The Second Sunday of Christmas, 2 January 2022, Clapham
“The Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth”
Words on a page can be ignored or neglected. Words which are spoken can be misheard or rejected. Words which are fleshed out will be seen and effective. A famous Christian campaigner for equality once wrote that
“In the beginning … the Creator … made the Earth to be a Common Treasury, [and] Man had Domination given to him, over the Beasts, Birds and Fishes, but not one word was spoken in the beginning, that one branch of mankind should rule over another.” [1]
If you truly believe the word that all people are equal under God, then how do you flesh out that belief? Is it possible to apply that truth with grace?
The PCC of St Peter’s, Dorchester, voted last year to remove a plaque commemorating an 18th-century slaver, saying that its “unacceptable” use of language, as well as the actions that it commemorates, mean that it is no longer appropriate in the church. The plaque memorialises John Gordon, a plantation owner in Jamaica who is buried in the church grounds. It celebrates his part in the suppression of an uprising in 1760 in which 500 slaves were killed. Whist dismissing the rebels in xenophobic terms, the inscription acclaims Gordon’s “bravery” and “humanity”. [2]
Bishop Andrew Rumsey describes it as ‘an extraordinary epitaph, under which parishioners have murmured their prayers for two-and-a-half centuries.’ Whilst their prayers and readings affirmed that all people are equal under God, the PCC became increasingly conscious that this memorial said something quite contrary. They set about researching the history of the Jamaican revolt thus recorded, contacted John Gordon’s descendants, finding that he had no direct connection with Dorchester: that was just where he died, and they collaborated with the West Dorset Multicultural Network and the County Museum, to find a solution.
Dr Rumsey observes that ‘St Peter’s has responded with exemplary good sense. The Museum will in due course be receiving the Gordon plaque for permanent display, not least because of its singular potential for demonstrating how enslaved people were agents of their own freedom, not simply “given” this by enlightened campaigners.’ [3]
The Dorchester decision came in response to regional campaigners who had earlier last year removed the Bristol statue of slaver Edward Colston. Dr Rumsey writes that ’There can be a blazing grace in protest, enabling us to see what we have been blind to for too long.’.
It was the 17th Century English reformer Gerrard Winstanley who wrote that “Not one word was spoken in the beginning, that one branch of mankind should rule over another.” But it sounds like something the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu may have said, whose life’s work was to reconcile those branches of humankind separated by apartheid, wherein one branch ruled over another.
The announcement of his death on Boxing Day justly described Tutu as ‘One of the great spirits and moral giants of our age … a living embodiment of faith in action, speaking boldly against racism, injustice, corruption, and oppression, not just in apartheid South Africa but wherever in the world he saw wrongdoing, especially when it impacted the most vulnerable and voiceless in society. . . [speaking] with a fierce moral and spiritual authority that faced down his adversaries and slowly won their grudging respect.’ [4]
Tutu’s words continue to inspire. In his struggles against institutionalised racism and homophobia he was convinced that ‘Goodness is stronger than evil; Love is stronger than hate; Light is stronger than darkness; Life is stronger than death; Victory is ours through Him who loves us.’ [5]
We saw him flesh out these convictions as the chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a job he once said was the hardest of his life, wherein ‘he was castigated by white conservatives who saw it as a witch hunt, and also by many black South Africans who viewed it as a way for the criminals of apartheid, the enforcers of white minority rule, to literally get away with murder. But Tutu was convinced it was the only way forward, insisting that "Only the truth, the acknowledgement of what happened, the anger and the hurt, can bring forgiveness and healing". [6]
Desmond Tutu embodied the belief that it is possible to flesh out the truth with grace; showing how in expressing truth through gracious actions, life and light can emerge. ‘There can be a blazing grace in protest, enabling us to see what we have been blind to for too long’.
Like that Dorchester PCC, when it comes to matters of equality between humans, all of us in the Church of England sit in an uncomfortable tension between on the one hand ‘the story of the Bible with its struggle between “the Kings who had power, and the prophets who preached righteousness”’, and on the other hand the close relationships between ecclesiastical and temporal power which make the Anglican Church ‘a bastion of the status quo in English society’. [7]
On the one hand, the Church is an institution that acts as ‘a glorified networking hub for the British elite’, historically protecting the interests of the wealthy whilst ‘demanding obedience from the majority of the population on supposedly ethical grounds. But on the other hand, the life and teachings of Jesus encourage us to constantly question arbitrary authority, to prioritise mutual care over competition, and to hold up both nature and human life as sacred against a society that treats it as disposable.’ [8]
The church cannot be neutral on any issue of inequality in our day, be that to do with race or class, gender or sexuality, for as Archbishop Tutu famously said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”. [9] Maybe acknowledging the dual nature of our church can be a blessing if it helps us to address these issues with a balance of truth and grace.
Desmond Tutu’s legacy is to encourage us that we can flesh out the Word in this way, whether by creating campaigns and acts of protest which enlighten and build fellowship rather than sow discord, or by performing acts of kindness to others known or unknown, or by making it our practice to say a silent prayer for someone we pass in the street, or by taking the time and effort to try to see the world through another person’s eyes.
What can we do today to demonstrate our belief that all people are equal before God? As the late Archbishop once said,
God places us in the world as his fellow workers - agents of transfiguration. We work with God so that injustice is transfigured into justice, so there will be more compassion and caring, that there will be more laughter and joy, that there will be more togetherness in God's world. [10]
Notes
[1] Gerrard Winstanley (1649), The True Levellers Standard Advanced: Or, The State of Community Opened, and Presented to the Sons of Men.
[2] Maddy Fry, Plaque commemorating an 18th-century slave-owner to be removed from church. Church Times, 2 October 2020. Maddy Fry, Memorial plaque to slave-owner in Dorset church to be reviewed. Church Times, 17 July 2020.
[3] Andrew Rumsey, Faith and identity: Sketches of heavenly things. Church Times, 3 December 2021.
[4] ‘The Church of Desmond Tutu’ mourns his passing. Church Times, 26 December 2021.
[5] Desmond Tutu, An African Prayer Book.
[6] Mark Austin, Desmond Tutu coined the phrase 'Rainbow Nation' and his hope lives on. Sky News, 26 December 2021.
[7] Tony Benn, Tony Benn on Revolutionary Christianity. Tribune, 24 December 2020; Grace Blakeley, Do Unto Others. Tribune, 24 December 2021.
[8] Grace Blakeley, Do Unto Others. Tribune, 24 December 2021.
[9] BrainyQuote.com: Desmond Tutu Quotes.
[10] InspiringQuotes.us: Desmond Tutu.
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