Ubuntu - A Way of Life

 

SERMON

September 25, 2022

The Episcopal Church is at a critical crossroad. How do we proceed as the voice of God – God’s mission in the world - in the context of a globalized society that is filled with countless economic, political, and divisive spiritual challenges? A society far different from that of our founding fathers. One in which Protestant Christianity was the central religion of the country and the unifying voice of our democracy, “One Nation Under God.” One in which the Episcopal Church and its dioceses flourished as vibrant communities engaged in myriad and vitally important ministries. One in which God’s presence was the guidepost to millions of lives. 

While it is hard to hear, it should come as no surprise to you when I say, “Those days are long gone.” The decline of the church, the fading of God’s presence in the world, is a harsh reality. It is a reality that we struggle against. One that we find difficult to believe.

And it is no different for the Episcopal Church. Our church has struggled mightily over the past several years in its various attempts to acknowledge the church’s decline and to find new and innovative ways of bringing God and his message of love and peace into the world. Unfortunately, just like many of us the church has continued to hold onto the past and deeply embedded traditions established long ago under the Emperor Constantine in the year 381, unwilling to face new ways that are unfamiliar and jarring. 

This tug-of-war approach, of course, has not and will not work. A more realistic way forward most urgently must be identified. We must grieve the past and bravely cross the threshold of taking Christ’s cross into the world in new ways that are relevant to the context of our global society and its multiple challenges. Ways in which God once again becomes the guidepost for our nation and for the world.

Naturally, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is, “What is this new way; what will work?” There is no quick answer to these and so many other questions. Issues surrounding the violence, terrorism, political divisiveness, incredible economic disparity, and the lasting effects of colonialism throughout the Christian Empire, both here, and abroad, have left a world spinning in confusion and chaos. A world in which God is no longer our guidepost. Amidst this confusion and chaos, a way forward, carrying our cross and following Jesus in efforts that move our community and the world toward solidarity and peace is hard to imagine.

Those of us in leadership positions in the church, and you as laity, the essential ministers of the church, are now faced with a tough but urgently necessary choice. Let go of the past and joyfully move forward; or keep our heads in the sand and continue to pretend that we can “go back to the way it used to be.”

I use the word “joyfully” with great intention. To move forward into the unknown entails taking a leap of faith, a joyful leap of faith that is based in the firm knowledge that God intends for us to be the missio dei, the mission of God in the world. Joyful in the knowledge that God is with us every step of the way as we emerge, essential participants in this missio dei, renewing our churches and strengthening God’s voice throughout our communities and the world. Joyful as we witness the missio dei, the image of God in ways that resonate powerfully within the context of our current society. Voices that bring the joy of God’s love for his beloved children to all – all the world. Voices that place God as our guidepost in all that we see and do.

The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu summarized the importance of our leap of faith saying, “Go forth to make the world a better place for you can make a difference. The task is daunting – of course, but it is a necessary struggle. 

In today’s reading from 1 Timothy, we hear Paul’s words of encouragement to Timothy and others who were attempting to build a solid Christian community in Ephesus. Paul knew that Timothy faced continual opposition. Opposition to keeping this new and still fragile community intact. In response to this opposition Paul wrote the letter of 1 Timothy in which he formally reinforced his verbal instructions to Timothy and to the church about its organization and management.

Paul wrote at the conclusion of his letter, “But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life, to which you were called…”

Are these not words for us as well. “Fight the good fight of faith.” What guidance could be more relevant in these times when the church, God as the guidepost to the community, to the world, is slipping away, engulfed by political, economic, and environmental chaos. Paul’s direction from the earliest of Christian times is no less relevant today. In solidarity we must fight the good fight of faith if our church is to survive.

“Go forth to make the world a better place for you can make a difference. The task is daunting – of course, but it is a necessary struggle.”

So, just how might we “fight the good fight of faith?” What might that look like at this point in time? What tools do we have to help us in the “good fight?”

One recommendation that has been promoted continually by both the national church and churches throughout our many dioceses has called us to “get outside the four walls of the church” in order to bring the church to the community. Simply put to be the missio dei. 

Archbishop Tutu’s theology of Ubuntu endorses an essential way of being as we ask the question, “How do we do this.” How do we place ourselves outside the four walls of the church and join in and with the community in our struggle to live in peace and unity amid the confusion and chaos of today’s world. How do we move from “going to church,” in our sacred buildings on Sunday mornings, to “becoming the church” in every moment of our lives, wherever we are.

