May 17, 2015

Helen Jacobi

Easter 7     Acts 1:15-17, 21-26     Psalm 1     John 5:9-13     John 17:6-19

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This last Sunday of Easter is a transition time [1] in our church calendar. We are finishing the Easter season and about to be launched next week into Pentecost and getting on with the work of God’s mission in the world. The Easter season resurrection appearances of Jesus are done. Thursday was Ascension Day, marking the close of Jesus’ time with the disciples. When I was in Cape Town my colleagues were talking about the week ahead as we were leaving and some were heading home in time for Ascension Day services. I commented that we don’t really do Ascension Day at St Matthew’s, and one of them quipped – ah yes that would be a bit too inter galactic for you. We soon learnt the place of each other’s church on the theological spectrum. And while they all might mark Ascension day, none of them would believe in the literal ascension of Jesus to the heavens. Ascension Day simply marks a transition, notes that Jesus was for a while with the disciples, and then he wasn’t. The rest is metaphor.

The gospel reading for today shows Jesus in prayer, for the disciples, and for us. Jesus prays for the protection of the disciples, and that they will know closeness with God as Jesus has known closeness with God. The language of John is a little impenetrable at first reading – they are yours, and I am theirs, and words like glorify, sanctify, belonging to the world but not to the world; it is all a bit mesmerizing and the language feels distant. But if we persevere and really read it we find that actually this prayer is all about engagement with the world. “I am not asking you to take them out of the world… I have sent them into the world... I ask you to protect them from the evil one” The evil one in John’s world might have been the Roman emperor of the day – Domitian; or it might have meant evil more generally; persecution and oppression that they were well used to.

In my visit to South Africa in the past week I have been reminded of the reality of pure evil in our world. The weight of apartheid still weighs heavily over that country. 20 years of freedom is a very short time; and the people are far from free. When you visit Robben Island the tour groups are shown around by former prisoners. They spend their days reliving the horror of the prison. That did not feel like freedom to me.

At the cathedral, we had the privilege of meeting one woman “Mama Kate” who told us her story of going home one day in 1981 to find her house demolished. And she was put on a bus and taken to the so called “homeland” of Transkei [2]. From there she and others walked back to Cape Town, a journey of 3 weeks. In the months to follow protests against forced removals increased and she and 50 others went on hunger strike in St George’s Cathedral, Cape Town for 23 days in 1982. Their protest brought about some changes and the government began the establishment of a township outside of Cape Town. We visited that township, Khayalitsha with her. Now part shanty town; part “proper” housing; but the whole town built on sand with no trees, and with floods in the winter. In Mama Kate’s lounge one wall was covered in press cuttings about the protests and more recent write ups of the history. Also proudly displayed a press story about her daughter, a successful business woman – “from shack to board room” read the headline. The residents of Khayalitsha were forced there by the apartheid government; they remain there because of poverty, how could they afford to move? And it is their community now. To be able to move from a corrugated iron lean-to to a house is progress enough. One of our group asked Mama Kate – are you bitter? “No she said, to be bitter only makes me unhappy, and means they have won, we carry on, we live.” Freedom? in theory politically free but not free from poverty; however very free in spirit.

Last Sunday morning St George’s Cathedral was full, with people of every background and colour, as it has always been. People who have prayed together in the long dark years of apartheid, and who have appreciated the prayer and support of the worldwide church. The evil and oppression of apartheid did not turn them away from their faith. It drew them to God, seeking the help they could hear in today’s prayer from Jesus. “Protect them from the evil one; sanctify them; may they have joy; send them into the world.”

They had somehow learned the meaning of Jesus’ prayer to be in the world while not belonging to the world. They belong to the kingdom of God, they know that and yet they engage deeply in the world and serve their communities striving for change. They have been taught by years of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s preaching and that of many other clergy and lay people who led them in the dark years. They claim absolute freedom in Christ while working to free each other from apartheid.

In many conversations I noticed how hard it is to be really free – at the post office I said to the girl serving me what a beautiful place Cape Town was – “lovely to visit she said, not lovely to live here”; to our host at the guest house I said I had enjoyed shopping in some of the shops for young SA designers – “the quality is bad, once you wash them they will fall apart” she said; the driver who took us to the airport – we commented as we passed Khayalitsh that we had enjoyed our visit there – “a busload of tourists were robbed there the other day he said”. It is hard to be positive, to be hopeful, to embrace the future, when the weight of evil still hangs over the city like a shroud, so much so that the people who live there cannot see the extraordinary beauty of where they live.

And so we are called to continue to pray for the people of South Africa; to support them, not to forget them as the world’s attention focuses on the latest crisis elsewhere. The Cathedral in Cape Town needs a new roof. That is a campaign we might be able to support.

The psalmist says “Blessed are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked; they are like trees planted by streams of water; their leaves do not wither”. The people we met in Cape Town have been trees suffering the longest of droughts who are now drinking the water of freedom.

It will take generations to erase the effects of apartheid and in the meantime Jesus prays for them, we pray for them, that they may know God’s protection and that their joy may be made complete.

At the Cathedral in Cape Town they print this prayer on their newsletter every week

“Christ, look upon us in this city

keep our sympathy and pity fresh

and our faces heavenward

lest we grow hard.

Amen.”

[1] George Ramsay in Feasting on the Word, Year B Vol 2, p. 545

[2] http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/cape-town-timeline-1300-1997?page=7