Sermon Upon the Retirement of Dean Rowan Smith

A sermon preached by Bishop Merwyn at the Farewell Evensong of Dean Rowan Smith, retiring Dean of Cape Town, at St. George's Cathedral on April 18, 2010.

Text: Mark 16: 19-20

This afternoon we have come to celebrate Dean Rowan and thank God for his ministry.

I’m not sure why I was chosen to preach at this service, perhaps it is because we have been friends for over forty years or maybe we both have been controversial or maybe both of us have had our fair share of pain and rejection and humiliating publicity, that we share the experience of attempting to be God’s unworthy wounded healers.  Well, for whatever reason, it’s an honour and pleasure to preach the word and to celebrate Rowan.  I was taught never to use biblical texts sometimes out of context as pegs on which to hang our own opinions but to use some exegesis to create the setting from which the teaching might flow.

So let’s look for a bit at Mark 16: 9-20, our 2nd Lesson for this afternoon.  Biblical scholars tell us that Mark’s Gospel actually stops at verse 8. And you have only to read the passage before us to see how different it is from the rest of the Gospels, the Greek is different and besides it was not included in the very early and great manuscripts of the Gospels which have come down to us.  So it is a later summary which replaced something that Mark himself had written and got lost or destroyed and was written by someone else.  But it’s main thrust and interest is to give us a picture of the Apostolic duty of the Church. Whoever added it believed that Jesus had given to the Church certain work to do. 

Mark’s Gospel, like the other Gospels tells the story of Jesus – His life, teachings, travels and about His death and resurrection.  But each Gospel is unique, just as each one of us are unique but bear the image of God.  Mark knew his subject and his audience and what their interests were.  His subject was Jesus and His life, and his audience, Roman Christians.   His Gospel was short and to the point, in fact his is the shortest of the three synoptic Gospels (Matt. Mk & Lk).  His style is simple and was written in Greek.  It wasn’t particularly good Greek, and his vocabulary was limited, so it was not really Mark’s first language.  He translates Jewish expressions into Greek and he used many Roman words.  So we think he was a Jew, who knew Greek as a second language, writing to a Roman audience.  Mark se taal was a bietjie rof, miskien soos die Afrikaans in Mitchell’s Plain, but the way he describes things, makes us believe that it was written by an eye-witness – someone who had seen, and been with and heard Jesus.  We are not sure who this Mark was – was he John Mark in the Acts, whose mother sheltered St Peter.  The same Mark who went with Barnabas and Paul (to Antioch) was in Rome.  We think it was John Mark who knew Peter well and related Peter’s eye-witness account in the Gospel.  What I really want to get at and tell you is that Mark tried to do four things: 

a)    He shows us the human Jesus.  Jesus slept, he was hungry, his heart was connected to his head – he was sensitive and compassionate, he got angry and offended by people’s harsh words and actions.  He was a person as human as us and Mark’s hearers and to whom they could identify.  Yes, Jesus was fully human, sharing our joys and sadnesses and pain – the human experience.

b)    Mark also gives vivid pictures – our Lord’s head on a pillow during the storm – tells us the grass was green as he fed the multitude.  Jesus held the children in his arms and Jesus was lonely – walking far ahead of his disciples as he went to Jerusalem to his passion and death.

c)    Mark, thirdly as I have already said wrote simple and direct.  But we are really able to participate in the action.

d)    And fourthly, Mark speaks a lot about the Messianic Secret – In his Gospel, Jesus’ true identity was not really recognised while he was alive – only after his resurrection.  The demons recognised Jesus and are told to be silent.  Jesus tries to avoid publicizing his miracles.  Often he avoided crowds and refused to give signs.  Mark really emphasises this.  Maybe this was the reason that the people rejected Jesus, why the disciples were so afraid after the resurrection.  But Mark in his Gospel leaves no doubt in the minds of his audience as to the divinity of Jesus.  Jesus is fully divine, yet fully human.  Mark shows us a picture of Jesus as misunderstood, unrecognised and yet in spite of this, that Jesus enjoyed a close relationship with the Father.

