our new home. So we decided to take a day off. We are visiting Jenny's sister who is on holiday at Zimbali holiday resort. Eish - another tough day in Africa.

My 2012 project

I and my friend Mark Duncan have challenged ourselves to run 300 days this year, for a minimum of 5km or half an hour each day. But why?!

Well, it's our way of using our abilities to make a difference.

The aim is to raise R100 000 in 2012 for the I Care non-profit organisation, so that they can broaden their reach and get a centre established in Pietermaritzburg. I Care provide a sustainable solution to helping street kids - check it out here:
http://icare.co.za/

So how can you help? If you can give R1 for every run we do this year, that will work out to R300 for the year. If we can raise enough awareness and get, say, a little over 300 people to do this, the R100 000 target will be reached pretty easily! You can donate safely online through the BackaBuddy site:
http://www.backabuddy.co.za/champion/project/irun4icare. You can also give cash if you'd prefer - contact me or Mark (
iRun4iCare@gmail.com) and we can tell you how best to contribute. All funds raised go directly to I Care - there is a commitment to transparency and accountability here.

And you can follow our runs from this website:
http://www.mapmytracks.com/iRun4iCare. Mark and I have GPS's which track our runs so you can see exactly where they've been and how fast!

R100 000 for I Care in 2012 - let's do it!"

Breakfast

This is the view for our breakfast this morning. Jenny and I have spent much of the week moving stuff. The big move was on Tuesday, when the removal company fetched our worldly possessions and trucked them off to Pietermaritzburg. Since then we have cleaned the house we rented for the past year, moved plants from this house to Jenny's sister's house in Newlands, and donated some excess furniture to the Plumstead Methodist manse.

It is finally over - and we are sitting on the stoep of Melissa's in Newlands having a mid-morning breakfast. Life is good.

jessie at UCT

Today is Jessica's graduation - with a BMus(Ed). This qualifies her to teach music. Her instrument is the saxophone and she has specialised in Jazz. She has a post at Camps Bay Primary School for 2012.

I am proud of her achievement, and of her passion to share her knowledge with others.

Moving

The family is moving. All in different directions.

Jenny and I will stay to have Christmas with my parents and then head off to Pietermaritzburg - leaving all our daughters behind in Cape Town.

Amy will tutor until she leaves for Japan in June, where she plans to teach English. Jessie has a job as a music teacher at Camps Bay Primary School; and Lisa is waiting to hear if UCT has accepted her for Psychology honours.

The photograph is one of the packers at the storage facility where we have kept some of our stuff for this year.

Amy

This afternoon was spent at the University of Cape Town's graduation ceremony - well one of the many that take place this week.

I celebrated my daughter Amy's graduation with a BA in English. She also has studied Japanese over the past three years, and plans to travel to Japan in June 2012 to teach English.

I am very proud of her - and look with fascination to see where her life's journey takes her.

God bless you Amy.

Family

Christmas is time for family. Jenny and I drove to Pinetown to have tea with my aunt Marion and ended up attending a Carol Service with her at Doone Village.

She gets around on a four wheeler that can negotiate both the passages inside the buildings as well as the paths between the buildings.

It is a beautiful setting and was originally the property of Aaron Beare whose farm has been transformed into a haven for senior citizens.

Flying Ants

There are tens of thousands of them flying at the moment - heavy rain predicted for tomorrow.

Army deployed in Lavender Hill

Eyewitness News reports that the army has been deployed to the Lavender Hill community:

The Steenberg Community Policing Forum (CPF) has welcomed the deployment of South African National Defence Force (SANDF) members in Lavender Hill. Seven people have been killed in what is believed to be gang-related shootings in the area over the past three months. The CPF's Kevin Southgate says the army’s intervention is long overdue. “Desperate times call for desperate measures and we are happy that the army has finally been deployed in the area. We’re just hoping that the government will sustain this,” he says.

It is a sad moment when conventional policing cannot keep a community safe. I have pastored people from this community for the past ten years. In fact I began my connections with this community in 1986 and have kept touch with its life since then. It is mostly concrete housing units that are home to people who were forcibly removed from their roots by the Group Areas Act. These people were dumped on sea sand – please disregard the pretty name for the area! It was not long before gangs became the way of life for many of the unemployed young people, and many of the residents live in fear of the gangsters. So I do understand the sense of relief when the army trucks roll in. But this cannot be a solution for urban living.

The police are trained to keep people safe, and ensure that we all live securely. The arrival of the army admits the fact we all know – that that there is something wrong with the police. I know many loyal police men and women who live with integrity and fairness. But we have lost faith in the police force as an institution to hold us accountable to the laws of our land. The wealthy have hired private security companies to keep us safe. And now the poor are calling for the army. We as a nation need a change of heart, mind and soul – to discover how to live within the laws of our land.

