What's Your Praise Name?

I was thinking this evening and remembered (who knows why) the Ndebele custom of praise names. No research here, so I may have the details wrong; but I think it works something like this.

I have a surname, but the Ndebele people have "isibongo", literally a "thank name". Your name may be Sibanda (a name combining lion and courage), so when someone thanks you they use your name: "eSibanda!" One can then add praise names referring to your ancestors. "ESibanda! Son of the great fighter! Son of the one who saved the village!"

A good time to use the thank name + praise names is when thanking your children. They learn who they come from, what their parents where known for, what qualities they can make their own.

So I wonder what praise names I could have used when my sons were young to tell them who they come from. Vaughn walks in and hands me the coffee I asked for. "EClimenhaga! From the one who remembers! From the church genealogist!" My father's memory is a constant source of wonder and delight for his family. I asked once for memories of Bishop Steigerwald, a missionary from the 1920s when Dad was a small boy. Dad promptly told me of a Christmas party when he was four or five years old, and his encounter with the big man (big in every sense) who was like a grandfather to the missionary children. Remembering something from 90 years ago! The one who remembers.

Grandfather had a similar ability to remember things, showed often by his command of the genealogies of the families in the Brethren in Christ Church. The church genealogist.

I could bring in Slagenweit grandparents also. "From the one who works hard": Grandfather S was a dairy farmer who held on to his farm during the years of the depression. "From the joker": PapPap was a consummate joker--once he backed me (a frightened four-year old) into a corner pretending to be a bear, until I pointed my finger at him and said, "Bang!" He fell over and played dead.

Mothers and Grandmothers could have their own names: What would one call the person who held the family together and helped each of us become our very best?

Now I need to think of the praise names for Lois' family--Mother (Engle) and Dad Heise; their parents; back three or four generations. A way to pass on to our sons who we are and what we value. Of course, our sons are grown. So I'll have to start with the next generation. Meanwhile I can practice: "Son of the Artist." (Memories of Grandma Climenhaga pursuing art among people who thought that art was simply worldly.)

In Praise of Bucket Lists

The past two Sundays I said that we--and everything about us--must die in order to be raised from the dead. I included this statement:
Our society presses the idea that we should be the centre of our lives and that we should set our dreams and goals and tick every item we can off our bucket list. Don’t you believe it! In the end, anything that puts self at the centre is too small to give real fulfillment, to give eternal life! Jesus is the resurrection and the life, not just for our bodies destined to die one day, but for our hopes and our dreams. We give ourselves to him and say with Martha: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” And you mean it for everything! Everything that you are and want to do you tie up together and give it to Jesus. That is a real and difficult death, we don’t like giving up control so completely; but only in that death can Jesus become the resurrection and the life for you and for me.

Trouble is, someone might hear this and think that I'm saying dreams are bad. You shouldn't even have a bucket list! So here are some basic values in a bucket list.
1. We can't live without dreams. Or at least, we can't live joyfully without dreams. Life without something to live for is empty and soul-destroying. So dream on!
2. God is not in the business of destroying our dreams. Sometimes we think that the way you know what God wants you to do is by thinking of what you don't want to do. That's just perverse. God is not some old man sitting somewhere above us just waiting for us to enjoy ourselves so he can say, "Stop it!" Who do you think put the best dreams in you? So dream on!
3. Dreams are no good if they never lead to anything. Remember Langston Hughes' poem:
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load. Or does it explode? So dream on, and realize your dreams!

But,
dreams that fulfill only our own dreams are too small, too weak for the weight of eternity. We are, as C.S. Lewis reminds us, destined for the glory of the children of God! So our dreams need to be as big as God.

And only God can give dreams that big. That's what I was getting at last week. Not running down the bucket list, not saying dreams are bad; but making sure that we act on dreams that God gives us. So if your dream is to climb Table Mountain (something I have actually done), that's too small. But listen to God's heart for the world and dream God's dreams and then live them.

Dream on!

I Am ... the Resurrection and the Life

16 February 2014
Karlstad Resurrection
Text

John 11:17-27

Jesus Comforts the Sisters of Lazarus
¹⁷ On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸ Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁹ and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. ²⁰ When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

²¹ “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” ²³ Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴ Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

²⁵ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶ and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” ²⁷ “Yes, Lord,” she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

Introduction

This morning I want to preach from the passage in which Jesus calls himself “the resurrection and the life”—an appropriate text given the name of the church here in Karlstad. I am preaching on this text as part of a series that we are having at Steinbach Mennonite, my home church. There are seven passages in John’s gospel when Jesus refers to himself beginning with the words, “I am”.

The central passage is found in John 8, in which the Jews are disputing with Jesus. They recognize that he is claiming to be greater than Abraham, even to be equal with God. Then comes the key passage:

⁵⁷ “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” ⁵⁸ “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

The Jews understood clearly. Jesus was recalling the words that Moses received—and spoke—in Exodus 3:

¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” ¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” 

God is the Great “I Am”, and when Jesus says, “Before Abraham was born, I am”, he was proclaiming his own divinity clearly. These are the kinds of words that only a madman could speak. But Jesus was clearly sane: His teaching and his actions show clearly that he was a good, even a great man, and clearly not a madman. The Jews (John’s term for those who opposed Jesus) said that he was a liar, motivated by Satan. But again his life and teaching shows clearly that he was a good man; clearly not a liar. The only option left is that he was telling the truth. When he identified himself with God, he spoke simply that which is true.

John then uses this central saying of Jesus to structure various other parts of Jesus’ teaching. Jesus says:

·         I am the bread of life (6:35).

·         I am the light of the world (8:12).

·         I am the gate (10:9).

·         I am the good shepherd (10:11).

·         I am the resurrection and the life (11:25).

·         I am the way, the truth, and the life (14:6).

·         I am the true vine (15:1).

So this morning we look at the saying, “I am the resurrection and the life.” We will not come close to exhausting what Jesus says here, but just begin the process of considering what he means.

