Final Goodbye

Regrettably, keeping up with this Blog has been an impossibility as the responsibilities of Moderator increased, and for that I offer my apologies. I loved sharing my experiences with you and I loved receiving your comments. My thoughts and prayers are now with Rev Rod Botsis as he starts his term of Moderator. This is a difficult time of change and reflection for the Church, keep our Moderator and the members of the UCPSA in your thoughts and prayers.

Below is a copy of my Final Address to the General Assembly which was given this past Saturday.

THE UNITING PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

SATURDAY 14 JULY 2012 14h00

THE RETIRING MODERATOR’S ADDRESS

Readings:   1 Samuel 2: 1 – 10; 2 Corinthians 1: 3 – 11.

The power to change

Rod – it’s been great to have some power. One phones the Central Office and one is greeted as “Moderator”.  I thought it was quite a nice thing to have a surname so hard to pronounce that everyone just called me “George”, like “Cher” or “Madonna” – just “George” but then the power came ... and I become “Moderator” or “Mod” or even “MōGA”. The office of Moderator is powerful. You get to sit at the top table, next to Presidents, Premiers and Bishops. (The Premier of the Eastern Cape leaned closer and said: “Call me Zukie”.

We wear beautiful robes. When recently attending the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the leaders of Churches, Edinburgh’s judges and City Councillors were robing in the Signet library (next to St Giles) and a colleague representing the Presbyterian Church in Trinidad and Tobago and I were walking through the room with robes hanging up on either side.  We passed a beautiful scarlet robe with a white woolly trim. “Oh”, said my colleague, “I didn’t know that Santa Clause was coming.” The trappings of power for the Moderator of a Conciliar Church?

Every now and then you notice how much we look like the world. It was you who once told me about former President Nelson Mandela who was visiting a home for elderly people in Sea Point. In a conversation with one of the old dears, President Mandela leaned close and said: “Do you know who I am?” To which the lady responded: “No, dear, but ask Matron, she will tell you who you are.”

Moderator, when I wrote to one of our ministers soon after becoming Moderator, I signed the letter, “Just George”. At the end of his gracious reply, he wrote that his wish for me was that at the end of my term, I would be known as “George the Just”. Here I am Moderator, by God’s grace, just George again.

A powerful Church

The Church, Moderator, is powerful. We carry with us a Gospel that is not only Good News but also powerful news. This Gospel has the power to change lives, to set people free from all manner of social ills, from addiction and (thank God) from narrow mindedness. We claim to wield the power of forgiveness – the capacity to set aside the past and liberate the future. We are known to have performed miracles, healings, and supernatural acts.

We are a powerful church, Moderator.

And our witness has been powerful too – defying governments who thought they could dictate who we should marry in the sight of God and with whom we should meet and where we should hold our assemblies – powerful, Moderator.

We are masterful practitioners of power.

But we have also mistaken the power of the world for the power of God. In our search for words to describe God’s reign and our desperate desire to express God’s kingship, we have taken on the language of the world and the categories of a kingdom with no future. Can we change the way we use power?

The word “God” is a power word, Moderator. As revealed to us in scripture, our God is a powerful God:

-      Liberating Israel from Pharaoh with bloodshed and violence, routing the Canaanite tribes so Israel could take possession of a land arbitrarily chosen to be theirs.

-      ‘A mighty hand’, ‘an outstretched arm’: “let his enemies be scattered”.

The powerful song of Hannah (Heb. “The gracious one, the favoured one”) tells the story of a powerful God:

My heart rejoices in the Lord;

In the Lord my horn (my strength) is lifted high.

My mouth boasts over my enemies,

for I delight in your deliverance.

There is no one holy like the Lord;

there is no one besides you;

there is no rock (righteousness) like our God.

Who would have expected that the birth of a humble Jewish boy should elicit such a vibrant song of joy? Who would have expected? Of course a deliverer even greater than Israel’s Samuel would one day cause his humble mother to express a Magnificat!

This is so much more than deliverance from barrenness – the song of victory that Hannah sings is a song for a myriad of voices.