The King is Coming

My Sermon from Sunday 20 /11/ 2011

The King is Coming

Eze 34:11-17 & 20-24
Matthew 25: 31-46

  Introduction

We are at the end of the Christian year. Let me explain myself: we who follow Jesus use a religious calendar that helps us remember our faith.

Next Sunday is the first Sunday of our Religious year – a year that begins with the anticipation of a Savior – takes us to Christmas, the birth of the Saviour, and then through his life. We then celebrate the events of Easter, followed by the blessings of the Holy Spirit, which we call Pentecost. After Pentecost we remind ourselves of how the followers of Jesus ought to live. The journey from Pentecost to this week is one that should culminate with the reminder that this life is temporary, and that the moment will come when the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, will return. This year’s lectionary used the passage from Matthew 25 to do so. It speaks of a time when “the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him…… all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate people”

 Here is the teaching: The end of all time has come, and the Lord of the Ages has returned to judge the earth. This is an enduring theme, which has been the subject of many, many sermons. I have often heard it used to scare people into the Kingdom of God

-      “if you misbehave, God will come and get you.”

-      “ We might have suffered for our faith – but one day the powerful King will return and will wipe all the sinners off the face of the earth”

This sounds like Christian revenge to me!

 The fact is that this is an image based on Imperial Rome in the time of Jesus: the Emperor would leave Rome to conquer new lands – and would return in triumph: with rewards for the people who had faithfully served him, and vengeance for those who dared to oppose him. But this is not the way of Jesus – and such an image is a perversion of the Gospel of Jesus! I do not believe that this is what Jesus intended when he told this story. This is not a story about God rewarding good people and punishing bad people! This is a teaching about the compassionate King who comes for those rejected by the righteous.

 In order to understand this story we need to realize that we cannot just lift it out of the Jewish culture of first century Palestine and paste it in our post-modern world and expect to understand what is going on. We need to understand the culture in which this story was told.

This is a culture that divided people into two groups: the Righteous and the Sinners. The righteous were those who worshipped God in the temple. They obeyed the law, paid their temple dues, and kept themselves pure. The sinners were those who did not.

Which is not as simple as it sounds:

·                    If you were illiterate/uneducated, you struggled to keep track of the law and probably remained a sinner for life.
·                    If you were too poor to afford the required offerings and sacrifices – you stayed a sinner.
·        And you were a sinner if you did work that was considered unclean – work such as leather workers, traders, government officials. (Leather workers involved handling dead animals; Trade involved handling Roman coin with its forbidden engraved image; and Government officials meant dealing with the foreigners and suspected of taking bribes).
·        There were other categories of sinners too:

Ø Sick people were thought to be sinners – obviously they had done something wrong and God had cursed them with illness.

Ø The non-Jewish people were sinners: called strangers/aliens

So let us now return to the teaching of Jesus and see if we read it with new eyes:
Mat 25:31  “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
Mat 25:32  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,
Mat 25:33  and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
Mat 25:34  Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;
Mat 25:35  for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
Mat 25:36  I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

The King is returning – and he tells us who the people are that he hangs out with:

·        “Hungry & Thirsty” – the poor people

·        “Strangers”  – aliens / non-Jews

·        “Naked” – those who have been publically shamed

·        “Sick” – those thought to be cursed by God

·        Prison – those who owed money/debtors

Jesus is emphasizing: God will return for those who were rejected by the righteous.This is not a triumphant King who comes to destroy the sinners: this is a merciful King who loves those who have been rejected by the righteous. In fact: those who so self-righteously rejoiced that they had kept themselves pure by throwing the sinners out: will find themselves thrown out.

Mat 25:43  I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.'

Mat 25:44  Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?'
Mat 25:45  Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'
Mat 25:46  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life

 And so we ask ourselves whether this speaks to us today?

Good news: the King is coming: and he will gather all those who have been rejected and cast aside. If this is your experience of Life hear the good news: God loves you.
Eze 34:11  For thus says the Lord GOD: I myself will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.
Eze 34:12  As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

But there is also a very difficult place in this teaching:

Is it possible that we too have developed categories of people we call sinners. Do we think of people who are beyond God’s salvation, and we congratulate ourselves on keeping ourselves pure?

 Certainly there are some groups of people that are rejected by some Christians:

Some think that Muslim people are beyond the love of God. I find the current debate in the Vatican fascinating: an advertising agency has put together a picture of the Pope embracing an Imam and the Vatican says it will sue. I wondered why? Can the Pope not show the love of God to a Muslim. Or is this one group of people Jesus commands us to hate

 Some think gay people are the group to exclude. There are Christians who spend all their energy insulting homosexual people, assuming that the Lord will return and crush them. It is almost as if some believe Jesus said to us “Hate other people as I have hated you”.