The Text

John 11 begins across the Jordan River, where Jesus had gone for some quiet reflection after the tumult in Jerusalem in chapter 10. Word comes to him that his friend Lazarus (brother to Mary and Martha) is near death at his home in Bethany. Jesus and his disciples are about 20 miles, maybe a day’s walk, away; but they stay there for two more days, then finally Jesus sets off for Bethany.

The disciples are afraid, because Bethany is next door to Jerusalem, where the people were trying to stone Jesus in chapter 10, but they decide to go with him.

When they arrive at Lazarus’ home, Martha goes out to meet Jesus. We heard the exchange read earlier: He’s dead, but you could have saved  him—He will rise again—Yes, at the end—I am the resurrection and the life…Do you believe this?—“Yes Lord, I believe…” Notice that Martha is the first of the disciples (the Twelve plus those gathered around the Twelve) to say this. Soon after, Peter makes the same confession, but Martha was first!

Martha goes and calls Mary, and similar exchange takes place. But we see the bond that Mary and Jesus had (seen also in the other gospels) in his response to her grief:

³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴ “Where have you laid him?” he asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. ³⁵ Jesus wept. ³⁶ Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”

That eloquent brief statement, “Jesus wept”, is worth its own sermon. We will not dwell on it this morning. Rather we note the action that follows. Jesus tells them to roll the stone from the mouth of the grave. Martha protests that the body has been decaying for four days and will stink, but Jesus persists. Someone rolls the stone away, and Jesus calls Lazarus out of the grave and back to life. And “the dead man came out [still with the grave clothes wrapped around him].” 

So back to our statement: “I am the resurrection and the life.”

An Excursus on Dreams

One of the effects of getting older is that you remember some of the dreams you had when you were young. Recently I found an old cassette tape that I made and sent to my parents when I was in my early 20s. I had just gone to Rhodesia to work with our church for a three-year term, and I described some of the dreams I had for my life. I also found some letters from the same period, which also described my hopes and dreams.

I was thinking at that time of spending some time in New Zealand. It’s a beautiful country—a dream worth having! I also thought of moving to England or Wales to study Welsh mythology. I was reading stories from the Mabinogion, the basic book of Welsh mythology, and I could see doing graduate work in that area. In the actual event, I moved back to the States, to Indiana, and met Lois and got married and became the pastor of a church in Pennsylvania.

An idea that has gained currency in our society is that of “the bucket list”, based on the 2007 movie—things to do before you die (kick the bucket). The basic idea is that we should have dreams and wishes that we seek to fulfill, and it is important for us to realize as many of our dreams as possible in order to lead a fulfilled life. The idea is captured well in the slogan used by the Marines: “Be all that you can be.”

But getting older reminds me often that some of my dreams will never come to pass. There are some things—like doing a Ph D in Welsh mythology—that I need to let go. If I ever get to visit New Zealand, I will enjoy it; but I don’t want to make how fulfilled my life is depend on getting to the place where Lord of the Rings was filmed.

The Pattern Jesus Gives Us

Jesus actually gives us a different path to follow than crossing items off our bucket list. When Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life”, he is referring first of all to spiritual life—those who die physically need not die spiritually. If you die in Christ, you live forever with Christ. If you die outside of Christ, you experience eternal death outside the presence of God. (Such a difficult image: Outside the presence of Omnipresence!)

At one level we are talking about the need to believe in Jesus—believe in the sense of “accept” and “follow” and “trust”: What Martha and May do in their response to Jesus. But this pattern works at deeper levels as well. When you answer Jesus, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world,” you enter into eternal life. Then you can discover what that life means for everything you do.

You see, Jesus not only brings new life to us physically and spiritually, but he also brings new life to everything else about us. And in order for him to bring new life, everything has to die! Jesus could not raise Lazarus until Lazarus died. Jesus could not give Martha and Mary a new understanding of him and his life until their old understanding died. Everything about us must die in order for Jesus to raise it to new life. Everything! I said that I had dreams as a young man of what I would be. Those dreams had to die. Only then could God’s dreams come true in my life.

Dying and Rising

Luke records the way that Jesus says this in the Synoptic gospels:

²³ Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. ²⁴ For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. ²⁵ What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? (Luke 9)

Paul records the same idea when he says: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)

God wants to give us eternal life, but in order for us to receive it, everything about us—our dreams and desires and wishes and plans—must die and be re-born with his life, his will at the centre. Jesus can only raise something that dies. Resurrection requires death. 

An Example

My Uncle Arthur used to tell what this dying and rising looked like for him and my Aunt Arlene. They went to college at our church college in Upland, California way back in the 1930s. Arthur remembers when they first met. He and some of his friends had formed what they called “the woman-haters’ society”, because they were afraid that any young women they made friends with would not like them.

Then one day Arlene came into the dining hall and saw him across the room. She asked her friends who that young man was; they told her, “Don’t think about him. He’s a member of the woman-haters’ society.” Arlene liked the look of him, but she had a more pressing problem on her mind. She knew that God was calling her into mission work either in Africa or in India. She wanted to go to Africa, so she assumed (as we sometimes perversely do) that God would make her go to India. So she devised a test (which Arthur told me he does not recommend!) She prayed and asked God, “If you want me to go to Africa, have Arthur ask me for a date by Wednesday evening.”

Meanwhile Arthur had also noticed her and decided to suspend his membership in the woman haters’ society for a few days. So on Wednesday he watched as she got on the bus to go home. He knew where she would be waiting for the next bus, so he rode his bicycle over and stopped beside her. They talked for a bit, and then he asked her if he could walk her home from choir practice that evening (what passed for a date in those days). Arthur told me, “She just sat and stared at me. I thought, ‘Oh No! She doesn’t like me!’ She thought, ‘God just told me to go to Africa!’”

Behind this story there is a more important story. Arlene had put her own dreams and desires to death and determined to follow only what God wanted. When she did so, she had a dream in which Jesus appeared to her carrying a bundle. He told her, “Everything that will happen to you is in this bundle. When you don’t understand what is happening, remember, ‘It’s all in the bundle.’”