God’s power is not absolute (what will the Doctrine Committee say?) it is self-limited. God’s power is never arbitrary (like the God of the Philosophers!)

Hannah sees the power of God at work:

In the birth of child and in death,

In the grave and in resurrection,

In poverty and in wealth,

In honour and in dishonour.

Mostly, she observes the power of God as God works for justice in human life.

The Lord weighs our deeds. (vs3d)

        Arms the stumbling (v4b)

        Feeds the hungry (v5b)

        Gives life to a barren womb. (v5c)

It’s the marginalised; it’s the downtrodden ones, those that live where the paparazzi cameras don’t flash. That is where the power of our God is revealed.

This is where we observe the limitedness of God’s power:

-      Creating the earth but not another world;

-      Interconnecting things that seem to conflict;

-      Creating moral persons whose intentions and actions conflict;

-      Always in relation yet hard to find.

God’s power is limited by God’s gracious wisdom and God’s creative purpose. God’s power is not brute force but also not laissez-faire. God’s power is generative, it is attractive. God’s power is liberating.

How about the church?

Paul, writing to the Ephesians, begins to unpack the nature of the power that the Church wields. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe.” He goes on to explain that the power is resurrection power, the power to glorify (enable us to see the significance of Christ) and then explains that the power of God is really only for the Church. As a last thought, Paul connects Christ with the Church, calling it Christ’s “fullness”.

We wield power badly. We’ve taken our cue from the world and we are a poor copy of worldly power. Kings wear robes, we wear robes. Kings have great heraldic badges. We took the only thing we could find (the cross) and made it a badge and by grace, God called our bluff and made this badge an antithesis. A badge of glory becomes a badge of shame; a badge of shame becomes God’s badge of glory.

We bludgeon each other with words and deceitful deeds. We lobby, we caucus, we plot to bring the other side down. And you, Moderator, will be witness, this week, to a display of power run amuck... We forget that the only bit of power we have is as a result of a scandal in which the power of the world was collapsed into the body of our God, disguised as a Jewish mystic – battered to death for the liberation of us all.

-o0o-

I would be telling only half the story, Moderator, if I stopped here – leaving you in your mind’s eye amid the carnage of the Church’s power gone wrong. I have seen beautiful expressions of power in these last two years. The power of God in the Church expressed in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and giving the abandoned a new chance.

Moderator, every township church in Central Cape Presbytery and most of the white Churches, has a soup kitchen, a feeding scheme, a poverty alleviation project. I’ve seen humble people elected to office in our church. I’ve seen Moderators and Clerks make wise and brave decisions. I’ve seen Presbyteries care and serve and mourn. I’ve seen women and men wearing white and black jackets and hats worshipping enthusiastically side by side before the King and Head of the one powerful Church.

I have been powerfully moved by a powerful Church. “It’s not by strength that one prevails” sings your Hannah; “those who oppose the Lord will be broken.” (1 Sam 2: 9b & 10).

The power to change

The Song of Hannah is about the miraculous birth of Samuel, one of the most significant figures of Israel’s early history. Samuel was a humble Jewish boy who became one of the most significant religious, moral and political leaders of his day.

Samuel is our mythological hero with flowing robes, and a long white beard – the stuff that great movies are made of – the Gandalf of JRR Tolkien and the Dumbledore of JK Rowling. Always wise, always there when we need him, always good.

On closer inspection, though, Samuel is a careful choice. He is a manager of change. When we read the history of Israel, it becomes clear that the world in which Israel lived was “a changing”. Israel in Samuel’s day was a country in transition (in flux) from a loose federation of tribes to a monarchy.

It was inevitable. They needed a King for cohesion, for their own security. Had they not had a King, how would they have gathered an army and without an army, they would have been overrun.

So, Samuel was the change manager who helped Israel through its transition. No wonder his birth causes his mother to sing. As Walter Bruggemann puts it: “His birth is not a private wonder but a gift of possibility for all Israel.”

A gift of possibility ... to be more than they had been before ... but the change for a King changed everything – the way Israel understood its relationship with God, the land and one another.