In Mark’s story of Jesus he reflects the attitude and approach which should be adopted by us, his followers at all times, and in all places and speaks to us directly in our own context here and now.

So now, I want to look again of that summary of the anonymous writer of our passage which ends Mark’s Gospel, and the talk committed to us by Jesus.  And each time briefly to celebrate Rowan’s faithfulness to our Lord’s task as an ordained priest of the Church.

1.    First of all the Church has a preaching proclamation task.  It is our duty, priest and people to tell the story of the Good News of Jesus to those who have never heard it.  We are to be messengers of the Good News and heralds of Jesus Christ.  We need to build the Kingdom.  To preach, teach and to build the Kingdom is placed pretty squarely on our shoulders as priests and we do this with the gifts and  innate abilities given to us by God the Holy Spirit in the congregations where God places us.  We give thanks to God for Rowan’s faithfulness in the duty given us by the risen Jesus.  For his ministry at St Nicholas, at Bonteheuwel, at All Saint’s Plumstead and at Good Shepherd Grassy Park.  It was there that I first met him, I think, and where our friendship began.  I was a newly ordained priest, struggling with who I was and particularly with my sexuality.  Rowan’s home was open and welcoming, there was understanding, non-judgmental acceptance and encouragement.  We recognised our shared struggle and although our paths have sometimes been divergent, yet when they’ve crossed we have remained friends and regularly exchange birthday and Christmas cards, and sometimes break bread together over a bottle of wine or two. 

We thank God for Rowan’s Chaplaincy at St Martin’s School as a member of the Community of the Resurrection at Rosettenville.  Our paths crossed there in the North for a time.    Also a Chaplain at UCT, at Bishopscourt to Archbishop Desmond and Provincial Executive Officer and eventually as Dean of Cape Town these past fourteen years.  Here he is much loved and respected.  He has flourished and grown in the City and has made this Cathedral a place of welcome for all; Saint, Sinner, Politician, Black, White, Foreigner, Gay or Straight, all find acceptance here, understanding love, worship and prayer, music and good preaching, teaching and Kingdom building.  And over all hovers Rowan, like a great Mother hen, protecting her chicks.  Coming from Somerset West, I should say like a great tarentaal. 

2.    John Ramsdale in an article in a special edition – ‘Celebrating Rowan. – pays tribute to Rowan as ‘an Icon for the Gay and Lesbian Community’.  You know, there are many gay priests and bishops, even Archbishops in the Church and like any minority, whether in Church or in the general community – one is aware acutely of one’s vulnerability.  The Anglican Church is struggling with the full acceptance of homosexual men and women within its life.  We have been taught certain things based on Scripture and there are those eight Biblical texts on homosexuality and we are socialized with certain prejudices and attitudes to diversity.  We know from our own experience what discrimination and prejudice was like during Apartheid.  For some very conservative Christians, just to have a homosexual orientation is an abomination.  Our Province is far more progressive and says that everyone gay or straight is part of the Body of Christ, yet it is uncomfortable with gays physically expressing their love.  If you want to be a priest or bishop you must be celibate, even longstanding loyal friendships are frowned upon.  Civil Unions cannot be blessed or contracted.  We have to have guidelines to welcome gay couples into our congregations especially when it comes to Baptism of children and Ministries in the parish.  As a gay priest or bishop you live a guarded life.  We want full integration yet we are never sure of safe people or safe spaces, safe work even safe families and friends.  We tend to overcompensate with time and energy just as women have to do in a male-dominated workplace.  There is open hostility and religious righteousness from lay people and clergy, and when we make mistakes and ‘sin’ in word or deed – like the famous devil’s tail and the public humiliation of a trial of the Dean of Johannesburg – one has to endure much pain and rejection, unforgiveness, vindictiveness, vengefulness, hate. 

And as Mark presents Jesus as the friend of the outcasts and rejects of society, both priest and people of the Church are called to a healing task – the second task in our passage today. 

