Way of Life Church

30/07/2021

Be on the Lookout tomorrow for this interesting conversation a link will be shared to watch the live conversation through Facebook platform either to KilomboTelevision or Xola Skosana page.KilomboTelevision

07/08/2015

Please support the ministry, We are fund-raising towards our sound equipment, it has more than 10 years old and it's giving us problems some ministries in the church the are not doing well, due to our sound equipment.

Let the Gospel Move, Giving is part of Worship!!!

God Bless you all!!!

07/08/2015

25/07/2015

OUR FATHER WHO ART IN HEAVEN, A 'BLACK THEOLOGY' PERSPECTIVE

OUR FATHER
A daughter in her late teens who had faint memories of her father insisted that she wanted to see her father. The mother was angry, feeling betrayed by the daughter she raised without the support of the father, she called a family meeting with all the uncles, aunts and the only surviving grandfather. The meeting lasted into the early hours of the morning with each family members taking turns in scolding the daughter and showing how ungrateful she is. Finally the grandfather spoke, gently and quietly, "she has not done anything wrong, it is her right to get to know her father, whatever you think of him, she still has the right to see him" Everyone went home angry and disappointed that the grandfather did not agree with the rest of the family,

Two years later, the daughter who was now at University, had come back home for holiday. The mother woke her up one Saturday morning and asked her to accompany her to town. When they arrived in town, they stopped in a busy intersection next to the bank, with people coming in and out of the bank and others standing at the entrance. What surprised her was to see the cars of her uncles and aunts parked next to her mom's car with the whole family here, except the grandfather, standing outside their cars. Then the mother asked her a question, "Do you see anyone, if the people standing at the entrance, who looks like you?" The daughter was confused. The mother repeated the question, raising her voice, "You said you wanted to see your father, look at these people standing at the door of the bank, do you see anyone among them who looks like you?" The daughter noticed a man and instinctively new this was her father, however, these are not the cicumstatnces under which she wanted to meet her father, under a family es**rt as police guard. She was overwhelmed with emotion and she broke down and cried bitterly.

At this moment the mother together with the rest of the uncles and aunts walked into the bank together with the man she had identified as her father. A few minutes later the mother came out of the bank and gave her daughter a bank card and said, "We have forced your father to pay back all the expenses I incurred in raising you up, he will put money into this account every month and it is yours to do whatever you want to do with it, and I hope you are happy now" The daughter cried even more and threw the bank card away.

THE PAIN OF ESTRANGEMENT OF GOD AS FATHER
This story brings to bare so many emotions that we go through as black people as we think about God. What kind of God would let his children suffer so much humiliation and pain in the hands of white people for so many years. In the story, Jesus is the mother who has done all she could to raise the child into adulthood. In first century Palestine, Jesus saw first hand and was affected by the suffering of the poor and the marginalized. John 11:35 "Jesus wept" at the death of Lazarus. He healed the sick and the lame, he restored sight to the blind and challenged the status quo in order to include those excluded and neglected and abused.

Jesus is the mother who says "I was alone when this child was sick in the middle of the night, I was alone in the child's first day of school and I was alone the day this child graduated".
Who can blame the mother for being angry with the child when she insist that she wants to see her father and for being angry with the father who was never there.

JESUS'S CRY AT THE NINTH HOUR-A SYMBOL OF BLACK PAIN
Jesus himself struggled with estrangement of God in his time of distress and in Mark 15:33&34, it is reported that Jesus cried out with a loud voice...