That basic commitment shaped her unusual way of deciding whether or not to go to Africa. Arthur had grown up in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and he also felt God’s call to return there. So they went to Africa. But as they went along in life, there were problems. Arlene became pregnant with their first child, but a contaminated ham served to them when they were on tour for the college led to a miscarriage. She was never able to conceive again, and she died childless. “But it’s all in the bundle.”

After 15 years in Rhodesia—15 satisfying and good years—they returned to Pennsylvania, and then to Wheaton, Illinois, where Arthur became the director of the NAE. But while he travelled, Arlene went into depression. Arthur made plans to change his job for her sake and move her back to family and friends, but she refused: “It’s all in the bundle.” Then when they turned 50 they moved back to California, close to the friends and church of their days at Upland, as Arthur became bishop of our church’s Pacific Conference. They looked forward to more joy and satisfaction.

Then Arlene was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. The disease moved quickly. Arlene would sit alone at night, coming to terms with the approach of her own death. If Arthur came out she said, “Arthur, you can’t do anything. You may as well go back to bed.” Then the week before she died they drove for one last time into the San Bernadino Mountains overlooking Upland, to where they used to go when they were dating. As they sat there, Arlene finally said, “You know, 52 is so young to die. But as I look back over my life, I wouldn’t change a thing!” You see: it’s all in God’s bundle!

Conclusion

Our society presses the idea that we should be the centre of our lives and that we should set our dreams and goals and tick every item we can off our bucket list. Don’t you believe it! In the end, anything that puts self at the centre is too small to give real fulfillment, to give eternal life! Jesus is the resurrection and the life, not just for our bodies destined to die one day, but for our hopes and our dreams. We give ourselves to him and say with Martha: “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

And you mean it for everything! Everything that you are and want to do you tie up together and give it to Jesus. That is a real and difficult death, we don’t like giving up control so completely; but only in that death can Jesus become the resurrection and the life for you and for me.

Reading my Youth

 

I have just finished reading Anthony Thomas’ biography of Cecil John Rhodes, Rhodes: The Race for Africa. A few have heard of the Rhodes scholarships to Oxford University. Fewer today have heard of the man whose estate established those scholarships. But I grew up with his name in my ears and his fame in my heart.

C.J. Rhodes founded the countries of Southern and Northern Rhodesia. I was born in Northern Rhodesia, and grew up in Southern Rhodesia. Today these countries are known as Zambia and Zimbabwe, quite different from what I knew growing up.

I grew up, then, as a White Rhodesian, moulded by the ideas and heritage of Rhodes—son of an English clergyman; briefly a farmer in South Africa; best known for his success in the diamond mines of Kimberley and (to a lesser extent) in the gold mines of Johannesburg. He founded the De Beers Diamond Company. As the Wikipedia entry puts it: “De Beers is a cartel of companies that dominate the diamond, diamond mining, diamond hops, diamond trading and industrial diamond manufacturing sectors.” All going back to Rhodes in 1888.

His representatives pursued actions that led to the annexation (or conquest) of Zimbabwe, displacing the local rulers—Lobengula, the king of the Ndebele people, and many local chiefs who led the Shona people. The wars of 1893 and 1896 in which Ndebele and Shona power was broken were called by the Shona “Chimurenga”. And the Chimurenga did not end in 1896, but were resumed in the 1970s, leading to the end of White rule, as ZANU and ZAPU deposed the party and power of Ian Smith.

Of course, as a White Rhodesian I learned a different story. I (with all my White friends) revered Rhodes. His statue stood in the middle of Bulawayo. He was a colossus! A true hero of the British Empire!

Over 40 years ago I left those ideas behind, but early patterns remain ingrained in one’s gut. Reading Thomas’ dispassionate accounting of Rhodes—seeing the single-minded willingness to crush anyone who stood in his way—clearly Rhodes was no hero. That knowledge hurts, as I must again refuse my own instincts to praise and admire him. Ironically, the modern Zimbabwean most like him in his ruthless quest for power is Zimbabwe’s current president, R.G.M. Rhodes the dictator has been succeeded now by Mugabe the dictator.

 

There was much to admire in the best of the White Rhodesians. Garfield Todd and his daughter, Judith, are among the best that White Rhodesia produced. But I am on a life-long quest to not be who my first country taught me to be. (Taking Zimbabwe to be the first country in which I made my own conscious choices about the kind of person I want to be.)

A postscript: As I work on a history of the Brethren in Christ Missions, I know that I must also read accounts of Zimbabwe by other Brethren in Christ writers. At least two of them are close friends, but as Black Zimbabweans they tell a story I find hard to hear. I know that I must listen to their voices more carefully than any others; but the task is not easy. I want what I know from my childhood to be good, and much of it is. But truth is more important than sentiment, and continued growth requires more and more truth. All the truth.

I Am…The Bread of Life

19 January 2014                                                                    Steinbach Mennonite Church
Text
Jesus the Bread of Life
²⁵ When they found him on the other side of the lake, they asked him, “Rabbi, when did you get here?” ²⁶ Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. ²⁷ Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”

²⁸ Then they asked him, “What must we do to do the works God requires?” ²⁹ Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”

³⁰ So they asked him, “What sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? ³¹ Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” ³² Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. ³³ For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” ³⁴ “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.”

³⁵ Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶ But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷ All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. ³⁸ For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. ³⁹ And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. ⁴⁰ For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

Introduction

Yesterday I went to Chuck’s funeral, held at the E Free church. Chuck was my colleague and friend, and we carpooled to school and back for many years. Thirty-three years ago I went to another funeral—for the fiancé of Rose, one of my classmates in seminary at AMBS. He died at about age 30 from a disease of the blood. As we grieved together, we sang #472: “I am the Bread of Life. He who believes in me shall never die.” So I always associate this passage with the death of close friends.

I don’t think you ever get used to death, whether you’re 30, or 60, or older. But Jesus turns our thoughts in a radical direction: Even while our bodies die, we live forever! Physical bread, such as Lois baked in our house yesterday, sustains physical life; but for real life, eternal life, you need the “bread of Heaven”. Let’s talk about that together.