“Listen to all that the people are saying to you, Samuel.” Says the Lord. “It is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king” (1 Sam 8: 7).

The world was a changing and instead of putting a stop to it, Yahweh says: “Let them have their King.” (v22) Perhaps he will turn their symbols of power into symbols of shame? Or perhaps their shame into instruments of great power?

The world is changing, Moderator. People don’t fear the Church like they used to. People don’t have a fear for the burning pits of ‘hell’ like they used to. People are not impressed by our doctrine or by our fancy ways to prove that Jesus was raised. They’re not interested in “evidence that demands a verdict” or the philosophical proofs for the existence of God. They don’t believe because we say so.

Their faith, if they have any, is much gentler and embraces the mysterious.

The world is changing Moderator and we need to be taught how to manage change.

The Catholic theologian, Karl Rahner, once famously wrote: “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or not a Christian at all.” Rahner should not be misunderstood. He was not predicting the death of God or of the Church but simply predicting a time when we Westerners will not be socialised as Christians anymore, when the Church will not be powerful anymore, when we Moderators will not be seated next to Presidents and premiers anymore.

The parish Church is gone. The State Church has died. We are sojourners in the world once more, Moderator. We are people of no fixed abode.

The world is changing, Moderator, and we need to be taught how to manage change like the great Samuel whose greatness was above any of Israel’s Kings because he relied on the mystery at the centre of all things. Samuel called this mystery YHWH and to you and I, he is Jesus.

Recently, I represented this powerful church at the Assembly of the Council for World Mission on the island of American Samoa. I bought a skirt, Moderator, a “lava lava” and I wore it. We’re of a similar size, I can loan it to you, Mod.

The people of the village of Leone tell the story of the day the missionary came. It was a fearful thing, Moderator, for the missionary to come among the Samoans. They are big, Moderator, even the ladies. In ancient times, some were cannibals and others made human sacrifice. But John Williams came to proclaim the powerful Gospel of Jesus the Jew.

It’s a humbling story, Moderator. We’re told that John Williams sent this simple message to the ‘High Talking Chief’ of the island of Tutuila: “The servant of the Lord is here.” Well, that might have been the end of him.

In the ancient mythology of the Samoan people, they learned to expect a messenger who would one day herald the coming of the high king. The ‘high talking chief’ recognised John William’s message as a sign and they welcomed the messenger of the Lord of all the earth.

The time is coming, Moderator, when we will trade our robes for rags and like the humble Lazarus of parables, be welcomed home. Will we have the power to change?

to become marginal but not lost;

peripheral to the world but central to its liberation;

Unimportant, ridiculed but not insignificant and certainly not impotent;

Subversive, colourful, meaningful ....

Will we rejoice, Moderator? We in rags lying in envy of the robed ones? Perhaps the words of St Paul will ring in our ears: “But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises from the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope...”

May there be glory to the Father, to the Son and to the Spirit

as there was in the beginning,

is now in the Church

and shall be world without end.

George U UPCSA (2010- 2012)                                              Soli Deo Gloria. 

CHRISTMAS LETTER

Dear Friends

Greetings to you in Jesus’ name.

This Sunday marks the beginning of the Christian year. Since ancient times, the Church begins its year with a four week preparation for Christmas. These weeks involve a journey ‘upward’ to the great celebration of Christ’s birth. Its a challenge for all of us who feel like its the end of a year, with all its Christmas functions and end of year parties, to begin a new journey. And I suppose, for many it seems like another repeat of an often repeated series of services. What can bring a newness to our Christmas preparations this year?

The Western Church is in decline. The post modernity has brought a generation of people who are focussed on the present, on individual freedom and who are reluctant to commit. This faces the Western Church with tremendous challenge. Our faith is historical, it is communal and it demands a commitment of faith.  How will we minister to a generation like this. The beauty of the Church and the reason she has survived for 2000 years is that under the guidance of God’s Spirit, we have been able to declare the unchanging Gospel of Christ to each context and in each generation. We will have to put our hearts and minds together to meet this challenge by discerning God’s way into the future. The world we live in, its ways, are no surprise to the One who goes always before us!