"When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?" which means, "MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME? WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN BLACK PEOPLE

The ninth hour for black people has been long, too long to bare. It has lasted for three hundred and fifty years, spanning over five generations, excluding the slave trade. White power and the preservation of white privilege has been and still is a cross too hard to bare. It has broken our back, left us sick, left us emotionally and psychologically distraught, left us wounded and left us with disorganized lives. It's accumulative effects are glaring for everyone to see
Our children are in drugs
Our children are school dropouts
Those in rural areas have no shoes to ware to school because of debilitating poverty
They study under trees with empty stomachs
Those in private schools and universities graduate with no prospects of ever getting a job
When they finally get a job, they are relegated into paper pushers, clerks and cleaners, tea girls and delivery boys

WHAT WOULD JESUS SAY TO BLACK PEOPLE TODAY?
Unlike in the story above, Jesus is the mother who assures the child that her father is alive
Jesus is the mother who rebuilds and restores our lost sense of belonging and identity. Jesus says to the child "you are not an orphan".
He would tell Black people "you may have suffered years of homelessness and landlessness, but you are no orphans"
He would say "You look like someone I know, in fact, you bare his image, your father's image"
We can never win the battle for justice and human dignity, will will never be able to slay the giant of white supremacy without our sacred spear, without the knowledge of who we are and whose we are
The prophet says in 2 Chronicles 20 "Listen, all Judah (And I say to you today, Listen all Black People)... thus says the LORD to you, 'Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, (white supremacy, white power and the preservation of white privilege) for the battle is not yours but God's.
Black people you are God's children and he is your God.
He is on the side of the oppressed, the weak and the marginalized

GOD THE FATHER OF MANY CHILDREN
In the story above, the daughter later got to know her father and her father's children. She is even closer to the children her father had with the other mother than she is with the siblings she grew up with, something her mother is not particularly thrilled about.

Some people go as far as changing their surname into that of their once estranged father in order to restore their sense of belonging and identity. This can cause even bigger problems with the family that raised you up.
When you have lived with a distant father for a long time and then discover that he is alive and has many other children, it may cause you to feel even more insignificant
This is one of the deeply embedded feelings black people harbor about God.
Once they have accepted that God is their father, they subconsciously believe that they are God's step children
God cares more for his white children
God himself must be white
White people themselves have enforced these feelings of inferiority and self doubt by flooding black peoples with images of a white God
These are real barriers to the faith of black people, an estranged God and a God who has many children
Humanly speaking, God must have a conflict of interest, to have to choose between the perpetrator and the victim who are both his children, to gave to choose between his white children who have caused so much damage and inflicted so much pain to his black children and his black children who want to see justice done and the perpetrator brought book

LOOKING BEYONG THE SURFACE
God the father of many children helps us to enter life and live in community with others.
To never pursue selfish ambitions but always think of the collective. I am because we are is the mantra of a child of God.
Black people in particular, must resist the western values of individualism and a spirituality of self improvement, self gratification and self aggrandizement
God is in community with himself, he created us in his own image, into community with others
Our defeat as black people is rooted in our inability to work together, in our polarization and our fracturing.
Our enemy has used this from time immemorial, "divide and rule"
Our God is the father of many children, we find our identity and purpose in the collective
My favorite song says "From Cape To Kairo, Moroko to Madasgaska, iAzania Lizwe Lwethu," we cannot win if we are divided. Another of my favorite songs which we sang during the Xenophobic attacks:
Umzimbabwe ngumAfrika, umNageria ngumAfrika, LamaBhulu ayasithakatha, athakatha Isizwe esimnyama"

WHO ART IN HEAVEN
One of the most devastating effects of white power and the preservation of white privilege is its migrant labor system. For years, hundreds of men who had been denied education, had no other choice but to leave their homes to go and work in the mines. These men would only come back home for a brief moment, during which they would have unprotected s*x with their wives and leave them pregnant, and sometimes with a s*xually transmitted disease such as syphilis, herpes and HIV because of the multiple s*xual partners men have away from home

These sickly children would grow up in the absence of their father, among aunts and uncles and never get to know their real father. The child would hear from the elderly during family gatherings and community festivities remarking about his or her resemblance to the father. This would spark curiosity in the child and the child will wait for an opportune time to ask the mother the question, "Where is my father?