Tutu’s theology of Ubuntu offers a powerful response to these questions. Ubuntu speaks of the very essence of what it means to be human. Ubuntu is a way of being that is generous, hospitable, friendly, caring, and compassionate; a way of sharing who we are and what we have. Ubuntu is to say, “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours. Ubuntu means that we fulfill God’s dream of realizing that you and I and all of us are a family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

Ubuntu is a way of being in which we realize that a person is a person only through their interrelationships with other persons. I learn how to be human through association you and with other human beings. My humanity is bound up in yours. We can only be human together. Human life is not meant to be lived in isolated individualism. Human life is meant to be shared. 

Ubuntu resonates with our biblical faith that identifies us all as God’s children, all made in the image of God, all called to be in relationship with each other no matter skin color or country of origin. All equal, while at the same time all blessedly different. All God’s gift to the world.

Tutu believed and taught, “We are each a God carrier, a tabernacle of the Holy Spirit, indwelt by God the holy and most blessed Trinity. To treat one such as less than this is not just wrong…It is veritably blasphemous and sacrilegious. It is to spit in the face of God.” 

In other words, Ubuntu is a way of being in which we see ourselves as no different, no better or worse, than anyone else. A way of being that is based in the understanding that I cannot be a person if I am not in relationship with other people, regardless of their difference from me. A way of being in which being in relationship with difference, being in community in every sense of the word, leads to a deeper understanding of self and allows the same to occur in the “other.” A way of being that acknowledges God as being always present, in all peoples. A way of being that is truly missio dei. A way that leads to unity and peace.

“Go forth to make the world a better place for you can make a difference. The task is daunting – of course, but it is a necessary struggle.”

How do we get there? How do each of us in our own ways move from going to church to being church in the world? How do we fight the good fight of faith that brings the world into a unified community that has as its guidepost God? 

These are the tough questions, decisions, and actions that the church is called to face, full-on, as its declines in attendance and God as our guidepost fades from is place of centrality in our corporate lives? Where do we fit into that call, as the community of St. Simon’s and as individuals.

Once again, the archbishop set an example for us as we ponder these questions through his commitment to a life of prayer and reflection. Tutu prayed faithfully seven times a day and celebrated the Eucharist at noon each day wherever he might be – even in the midst of a busy airport or meeting hall. Tutu maintained a solid vertical relationship with God. In all matters his conversation with God trumped the challenges of the day. Tutu saw himself as God’s partner.

The archbishop claimed that without silence and prayer he would disintegrate. That claim is without doubt true for all of us when it comes to our vertical relationship with God and our ability to be God’s partner in this confusing and complex world. Silence, reflection, and prayer bring us closer to God and our ability to fight the good fight of faith. The fight through which our Christian spirituality articulates the image of God in the world. The image of God as diverse persons in a unified world.

In an address to the 100^th Anniversary to the Methodist Conference in South Africa, Tutu began, “Jesus was forever a man of prayer, who sat the spiritual unequivocally at the center of His life, and it is from this vertical relationship with the Father that He drew the resources for His ministry of healing, feeding, preaching, and forgiving. We could well say that Jesus was a man for others precisely and only because He was first and foremost a man of God, a man of prayer. If it was so for the Son of God Himself how should it be otherwise for us? He is our paradigm.”

 

“Go forth to make the world a better place for you can make a difference. The task is daunting – of course, but it is a necessary struggle.”

 

 

Missio Dei

 

Sermon

Sep 09, 2022

Well, Good morning. I want to begin by thanking you for the tremendous support that you offered me through prayer and conversation as I traveled some 17,000 miles to and from South Africa to walk in the footsteps of the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I felt surrounded by your love through it all – and believe me among the many incredibly important moments of this pilgrimage there were definitely some rocky times. 

But here I am, back with you all, eager to share what I learned and eager to use my newfound spiritual and theological knowledge to support us all in our continual journey to remain solidly on the road of discipleship – our eyes always on God. Our footsteps always following those of Jesus, to the cross and beyond.

To answer your almost universal question, “What did you learn?” let me say, and say emphatically, I learned that “the Church does not exist if it is not God’s voice in the world.” 

Put another way, the Church is the missio dei, God’s mission in the world, God’s incarnation in the world. An incarnation that brings light, hope, compassion, justice, and love to those who are oppressed and to those who suffer. As disciples of Christ, God’s missionaries, we have a responsibility to, for, and with others. Exercising this responsibility requires working for social justice and the flourishing of all people. Our missionary work is the Church – the missio dei. If the Church is not doing that work, it does not exist as a mission of God and is no longer a church.