Since our hope is in Jesus and since Jesus is able to save us, let us approach this advent season with a sense of expectation, eager to see Him at work in our midst. He is, after all, a God of miracles and wonders and if we have the eyes to see, we shall be amazed.

Some news of the family

The General Secretary, the Rev. Dr. Jerry Pillay, having been honoured by the world ecumenical movement in June 2010 in their election of him as President of the World Communion of Reformed Churches, has been honoured again. The university of Stellenbosch has appointed Jerry as a Professor Extraordinarius. The appointment is an honour and will not affect his position as General Secretary of the UPCSA.

We are very proud of Jerry. His achievements and his stature in the ecumenical family are a credit to him and to us. He is a great gift to us and we warmly congratulate him.

The Church in Singapore and Hong Kong

I recently travelled to Singapore and Hong Kong upon the invitation of those denominations. The Presbyterian Church of Singapore was celebrating its 130^th Anniversary.

The Presbyterian Church in Singapore can be traced back to the work of the London Missionary Society and the Presbyterian Church (England) Mission in South China. In 1829, Rev Benjamin Keasberry came to Singapore to work among Malay-speaking people and subsequently started the Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church. In 1856, the famous Orchard Road Presbyterian Church was established for Scottish Residents. In 1881 the English Presbyterian Mission organised the first Chinese Presbyterian Church. It was this event which was seen as the beginning of the Presbyterian Church in Singapore.

We were so well received by Elder Wong Pock Yeen and his staff, exposing us to all kinds of facets of the PCS life and work. It is hoped that other exchanges and visits might be arranged. The PCS is a small church (like the UPCSA) and it has something to teach us. We also, I believe have much to offer the PCS. The PCS has two Presbyteries (groups of congregations) along language lines: the Chinese speaking Presbytery and the English speaking Presbytery.

Following this, we (Jerry and I) visited the Churches of Christ in China (Hong Kong Council). This denomination was part of a greater family of Churches before the cultural revolution in China (1949). After the cultural revolution, many churches were closed and others became interdenominational. The congregations in Hong Kong and Macau remained. During the week, Jerry and I attended their annual ordination/licensing service for ministers as well as their General Assembly which took a total of 2 hours to complete its business!

Churches are growing in the east, particularly in mainland China and this denomination has a wonderful engagement in mission.

The Presbytery of Central Cape

At the beginning of this month, I completed the first phase of my ‘tour’ of the Presbytery of Central Cape. Having gathered all the retired ministers in and around Port Elizabeth for a tea during the sitting of the Executive Commission, I was able to meet also with the Revs Glen Craig (and his wife, Jeanette) and Thembi Ntshudu (and his wife Vivienne) during this part of the tour. In addition, I visited the congregations of Trinity, Makanaskop and Tantyi (Grahamstown), Port Alfred, Bedford, Nonzwakazi, Lingelihle, Glen Avon and St Andrew’s (Somerset East).

Eighteen of the Presbytery’s ministers (together with their spouses) attended a Retreat where I was asked to teach. This was a wonderful event where ministers could talk, enjoy each other’s company and share struggles. I enjoyed this interaction immensely.  On Saturday 12^th November, the Presbytery met and I was pleased to be present so that I could listen to their regular business. The Rev. Mike Taylor, who has now left the Presbytery to take up a position with Theological Education by Extension College in Turffontein, Johannesburg, was the Moderator at the time and I would like to thank him for all the help he gave to me in arranging this first part of the tour.  The Rev. Nzimane Jita was elected Moderator at the November meeting and will be inducted in February 2012.

I will return in March 2012 to tour the Port Elizabeth and Southern Cape churches.