The Whole Series

Last week Randy started our series with John 8: Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.” “You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!” “Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.”

Jesus is intentionally echoing God’s words to Moses in Exodus 3. Moses asked, “Who should I say sent me? God replied: “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” So when Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am!” the people hear him say, “Before Abraham, God!

Randy reinforced the point with the way that John 1 echoes Genesis 1: “In the beginning God created …”, which becomes in John, “In the beginning was the Word…. And the Word became flesh and dwelled among us.” Jesus is the Word of God, who is one with God. In chapter 8 Jesus makes this same point about himself.

John then uses this formulation, “I am”, repeatedly through his gospel in order to tell us who God is, as revealed by Jesus. Others will explore these attributes of God as we move through the coming Sundays of Winter. This morning, we explore what it means to be “the Bread that came down from heaven”, “the Bread of Life”.

John 6

John 6 begins with the feeding of the 5,000. This miracle appears in all four gospels. In Matthew Jesus healed the people, then fed them. In Mark Jesus taught the people. Then fed them. In Luke Jesus healed and taught the people, then fed them. But here in John we don’t know what Jesus did when the people came to hear and see him. They came because of the miracles of healing they had heard about, but John’s account moves directly to the problem of a crowd without food.

In verse 5 Jesus asks Phillip to consider the problem of finding enough bread to feed the crowd (5,000—just counting the men). This question focusses the theme of the chapter on bread. The question that runs underneath the narrative is: What is your bread? What do you live on? You remember the way that the disciples wrestle (unsuccessfully) with the issue of feeding the people, and how Jesus multiplies the loaves and the fish to feed everyone.

One lesson from the event is that Jesus can meet our physical needs, but that is not the primary lesson that Jesus wants us to learn, so he keeps going. Between the feeding of the 5,000 and our passage, the disciples try to sail across the lake in their fishing boat. Jesus comes to them through a storm, walking across the water. A basic point in this event is the way that Jesus reinforces his nature as being more than simply human.

So we come to our passage this morning. The crowd has been looking for Jesus and they find him and the following conversation ensues.

25-29: The crowd wonder what Jesus is doing. He tells them that they are looking for his physical blessings (healings and the bread and fish); instead they should look for God’s food: eternal life. The people ask, “What is God’s food?” Jesus tells them that it is to believe on the one God has sent (namely, himself). 30-34: They ask for a sign, remembering the sign of manna in the dessert, which showed that Moses was truly God’s leader in the Exodus. Jesus says that Moses only brought manna; but the Father gives “the bread of Heaven”. They ask for this bread—setting the scene for Jesus to reveal himself more fully. 35-40: Jesus replies, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty… For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day.”

There is more here for us to look at. In the rest of the chapter the Jews wonder how Joseph’s son could be this divine ambassador, and Jesus repeats his identity (51, 53-58). The identification of the bread from Heaven with his own flesh makes it clear that he sees himself as a divine sacrifice for the sins of the people. Many desert him, because they recognize his claim to be one with God. Jesus asks the 12 if they will leave him also, and Peter makes his bold response: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Comment
But we leave the rest aside and come back to this basic assertion, “I am the Bread of Life.” Jesus tells us that in him there is life, and without him there is only death. There are two basic thoughts that this leads me to.

1) Sometimes you may hear people say, “Jesus was a wonderful teacher, but since his time Christians have turned what he said about himself into the claim that he is God. He was really just a good man and a good teacher. This passage is one of the basic responses to that claim.

C.S. Lewis has observed that Jesus made such outrageous claims about himself that there are only three real possibilities. One: He was a lunatic, on the level of someone who claims to be a poached egg. Two: he was a liar and therefore a terrible scoundrel, a really bad man. Three: he was telling the truth.

Consider: If he was a lunatic, then the crowds would not have followed him. All of his teaching and all of his miracles made a powerful impression on people. They knew that whatever else was true about him, here was a man in possession of his senses. He was no lunatic.

Further, if he was a liar, how could he teach the way that he did? The man who taught in the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5 to 7) was no liar. Non-Christians also recognize the power of his teaching, so that Gandhi could model aspects of his own life on the teachings of Jesus. There is depth and wisdom and divinity itself in his teachings. He was no liar.

The only remaining possibility is that he was telling the truth. He was sent from God, one with the Father, the “Bread of Heaven.” I saw a quotation from Aristotle in a series of detective books that I enjoy (by Dorothy Sayers): “The probable impossible is always preferable to the improbable possible.” Now this is not a proof of the impossible, but shows how we might think of these three options.

That Jesus was a liar is possible, but it is improbable. It doesn’t fit the facts
That Jesus was a lunatic is possible, but it is improbable. It doesn’t fit the facts.
That Jesus was who he said he was—the One sent from God whom John calls “the Only Begotten Son of God—this is impossible, but it is probable. It fits all the facts.

To put it another way, we balk at admitting that Jesus brings God directly into our lives because we can’t see how that it possible. But the more that we get to know him, the more we walk with him and listen to him and see what he does in our lives, the more we begin to realize, he is exactly who he says he is.

2) So much for our first thought; the second thought is this: Jesus risks everything that he has gained with the crowds to help them meet God by “feeding on him”. What does that mean? It means that he wants them to follow him in everything. In the synoptic gospels, whenever someone asked Jesus how to get to heaven, he said, “Follow me.” This is the same thing in John’s gospel.

Jesus wants the same thing for you and for me. It is not enough to admit that Jesus is the unique Son of God, “the Bread of Heaven”, the one who can call himself “I am”. Jesus wants you and me to meet him, and give ourselves completely to him, and follow him in every part of our lives.

Over the Christmas break I read a collection of biographies by Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom. It was called Clouds of Witnesses, about great Christians from Africa and Asia. A common theme in their life stories was that they encountered God so powerfully that they could do nothing else than follow Jesus in every area of their lives.