 Often this is rooted in our own personal prejudices:

A good test is to ask who “them” is. Whenever you want to blame someone for the problems of your world, ask yourself “Who are ‘they’?”

Ø Everything was great before “they” arrived.

Ø If only “they” were not my neighbours

Ø If only I did not have to work with “them”

Ø Why do “they” always get first choice – said by everyone who has a brother or a sister.

 There is a warning:

Eze 34:20  Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep.
Eze 34:21  Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide,
Eze 34:22  I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

Conclusion: So as this Christian year ends, excuse me if I don’t get too excited about the vengeful Christ the King. I am on my way to Christmas – and I can smell the straw and the cow dung at a manger. The baby who will be born came for those who needed to know the love of God – and that is where God has called me to be.

Moving the Minister/Priest/Pastor

·         My friend and colleague Stafford Moses  noted the way clergy resist being moved by their bishop – and wondered why.

He received a really useful response from Jennie Liebenberg

“I always thought it was because clergy are human, thus can't have ALL the gifts needed in a parish... so they give all that they are for however many years to their parish, then the bishop sees that the parish has grown in certain aspects and now needs a priest with different gifts to equip them further. And similarly, there's another parish that could grow further into the fullness of Christ by YOUR leadership”.

The Invitation

We fail our children when we shut them out of our sacred rituals in worship. This was the challenge brought by Ansie and Willie Liebenberg, who led family worship at our seminary this week. Ansie used the analogy of a feast to teach about the Eucharist. They then helped us hear an invitation for the whole seminary family to share in Holy Communion as a "family feast".

A Bride

My niece Jenny got married this weekend. She was happy, spontaneous and relaxed - and I wish her and Etienne well for their marriage.

Come dance with me

My mother asking my 86 year old father for a dance at my niece's wedding.

The Queue

I am in "The Queue". This is a great South African institution. We line up at the Post Office, the Bank, the Bus Stop - and in Government Offices.
I arrived at the traffic-office this morning with some trepidation because I knew I was in trouble. During idle chit-chat with friends on Saturday night we got talking about our driver's licenses, and their 5yr renewal. I got my card out to check when I needed to renew it, only to discover that my driver's licence had expired in February 2011. Oh crap!

And so I arrived at the building and looked around hoping for a clue where to go. Here's the sequence: Spot the information desk and find the friendly official who will hand you the necessary forms to complete. Look hopefully around for a surface to write on (and skip the first one because the glass on the counter is missing). Get to the second and fill in the form. Join the line waiting to be helped. This involved sitting on the empty chair at the end - and as the person at the head of the line is helped everyone shuffles up one seat. The chairs are closer than my western body space would like. And the conversation is louder than I would choose. But as I look around I see the gathering is inclusive and all are welcome to offer an opinion. We wait our turn with patient good humour. I reach the prized "window of opportunity" only to discover that I needed to have had my eyes checked and fingerprints taken ... at the room on the other end of the building!

OK. Another row of bums moving along another row of chairs. And I peer hopefully into a machine to tell the official where the shaded portion of the circle lies. I am reminded of the passing of the years when I discover that they are clearer with my glasses on. My fingerprints are captured in a computer, and do not disclose any unpaid traffic fines. I am safe to rejoin The Queue.

And in time emerge triumphant clutching a temporary licence and the invitation to return in a month's time for my new licence card. I am legal again.

fac et aliquid operis, ut semper te diabolus inveniat occupatum*

Luk 5:5  Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."

Western civilization has been built on the idea that hard work will produce success, wealth and positive results. Deep in its cultural bones are injunctions to succeed by  working hard – “the devil finds work for idle hands” / “Don't just stand there, do something” / “hard work never killed anyone”. I was raised on quotes on the Bible that bolstered this idea: “Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways” (Prov 6:6), “Hard work always pays off” (Prov 14:23). I have often worked hard, and more often I have worked very hard. But as the years have passed I have discovered the fallacy in the idea that hard work equates to success, because there are some people who work extremely hard without any success at all. Certainly this was the case of the disciples of Jesus in Luke 5:5 – they had fished all night without success.

This is also the case with many, many people who are trapped in the cycles of poverty, illiteracy and illness that characterize our modern society. Many people work hard all day for a pittance of a wage. They are not lazy, or stupid, or unfaithful to God. They are simply victims of their birth: born in the wrong place, in the wrong social class, of the wrong gender, or in the wrong culture. They do not have access to education, or to opportunity, or to the social conditions that enable their work hard to allow them an escape from their struggle for life.