Becoming a missional congregation

So many people have enquired about The Church without walls material that I have quoted in my addresses and used in workshops with Presbyteries. This is available online via the Church of Scotland website: www.churchofscotland.org.uk

Many of you will know that we belong to a family of Churches called the Council for World Mission.  These are Churches which were planted in full or part by the London Missionary Society in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries.  CWM seeks to encourage its members to become missional Churches. That is outward looking churches, community involved churches, evangelical churches.  I think this a great invitation which should be taken up be all. Some years ago, the UPCSA set up a Mission Priorities Fund to support local congregations in mission. In 2013, another gift will be received by the UPCSA to be used for mission projects within local congregations, Presbyteries and by Standing Committees. Before we can design all kinds of elaborate programmes, we need to become mission minded. I would encourage Presbyteries and local congregations to engage in strategic thinking about what it means to be Church in their context in our time. Maintenance is a natural hiding place for the Church but being Missional takes faithful courage.

I wish you well in this season. It is such a hopeful place and it culminates in the place of celebration. May the Church be full of thanksgiving and praise for the One who was and is and is to come.

Rejoice and be glad – for Our God reigns.

With Love in Christ

  

George Marchinkowski

Moderator of the General Assembly

Hong Kong

Jerry Pillay (General Secretary of UPCSA) joined us on this portion of our trip. Our official visit with Hong Kong Council of the Churches of Christ in China (HKCCCC) started with a meeting with the General Secretary Rev Eric So and his Associate Rev Bettsy Ng. We were introduced to the history life and work of the HKCCCC and taken on a tour of their General Assembly Office.

At 12 we proceeded to the Council of Churches in Hong Kong (Ecumenical Body). After this we went to the Council of Churches offices and were given an overview of their work. The Council of Churches raises funds from the public in Hong Kong and then do social work in mainland China.

On Wednesday evening Jerry and I addressed the youth of the HKCCCC. We shared a meal with them consisting of a variety of dishes from mini pork dum sum, steamed vegetables to pasta and mince.

I presented a talk about Apartheid and Jerry spoke about the work of the World Communion of Reformed Churches. The Youth Leaders gave a report on some of the activities they host for the young people in their churches. Our youth and theirs face so many of the same challenges.

The next day we went out to visit the Nethersole hospital. The Nethersole hospital was built in the late 1800′s by the London Missionary Society. When the hospital moved in the 1970′s it sold its building and prime property on Hong Kong Island for 100 million pounds!! 22.5% of the profit forms a mission fund which the HKCCCC can use and the rest went into the accounts of the London Missionary Society (now CWM).

The General Manager took us throughout the hospital and showed us their facilities. They are very careful about infection and we had to wear masks when going into a hospital ward. The hospital employs several chaplains to minister to the spiritual needs of the recovering patients. It was an inspiration when compared to some of our private hospitals where spiritual care is very rarely welcomed.

From the hospital we went on to the divinity school of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. There we met with members of the faculty and with the Director Professor Lo.  We spoke about possible partnerships between their faculty and the universities where our students train.

After lunch Jerry and I presented a lecture to the ministers of the HKCCCC. Jerry spoke on the mission strategy of the UPCSA and George spoke about reformed theology and polity today. About 20 ministers were in attendance. That meeting ended at 5.00pm. We were then taken by Mr Soo (a retired inspector of schools) for supper at the Jade Garden Restaurant. Mr Soo studied in the USA for several years as a young man and when he speaks English it is with a Michigan accent.

In the evening we attended the annual ordination service of ministers. In Hong Kong ministers are ordained on this one occasion in the year. The HKCCCC ordained 5 new ministers and set apart 12 probationer preachers of the gospel. It was a beautiful service conducted entirely in the local Chinese dialect. The three South Africans received headphones with a mobile transmitter and the entire service, including prayers was translated for us. We were given an English programme and we were able to sing the hymns in English while the congregation sang in Cantonese.

Sanctuary for Ordination

Laying on of hands

Our week concluded with a service at held at a local church in the New Territories. Rev So was the preacher and once again the "foreigners" were provided with headphones and a member of the congregation translated for us. The Church houses a nursery school and we were given a tour of this state of the art facility, complete with a small computer section.

Rev Eric So and minister and members of the Church

Singapore

In October Sascha and I made an Ecumenical Visit to the Presbyterian Churches of Singapore and Hong Kong. Our hope to strengthen relations between these two churches and our own, as the world starts to look towards the East.