That is what Jesus wants for you and for me today, here in Steinbach. We used to get at such things by encouraging people to come down to the altar and, as we put it, “Pray through.” I don’t think we necessarily need those old forms for our encounters with God today. I do know that we must meet him. Today and every day. In the morning and in the evening. Always and forever.

In the passage we read, the Jews were ready to be satisfied with the wonders Jesus showed them—some healings and the multiplied bread and fish. Jesus wants them to go deeper. Just as in John 4, the Samaritan woman is ready to be satisfied with especially good water, and Jesus leads her deeper, to find the “water of life”.

Jesus wants us not to be satisfied with the physical blessings he gives us. They are good—a hot bath on a cold morning, toast and marmalade, good coffee. These are wonderful things, but God has something greater and more wonderful waiting for us. He wants us to be ready to live with him forever, to share “eternal life”, to become filled with his Spirit and joy and power. And we’re satisfied with so little!

C.S. Lewis again has said it: “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” (From “The Weight of Glory”.) In the sermon that these words come from, Lewis is considering the imagery that the New Testament uses about heaven, but his words apply here as well. We are indeed “far too easily pleased.”

Concluding Thoughts

Bring this all back round to where we started. We are surprised and frightened by death. I wept because my friend Chuck died. I grieved when my classmate’s fiancé died. Jesus does not turn us away from death, even with words that promise life.

Rather Jesus allows us to meet and embrace our physical death, because it is the door to the fuller life of eternity spent with him. Chuck was 74. During the last week of his life, as he lay in the hospital bed in palliative care, a friend told me that Chuck would wake up, look round and say: “There’s the hospital. There you (Sue, his wife) are. Shoot, I’m still here!” Death was hard, but his last words were, “Thank you, God.” Now we are not promised a peaceful death; but I can tell you where Chuck’s peace at the end came from. He followed Christ all his life, and so he was already living the life that God gives.

Everyone is searching for something. Some people pour themselves into the search for fun—they party hard and look for the latest greatest pleasure. But the only thing that can satisfy what they are looking for is Christ. Some people pour themselves into their job—they work hard, make good money, and retire early. But the only thing that can give meaning to their life of hard work is Christ. Some people accumulate power—they want to influence people and events. But in the end their search fails; only Christ can meet what they need.

I am reading the biography of Cecil John Rhodes, a man who accumulated millions in the diamond and gold fields of South Africa in the late 1800s. He pursued wealth so as to pursue his dream of expanding the reach of the British Empire throughout Africa. I grew up thinking that Rhodes was a wonderful man, whose heroic work led to the founding of the countries I grew up in (Northern and Southern Rhodesia). In fact, I discover that he was a thoroughly bad man, a villain and a scoundrel.

The problem was that he replaced God with the dream of Empire. His father was a vicar in England, and he thought of following his father into pastoral ministry, but the pursuit of power seduced him, and his actions have led to great problems and pain in modern South Africa and Zimbabwe. Curiously, the people who opposed him the most were the missionaries—those people who were following the dream of preaching the gospel to every person in the world. While Rhodes was acting on his racism and devaluation of Black People, they did all in their power to bring the gospel to the people of Africa. This is always the choice we face: We serve either our own dreams—which lead in the end to despair, or we follow Jesus.

“I am the Bread of Life,” Jesus said. Look for him everywhere you go. I have met Jesus in a special ways at several times in my life: When I was a 12-year old in a Baptist Church in Zimbabwe; when I was an 18-year old praying over a water cooler with a friend in college; when I was a 24-year old teaching with the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe; when I was a 58-year old teaching at Providence. Each encounter was unique. Each encounter was just what I needed for the years that followed.

Search for Jesus. Keep your ears and mind and your heart open as you read the Bible, and pray, and go to work, and do whatever goes on in your life. Jesus is the Bread of Life. Bread sustains life—not just physical bread, which gives physical life—but real life, deeper life, life that lasts forever, life that continues even when you die. Feed on Jesus. He is the Bread of Life.

Christmas Eve 2013

We sit in rows of simple church-like chairs
In sacred space made common with singing;
Projected words our sign to form a choir,
Wordless picture signs our silence, listening

To words and songs from others' throats and lips.
I've heard too much divine made commonplace,
Carols and poems--their meaning slowly slips
Out of mindless sitting in sacred space.

Wordless picture shows a common theme--
Joseph's arm steals round the blessed mother
As mother holds her baby. How dare he?
So intimate with Ultimate Other?

   The common song shattered by simple care,
   Fragments of awe, divinity laid bare.

Joseph: More Mystery

I just finished shovelling the snow off the driveway. As I worked, I thought more about Joseph, following yesterday's sermon.

Joseph was a dreamer. Each of his actions followed a word from God sent by an angel in a dream we know Joseph the dreamer in the OT too. Joseph, son of Jacob, appears in Genesis 30 as one whose birth means that God is adding to Jacob's family. He begins life as part of a bizarre contest (bizarre at least to our way of thinking) between Leah and Rachel to see who can have more children. But he begins known as the dreamer, the one whose dreams--and whose ability to interpret dreams--lead to the salvation of Jacob's family, "the Children of Israel".

Joseph, husband of Mary, appears in Matthew 1:16, as the son of Jacob. So when he starts hearing from God in dreams, we can expect salvation to come to Israel. Here is where the story changes from its clear OT parallel.

Matthew likes to make subtle points through simple stylistic variations. So in Matthew 2 he makes the point that King Jesus supplants King Herod with a simple stylistic change in the way he refers to Herod. He calls Herod "King", until the magi find and worship the baby Jesus. After that he refers to Herod only as "Herod". Jesus is king, and Herod is dethroned.

So when Matthew never records any words from Joseph's mouth, we can assume that is an important point of style. Matthew sets Joseph up to be important--son of Jacob; God's words in dreams. We expect Joseph to do something! But he says nothing. He does what he is told, like a servant who hears and obeys. He has added the family into which Jesus is born, and then fades into obscurity.

Why? Because the focus is on Jesus--the one who saves, not on Joseph--the one who is added. Think of what happens to the light bulb when the sun comes up. It almost disappears in the light of the sun. Jesus is the light of the world, and all other sources of power fade into obscurity.