If he is still alive and pays his dues to the wife, the mother would be very happy to tell the child where the father is. Nine out of ten times, the answer would sound something like this: "Your Father is in Johannesburg the city of Gold"

From this day on, the child's mind would run wild trying to imagine how Johannesburg must be, how beautiful and how big it must be, how bright must be the lights
Little did it occur to the children that the gold their fathers dug out, left the country and landed off shore in the homes of white people in Europe and America
This was before we saw on TV the appalling conditions in which these father's leave
This was before we saw on TV the hazardous conditions under which these fathers work to retrieve these minerals
This was before we learnt how little they earned for the sacrifices of leaving families and risking their lives to steal the earth's resources for foreign multinational companies

However, often times these men would have left a permanent imprint back at home, a sort of a moral code.
The mother would tell the children when they are fighting, "Your father will not approve of what you are doing"
Visitors would be told what is acceptable and not acceptable in this home, all to the credit and the honor of the father who has left his unmistakable imprint on the "door post" of the household.

"Who Art in Heaven", has a ring to it that speaks of the magnanimity of God, his awesomeness, his power and his glory. But it also speaks of God's imprint of the moral code in God's universe.
We can not do as we please just because the owner is not here
This is where the cry for justice comes from, he has created the universe and has left his moral code in it
No evil can live unchallenged under the son
White power and the preservation of white privilege in God's universe can not live unchallenged
There is a moral code in the universe, whatever is done under the cover of darkness will be revealed

Niewoud, Basson , De K**k, the killers of Chris Hani, the Killers of Biko, and all the rest of them who thought we would never know about the whereabouts of our fathers which they killed and buried in unmasked graves
Be careful what you do in God's universe, Ramaphosa, Piyega, Nathi Mthethwa will never rest even in their death, because they have disturbed the moral code in God's universe and killed black people, fathers and husbands, in order to maintain white power and to preserve white privilege.
Our hope is in God, the God of the universe who created everything and said it was good

It is not good In God's universe when any of his children suffer
It is not good in God's universe when any of his children are born into servitude
It is not good in God's universe when any of his children live in dog houses made to fit human beings
It is not good in God's universe when any of his children camp outside fortified cities and watch others enjoy the goodness of the land
He has made this universe his footstool, his moral code runs through everything that has breath and can never be silenced or suppressed!

16/06/2015

JUNE 16 COMMEMORATION-CRIMINALS IN SERVICE OF IMPERIALISM

It is reported that the number of people who died is 176 with estimates up to 700. The original government figure claimed only 23 students were killed, the number of wounded was estimated to be over a thousand people.What is it that created such a catastrophe whose horrors reverberates over generations? . What happened prior to the "Soweto Uprising" . To answer this question, I would like us to go back, not just a day or two, for it certainly takes more than a day or two to create a day like June 16 that left scores of school children riddled with bullets and covered in blood as so aptly demonstrated by the lens of Peter Magubane's camera. The still photo of the lifeless body of Hector Peterson in the hands of a crying Mbuyisa Makhubo, will forever remind South Africans what happened that fateful day. This picture revealed to the world what black people had been saying for 300 years, colonialism, apartheid, white power, the preservation of white privilege, is crime against humanity.

Ladies and gentlemen, it takes years to create the horror of June 16 and will take even more years to erase its legacy.

Just over 150 years from that day, South Africa was being moulded by ambitious expeditions of disguised conquest by so called explorers. To accommodate this insatiable greed, the British political administration was bending over backwards, hard at work, here, in India, in New Zealand, Australia and everywhere else where its imperialistic tentacles had reached, repealing old treaties established by former administrators, promulgating new laws, and where necessary, using a gun against the rebellion and resistance staged by the natives, the great great parents of the children of 1976, in whose blood lived the undying hope that one day black people will be free from the domination of white power and the preservation of white privilege.