Our first stop was Singapore where we were hosted by the Presbyterian Church of Singapore, our host being Elder Wong Pock Yeen (General Secretary equivalent).

At the Synod Office (Central Office) we met with Rev Tim See (The Assistant Clerk – English Presbytery) to discuss the training of ministers as well as his counterpart Pr Kim (Assistant Clerk – Chinese Presbytery). The Synod is split into two Presbyteries English and Chinese (the congregations are grouped into the Presbyteries according to language).

I also met with the Rev. Christopher Chia. Chris is senior minister to a large congregation called Adam Road Presbyterian. It’s a strong, healthy congregation that seeks to train ministers and Christian workers for the future. It caused me to pause and think about whether Trinity or the UPCSA thinks about the future of the Church. Adam road Presbyterian looks forward and sees the Church in need of strong leaders, then it looks for good candidates, offers them an internship (full-time paid), the best are sent overseas for study, and then appointed to congregations in Singapore for more mentorship and ordination.

One of the important questions that we’ve come here to ask is how Singaporean people understand the Gospel of Jesus. The Gospel story played out in the Middle East 2000 years ago, but it was brought by Western Missionaries to South Africa and to Singapore. In the last 20 to 30 years South Africans have been concerned with how the Gospel is understood in an African context we have come to learn how the Gospel is understood in an Eastern context.

So Elder Wong arranged for us to visit the All Saints Memorial Home (a nursing home for the Elderly) and the All Saints Memorial Chapel (a columbarium – for the interment of ashes). We were able to discuss Singaporean Christians caring for the elderly and how Singaporeans understand death and dying. We discovered that Singaporeans live to between 83 and 86 years and how people come into old age care in their mid to late 70′s.

We enjoyed a lunch at the All Saints Memorial Home. After this we returned to the Synod Office for a meeting with the Youth Leaders. Beldin Kee and two other leaders told us about the youth minister of the Presbyterian Church of Singapore. This included a reflection on the world view of young Singaporeans. We spoke about worship and christian education and they told us about their annual events. We were able to share something of the work of our Youth Association.

On Sunday morning we attended worship at Amazing Grace Presbyterian Church. Grace Presbyterian Church consists of two churches – Amazing Grace (English) and Holy Grace (Chinese). The buildings hold two sanctuaries and the services run concurrently.

It was like being at home. The service follows a similar pattern and the songs are what we sing back home. They have two services 9.30am and 11.30am. Both services are followed by Fellowship Lunch in the courtyard. The welcoming committee on “door duty” were so welcoming! We were enthusiastically introduced to two South African families living in Singapore – what a small world!

Elder Wong Pock Yeen, myself, Rev Stephen Gan (Moderator)

Following the service and lunch and farewells we were taken to Changi Airport to prepare for our flight to Hong Kong. From Singapore to Hong Kong is a 3 1/2 hour flight. Thankfully the rain had ceased and the possibility of typhoon warnings had disappeared!

Easter Letter

Dear Friends

These last six months have been full of activity for me. I have visited fourteen of the nineteen Presbyteries, having a meal with the Moderators and Clerks, talking about the life and work of each of these Presbyteries. There have been moments of celebration: Berea (125 years), Auld Memorial (85 years), Midrand (25 years) and in September, Durbanville (50 years).

I toured the Presbytery of Lekoa in the first two weeks of March, driving from home to Carletonville and Westonaria to Klerksdorp and Stillfontein to Vryburg and then Kuruman, Mafikeng. The second week was spent in Vereeniging, going out to Sebokeng, Sharpville, Denysville, Boipatong, Vanderbijlpark etc. It was a wonderful time and I was warmly welcomed wherever I went.

There have been meetings, oh, so many meetings! All important, most considered by their members as urgent but so many meetings. I have tried to take my place around these meeting tables and to play my part.