I have come to see that hard work is not the panacea for all of life’s ills. Instead I have learned that the key to successful living is finding the person we were created to be. Luke 5:5 has the disciples moving beyond hard work, to obedience to the call of the Master: “If you say so, I will”. This is about an inner calling rather than our material successes; this is about our self-knowledge rather than our achievements and status; this is about our sense of God’s purpose for our living rather than a desperate striving to achieve goals and acquire more possessions.  Kipling, in his poem “If” captures this for me:

“…..If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same … you will be a Man my son.”

* [St. Jerome Letters cxxv. xi.] “do something, so that the devil may always find you busy”; cf. [c 1386 Chaucer Tale of Melibee l. 1594] Therfore seith Seint Jerome: 'Dooth somme goode dedes that the devel, which is oure enemy, ne fynde yow nat unocupied.'

Mourning Libya

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi ( 7 June 1942 – 20 October 2011) ruled Libya for 42 years. In 1969 he seized power in a military coup and was absolute ruler until 2011 when his government was overthrown by a popular uprising and foreign intervention. Born into the bedouin tribe of the Qadhadhfa, Gaddafi called himself “the Brother Leader" and "Guide of the Revolution”. He held his position through the use of nepotism, military force and the intrigue of the secret police. It is beyond dispute that he was a brutal, cruel man who personally supervised the execution of many who thought to oppose him. Between 1980 and 1987 Gaddafi employed his network of diplomats and recruits to assassinate at least 25 critics living abroad.  So I join the many, many Libyans who do not mourn the end of his rule.

But I do mourn the way his rule ended.

·         I mourn the summary execution of Colonel Gaddafi alongside the road. He should have gone on trial, faced his accusers, and been confronted with the consequences of his crimes. Life is sacred, and no-one has the right to execute a prisoner without trial.

·         I mourn the inevitable struggle for power in Libya. I am convinced that a transfer of power is always preferable to a vacuum where the ‘strong’ will battle it out to take over.

·         I mourn the intervention of western powers in African politics. I do not see why First World countries assume it to be their right to become the policemen of the world.

·         And I mourn our blood-thirsty nature that so easily embraces war as a solution for injustice, and so avidly watches violence as media entertainment.    

Let us pray for Libya: for all the families who have lost people they love, for the nation to grow in political wisdom, and for peace. Let us also pray for a world where  world leadership becomes less willing to send war planes to bomb the nations of others.

Completing the Days

Eze 4:8  See, I am putting cords on you so that you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days of your siege.

Today is my birthday.

Which is a useful moment to reflect on my life.

The one enduring theme of my life is a sense of God’s calling. I experienced this as an inner compulsion that binds me to a course of living - like Ezekiel I have lived a life where I sense God saying “ you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed the days” .

 

·         I felt a call to be trained at The Federal Theological Seminary – something I could not shake even when it was unpopular with my closest friends and family; even when it became a very hard place to be; and even when I wanted to resign and do something else.

·         I continue to experience a call to be an ordained minister of word and sacrament. I have had moments of great joy and satisfaction; and I have had times when I have understood Ezekiel’s reference to “the days of your siege “.  But since my ordination in 1984 I have never been able to shake off the cords that God has laid on my life.

·         I have felt an inescapable tug to issues of social justice. There have been moments when this has frightened me, and I would rather have run away from it. It has resulted in moments of great loneliness, accompanied by anger from some members of the congregation, financial boycott from some congregations, and the occasional encounter with the security police. But this internal spiritual compulsion has not allowed me to back off, and continues to ask me to challenge injustice as I encounter it.  

·         I have been bound to training student ministers. This has ranged from training student ministers in seminary, to those who have completed their seminary and are placed in local congregations.  Right now I am at the Methodist Seminary in Pietermaritzburg. As this year has passed I have become more and more entangled with this place. It has become a call that ties me in every possible way – in my time, my emotions, my passion and my prayers,    

·         I am inescapably tied to my marriage with Jenny. We were married in 1982, and we have been through “trials and tribulations” and through “joys and celebrations”.  (Truth be told I know that there have been moments when Jenny has wanted to kill me – and there have been moments when I have allowed myself to forget her kindness and generosity).  I continue to be grateful for my marriage and still hear this inescapable tug that says to me “you cannot turn from one side to the other until you have completed” .

As I look back I see the presence of God in all of this. I would not have wished for a different life and am grateful for everything that has happened. I celebrate the passing of the years – and look forward to a new year of being led into the unknown by this inner spiritual compulsion.

Bandanna Day

The Sunflower Fund promotes a donor registry to assist people with bone marrow cancer. To fund this they sell colourful sunflower themed bandannas.

12 October is national Bandanna Day and the seminarians were challenged to each buy and wear a bandanna in support of the Sunflower fund.

Sent via my BlackBerry.