Generosity of spirit

The HIV/AIDS support group is one of the main ministries at JL Zwane, and the church was one of the first in South Africa to really deal with the issue head on. There is increasingly greater acceptance of people living with HIV in South African churches, although it has been a hard road. Spiwo was telling me today that when he announced the church's vision to work with HIV/AIDS fifteen years ago there were many people in the congregation who resisted, and even left the church. Many of those had a change of heart later on when children, spouses, and other loved ones died of the disease after living in shame and silence. Now the support group is a thriving program, with a nutritional aspect done in partnership with Spar, one of the main South African grocery chains. Support group members have a hot meal every weekday afternoon, prepared for them by Mama Katoni and Nqo; and 50-100 people show up for the support group meeting every Tuesday.




As I have mentioned in previous posts, there is a message from someone living with the disease at every church service. I think this is a very important theological ingredient in the worship life of this or any congregation because it reminds us that church is not removed from our daily lives, which are revealed as sacramental by breaking down the walls that separate church from the community. Spiwo was telling me today that a partner church in Pensacola, Florida was inspired by this element in the JL Zwane service. When their community was hit by a hurricane a few years ago, this Florida church began to incorporate a message from people in the congregation suffering from the damage and struggling to rebuild their lives. Others in the congregation often had no idea what their neighbors were dealing with, and this addition to the worship service created a greater sense of community and responsibility for one another in the congregation. I really resonate with this notion of connecting theology and the sacramental life of the church with practical issues and the struggles of everyday life. Spiwo puts a strong emphasis on this, and it is from this perspective that the gospel is read and interpreted here in Guguletu.




Theology needs to be relevant to people's daily lives because God is relevant to, and present in, daily life. The task of theology is to continually connect it to practical issues, and theology must be informed by praxis. I am pretty pragmatic in this regard. There is certainly a place for abstraction, but it should never be primary because God is ultimately found in human communities, not apart from them. Theology needs to matter for everyday life, it should involve getting our hands dirty. The realities of our circumstances affect the way we do theology anyway, so it is best to be conscious of this process and thoughtful about it. Besides, theology that has no connection with the life of a community and the individuals in it will struggle for relevance in that context.




The HIV/AIDS support group is an excellent example of how this works out in Guguletu. A big reason the church (and not just in South Africa) has so often shunned and excluded people with HIV/AIDS is because of the moral stigma that is attached to the disease. Spiwo encounters a lot of ministers who regard AIDS as divine punishment for homosexuals, adulterers, promiscuous people, prostitutes, drug addicts, etc. The assumption is that anything that happens to a person in her life is a reflection of God's reward or punishment. This is the theology of Job's friends, a commitment which allows such ministers only one response to people suffering from the disease: condemnation and rejection. Spiwo's attitude on the other hand is that if AIDS is God's punishment for sin, then we all ought to have it.






Besides, the equation breaks down when you realize that the majority of South Africans with AIDS are women, many of whom have the disease because of the secret laisons of their husbands. South Africa also has the world's highest incidence of reported rape, the victims of which are frequently young girls. Partly, however, HIV is spread because of cultural sexual mores that are very difficult to change. Spiwo said recently that he began working at the church in 1989 he has presided over fewer than thirty marriages. But he has baptized over a thousand children. We cannot make this reality go away by ignoring it, and condemnation doesn't do much either. Being in the shame business doesn't help the church to confront the pertinent issues a community faces. The communal shame that often comes with being diagnosed with HIV is a primary reason people avoid getting tested, giving the disease ample opportunity to spread. But when a church welcomes and affirms the human dignity of people with AIDS, even telling them they are beloved children of God, and works to support them through education, counseling, and friendship the barrier between the church and the world is, in this one area, broken down.




Who would Jesus minister to, after all? The righteous (whoever they are)? No. He hung out with the outcast and the despised, the unclean, the sinners. It has been said so many times that it is a cliche by now. But think about how radical Jesus actions would be even today! Read the gospels, and you will find that Jesus never mentions someone's sin unless he has already shown them love. The only targets of his unequivocal condemnation are the self-righteous religious authorities. To which group do preachers who condemn the sin of HIV-positive men and women belong?



Grace actually enables us to love one another. If love is always heavily conditioned before we give it, we transform it from gift to transaction. "Do x, don't do y, and I will love you. You have to keep your end of the bargain. I'm not just going to give this love stuff out for free, you know. I won't be taken advantage of!" There was a time when in the English language love and charity (which comes from the Latin caritas, which includes the sense of grace, or gift) were used fairly interchangeably. Read the hymn to love in 1 Corinthians 13 in the old King James version, and you will find it is all about "charity". Indeed, charity meant agape, something like "generosity of spirit" (to borrow the BGlass motto), rather than the much more restricted meaning it has today. This is the spirit I see with the support group. They really love each other. Pictured here are two members of the support group whom I visited with other members a couple weeks ago. The two are currently homebound, but having the support of others in the group reminds them that they are not alone. The younger woman in the top picture is named Portia, great Shakespearian name. You can see by the second woman pictured that HIV/AIDS is not only an issue for the young. I should mention that I never show a picture or give a name for someone who isn't public with their status. I have had some very moving visits to people suffering from AIDS, but I'll save them for another post.