We are thankful today for Rowan’s attentiveness to this task, for his own vulnerability and advocacy for the Gay and Lesbian Community.  Just as Cape Town is known as the Pink City, is that true Mr Mayor?  so too, this Cathedral during Rowan’s tenure has its pink and warm embracing hue.  This is a gay friendly Cathedral – borne out of pain and struggle and strongly supported by its congregation.  All our Churches should have a similar sign – just as through the Apartheid years we advertised our Churches as welcome to all races – just as we say our Church has AIDS – so we should be safe places for a diversity of people – embrace all and be ready to continue to dialogue with our diverse members to reach consensus, trust and acceptance – sometimes to agree to disagree – but always ready to respect all people as made in the image of God and worthy of our love and their place in God’s wonderful sun.

3.    The third duty of the Church in our passage is to remind ourselves constantly that the Church is a Church of power.  Behind the language used in this passage about poisonous snakes and liquids, there is the belief that Christians are filled with a power to cope with life and deal with life that others do not and cannot possess. 

Today we celebrate Rowan, that in spite of everything that he has had to cope with his personal struggles to find inner peace, his struggles in Church and society, in his ministry – his dealings with the people he has ministered to – his energies spent on advocacy work, his pain and sorrow having to deal with opposition and rejection from the ranks of the clergy, in spite of all the struggles, yet improving the material resources of the Cathedral – the completion of the great West Windows, the renovation and restoration of the old school buildings in the cloisters, the new work in the Crypt and the regular round of worship and prayer.  He has still retained an inner peace, a cherubic continence –although a bit worn by the sun and age and a good sense of humour and an infectious laugh – all very human but infused by the power and presence of God.  I quote from the dean himself from Gateway.  “My failures belong to me and I do ask forgiveness for any hurt or pain caused knowingly or unknowingly. Whatever has been achieved is by that grace which enables me to say with the psalmist, “not unto us, not unto us O Lord, but to your name be the praise" (Ps 115).  At much cost – Rowan has been able to ‘maintain his cool’ – as the young people say.  – His firm foundation is Jesus Christ and his example – so strikingly portrayed by St Mark – he has, I know, been sustained by the daily office and lucky for him, the daily Eucharist, by Retreats and ministries of the Third Order of St Francis, - by his people and staff here at St George’s - a right perspective of himself before God, a penitent, a learner, humble, dependent, a sense of humour, a respect for others. 

And so, he has been a source of inspiration to us, even empowerer especially to the under trodden and despised.

I asked him about his retirement arrangements – and he remarked, “I haven’t any yet.  I’ll be going to America fairly soon”.  I am envious of that attitude reminiscent of Julian of Norwich – “all shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well”.  You have shown bravery and courage, Rowan, and a very deep sense of dependence on God.

4.    The fourth duty of the Church and finally is always to be mindful that the Church will never be left alone to do its work.  Always, Christ works with it using weak and unworthy human beings – both in it and through it.  The Lord of the Church is in it and He is still the Lord of power.  The Spirit is leading us into new truths as he has promised and into new challenges and wants to transform us into a Church able to deal with its diversity without division or schism or intolerance and hate, Jesus is calling us to be one, to love one another and to serve one another and so bring in the Kingdom.  Dear Rowan, thank you for your labours in the Church of Christ, for your example as priest, teacher and builder of the Kingdom.  Thank you for your efforts at healing the lonely and outcasts and for providing a welcome and acceptance for all, for your powerful advocacy on behalf of Gays and Lesbians – assisting in the process of Listening called for by the Lambeth Fathers in 1998 and 2008. Thank you for your influence as Dean in this City.  Thank you for being brave and faithful.  You will be remembered with much love and gratitude.  I pray that after a reasonable break God may be able to use you in His Church to continue to be an instrument of healing and hope for all who find the Church a hard and difficult place to be.

May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, may the Lord look kindly on you and give you peace now and forever. Amen