wfn.org | Archbishop Tutu: God is biased on the side of the poor

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

May 5, 1999 News media contact: Thomas S. McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville,
Tenn.    10-21-31-71BP{250}

NOTE:  A photograph will be available soon for use with this story.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (UMNS) - Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu reminded United
Methodist bishops that they --- like all Christians --- are "stand-ins" for
a God who is biased on the side of the poor, the powerless, the sinners.  

The Nobel Peace Prize winner spoke May 4 during the weeklong, semi-annual
meeting of the Council of Bishops. Attending the evening session with the
bishops were several hundred visitors from the Chattanooga area, including a
25-member children's Mass Choir from the city's Sallie Crenshaw Bethlehem
Center. 

Following the final song, "There is Hope," the diminutive South African
walked to the choir and greeted them with kisses and "high-fives." 

Tutu thanked the bishops for their prayers and support in helping bring an
end to apartheid, the system of racial separation maintained by the former
white minority regime in South Africa.  

"If someone wants to know what God is like, they should be able to turn to
us," he said.  "We should be growing ever more God-like."

To understand God, Tutu said it is necessary to understand grace. "You and I
have forgotten the wonder of grace," he said. "It isn't because I am good.
God doesn't love me because I'm lovable.  I am lovable because God loves
me."

In most visual depictions, Tutu said the Good Shepherd in the biblical story
is shown carrying a "fluffy little lamb." But he reminded his audience that
little lambs don't leave the side of their mothers and suggested that the
lost sheep was probably a "troublesome, smelly, obstreperous old ram."

"I don't think we realize the dynamite in this God who sides with the
powerless," he said. "This is the God we are meant to be like." He
challenged his audience to "care about God's people ... those pushed to the
edge, not in the center of life, the voiceless, those without power and
without clout."

Even at the birth of Jesus, Tutu said, "God chose Joseph, who didn't have
enough clout to get a room in the inn." The first people to be told of the
birth, he noted, were not archbishops or bishops but shepherds.

God sent a signal, Tutu said, by sitting at the table with prostitutes and
tax collectors and sinners.   "That is where Jesus would be today," he said.

Tutu said  the perpetrator of injustice and oppression is also God's child.
"Can we have a compassion that has no boundaries?" he asked. "In the family
of God there are no outsiders."

Mentioning gay and lesbian people, Tutu said, "we get uptight because we
want to exclude, forgetting that Jesus brought down walls separating male
and female, Jews and Gentiles."  

During a question-and-answer session after his presentation, the archbishop
was asked how his experience with South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation
Commission might be adapted to the United States. The commission provided
hearings where victims of crimes shared their stories  and perpetrators of
injustice told their stories. In some instances, people confessing crimes
were granted amnesty from prosecution. 

"The United States is a wonderful and generous country, but I have always
been surprised since my first visit in 1972 at the bitterness of African
Americans," he replied. "Now I think I know why. In South Africa, we (people
of color) were told we were nothing, so we knew where we stood. Your
constitution says all are equal but that is not the experience of most who
are minorities. There is a pain sitting in the tummies of African Americans.

"You have a great country," he continued. "You say the sky is the limit, but
they (minorities) keep reaching for the sky and keep hitting their heads on
an invisible ceiling."

He suggested that United Methodists help provide "safe environments where
people can tell their stories and know they will have a sympathetic ear."  

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