In fact South Africa had been in that process for at least 200 years before, with nine frontier wars, (wars of resistance against occupation) in the Eastern Cape alone, wars which spanned over 100 years (1779 to 1879)

Two particular soldiers who distinguished themselves in the eyes of the British political administration serving the queen, successive governors of the Cape colony, whose lives will reveal a lot more than just biographical trivialities of personal adventures. The two men are Sir Herry Smith and Sir George Grey. Their influence is seen today in the institutions and towns that are named after them or their wives. Probably more towns and cities would have been named after their children, cats and dogs if their stay was long, thankfully they left as quickly as they came before the entire country became their play ground.

PLACES NAMED AFTER SMITH IN SA
Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal
Ladismith in the Western Cape
Harrismith in the Free State
Aliwal North in the Eastern Cape
Smithfield in the Free State

PLACES NAMED AFTER GREY IN SA
In South Africa,
Grey Institute, later named the Grey High School Port Elizabeth
Grey College Bloemfontein
Grey's Hospital in Pietermaritzburg
Grey's Pass near Citrusdal
Greytown KwaZulu-Natal
Greyton Western Cape
Lady Grey, Eastern Cape is named after his wife.

SUMMERY OF HERRY SMITH'S BIOGRAPHY
He was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire
son of a surgeon. A chapel in the town's St Mary's church was restored in his memory in 1862, and a local community college also bears his name: Sir Harry Smith Community College.

In 1828 Smith was ordered to the Cape of Good Hope,
Commanded a force in the Sixth Xhosa War of 1834-36.
In 1835 rode from Cape Town to Grahamstown in less than six days
Appointed governor of the Province of Queen Adelaide
Gained influence over the native tribes,
He vigorously set himself to civilize and benefit.

London reversed his policy
Smith's own words, "they wanted Queen Adelaide to be restored to barbarism.
Soon he was removed from his command
It is said that the Great Trek to the Free State started at this time
Twenty years later, (1847) he returned to South Africa as Lt General
Appointed governor of the Cape Colony and high commissioner
His first assignment was to deal with the disloyal Boers in the Free State
He fought the Battle of Boomplaats on 29 August 1848
He is remembered as "the half-mad Smith'"
He once placed his foot on the neck of the Xhosa king ruler
'I am your Paramount Chief, and the Kaffirs are my dogs!'"

In December 1850 Harry Smith fought the Xhosas and some of the Khoikhoi He was insufficiently supplied with troops from England
He was recalled in 1852 before the Xhosa and Khoikhoi had been completely He protested against the abandonment of the Free State to the Boers
His is said to have behaved autocratically and oppressively towards the Xhosa
It is said he insisted Xhosa chiefs kiss his feet

SUMMERY OF THE BIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE GREY
Born 14 April 1812 in Lisbon
Only son of Lieutenant-Colonel George Grey
Soldier and explorer
Father killed in battle few days before his birth
Governor of South Australia
Twice Governor of New Zealand
Governor of Cape Colony
11th Premier of New Zealand and a writer

His only child died at 5 months.
He accused his wife of flirting with Rear Admiral Sir Henry Keppel
He sent her away to live a life of misery
In his old age they were reunited

Grey was known to have sympathies with the indigenous people.
Was seen as less hands-on than his predecessor, George Gawler
Grey served as Governor of New Zealand twice: from 1845 to 1853, and He was arguably the most influential figure during the European settlement of New Zealand during much of the 19th century.
Released New Zealand's Mandela ( Rauparaha) in 1848
Grey persuaded the indigenous leadership to give up all outstanding claims to land in the Wairau valley.
was Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (1848).
When he was knighted he chose Tāmati Wāka Nene as one of his esquires.
Tamati Waka, changed his name on his baptism Thomas Walker who converted a man who sold out on his people Māori

In Jeff Peares's book, The Dead Will Arise, he is quoted to have said the following about back people in South Africa, "We must make these people part of ourselves, with a common faith and common interests, useful servants, consumers if our gods and contributors to our revenue as providence would have it" This s the aground to June 16, 1976, a generation people who got tired of being made servants and slaves to white power and the preservation of privilege

Fast forward to 1945, "We should not give the Natives any academic education. If we do, who is going to do the manua labour in the community?"
JN le Roux, National Party politician, 1945.

