(Sermon by Kim Thoday)

On the 11th February 1990, Nelson Rolihlaha Mandela was released after 27 years of incarceration as a consequence of his struggle against the forces of Apartheid in South Africa. The majority of his prison sentence was served at the notorious maximum security prison on Robben Island – a little island some 7 kilometres off the coast of Cape Town. In April 1984, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town and then in 1988 he was again moved to the Victor Verster Prison. It was from here that Mandela would eventually be released. Upon release Mandela enthusiastically continued his life’s work of creating a democratic South Africa with fully equal rights, opportunities and franchise for Black people. By June of that same year, Mandela was on his way to the United States of America, now not only the symbol of hope, heroism and humanity for South Africa but for oppressed peoples throughout the world. On the first day of Mandela’s visit about 1 million people came out in New York to hear him. The majority were people from New York’s poorest precincts. The Governor of NY, Mario Cuomo, said that it was the most moving event he had ever witnessed in his political career.

The Rev. Gardner Taylor, introduced Mandela that day to an eagerly awaiting crowd at the Riverside Church. Taylor began: “This day and this occasion, under these circumstances, would be utterly impossible except for the truth that there is a God who presides over the affairs of human history, who vetoes the schemes of evil people, and who decrees that truth crushed to the ground shall rise again.” After the crowd had finished its exuberant applause Mandela began by quoting from the prophet Isaiah: “We have risen up as on wings of eagles, we have run and not grown weary, we have walked and not fainted and finally our destination is in sight.”

Mandela, the black man who for decades had been the number one enemy of the white minority of his own country now appeared to be God’s ambassador to reconcile the impossible; to bring together a society that had been systematically torn apart through an ideology of Race. An impossible mission had become possible. Mandela was God’s chosen one for this great prophetic task. There were countless others too who were instrumental in the downfall of Apartheid, and Mandela would be the first to point this out. There were many, such as Oliver Tambo and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who never wavered in their devotion to equality, democracy and opportunity. Mandela, somehow, provided a steady, uncompromising, self-sacrificial leadership that galvanised a vision and a movement of people through those decades of imprisonment. Perhaps, one aspect of Mandela’s leadership that was pivotal in the people’s triumph over Apartheid, was Mandela’s unequivocal resistance to use racism against racism. Mandela, despite more provocation than we will ever know, never repaid racism for racism. Undoubtedly, his and the African National Congress’ decision in 1991 to cease “armed resistance” was also a crucial factor.

In 1991, Mandela was elected President of the African National Congress; the organisation that had been banned for decades. In 1993 Mandela received the Nobel Peace Prize. And on the 10th of May, 1994 he was inaugurated as the first democratically elected State President of South Africa. He retired from these official offices in June 1999.

I believe that Gardner Taylor’s opening remarks were poignant and indeed prophetic; the events that took place in order that Apartheid was overthrown were events of biblical proportion: of salvation and liberation. What was seemingly an impossibility became possible in God’s schema. Indeed, these events are part of God’s movement for salvation and reconciliation. They are linked within the fabric of space-time with all moments of God’s ultimate triumphs over evil from the Exodus out of Egypt, to the coming of the Messiah in Jesus of Nazareth, to the Fall of the Berlin Wall, to the current movements of anti-corporatist globalisation and eventually to the final consummation and redemption of all history.

Holy Communion each week is a continual testimony to the saving acts of God throughout history – past, present and future. Communion with its great sacraments of the Bread and the Wine, connects us with God’s intimate involvement with us: sustenance (bread) and sacrifice (wine). Jesus of Nazareth used these powerful symbols in his Last Supper with the disciples to illustrate the nature of discipleship, the meaning of the sacrifice of his life and as a reference point for gatherings of future disciples. The content of that reference point is the salvific (ultimately saving) act of God in Jesus Christ. Through the sacrifice of Christ, in his birth, life, ministry and execution by crucifixion, heaven has been opened up to us forevermore. In other words through the triumph of Jesus’ life and death which we celebrate in the Resurrection, we can live as Christians, with great assurance, because we know and we can experience the reality that the forces of evil have been conquered once and for all in Christ. History shows us that while evil may appear to win the day, ultimately God triumphs. Those triumphs can become ours in the present if we, like Mandela, choose to work with God.

Friends, we need a hope! We need a hope that is not hollow. In Jesus we have a hope that raises us up as on the wings of eagles so that we can see our final destination. This is the hope we have in the new life of following Jesus Christ. It is the hope that sin and evil will be overcome in the here and now, because in reality this struggle has been won through Jesus’ life, death and Resurrection. Every time you take communion, you are taking on the reality that God gives us his power to be released from all sin and all oppression to be able to play our part in God’s great commission of liberation to the world. An old, old hymn epitomises this hope within the reality of God’s salvation for the world through Jesus Christ. It’s an old hymn that has deep roots in the Black Churches of the Old South. Its storyline spells out the great Exodus tradition of the children of Israel, “We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome some day.” It in turn became an anthem of the labour movements and then a protest song for peace in the 1960s. But let us always remember those deep roots of this spiritual. Let us join with the saints who composed this song under oppression but whose hearts new of the hope and reality of Christ’s victory over sin and evil. Let us sing this hope and this truth and as we do let us commit ourselves again to be in partnership with Jesus in the great struggle for salvation and liberation.

“We shall overcome, we shall overcome, we shall overcome some day … oh deep in my heart I do believe, we shall overcome some day.”

KIM THODAY, HEWETT COMMUNITY CHUIRCH OF CHRIST, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

http://www.hewett.org.au