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St. John’s and St. Martin’s Magazine, May 1979
Following Jesus Through Conflict
Farewell sermon by Mike McCoy at St. Martin’s Church, Sherwood,
Nottingham on Sunday, 11th March, 1979
Grahamstown, my home town in South Africa, lies in a hollow surrounded by hills, at an altitude of over a thousand feet. As you approach the town from the southwest, on the Port Elizabeth road, you drive through a forested pass, climbing steeply, until the road clears the range of hills and drops gently towards the town. The first sight of Grahamstown is of a small, rather sleepy collection of buildings – and slap in the middle of the town, in the market square, stands the Anglican Cathedral with its tall steeple, visible from most parts of the town.
In that same cathedral, over a hundred years ago, the townsfolk of Grahamstown, then just a small, vulnerable frontier post, took refuge from the attacking Xhosa warriors. The church then was, both physically and spiritually, a place of safety, of refuge, of protection, in a time of conflict.
Sometime in late August, I shall be returning to Grahamstown, probably following that same route through the pass and down into the town, and seeing once again the cathedral, my spiritual home, sticking up above the other buildings. And, as I think now of that day of my return home, a number of questions crowd on me.
“In an age of conflict, when the races are set against each other by government policy, when people who fundamentally oppose that government in South Africa are banned, imprisoned without trial, harassed, tortured or simply made to disappear, what is the Church to do? What is the Church to say?”
“Is the Church any longer the place of safety, of escape from conflict, or should the Church, the faithful people of God, be preparing her members to face that conflict, to understand what causes it, and how it is to be met and overcome?”
My few months among you at St. Martin’s have meant a very great deal to me, probably more than I realise now. I have learned a great deal from your worship together, from your friendship, from your desire, in many ways, to discover more deeply what it means to be a Christian, followers of Christ.
So I want to share with you as much as I can, just some of the fears and hopes, as I look forward to returning home to South Africa. I want to do this by offering some reflections on what it is to follow Jesus through conflict, our theme of worship today.
This theme is relevant for two reasons: firstly, I’m going home to a situation of profound and frightening conflict; and, secondly, as Christians, we all – wherever we live – come across conflict – even here in Britain, in Nottingham, in Sherwood.
So, to look at conflict in the light of our commitment to Jesus will, I hope, give you some insight into what my future ministry might involve, and also give you some food for thought for your own situation here.
I should like to offer three statements about the Christian Gospel:
The Gospel brings conflict
The Gospel endures conflict
The Gospel overcomes conflict
The Gospel brings conflict: Jesus said: I have not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matt: Ch 10, verse 43b).
Wherever and whenever the Christian Gospel is faithfully proclaimed and lived out, it causes a reaction.
Because it is a Gospel which calls us to drop everything and follow Jesus, it is rejected by those who want to say exactly where they are. Because it is a Gospel which calls on us to be humble and serving, it is rejected by those who are proud and powerful.
Because it is a Gospel which calls us to think God’s way, to throw ourselves on him, it is rejected by those who have staked everything in this world and rely totally on security of status, of self-achievement, of material wealth.
When I return to South Africa, I shall inevitably face conflict; the Gospel believe in this one of love, of obedience to God, of reconciliation between people. The country I return to is one that demands paternalism towards its Black citizens, subservience to a Powerful State and its ideology of apartheid, and separation between peoples. By the very fact of proclaiming and living the Gospel, I shall bring upon myself hostility, rejection – yes – even by my own Anglicans – and maybe persecution.
If you were a South African congregation now, there would probably be one or two among you who, after this service, would report back to the police on what I’d said. Where the Gospel of love is found, it is hated by those whose fear enslaves them. The Gospel brings conflict.
The Gospel endures conflict: Jesus said: If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you (John Ch. 15, verse 18).
Yes, the Gospel of Christ brings conflict, but it also enables the followers of Jesus to endure that conflict, precisely because Jesus himself has gone before. He, too, preached the Good News; he, too, was hated and put to death.
If I am honest, I am scared stiff by the prospect of conflict. I am not a particularly a strong person, and am deeply affected by the way people react to me.
I stand a good chance, within a year or two of my returning home, of being investigated by the security police; no doubt I shall be accused of preaching communism, Marxist rabble-rousing, subversive agitation. But then they thought Jesus was a revolutionary, too.
The Anglican chaplain to the university I attended in South Africa (a good friend of mine) was raided by the Security Police at 4 o’clock one Sunday morning simply because he was known to speak against the Government's apartheid policy. For an hour or more, while his pregnant wife waited in terror upstairs, they searched his study, his personal files, his papers, his books. No charges were brought against him, no explanation given. Others have been less fortunate: they have disappeared into solitary detention without trial, often for months on end.
If I am to be realistic about my own future, then I must face up to the likelihood that I, too, will be raided in the middle of the night, searched, questioned, perhaps detained without trial. If that happens, pray God that it will only be because of the Gospel. And because Jesus went through it himself and promised it would happen to those who followed him, I am given strength by him, which I cannot honestly say is within me. The Gospel Endures Conflict.
The Gospel Overcomes Conflict: Jesus said: In the world you have tribulations; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John Ch. 16, verse 33).
If the Gospel were only a cause of conflict, and if all it offered were strength to endure conflict, I would not be a follower of Jesus, for then, there would be no hope, no goal, no meaning in life.
But in Jesus, we know that the forces of evil, the structures of man, which cause hurt and death, indeed, death itself, have been conquered in his death and resurrection.
As the Church in South Africa seeks to live out its life as a body of Christ, sharing in his resurrection power, led by the Spirit, it will be the agent of reconciliation, which overcomes conflict. I return to a country which still has to face much conflict, where endurance, courage and faith will be required of all God’s people; and although I return feeling scared, weak and cowardly, yet I also return to become part of a Church which knows the privilege of being Christ to the poor, the oppressed, the weak, the helpless. Like the migrant worker whose wife and children are prevented by law from living with him for 11 months out of 12, or the old black women and men, and the children who are moved from their homes of generations to some deserted tin-shanty camp because their area has been classified ‘White’.
As long as the Church is faithful in standing with them, the Gospel Overcomes Conflict.
Finally, let me leave you with this: as I’ve thought about the time of returning home, I’ve had to face up to the possibility of deep conflict: harassment, rejection by my own people, imprisonment, perhaps even an early death. I ask your prayers for me as I return; that, if any of this is to happen to me, it may be because I have tried to proclaim and live the Gospel of Christ.
When I drive once more into Grahamstown and catch sight again of the cathedral standing in the centre of the town, the Church in the midst of human society, I shall be asking myself, how can I best follow Christ through conflict? I hope you will continue to ask yourselves that question, remembering that the Gospel does bring conflict, but that it also gives us strength to endure conflict and will finally overcome it.
And I should like to take as my message to you, as I prepare to return to South Africa, the words of Paul read from our epistle this morning:
“Let your conduct be worthy of the Gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you for myself or hear about you from a distance, I may know that you are standing firm, one in spirit, one in mind, contending as one man for the Gospel faith, meeting your opponents without so much as a tremor…for you have been granted the privilege not only of believing in Christ, but also of suffering for him.”
(Phil 1 27-28a, 29)