Fast forward to 1958, "There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of certain forms of labour ... What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it cannot use it in practice? That is quite absurd. Education must train people in accordance with their opportunities in life, according to the sphere in which they live."
Dr Hendrik Verwoerd, South African minister for native affairs (prime minister from 1958 to 66), speaking about his government's education policies in the 1950s. As quoted in Apartheid - A History by Brian Lapping, 1987.

Fast forward to 1974, Punt Janson, the Deputy Minister of Bantu Education at the time, was quoted as saying: "A Black man may be trained to work on a farm or in a factory. He may work for an employer who is either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking and the man who has to give him instructions may be either English-speaking or Afrikaans-speaking. Why should we now start quarrelling about the medium of instruction among the Black people as well? ... No, I have not consulted them and I am not going to consult them. I have consulted the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa …"

CONLUSION
Thomas Sankara “When you are bearing arms that can spit fire and death, and when you can receive orders standing to attention in front of a flag, without knowing who will benefit from this order or this arm, you become a potential criminal who’s just waiting to spread terror around you. How many soldiers are going around such and such a country, and bringing grief and desolation without understanding that they are fighting men and women who argue for the same ideals as their own. If they knew! Children of workers who see their parents going on strike against reactionary regimes accept to fight for the reactionary leaders since they joined the army. So a soldier without any political or ideological training is a potential criminal.

Imperialism has created monsters and fermented supremacist ideologies in the minds of generations of its adherents, letting loose into human society professional criminals dressed in military and police garments, decorated with medals of honor, while leaving behind them scores of dead bodies. Herry Smith, George Grey, Colonel Kleingeld, the police officer who fired the first shot in June 16, 1976, the police who gunned down the 34 minors at Marikana in 2012, those who are busy shooting black men in America today, the Indonesian military men and women hunting down West Papua children, are all criminals serving the imperialist beast we have come know as white power and the preservation of white privilege, of which back pain and misery is its direct consequence

Sent from my iPad

14/06/2015

THE FACE OF WEALTH AND THE FACE OF POVERTY, WHICH ONE ARE YOU?

THE TEXT AND THE CONTEXT- LUKE 16
The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

INTRODUCTION
It is reported that South Africa remains the most unequal country in the world with the two richest South Africans Johann Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer, according to Forbes, having wealth equal to the poorest 50 percent (i.e. 26.5-million people) of the South Africa, according to an Oxfam global inequality report. Meaning between the two gentlemen lies the answer for half of South Africa's social problems.

Johann Rupert, is the CEO of Richemont and chairman of Remgro, companies which together own:
-the world's fourth largest cigarette manufacturer, Rothmans International
-South Africa's second-largest chain of private hospitals, the Medi-Clinc Cooperation with 5500 beds
-part of Distillers Corporation which produces 80% of the country's brandy
-part of Stellenbosch Farmers Winery producing 1 of every 6 bottles of wines in South Africa
-Rupert has his hands in the Mining and Finance sector as well

Nicholas "Nicky" F. Oppenheimer (born 8 June 1945) is a South African businessman. He was formerly the Chairman of De Beers (established by Cecil John Rhodes in 1888) and former Deputy Chairman of the Anglo American Corporation with a net worth of US$ 6.8 billion, it was reported in November 2014. If Rhodes keeps on falling, I can predict that there is a lot assiciated with Rhdes that would have to fall, so you can imagine the paranoia caused by the UCT Rhodes Must Fall protest, there are dire implications for white wealth in the Rhodes must fall campaign.

The bottom line is that white money is blood money whichever way you look at it. It has an ugly history of conquest and has left a trail of broken families, broken communities and broken countries behind its conquest, West Papua is but one example of that. You can't wash white wealth by philanthropy or redeem white wealth by throwing a few cents at charity or at politicians, which I suspect happened in the last 21 years in South Africa. Johan Rupert's father was voted 28th in the top 100 Great South Africans in 2004 and it won't surprise me if both the ANC and the DA are deep inside the pockets of these rich men, like we saw with the Guptas recently. Don't be surprise if you hear the Guptas voted among the top 100 great South Africans one of these days!