There's much more in the story than this; but I was done shovelling the driveway, and that's enough for now.

The Mystery Man: Joseph

Preached at SMC for the Third Sunday in Advent, 2013

Text

Matthew 1:18-25
Joseph Accepts Jesus as His Son
¹⁸ This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

²⁰ But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ²³ “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).

²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. ²⁵ But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Introduction

Last July our son got married. Lois and I were delighted. We love our son, and we love our daughter-in-law. The wedding was wonderful—held under a tent beside a cornfield, with lots of hymn singing (eight hymns), followed by a reception in the barn overlooking the field. At the wedding I learned again what I had discovered four years before when Nevin got married: The father of the groom is the least visible person at the wedding. Everyone is looking at the bride and the groom, as they should be. The father of the bride is often close to tears during the father-daughter dance, as is the mother dancing with her son. The father of the groom dances with no one. At Vaughn’s wedding Lois and I walked down the aisle with him to release him into this new relationship, and then Lauren’s parents walked down the aisle with her to do the same. But in the end the father of the groom is almost invisible. As he should be.

Joseph

Joseph reminds me of the father of the groom. He is almost invisible. You remember Mary: When the angel came to her they talked, and afterwards she sang her wonderful “Magnificat”. Joseph? He said nothing. The angel did all the talking. Joseph is the quiet one who does what he’s told. Go over the story with me again. The facts are clear enough, but may surprise us.

·         Mary and Joseph were “pledged to be married”. As Marg said last week, this suggests that Mary was a young teen. Joseph could have been any age. Some commentators suggest that he was an older man who had been married before. The text doesn’t say so, but it doesn’t rule it out either. He could have been a young man himself. This seems more likely, given the travelling they did; but again, the text doesn’t say.

·         The time between a pledge and the marriage could be a year, but often these come close together, and today normally come in the same ceremony. In this space of time, Mary conceived a child. When Joseph found out, he was naturally upset; but rather than humiliate Mary, he decided “to divorce her quietly”. This decision is a surprise: Their culture was a shame and honour culture. You may have heard of a family in Ontario in the recent past, in which the brothers apparently killed their sister because she was in love with someone from outside their community. She had brought shame on the family. So Joseph was acting very much against his culture by seeking not to embarrass her.

·         Joseph was “faithful to the law”. The King James says: “a righteous man”. The original word means “just”, usually in the sense of one who keeps the law. Some commentators take it to mean “righteous” in the sense of “good” or “kind”. That makes sense of Joseph’s desire not to hurt Mary.

·         As Joseph thought all of this through, an angel appeared. You notice that Mary had Gabriel the archangel (Luke 1). Joseph just got an angel. When Gabriel came to Mary, he inspired fear and began with the words, “Don’t be afraid!” Joseph’s angel was more practical: “Don’t be afraid to marry her.” The comments above about shame and honour explain what Joseph is afraid of: The shame Mary has brought on them.

·         The angel gave his reason: “She is pregnant because God (the Holy Spirit) made her pregnant.” Who would blame Joseph for being skeptical? The angel continues: “Name him Jesus”, a name that means “God saves”. Matthew doesn’t give us Joseph’s response; he just explains that all of this fulfills prophecies given long before. The fact that Joseph was asleep—a vision in a dream—reminds us of Joseph the dreamer in the OT.

·         The last verse says it all: When he awoke, Joseph did as he was told. I went to our NT professor at Providence and asked him what he could tell me about Joseph. He replied, “Joseph did what he was told.” That could be his epitaph.

Matthew 2

We meet Joseph again in chapter 2. The magi—wise men from the East—came looking for the baby boy. They found Mary and the baby in Bethlehem. No mention of Joseph, of course. In verse 12, an angel appeared to Joseph again in a dream and told him to get up and go to Egypt to escape from Herod. Joseph didn’t say anything. He just got up and took Mary and the baby to Egypt. He did what he was told.

At the end of the chapter, Herod died, and another angel came to Joseph in a dream and told him to go back to Israel. The text is to the point: “So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.” He didn’t even wait until morning. In a further dream an angel warns him of possible trouble from Archelaus, so the family went to Galilee, to Nazareth.

We could go through Luke 2, in which Joseph is present at all the same things as Mary—taking her to Bethlehem; watching the shepherds come. Mary pondered all that had happened and treasured them in her heart (2:19). Joseph didn’t say anything. Jesus is named. Usually the father would give the name, as Zechariah did for John in Luke 1. But Joseph doesn’t even get credit for that—Luke 2:21 says, “He was named Jesus.”  He is there when Jesus was circumcised. He is there when Jesus stayed behind in the temple in Jerusalem. But when they go back and find him, Mary is the one to talk to Jesus and ask what he had been doing. Joseph didn’t say anything. He just did what he was told. Joseph disappears from the story after that. Mary is there during his ministry and at the cross. Maybe he died; at any rate we hear no more of him. People thought he was the father of Jesus; but he knew better. He was the invisible man in the background, the one you tend not to notice at the wedding.

So What’s the Mystery of Joseph?

Out theme is “mystery”—the mystery of Mary and Joseph and the baby, this incredible mystery when God comes in a human baby. What mystery is there about this invisible man? He fades out of the picture; what else is there to say?

Joseph could have failed the salvation project at many points. If he had not gotten the family up in the middle of the night, Herod’s soldiers might have caught them. If he had been less careful in their return Archelaus might have finished the job his father started. If he had been too afraid to take Mary as his wife, he could have failed right at the beginning. But Joseph did as he was told, and the salvation project went ahead the way God intended.

That’s the mystery—that God regularly chooses the least likely people to do the biggest things. The sort of thing described in “Lord of the Rings” when a hobbit has to carry the ring of power into the land of Mordor to destroy it in the mountain of fire. As one of the characters (Elrond) says, “Who of the wise could have foreseen it?” None, especially if they were really wise!

