John W. de Gruchy's blog

“For there is nothing hidden, except to be disclosed;
nor is anything secret except to come to light” (Mark 4:21-25)

There has been a raging controversy in the letters column of the Cape Times over the past few weeks about science and religion. You can be sure that this hoary debate will resurface several times a year in the newspapers, and that the same old arguments will recur on both sides. The endless repetition of clichés is tiresome but the heated discussion demonstrates a passionate interest in either denying or defending the existence of God. A comment in one of the letters struck me as a worthy introduction to this meditation.

This evening Isobel and I set off on a five week journey that will take us first to London and then to the United States. I can’t say we are looking forward to the eight flights that lie ahead or waiting in airports and going through security checks and passport controls. But the anticipation of spending time with family and friends explains why we embark on these mad escapades.

Every year on this coming Sunday the parish of St. George’s Cathedral celebrates the life of two heroes of the struggle against apartheid, Steve Biko and Beyers Naudé. This year this coincides with the tenth anniversary of “9/11”, that terrifyingly dark day so deeply etched in our memories. I have been asked to preach in the Cathedral on Sunday so I share some of my preparatory thoughts with you. What do we as Christians say and do in a world of terror and war, violence and vengeance?

Interesting word “authority” – an author of a book originally meant someone who was an authority on some subject he or she had written about. The Authorized Version of the Bible was the one that had the authority of the King behind it, and was the only Bible permitted to be used in King James’ England. Authorization means being given permission to do something. In short authority is about power to enforce obedience. When a military commander gives an order, soldiers normally obey whether they like it or not his commands are backed by the state.

Did you know that the Bible says more about economic justice than it does about prayer? Come to think about it, so does Jesus. Prayer is central to the Christian life, but nowhere does Jesus say that we will not enter the kingdom of God if we don’t pray. He does say that it is almost impossible for rich people to do so. In saying this, Jesus was simply repeating one of the basic themes of the Old Testament prophets. It is there that we learn that money is the root of all evil, and it is Jesus who says that we cannot serve God and money.

Parents do find interesting names for their children. I have yet to work out why David and Victoria Beckham have called their latest offspring “Harper Seven,” but there it is. One famous girls name that does not make the popularity charts even today when exotic names have made a come back, is Desdemona, the Venetian beauty and lover of Othello in Shakespeare’s play of that name. If you check Desdemona on Google, you will find 3,760,00 results.

Someone asked me this week to be his friend on Quespa. I have resisted becoming the friend of everyone who has asked me on Facebook, and reluctantly I won’t accept the Quespa invitation. It’s not that I don’t want to be friendly, or that I don’t value friends, I do, and I treasure them all some very special amongst them, but I don’t want to spend more time at the computer than I already do. But this morning I want us to recognize and celebrate friends and friendship as wonderful gifts of God.

“God is able to accomplish abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine” (Eph. 3:14-21)

Use your imagination!
You have no imagination!
I can’t even imagine how you feel!
What an imaginative flower arrangement that is!
Imagine how frightened I was!

“Are you saved, brother?” was a question I often heard when growing up in the fundamentalist circles of my youth. If asked to explain what this meant, I would have said that being saved means you go to heaven when you die, and not being saved means you are going to hell. There was not much more to be said, and some of my friends more or less knew who was going where.