THE PRICE OF EXTREME WEALTH IS EXTREME POVERTY
For every rich white person dressed in purple and fine linen, who lives in luxury everyday, there is collateral damage, there is a Lazarus begging at his gate, covered with soars, longing to eat what falls from the rich mans's table, with dogs coming to leak his sores.
For every Lilly white suburbia, every fortified complex with boom gates, there is a collateral damage, there is a township, a refugee camp, a rat infested hellhole of Lazaruses dying of MDR and XDR TB
For every rich first world country, there is collateral damage, there is a third world country of Lazaruses eating from garbage bins and ultimately risking their lives and try and escape poverty by crossing rivers with ferocious animals or seas in over crowded ferries to try and reach Europe, the land of milk and honey, which became rich by stealing the natural resources of third world countries. These men leave behind them empty stomachs of children, mothers and wives, only to die in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean
For every rich white student at UCT, Wits and Stellenbosch University, there is a Lazarus standing at the finance office begging to be accepted at the master's table and promising to behave like a civilized well groomed African who can be an example to other hooligans

HERE IS THE STORY OF MODERN DAY LAZARUS
A black man who may refer to himself as a colored man, a confused house slave, as Malcom X would say, deconstructing what colored is in the bigger socio-political and economic scheme of things, a buffer zone that cushions white power and the preservation of white privilege in South Africa. A cruel, political construct that has left many people wounded and struggling with an identity crisis of unimaginable proportions. Families turning against each other, children denying their own parents, cousins betraying cousins, on the bases of the texture of their hair, the length of their nose and the pigment of their skin. Bent on tracing their linage from some white European who r***d their great great mother. A self hatred of the worst kind!

Today these families are suffering the after effects of such evil biological warfare and social engineering, trapped in drug and gang infested communities across South Africa, from Mannenberg to Mitchelsplain, from Bontihuevel to Vrygrond, from Aldorado Park to Gelvindale, from Grassypark to Heideveld, still hold for dear life to the colored identity which is no identity at all, a non entity, an in-betweener, just so that they must not be associated with being black.

MALCOM X says the house slave has such serious identity crisis that when the slave master is sick, the house slave says "we are sick", if the slave master's house caught fire, the house slave would says "our house is on fire"

On the contrary, if the slave master sneezes, the garden slave says to himself, "I wish you choke on your saliva and die so I can have the house back for myself and my children again"

For as long as the house slave is there, the colored man, the foreman, the slave master, knows he and his family, his stolen property and all of his ill gotten wealth, are in safe hands. He can go on a long vacation , the house slave will ensure that what belongs to the slave master is safe, he will do it even at the risk of his own life and the life of his wife and children. When the slave master is gone for a long period, the house slave will go as far as changing his clothes so he can look like the master. He may change his accent so he can sound like the master.

THE STORY GOES LIKE THIS:
A very sick woman fell in the hands of a preacher, just outside of the church and died. The preacher took hold of her cell phone and searched desperately for the next of kin. He found a number with the name 'hubby' and assumed that it must be the husband. He called the number and a man answered. The preacher asked if the man had a wife and the man said "yes I left my wife at home, she was not well, in fact she was very sick. Church people were going to come and take care of her while I go and look for a piece job so that when our children come back from school there will be something for them to eat."

The preacher said to the man, "please leave whatever it is you are doing and come here" The men responded and said, "I am standing on the side of the road, I may not get a job today sir, but there are people who always bring us bread and soup so we can eat while waiting for a job, they will be here anytime now" The preacher finally broke the news, "your wife is dead sir, please come here righty away!" Then there was silence. The preacher asked, "are you still there ?", The man answered, " yes, yes I'm still here". Then he said what brought the preacher to tears. "Pastor, please take care of business that side, I will wait here till the soup people arrive just so that my children can have something to eat when they come back home this afternoon"

Here is a man who had to choose between mourning the death of his wife and hustling for food for his children. Poverty robbed him of the rear moment of quiet.

