A sermon preached at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 21 February 2022 by Revd Dr Sam Wells
Reading for address: Luke 19: 1-10
Archbishop Desmond Tutu was a little man who made a big difference. In fact, he probably made a bigger difference than any Anglican of the last century. His countless admirers could well claim him as the greatest Anglican of our lifetimes. In the words of the psalm, he has shown us the path of life, in his presence there was fullness of joy; in his right hand there are now pleasures forevermore.
The Arch, as he was often known, will be celebrated in the church for centuries to come, for two reasons. He showed how to stand up to tyranny, enduring setbacks without despair. And he showed how to make peace once the transfer of power had taken place, ensuring a future bigger than the past.
I want to take four lines from the story of Jesus’ encounter with Zacchaeus that may help us grasp both the wonder and the mystery of this little man who made a big difference. First, we read, ‘he was short in stature.’ Desmond had polio when a child, at a time when the disease killed a quarter of those it afflicted. His right hand never recovered. Tuberculosis permanently weakened his lungs. Those who fought apartheid trusted in arms or sanctions. Desmond trusted in God. For him, apartheid was idolatry because it believed the colour of your skin was more important than your status as a child of God. And apartheid was blasphemy because it turned God’s grace for all people into God’s favour for some and scorn for others. For the Arch, when you had God on your side, however small you may feel, you were always in the majority. It was better to fail in a cause that would finally succeed than to succeed in a cause that would finally fail.
Then in the story of Zacchaeus we read that ‘All who saw it began to grumble.’ Desmond’s life was a bobbing buoy in a sea of controversy. He was the first to say apartheid disfigured the perpetrator more than the victim, but many doubted his conviction that there was a place for all races in the struggle for freedom. He was surrounded by people who believed he was too ambitious, changing jobs so frequently, who argued he was naïve, preferring peaceful protest to armed resistance, who suggested he was too political, demanding apartheid be dismantled rather than simply asking people to abide together in peace, who argued he was too merciful, seeking reconciliation rather than judgement and punishment. The Arch had two tactics that disarmed all critics. One was example. When in 1981, 15,000 mourners showed up for the funeral of Griffiths Mxenge, and one was identified as an informer, a necklace killing looked certain. But Desmond threw himself over the accused man and, with his cassock blood-stained, took him to his car and drove him away. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. The other tactic was humour. He told the conflict-averse Pentecostals, who doubted his political commitments, ‘You’re the only people I know who can put your heads in the sand and wave your hands at the same time.’ This was his genius. Even his enemies couldn’t defeat his humour.
Next in the story we read, ‘Today salvation has come to this house.’ Despite his Nobel Prize in 1984, despite his role in preventing interracial war in the 1980s, despite his presenting the freed Mandela to the South African people, the Arch’s greatest achievement was surely the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He taught the world the relationship, and the difference, between judgement and mercy. He demonstrated that reconciliation was no idle process, but required the demanding, sometimes agonising, sometimes traumatic work of truth-telling, testimony, confession, listening, reparation and finally rehabilitation. Time and again, people would say, ‘It has been good for me to tell my story.’ One said, ‘Today the nation cried my tears with me, and I can begin again.’ The process created a sacred space in which the possibility of forgiveness and the possibility of repentance were made real possibilities. Every time there was a moment of repentance and forgiveness, the Arch would say, ‘We need to pause. Something holy has happened. Something that will change us.’
Finally in the story of Zacchaeus we read, ‘The Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.’ We’re here today, not just because we want to honour a person who did so much to turn despair into hope, death into life – but because in his life we see a parable of the kingdom of God. Like the Arch, Jesus dwelt among his people and shared their existence in the face of oppression. Like the Arch, Jesus put his life on the line by refusing to step away from danger if it meant stepping away from truth. Like the Arch, Jesus transformed relationships by example and humour, leaving his enemies speechless and challenging those who presided over cruel domination. Jesus too was a little man who made a big difference. We’re here today not just because no one can ever tell the story of the transfer of power in South Africa without honouring the role of Desmond Tutu, but because of something even more important: Desmond Tutu denied himself, took up his cross, and followed Jesus, as powerfully and transformatively as anyone in our lifetimes. We celebrate the Arch, not just because he spoke to our hearts, not just because he captured the heart of a nation – but because he offered us a window into the heart of God.