There have been funerals – 4 of our ministers have died since I took office: Jimmy Stevenson, Brian Woods, Leslie Dawson and Moshe Rajuili. The first three had grown old (Genesis calls this ‘full of years’) and passed on peacefully but Moshe was tragically killed in a road accident. In one way or another, I was able to express the sympathy of the UPCSA to these families.

I am grateful to God for all these and many other opportunities to serve you.

Yesterday, in a meeting, one of our elders reflected on the state of the church. She singled out ‘unforgiveness’ as one of the great challenges facing the UPCSA. She spoke about this unforgiveness as a feature of the Church, in her observation, over the last 10 years.

Forgiveness is such a complex thing – do we forgive each other our debts? Do we forgive each other for hurts caused unintentionally or for hurts caused by others who are now ‘associated’ to the person standing before us?

Easter is all about forgiveness. Easter is about God’s intervention in human history to restore the relationship with humankind. Easter is a grand display of how love can transform even the most heinous evil. 

A few years ago, Sascha and I were in London and went to see the West End stage play, “Whistle down the wind.” In this story a convict escapes and hides out in the barn belonging to a recently bereaved family. The children meet the stowaway and as a result of their naiveté and a misunderstanding, they mistake the man for Jesus – Jesus, they believe, is hiding out in their barn!

And so they begin to treat him differently – with lavish love and deep respect. Slowly, before the eyes of the audience, this convict begins to change. His whole character changes! Perhaps Andrew Lloyd Webber was right when he wrote: “Love, love changes everything.”

The UPCSA has huge challenges – not least the Church Association issue and the increasing inability of middle sized congregations to pay assessments. But the UPCSA has much to celebrate also – dynamic personnel, growth, massive social engagement (in the community) through congregations. How will we face our challenges? Surely by relying on the God who intervened in Christ.

I pray that your journey through Easter will be meaningful and that you will know again the wonder of the resurrection. May you know the forgiveness that was realized on Good Friday and the transformation of death that Easter Sunday displays.

Much love,

A Friend...

Dear Friends

My friend Dal Woodward died this week.  He was very dear to me. 

The first time we met was on Easter Sunday in 2000 or 2001. I was minister of the Margate congregation on the Natal South coast.  I was walking in to Church when the elder proceeding me reached over to his right and said to this man I had never met, “You are a man of your word”.  Needless to say, I was perplexed. After the service, I asked the elder what this was all about. He looked rather sheepish and went on to explain that Dal was the local pub owner and that on the previous Thursday night, after our Maundy Thursday service, he and his wife and two of our “old dears” had popped in to the pub after the service for a “night cap”. There they met Dal who wanted to know where they had come from “all dressed up”. They said “church”. Dal said: ”Church meets on Sundays”. They said: “Its Easter. We have services Thursday, Friday and Sunday”. Then they asked Dal whether he was a Christian. He told them he was a ‘pedestrian’ and defined this as a person walking around looking for a Church. On Easter Sunday, Dal came to Church and he was there every Sunday after that.

I made a pastoral visit to the pub. When I asked Dal for his version of the story, he told me that on Maundy Thursday, four angels arrived at his pub and ordered drinks. And that the angels led him back to Church. He always called those four his angels and even although they were a naughty bunch of angels, I began to see them as angels too. Its a strange thing but even although I did not know about Dal’s death yesterday morning, when we sang the song “We are standing on holy ground”, it was Dal who I was thinking about.

In recent years, Dal has been living up here in Johannesburg. He reached a turning point in his life some years back and admitted himself to a rehabilitation facility where he found freedom from alcoholism. After that, he found Sandra and they were married in October.  It was my joy to officiate at their wedding.  Every now and then, I saw him and Sandra sitting in the congregation. On other Sundays, they would attend St Columba’s in Parkview.  Sascha and I visited Dal last Tuesday in the Donald Gordon.  He looked frail. I prayed with him. He said I should look out for his ‘ugly face’ in the congregation. He died yesterday at home with Sandra.  I will miss my friend – someone whom God sent to me, a real sign of God’s grace to me.

There is a line from one of our new songs (sung yesterday) that becomes real to me in times like this: “We are a moment. You are forever”.

