Sermons from St Faith's
Reconciliation
Fr Dennis Smith, Wednesday in Holy Week, 2013
Of all the great services held in
Westminster Abbey over the years, one of the most
significant was the one held to welcome South Africa
back into the Commonwealth, from which she had been
forced to withdraw in 1961. The Abbey was packed to
the doors. The 51 Commonwealth flags had been carried
in procession up to the high altar by representatives
each in their national dress and placed in grouped
stands, leaving one empty space.
At a certain point a young South African naval cadet
arrived at the west door with the new flag, which he
carried up the nave, to be met at the quire entrance
by Vice-President Mbeki, who took the flag to the
altar steps where the Commonwealth Secretary General,
Chief Anyouku, placed it in the empty stand.
The entire congregation erupted into spontaneous and
lengthy applause; a group from Soweto led the
congregation in the new national anthem; Bishop Trevor
Hudddleston led the prayers, and Archbishop Desmond
Tutu began his sermon with what, to those present,
seemed the only appropriate word: “WOW!” – and
afterwards danced for joy on the steps of the Abbey.
The Archbishop danced because what had been witnessed
was a most striking example of what St Paul calls “the
mystery of the gospel”. For that purpose is, in a
word, “reconciliation”.
Our reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ; and
in turn, our reconciliation with each other. Both stem
from a readiness to forgive and to be forgiven: to
forgive and be forgiven the wrongs of the past and the
present.
And it is a “hidden” gospel because it’s in such stark
contrast to our natural instinct, which is to
retaliate when we are attacked or hurt or treated
unjustly, to store up anger in our heart, to claim “an
eye for an eye, a life for a life”. And it is
“hidden”, “a mystery”, therefore, because without a
change of heart, we are blind to it.
It wasn’t just Nelson Mandela who brought about a
radical change in his nation by adopting the powerful
way of forgiveness and reconciliation. It was Mr de
Klerk who, a month after he had expressed deep apology
in Cape Town for the evils of apartheid, gave the
Nobel Laureate lecture in the royal Albert Hall. When
he had finished, he was asked by a questioner whether
apartheid had been brought to an end by international
sanctions? “No”, de Klerk replied, “it was not the
sanctions, it was deep self-analysis on our knees
before God!”
For what such deep analysis on our knees can reveal,
is a way of acting that is radically at odds with the
way of the world. What’s been hidden to us is now
revealed, for we begin to see with new eyes, and with
a new awareness of what the gospel is actually about.
For there’s a weak and impotent gospel, which sees
Christianity in terms of a series of moral injunctions
and Jesus as our example, but there’s a powerful
gospel, which has its centre the Cross and Passion of
Christ, and which speaks of forgiveness and dying, of
resurrection and new life. It speaks of a God made
known in human terms, who says: “Accept that you are
loved. Accept that you are forgiven and reconciled,
then live in the light of this knowledge, and treat
others as I have treated your.”
We don’t have to be so naive as to think that such a
liberating truth can be easily translated into the way
nations behave to other nations; or indeed that
justice can be achieved and conflicts resolved without
great cost. For it’s justice that we’re talking about.
That’s the ground-rule for all proper human
relationships. Yet people’s conflicting interests and
desires can rarely be reconciled with absolute justice
for all. Almost always there has to be compromise, and
that inevitably means some sacrifice. All parties have
to relinquish something which strict justice might
have awarded them; and that, however modest, is an act
of generosity – if you like, a small act of love.
It’s also clear that past hurts and offences carry a
powerful poisonous toxin that will frustrate every
attempt to neutralise it unless and until there’s a
deep desire to pursue the costly way of
reconciliation. You only have to think of Northern
Ireland or of a long-standing family row. There has to
be a facing of painful and bitter memories, and an
attempt to look back and understand what happened, for
it’s only by understanding what’s led to such a state
of bitter hurt and anger that there can be any hope of
mutual penitence and mutual forgiveness. You cannot
forget, but you can forgive. Only then can the healing
of those memories take place. In the words of T. S.
Elliot: “Only by accepting the past can we alter its
meaning.” But that requires grace and courage of a
high order.
I’ve spoken of large matters: of the prejudice, the
past injustices, the conflicting desires, that divide
nations and societies. But you’ll understand that I’ve
therefore also been speaking of those destructive
forces we all harbour within our own divided hearts. I
began with South Africa and what two men achieved by
following the alternative way of forgiveness and
reconciliation. And I end with another man’s visit
some years earlier to that same land, and his very
personal attempt to apply the powerful, hidden gospel
of Jesus.
Roger Schutz, then Prior of the ecumenical community
of Taize in Burgundy, was in Cape Town during the
years when Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned on
Robben Island. He visited a black neighbourhood and
wrote that night in his diary: “I thought we should be
meeting a few friends, but found a whole crowed
gathered for prayer. African priests and pastors of
all denominations welcomed me on a platform and handed
me a microphone. I spoke some words to them … but I
said to myself that my words were so inadequate so
instead … I tried to express all that was in my heart
with a gesture. I said: ‘I would like to ask you
forgiveness, not in the name of the whites – I could
not do that – but because you are suffering for the
Gospel and you go before us into the Kingdom of God. I
would like to pass from one to another of you so that
each of you can make the sign of the cross on the palm
of my hand – the sign of Christ’s forgiveness.’ This
gesture was understood immediately. As I moved among
them, each one made the sign of the cross on the palm
of my hand. It seemed to take an eternity. And then,
spontaneously, they burst into songs of resurrection.”
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