Paul says the same thing in the language of Scripture:

²⁶ Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. ²⁷ But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. ²⁸ God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, ²⁹ so that no one may boast before him. ³⁰ It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. ³¹ Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Cor 1:26-31)

God works through the weak and the foolish to do what God chooses to do. That’s the mystery and the wonder of Joseph! He is sometimes called “the hidden saint”, because his life disappears from the gospel records. When did he die? We don’t know. Some suggest that he died when Jesus was a teenager, and they note that he would have died in Mary’s arms with Jesus by his side—a blessed death! But that is speculation. The text tells us nothing. His life is hidden.

Some Examples

Many people who do God’s will are almost invisible. God delights to work through the weak and the foolish. I found a sermon on Joseph by a Catholic priest named James Martin. He says:

During the first few months of my Jesuit novitiate, I worked at Youville Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, run by the Grey Nuns, a small Catholic order, which tended to the seriously ill. Those who lived there suffered from a variety of illnesses: cancer, dementia, degenerative muscular diseases. Many were surprisingly young. For example, young men who had suffered brain injuries resulting from car or motorcycle accidents. One mother used to come by daily to visit her 20-year-old son, to feed him, read to him and sit by his bed. Here was a life entirely hidden from the world, in a lonely hospital that few knew about, even in the area. (“Youville? Where’s that?” I was asked by even long-time Bostonians.) One winter’s afternoon I came in to find the mother combing her son’s hair. “Doesn’t he look handsome today?” she said with a radiant smile.

There you see the hidden saint: A mother combing her disabled son’s hair. In my first pastorate I also had a hidden saint; her name was Bessie. Bessie was a bit cranky and very strong-willed. She had a son named Billy. Billy had cerebral palsy and was confined to his bed. I used to visit Bessie and Billy, and she would tell him about his life. She said that the doctors had told her that Billy would live only to his 20s. But she was stubborn and would not take him to a hospital to live out his days. She cared for him in their home, caring for him and talking with him. I listened to their conversations. I have no idea what Billy said—I couldn’t understand anything. But Bessie and Billy understood each other very well, and she would interpret for me. The doctors may have said that Billy would live into his 20s, but when I knew them, he was over 40 years old. Bessie and Billy: Saints from my first church, hidden from the world, but completely visible to God.

The Takeaway

I said that the father of the groom in a wedding is almost invisible. You do what you’re told. You carry chairs, help with decorations, roll the silverware—whatever is there to do, you do. The parallel is Joseph’s lesson to us. We do what God tells us to do. One reason that Joseph could do this is that he was remarkably tuned into God. Like Joseph in the OT, he was open to God’s voice in dreams. When the angel came to him, he didn’t need the reassurance: “Don’t be afraid.” The only fear he had to overcome was the fear of doing what he should do. When God spoke to him, he obeyed. That’s the takeaway from our sermon this morning: Be in touch with God. Walk so closely with God that when God speaks to you, you’re ready. You hear, and do. The hiddenness of Joseph reminds us that God’s actors in our church are not necessarily the visible people here this morning. Some of us are preaching, leading singing, leading worship, standing up at the front in one way or another. I don’t think Joseph is up here. He’s standing somewhere in the background waiting for God to speak. When God speaks, he does what he’s told.

This is only one note in the great mystery of the gospel. God’s call comes more than just through dreams. We need community. We need a deep awareness of God’s Word Written. We need each other. And we need the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. But running through all of these like an invisible thread of vitality is the mystery of God’s work at the margins, God’s presence in our weakness and helplessness.

Robert Southwell has expressed this truth in a wonderful Christmas poem, set to music by Benjamin Britten. Southwell was a Catholic priest in England from 1586 to 1595. Because the monarchy was trying to stamp out the Catholic Church in England, to be a priest was to be in constant hiding, knowing that every time he went to hear confession from someone, he might be arrested. Indeed, in 1592 he was caught, and tortured, and executed in 1595 at 33 years old. The reality of his hidden life gives special poignancy to the words of his poem, “New Heaven, New War”. Here are some of the words:

This little Babe so few days old is come to rifle Satan’s fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak unarmèd wise the gates of hell he will surprise.

….

My soul, with Christ join thou in fight, stick to the tents that he hath pight [pitched].
Within his crib is surest ward, this little Babe will be thy guard.
If thou wilt foil thy foes with joy, then flit not from this heavenly Boy.

Southwell expresses the mystery of the gospel, found where human strength and success would never look. When we go to that place, we find God at work in a baby, and we find Joseph, the hidden saint, the man who did what he was told. Will you be like Joseph? Will you be so close to God, that when God speaks, you do what you’re told?

My Life as a White African (Providence Chapel: 27 November 2013)

Our semester theme is journeys, and today I want you to travel with me through a journey of identity.

I am a White African. I was born in Zambia 63 years ago and moved to Zimbabwe when I was four. My grandparents went from Pennsylvania to Zimbabwe in 1921, so my father also grew up there. I have lived in Zambia and Zimbabwe for 22 years of my life—including the first 15. At the core of my identity I am a White Zimbabwean, who now lives as an American and Canadian in Manitoba.

What does it mean to be a White African? At one level, it is simply to be human. What I say of myself all of us may be able to say. To be an African is to be human, like Asians and Europeans and Australasians and Americans. We are all sinners, and we are all created as God’s images in the world. At another level, this is my particular version of the human story.

 

1. To be a White African is to be broken.

Zimbabwe is a broken country today. The past five years have stabilized somewhat, but the first decade of this century saw inflation rise to several million percent a year—such numbers are almost meaningless: they mean that the price of anything would double every day. The present government is filled with corruption and violence. Politically and economically we are broken. I am a White Zimbabwean, which means also that I am a White Rhodesian. About 120 years ago White Settlers moved into Zimbabwe and took over the country. Over the next five years the indigenous people of Zimbabwe fought two wars to throw the settlers out; but the outcome was over 80 years of White rule.

