wfn.org | Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke to crowd of 800 in RI

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

99-028
Tutu tells Rhode Island congregation, `For God, you are 
indispensable'

by Jan Nunley and Susan Erdey
(ENS) By turns teasing, challenging, and delighting them, 
South Africa's Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu charmed and moved 
a crowd of nearly 800 at a service of Evening Prayer held at the 
Cathedral of St. John in Providence, Rhode Island, on Saturday, 
February 20.

The ebullient archbishop, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace 
Prize and chair of the South African Truth and Reconciliation 
Commission, was in Providence to kick off a two-year-long series 
of speakers and preachers called Voices of Vision, sponsored by 
the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island. The next day, Tutu was the 
keynote speaker at a week-long public affairs conference at Brown 
University, "One Nation Under God? Spirituality in America."

To give the celebration an African flavor, a drumming group 
pounded out rhythms as candles on the altar and surrounding the 
nave were lit. As the rhythms accelerated, the staid New 
Englanders in the congregation began bobbing and swaying in spite 
of themselves; the sanctuary lights came up, and the organ burst 
into the strains of "Ye holy angels bright" as the last candles 
were lit. A 108-voice children's choir, featuring children from 17 

Episcopal congregations in the diocese, performed at the service; 
their procession into the sanctuary seemed endless, with children 
of all shapes, sizes, and colors wearing a rainbow of choir robes 
marching two-by-two up the long aisle. Music for the prelude to 
the service was performed by Grace Church, Providence's choir of 
men and boys.

God depends on you and believes in you
Tutu began with greetings from "the new, free, democratic, 
non-racial, non-sexist South Africa" which represents "an 
extraordinary victory over the awfulness of injustice and 
oppression, but a victory that would have been quite impossible 
without the love and the prayers and the support of such as 
yourselves."

Using the Gospel stories of the feeding of the multitudes as 
examples of how God works through human agency, Tutu said, "That 
is how God has always been working: waiting for our fish and our 
bread. That God is in fact unable. Isn't it incredible? The 
omnipotent One becomes the impotent One. The powerful, the all-
powerful becomes utterly powerless. 

"When there is injustice and oppression, God doesn't do 
what I would have thought was the best solution. Just send 
lightning bolts and dispatch all of these awful people! Oh, but 
that's not how God operates. God says, I am going to wait for your 
bread, for your fish, so that I can accomplish the work-this 
miraculous work-of bringing about justice, about bringing about 
goodness in the world."

Working through ordinary people like Moses and Mary, Tutu 
said, God can accomplish extraordinary things. Tutu drew laughter 
from the congregation as he reconstructed the exchange between the 
Angel Gabriel and Mary:
Knock, knock.
Come in.
Hello, Mary
Hello.
I'm Gabriel, the archangel.
Mm-hmm.
God says, will you be the mother of his Son?
And she says, Whhh-what? You know in this village, you can't 
scratch yourself without them knowing that you've done so, and 
you're asking me to be what? An unmarried mother? No, no, no, no, 
no. I'm a decent girl. Try next door.

"We would have been in a real pickle," Tutu observed. 
"Mercifully for us, she said, `Behold, the handmaiden of the 
Lord.' And God was able to accomplish a splendid work. The 
Incarnation could happen. Jesus could be born, and our salvation 
be set under way.

"For God you are someone who is indispensable. There isn't 
anyone quite like you. There isn't anyone who can serve God quite 
like you. There isn't anyone who can replace you. And God depends 
on you. There's a story that we were told at one of the Lambeth 
Conferences a number of years ago," Tutu continued, "of a Russian 
priest who was not very sophisticated, and a young, brash 
physicist rushed up to him and said, having totted up all the 
normal arguments for atheism, this guy then says, `And therefore, 
I don't believe in God!' And the little priest said, `It doesn't 
matter. God believes in you.' "God believes in you," Tutu 
finished quietly. "God believes in you."

Marching in the light of God
The service closed with children, waving streamers and 
noisemakers made at a "Celebration of the South African Church" 
held earlier in the day at Emmanuel Church, Cumberland-escorting 
Tutu in procession to the singing of "Siyahamba," or "We are 
marching in the light of God." An overflow crowd watched the 
service on a large-screen video monitor placed downstairs in the 
Cathedral's Synod Hall. Following the service, the downstairs 
audience was the first to be able to greet Tutu. 

For over an hour, the archbishop shook every available hand, 
posed for pictures, gave each child in the receiving line "high-
fives," signed copies of his books, and greeted both friends and 
strangers with his characteristic warmth. The cathedral 
congregation (and the state of Rhode Island) includes a 
significant Liberian population, and these parishioners took 
particular joy in greeting and posing for family pictures with 
Tutu. 

--The Rev. Jan Nunley is director of communications for the 
Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island, and rector of St. Peter's and 
St. Andrew's in Providence. Susan Erdey is a writer and editor at 
Brown University in Providence.