My prayer this week is about waiting and longing – a prayer for Dal (by Walter Brueggemann)

God of the Seasons,

God of the years,

God of the eons,

Alpha and Omega,

before us and after us.

You promise and we wait:

                we wait with eager longing,

                we wait with doubt and anxiety,

                we wait with patience thin

                and then doubt,

                and then we take life into our own hands.

We wait because you are the one and the only one.

We wait for your peace and your mercy,

     for your justice and your good rule.

Give us your spirit that we may wait

                obedient and with discernment,

caringly and without passivity,

trustingly and without cynicism,

honestly and without utopianism.

Grant that our wait may be appropriate to your coming

                soon and very soon,

                soon and not late,

late but not too late.

We wait while the world groans in eager longing.

Lots of love, dear friends,

My South Africa - Jonathan Jansen

Dear Friends

Today I'm sending you a letter written by Professor Jonathan Jansen of the University of the Free State. It moves me. It describes my SA too.

I will get back to the blog (on the weekend past) soon.

"My South Africa is the working-class man who called from the airport to return my wallet without a cent missing. It is the white woman who put all three of her domestic worker's children through the same school that her own child attended. It is the politician in one of our rural provinces, Mpumalanga, who returned his salary to the government as a statement that standing with the poor had to be more than just a few words. It is the teacher who worked after school hours every day during the public sector strike to ensure her children did not miss out on learning.

My South Africa is the first-year university student in Bloemfontein who took all the gifts she received for her birthday and donated them - with the permission of the givers - to a home for children in an Aids village. It is the people hurt by racist acts who find it in their hearts to publicly forgive the perpetrators. It is the group of farmers in Paarl who started a top school for the children of farm workers to ensure they got the best education possible while their parents toiled in the vineyards. It is the farmer's wife in Viljoenskroon who created an education and training centre for the wives of farm labourers so that they could gain the advanced skills required to operate accredited early-learning centers for their own and other children.

My South Africa is that little white boy at a decent school in the Eastern Cape who decided to teach the black boys in the community to play cricket, and to fit them all out with the togs required to play the gentleman’s game. It is the two black street children in Durban, caught on camera, who put their spare change in the condensed milk tin of a white beggar. It is the Johannesburg pastor who opened up his church as a place of shelter for illegal immigrants. It is the Afrikaner woman from Boksburg who nailed the white guy who shot and killed one of South Africa's greatest freedom fighters outside his home.

My South Africa is the man who went to prison for 27 years and came out embracing his captors, thereby releasing them from their impending misery. It is the activist priest who dived into a crowd of angry people to rescue a woman from a sure necklacing. It is the former police chief who fell to his knees to wash the feet of Mamelodi women whose sons disappeared on his watch; it is the women who forgave him in his act of contrition. It is the Cape Town university psychologist who interviewed the 'Prime Evil' in Pretoria Centre and came away with emotional attachment, even empathy, for the human being who did such terrible things under apartheid.

My South Africa is the quiet, dignified, determined township mother from Langa who straightened her back during the years of oppression and decided that her struggle was to raise decent children, insist that they learn, and ensure that they not succumb to bitterness or defeat in the face of overwhelming odds. It is the two young girls who walked 20kms to school every day, even through their Matric years, and passed well enough to be accepted into university studies. It is the student who takes on three jobs, during the evenings and on weekends, to find ways of paying for his university studies.

My South Africa is the teenager in a wheelchair who works in townships serving the poor. It is the pastor of a Kenilworth church whose parishioners were slaughtered, who visits the killers and asks them for forgiveness because he was a beneficiary of apartheid. It is the politician who resigns on conscientious grounds, giving up status and salary because of an objection in principle to a social policy of her political party. It is the young lawman who decides to dedicate his life to representing those who cannot afford to pay for legal services.

My South Africa is not the angry, corrupt, violent country whose deeds fill the front pages of newspapers and the lead-in items on the seven-o'-clock news. It is the South Africa often unseen, yet powered by the remarkable lives of ordinary people. It is the citizens who keep the country together through millions of acts of daily kindness."