 

When I was seven years old, I went to boarding school with the children of White commercial farmers in Rhodesia. The settlers had many good qualities, but they were also deeply racist. I imbibed that racism freely until I was 15 years old. To a great extent I have learned new ways of thinking, but I know that deep down all of us live with a personal story that shapes us in ways that we can’t even see. When I refer to the problems of the present, I know that I belong to the White Settler history that created the conditions for today. I grew up with people who assumed that Black people were children, and that they needed White people’s help to grow up. The problems of the present have roots in the past, and I am part of that past.

 

Zambia’s history is different, but the White contribution to its history is similar. The two countries were known as Northern and Southern Rhodesia, and the White minority ruled both countries. Northern Rhodesia received its independence in 1964 and took the name Zambia; Southern Rhodesia had to wait another 16 years for independence in 1980. Zambia is further down the road to economic and political health, but it has had its own share of problems from the colonial past. To be a White African is to be broken, to know that the evil I condemn has its roots in my own being.

 

2. To be a White African is to be proud of my country.

Zambia and Zimbabwe share many cultural themes with the rest of southern and south-central Africa. One of the best known of these themes is the concept of Ubuntu. Roughly translated Ubuntu means Humanness. A common proverb in Zimbabwe says, “Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu”: roughly paraphrased as “a person becomes fully human only in and through community.” I need you to make me a real person. You need me to make you a real person. The individual is not the centre of society; people in community are the centre.

 

Some years ago our nine-year old son expressed a desire to move back to Zimbabwe, which we had left when he was five years old. I asked him, “What’s the difference between Zimbabwe and Indiana?” He replied, “Well, in Zimbabwe they treat people like people.” Wow! He nailed it.

 

In North America we live in isolation, and sometimes we help others. We can be very generous, but in the end we are a calculating culture. In Africa we live in community. When someone we know needs help, we don’t ask how we can help; we just help. I asked a friend how you know when to stop helping. He said, “You don’t ask. You just keep helping out, and when they refuse your help you know they no longer need it.”

 

I have a Zimbabwean friend in Winnipeg. More precisely, my parents and his parents were good friends, but that ties us together. His wife died a week and a half ago. Last week I went in to visit, while they make plans for the funeral. The difference between how we face death in Africa and in North America strikes me. In Africa, we face death together. When someone dies, you do not leave the bereaved person alone; we all grieve together. When the one who died is buried, we lower the casket into the grave and fill up the grave ourselves, each one taking turns. Here we leave the bereaved alone with their grief—we say, “They need their space.” And at the graveside we commit the body to the grave and leave, so that the professionals can lower the casket and fill in the grave.

 

Both North America and Africa have their strengths and their weaknesses. One strength of being an African is our emphasis on the person in community. Our orientation to the importance of person over the importance of task is a valuable lesson for task-oriented Western culture; just as the West’s preoccupation with procedures can help Africa overcome systemic corruption.

 

I could draw out other themes, but this is enough to say: To be a White African—to be an African—is to be proud of the people and place I call home.

 

3. To be a White African is to know that our real home is in Heaven.

A well-known song in Zimbabwe goes like this: “We are pilgrims on this earth. We are going to our home in Heaven. Even if our life on this earth is full of trouble, we are going to our home in Heaven.” One of the implications of this truth is that we can live by the standards of Heaven, we can live in God’s reign here and now on earth, because we know that Heaven is the ultimate reality, and the violence and oppression of this world is only temporary. This is a profound truth—that pilgrims of God walking through our earthly homes can live well regardless of the trouble around us.

 

You see, all of us from Africa are Africans—Black Africans indigenous to the continent; Asian Africans who came down the east coast; White Africans who came from the West; Lebanese Africans who came from the Middle East. We are what Johnny Clegg calls “Scatterlings of Africa”, gathered together on this continent and now scattered out across the earth to all the continents of the world. And scattered across the world we bear the gifts of Africa—especially the gift that we become truly human when we are bound together in community.

 

This is a reality that comes to fullness in the church, in the family of God, the body of Christ. That’s why I asked for Ephesians 2 to be read earlier—out of the two people of Zimbabwe (Black and White) God has made something new and united: the People of God. This is our reality on the most Christian continent in the world.

 

I think of the church that I come from in Zimbabwe. Our name in English is “Brethren in Christ”, taken from Paul’s greeting in Colossians 1: “To the faithful brethren in Christ in Colosse” (KJV). But in Ndebele this name takes on deeper meaning: Abazalwane bakaChristu”. Literally, “Brethren in Christ”, but this word “abazalwane” means more than just BIC. If I call someone umzalwane, I mean that this person who comes from the same womb as I do. Abazalwane: “people from the same womb”—in Christ.

 

You look at my skin and at the skin of a Black Zimbabwean, manifestly from different mothers. But we are from the same womb in Christ. We are truly brothers and sisters, bound together at the deepest most fundamental level possible—in Christ.

 

You see, I met Jesus in Zimbabwe in 1962, in a White Baptist Church in Bulawayo among people who loved the Lord but were racist to the core. I was baptized into the church in Bulawayo in 1964, in a Black BIC Church with 30 some other Black young people. In 1974 I grew greatly in the presence and filling of the Holy Spirit as I knelt with over 100 black brothers and sisters as we sang, “Woza Moya oyingcwele”: Come Holy Spirit. Four years later one of those black brothers (S. Ndlovu) stood beside me as one of the groomsmen at my wedding.

 

I became a pastor in Bulawayo in 1988 in a Black BIC Church with my brothers and sisters there. In 1992 we returned to the USA to stay, which meant that I was leaving home. It was the preaching of Shadrack Maloka, a Black South African, at our General Conference that helped me to lay aside my desire to stay in my Zimbabwean home, as we sang together words from the Lord’s Prayer, “Mayenziwe intando yakho”—Let your will be done in my life.

 

Conclusion

To be a White African is not the same experience for every White person from Africa. For me, it is to be broken, to be aware of great good in the people around me, and to be brought into the presence of God’s healing power that makes all of us one family, children from the same womb. It is really, then, simply to be human—because all of us in every country and culture are broken, aware of goodness, and needing God’s healing. I thank God for healing me and giving me himself through Africa.