St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by the Reverend Terry Lester on Anglican Communion Sunday, Africa Day, 25 May 2008

Today is Africa Day. Given the beauty of our continent, the beauty of her people, the 'resurrection spirit' her children display despite some terrible catastrophes we have endured, that is not what dominates my thoughts today. Today, as a child of this continent, Africa, whose renaissance has been trumpeted by leaders, the dominant feeling is not of a continent going forward but rather of a continent heading in the opposite direction! As we meet and as I speak, our continent is in a shameful state - much of it as a direct consequence of bad leadership and politicians who couldn't give a damn about their citizens!

Today as a child of this new democratic order in South Africa, with our wonderful constitution and Bill of Rights which is the envy of many on this continent and beyond, there is very little to celebrate. Thousands of Africans who came here because of the hope these founding documents of our new democracy gave them have had to flee their homes for fear of being maimed and trashed by rampaging mobs! As an African and as a South African, I hang my head in shame today for the tragedy taking place on this continent and in our country, our province and in our city. There is fear on every street! Today is Africa Day.

Today we also observe Anglican Communion Sunday. Here too as an Anglican I feel ashamed. Given the all-consuming focus of the Communion since the last Lambeth Conference, it has not been our proudest decade. The debate on human sexuality particularly as it affects gay and lesbian Anglicans has been elevated above more crucial Kingdom of God issues – fellow Anglicans who are so outspoken about God's abhorrence of the way homosexual Christians express intimacy with each other do not state unequivocally and with the same conviction and intensity God's abhorrence of those who maim, rape and kill a gay or lesbian person like somehow they are doing God a favour! The silence from that quarter is deafening about homophobic attacks – I want to say to my Anglican brothers and sisters that you either distance yourself from these people or you share the responsibility for their actions.

The Communion has been held to ransom by knee-jerk reactions mostly, but not exclusively, by conservative interpretation of God's word. It is worrying the ease with which some would rather recite harsh scriptural mantras than engage scripture with a hermeneutic that seeks honestly and maturely to hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. There is very little will and desire to celebrate diversity while at the same time holding on to our God-given unity in Christ. It is a shame!!

Today is Anglican Communion Sunday and I feel very little compulsion to celebrate. Hopefully as our Bishops gather at Lambeth from around the Communion in a month or two they will take up afresh the staff carried the Apostles and so prove worthy witnesses in the footsteps of St. Paul and St. Peter.

Paul, who despite his own upbringing as Jew, steeped in the Jewish scripture – some of which is harsh and uncompromising in its decrees, was able to set a vision for humanity which overrode some of those exclusive decrees when he said that 'there is no longer Jew nor Gentile, free nor slave, male for female but unity in Christ', and of St. Peter, who embraced Cornelius, his Gentile brother in the Lord despite the unequivocal scriptural imperatives on what God considers unclean. Peter and Paul, despite their own differences and proneness to stubborn rightness, took quantum leaps and thus allowed God's Spirit to open the way for a new vision for humanity to find grace and peace in God.

But more pertinently, Bishops are entrusted with Jesus' great commission to claim as God's children all who call upon the name of the Lord. Much needs to be attained if the concept of Communion is to be fully realized.

Maybe as we consider the readings for today we can find there not just hope for ourselves as Africans and Anglicans but also so that we begin to live this hope which seems so needed in the midst of the despair around us.

It is not difficult to imagine what was happening in the life of the people of God for these words from the Book of Leviticus to have been uttered by Yahweh. Lets remind ourselves again of those words from Leviticus, the 19th chapter and the 9th and 10th verses…

"When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of the field….or gather the gleanings of the harvest. You shall not strip your vineyard bare or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien; I am the Lord your God."

This passage has been referred to as the 'Israelite poverty law' – it sets out to a young nation – a nation about to enter and take occupation of a land - how to treat the poor and dispossessed among them once they settle in the land. One would think that such words would be unnecessary given how fresh their experiences of Egypt were – but it seems as though we forget all too easily! And because we forget, we have to be made to remember!!

These words serve to remind them that they were not always a sedentary nation of land owners, that they too had once been sojourners and were numbered among the dispossessed. It was Yahweh who had intervened on their behalf. He had heard their cry, He had seen their shame, He had witnessed their humiliation and He could no longer bear to see their oppression and exploitation or bear to hear their cries for help. Once celebrate and feted in Egypt, but their Egyptian hosts had turned on them and God could bear it no more!!

They needed respite, a place where they could recover, where their bodies would grow strong again and their souls repaired, where hope could be watered and their humanity restored, they needed a safe haven and so He led them to it.

There they would recover their strength and the bitter taste of oppression would make way for the sweet taste of restoration and hope. In this land of milk and honey everyone would feel safe – no-one would be at risk and the vulnerable would be protected from exploitation, abuse and callousness. They were to be holy as God is holy. Holiness is the balm of the soul and it come through obedience to God's commands.

God's people would know that they are "to live not just by bread alone but by every word which proceeds from the mouth of God."

The land would nourish and restore their bodies but they needed also to take care of their souls! These passages, which tell God's people how to act and behave towards the poor, the dispossessed, the foreigner, the orphan and the widow, form the beginnings of repairing the soul and restoring holiness. And in case there are sceptics who think to write them off as hogwash, witness what happened in the story of Ruth!

It is because of Boaz's adherence to these laws about the poor and foreigner, that Ruth, the foreigner, is able to glean in his field and that Naomi (once embittered by her hardships), that she, a widow, is again able to express sweet hope! It is through the obedience of Boaz in his care for the foreigner and widow, that new dawn breaks for God's people - Jesse is born who later becomes the father of David! David is the father of the people Israel and this forms the foundation from which to us a child is born, whose ancestor is David, who is called Jesus, for will save his people. Jesus, the father of the new people of God – who himself was a refugee on this continent fleeing the brutality of Herod. Thus care for the alien and widow ensures a future of hope and possibility!

This passage from Leviticus is a timely reminder to us to revisit our own roots as a nation on this continent and as children of this church. Ours is a torrid history of brutality meted out through the oppression and dispossession of the children of this land under the guise of Christianity and civilisation. Slavery, Colonialism and Apartheid represent wave upon wave of callousness. The wounds of those encounters are still all too visible and are etched into our collective memory.

But maybe we haven't fully acknowledged what that brutality has done to our souls. We hear daily of crimes perpetrated by citizen on citizen, human on human, child of God on child of God and of the viciousness and brutality of those crimes. We have seen hints of something seriously wrong - of a sickness that resides in our souls - for some time now!

It is a malignancy that has been let loose among us! It is a cancer of the SOUL! The intensity with which it exposed its ugliness this week has scared us. It is shocking. It is shameful and it is tragic!

We are children of a God who shows such concern for the poor that he commands us to consider the poor and dispossessed when we harvest the earth's yield. This God asks us what has happened to our souls that we have grown so comfortable alongside such poverty? What has happened to our souls that we have allowed self-interest to override the interests of the poor and alien in our midst? Why have we forgotten so soon what God has done for us as a nation in and through this Son of David!!

This Eucharist reminds us afresh that His body was broken for you, for me! His blood poured out for you, for me. That we were aliens from God, that we had strayed from the heart of God, and that He has brought us home in His Son, that we are now no longer strangers but children and heirs!

AMEN!

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