Community Church of Durham
Luke 19 (The 1st Sunday in Incarnation)
1.
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Peter Makari and Zoughbi Zoughbi in Atlanta |
For much of that meeting, I sat at a big round table, alongside two UCC colleagues and four South African pastors. Veterans of the anti-apartheid movement in their own country; prophets of possibility. One of these bright lights was the Reverend Nontombi Naomi Tutu, the third child of Archbishop Desmond and Nomalizo Leah Tutu. We talked just a bit about her journey into Christian ministry, and she told me that she never in a thousand years imagined she’d follow her father in this vocation. “I have my father’s nose,” she said. “I did not want his job.” But her work in educational reform and advocacy led her, again and again, to a realization that social change requires spiritual revolution, and that spiritual revolution emerges in beloved community. So…there she was in Atlanta, an Anglican priest, a cross around her neck, a collar to match, and all the rest of it. The Reverend Nontombi Naomi Tutu. Committed to sharing her experience, and offering her unique blend of strength and wisdom, to Palestinian partners and friends. For such a moment as this.
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The Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu |
And it was what happened next that affected me most. For in that moment, as Zoughbi said his “Amen,” the Reverend Nontombi Naomi Tutu—daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu—stood up from the table, just beside me, mind you, and cried out (to Zoughbi and to that whole heartbroken gathering of activists), “Ashe!” “Ashe!” And then, from others around the room (South African friends, African-Americans too): “Ashe!” “Ashe!” “Ashe!” And when Naomi Tutu sat down, making eye contact with Zoughbi on the stage, my Palestinian friend placed his hand on his heart and nodded. Just that. A hand to his heart. And a couple of gentle nods. It seemed to me that his prayer had been actualized, even activated somehow; that the Holy Spirit had infiltrated what might have been just another meeting in Atlanta and made it something else. Something like holy resistance. Something like inspired worship. Something like beloved community.
2.
So what is this “Ashe”? Where does it come from? And why have some of us stitched it into our prayers and liturgies over the past five, ten years? You’ll note, I know you will, that we have done this almost permanently: it’s a weekly feature of our congregational prayer life. “Amen and Ashe.” Why is this?
Well, as I understand it, “Ashe” is a Yoruban word, a West African concept, that indicates human awareness of power: power conferred upon us by the Creator, power to make things happen, and to do good for one another, and to effect change for the blessing of all.
Five years ago, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis and another wave of racist violence in American streets, African American pastors in the United Church of Christ suggested that using “Ashe” alongside “Amen” emboldened their communities, that it reminded Black churches of their God-given power, their God-given spirit, their God-given vocation to do good and resist violence and create a new world. And why should this be an innovation, they asked, for the Black church alone? Are we not all responsible for active discipleship and active resistance and emboldened anti-racism in our towns, cities and neighborhoods? Shouldn’t every Christian church be praying “Amen” and “Ashe”? Amen, to acknowledge God’s presence and blessing. And Ashe, to invoke God’s partnership and power.
When Naomi Tutu stood up then, in Atlanta, and responded to Zoughbi’s prayer in this way, she was celebrating their friendship—a South African priest and a Palestinian organizer—and naming the power of God that flows through friendship, and across the church, and into the broken, violent and lovely world. When she cried out “Ashe!”—she was offering her own witness to the resurrecting spirit of God who will conspire with us, and resist with us, and rejoice with us, and stand with us until war is no more and all of earth’s children find peace and abundance, everyone beneath a vine and fig tree. The chill that ran up and down my arms in that moment signaled this, insisted on it. Invited me to be part of it. With Naomi and Zoughbi and a worldwide community of love and faith. And that, my friends, is power. And a faithful interpretation, I think, of the biblical tradition itself.