The concept of missio dei could not be better exemplified by anyone other than the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu whose theology was based on the belief that the church’s mandate is to create a society that becomes the image of God, a light to the world. The church’s role is to be a conduit of God’s holiness in the midst of societies torn asunder by racism and oppression. Societies in which injustice and oppression have created a world in which God’s children doubt that they are God’s children. God’s children doubt that they are God’s children. 

In a May 1994 address given before thousands of South Africans at the Grand Parade celebrating Nelson Mandela’s installment as President of South Africa, the Archbishop said, “We have said a resounding no to racism, to injustice, to oppression, to hatred, to violence, to dictation and division. We have said a loud reverberating “yes” to freedom, to forgiveness, to reconciliation, to peace, to unity. We of many cultures, languages, and races have become one nation, we the rainbow people of God.”

He went on to say, “Go forth to make the world a better place for you can make a difference. The task is daunting of course, but it is a necessary struggle.”

Tutu, a man of God courageously standing among thousands, declaring God’s mission for the world. Tutu carrying out in every sense of the word missio dei.

The task of eliminating apartheid was daunting, but it was a necessary struggle. One that required unbelievable courage and a deep and unfailing commitment to God. “Go forth to make the world a better place for you can make a difference. The task is daunting of course, but it is a necessary struggle.” That is missio dei. 

Today in Luke’s gospel, Jesus, his face set to Jerusalem, says to a large crowd, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple…none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions – and follow me.”

These are tough words. Words not meant for those who prefer to have their cake and eat it too. Words that direct us to the stark reality of discipleship. Give up all your possessions; carry the cross; follow me. Words that push us beyond ourselves, beyond our comfort zones, and toward the challenging and often unpredictable life of bringing the church, missio dei, the mission of God, to the world.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship writes, “In the gospels the very first step a man must take is an act which radically affects his whole existence.”

Discipleship. Living the life of a disciple, one who lays down their life to follow Christ - that is the hard part - the hardest part of missio dei.   

Discipleship radically disrupts our whole existence, and yet discipleship is the part to which we must pay close attention, perhaps more now than ever.

If we are to say, “a resounding no to racism, to injustice, to oppression, to hatred, to violence, to dictation and division.” If we are to say, “a loud reverberating “yes” to freedom, to forgiveness, to reconciliation, to peace, to unity.”  If we are truly to become a people of “many cultures, languages, and races… one nation, [indivisible], a rainbow people of God” then we must be fearless in our commitment to missio dei. We must take up the cross and follow Jesus. We must be the voice of God in the world. We must be the church. We must be open to hearing God’s call to us – God’s call for us. We must listen for God – listen for the divine.

Last week when I preached in the frigid early morning hours of the South African winter, I also spoke of the importance of listening for God’s call to and for us. In the Jeremiah passage, Jeremiah listened but did not like what he heard. He shouted out, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” But God did not let Jeremiah off the hook. God once again spoke to him saying, “Do not say I am only a boy; for you shall go to all whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you.” Then the Lord put out his hand and touched Jeremiah’s mouth; and the Lord said, “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” 

What an astoundingly beautiful and powerful image – the Lord put out his and touched Jeremiah’s mouth. God put his words in Jeremiah’s mouth. This little piece from Jeremiah is proof positive that God does have a call for each and every one of us. A call that we can only hear through listening to the divine. And perhaps more importantly it is proof positive that God does not want to let us off the hook if we do not like his call. Not at all. 

But we are not alone in this call – this missio dei - that might seem too difficult to imagine. God is prepared to put his hand on our mouths and to fill us with the courage, endurance, hope, and love that is needed to be the church – the missio dei – however daunting it might seem. 

It is a scary business – very scary. But in our moments of fear and resistance, we must feel God’s hand on our mouths, we must call out as did the psalmist when he cried out to the Lord, “Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe; you are my crag and my stronghold.” We must go forth in faith understanding that it is only through following the very narrow path of discipleship, a path so easy to stray from, to fall away from, that we will be God’s voice in the world – missio dei. That we will be a community that becomes the image of God, a light to the world.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, the privilege is ours to share in the loving, healing, reconciling mission of your Son Jesus Christ, our Lord, in this age and wherever we are. Since without you we can do no good thing.

May your Spirit make us wise;

May your Spirit guide us;

May your Spirit renew us;

May your Spirit strengthen us;

So that we will be:

Strong in faith,

Discerning in proclamation,

Courageous in witness,

Persistent in good deeds.

This we ask in the name of the Father.

 

Church of the Province of the West Indies.