AHA
James
2:14-18
"Faith
without works is dead!"
Pessimists say that the cup is half empty;
and optimists, that it is half full.
Some people are pessimists by nature. For them the world, the Hermanus town council,
and the church are hopelessly falling apart, South Africa is going to the dogs
(don't ask me what dogs have to do with it!), the government is totally corrupt,
people always let you down, young people
have no discipline, tomorrow is going to be worse than today -- even when they
hear good news they automatically add a negative comment, "yes, but!". Optimists also seem to be optimists by
nature. South Africa is getting better,
the dogs don't bite and snakes are more afraid of you than you are of them,
people are always so nice, young people are a pleasure, and what a great day it
is today despite the heat and south-easter, it could be worse. It is easy to understand why people are
pessimists, especially in circumstances such as we see every day on TV. "It
is," Bonhoeffer wrote shortly before his arrest, "more sensible to be
pessimistic, disappointments are left behind, and one can face people
unembarrassed. Hence, the clever frown
upon optimism." But then he goes on
to praise optimism because it is:
a power of life, a power of hope when others resign, a
power to hold our heads high when all seems to come to naught, a power to
tolerate setbacks, a power that never abandons the future to the opponent but
lays claim to it,
Pessimists may keep our feet on the ground but
optimists keep hope alive. But perhaps
it would be best if we were all realists who accepted the way things are, for
good or ill, and then got off our butts to make things better, neither
bemoaning nor turning a blind eye to what is wrong or bad. In the end, does it really matter if the
glass is half empty or half full ? What
matters is whether we are going to do what needs to be done to fill the cup to
the brim. If we are not working to make
the world a better place, things will get worse whether we are pessimists or optimists.
There were plenty of prophets of doom in
the Old Testament. The difference
between a true prophet and false one was that whereas the true prophet told the
political and religious leaders how bad things were and they had better change
their ways, the false prophets always said things were just fine, "peace,
peace, when there was no peace."
But the true prophets were actually being realists. They were not just saying how bad things
were, they were calling on people to change, to change their attitudes, change
their hearts and minds, and start doing things differently. The same was true of Jesus, Jesus laid it on the line when speaking truth
to power, when castigating the religious hypocrites of his day, and the corrupt
rulers in the Temple and the Palaces of Jerusalem and Tiberias. He did not have much faith in their
willingness to change. But he saw
possibilities for healing and change in seemingly hopeless situation. He saw the good in people rejected as
irreligious, isolated because they had contagious diseases, shunned because
they were tax-collectors and prostitutes, or simply ignored because they were
poor. He did not give up on them. He exuded the power of life, and hope.
The apostle James was clearly a realist. He knew about the great gulf between wealth
and poverty in his day but decided to do something about it. To those who said they believed in God but
did nothing to help the poor he retorted "faith without works is
dead" and went on to say "Show me your faith apart from your works, and
I by my works will show you my faith."
Sparklekid Theo likewise tells us "Just get on with it!" Yes, politicians are corrupt, the power
outages are unacceptable, the conditions in the township are bad, but let's get
on and do something to make life better for everyone. That attitude releases the power of life and
hope. And there are many such good news
stories being told today around South Africa that demonstrate this in big or
small ways. Listen to one from the
kindergarten across the road from Volmoed:
January 2015 kicked off with great excitement and a
school filled with 38 little children, some more happy than others to join our
school. Our classes bursting at their seams with small little faces eager
to embark on this new exciting path of their lives. From our 38 students
4 are from Hamilton Russell Vineyards, a number from farms in the area and then
a host of children from Zwelihle. Two of our 3 teachers will continue
their education this year via Klein Karoo and I am so excited to see how quickly
they are developing, not only in their teaching abilities but also in their
confidence.
Immediately after the conference held in
Stellenbosch last September to celebrate my 75th birthday, a group of
participants got together and decided to do something about poverty in South
Africa. They called the project AHA! which
stands for "Authentic, Hopeful Action." They were realists who did not simply want to talk about change but
to act in ways that made a real difference to the lives of the poor. I was not at that meeting, but I was made the
Patron of AHA. This means that even
though my "shelf-life" is coming
to an end I can cajole people into doing things that might make a difference in
the lives of poor people.
The AHA website has many practical suggestions
that could make a difference, some of them we could all do without too much
effort. For example if you don't
already, you can give R 5 to the garage attendant whenever your car is
filled. This won't fundamentally alter
the material conditions in poor communities, but if each garage attendant at
Engen down the road got R5 from five
people a day, he or she would earn at least a R100 extra per week. Multiply that by 10 garage attendants and that
would mean a R 1000 would find its way into the life of the township! And then multiply it across the country at
every filing station!
The list of possibilities whereby we can
help make a difference to the lives of other people through authentic, hopeful action
is endless if only we put our minds to it and get on with it. At the very least we could go onto the AHA
webpage, or talk to Theo over coffee, to
find out what even those of us whose shelf-life is short can do. This is surely better than talking ourselves
into a state of despair about the state of the nation! Whether congenitally pessimists or optimists,
let us be realists. Poverty is a crime
against humanity, especially in a country where there is so much wealth. We
don't need a AHA moment or movement to tell us.
But we do need to act authentically and hopefully, and maybe. some help to know what we can do, to show by
our works what our faith means. Instead
of saying AMEN or ALLELUIA today, let us
all shout "AHA!"
John
de Gruchy
Volmoed 12 February 2015
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