SYMBOLS OF WEALTH
VS 19 says 19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. What is today's purple dress and fine linen, what are the outward symbols of white wealth?
Unlike the poor rich, rich white people hide their wealth and seldom put it on display, even the tax man must use binoculars and sophisticated tools to detect inherited white wealth.

It is the poor rich who always get caught and punished by the taxman. The poor rich use every opportunity to display their wealth with sushi parties and eat from naked bodies of ignorant white girls who are out looking for an adventure and excitement other than the luxury they are used to, and make money while at it. The poor rich drink themselves to sleep every night so they can cope with the heavy price which comes with the appearance of wealth, the German car installment, the escalating bond or rent in white suburbia while their white counter parts own shares everywhere where the black diamond spends his hard earned money.

If Johan Rupert and Nicky Oppenheimer, the two richest white men in South Africa, were to walk in here, the chances are that we would not recognize them. However, if any of the black tender-preneurs who became millionaires overnight were to walk in here, the whole community would know, even the local news paper would carry a front page story about him. Empty vessels make noise!

LAZARUS-WHAT'S IN THE NAME?
It is a God-given right to procreate and have children, it may not be the most responsible thing to do by someone else's standard especially in an environment of powerlessness
But no one must judge you for having a child even if there is no evidence how you will feed her/ him, you have not broken any law

When a child is born, the only power poor people still have left in black society is the power to name their child
They may present that child to the sun or the moon or the stars or even the ancestors, whatever they do is a deep longing for things to be better for this child than it is has been for them
Lazarus means in both Hebrew and in Greek, God my helper!
The naming of the child is the expression of new imagination, there is a releasing and pronouncing of a blessing upon that child as he/she enters the world.
The parent knows that this world is a paradise for the powerful and living hell for the powerless.

I wish I can say to you that no oarent brings a child into this world with the intention to for him/ her to eat food from what will fall from the rich man's table? But a conquered people whose power has been completely stripped, including the power to name their own offspring, power to dream and imagine a different world for their children would painfully name their children some of the most negative names you can imagine, as if to prepare the child for the inevitable, the inescapable. Ntsokolo,(struggle) Ndlaleni,(poverty) Deliwe.(disrespected). Fortunately all the people I know with these names, I have seen the opposite effect of that.

Next door under the same conditions, a child is born and named, in defiance of the status quo and in protest towards an oppressive system of white power and the preservation of white privilege, Nonkululeko, (Freedom) Nkwame, Azania, and more militant names such as Khabibhulu etc, in stubborn faith, "calling the things that are not as though they are"

Then comes the names which express religious fortitude, Nondumiso, Nomthandazo, Nolufefe. Lazarus, God will help me, expressed well in one of my favorite contemporary gospel songs, "there is power in the Name of Jesus, to break every chain, to break every chain"

WHERE IS THE VOICE OF MOSES AND THE PROPHETS?
According to the story, God says he has Moses and the prophets down here to speak to the rich man, "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them." Where is the voice of the church? Where is the voice of the South African Council of Churches, who has taken the baton from the Arch Bishop Emeritus Mpilo Tutu who stood in the the pulpit and every available podium and spoke truth to power without favor or fear? Who has taken the baton from Dr.Alan Boesak, Who is following in the foot steps of Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, Frank Chikane, Where is our own Martin Luther King Junior, Malcom X?, Where is the voice of Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe, Steven Bantu Biko

Where is the voice of conscience when such extreme wealth lives side by side with extreme poverty
Where is the voice of Moses and the prophets when inequality of extreme proportions is displayed on national TV, on shows such as Top Billing
Where is the voice of reason when the poor are made to watch yesterday's freedom fighters parade on their "purple clothes and fine linen" once every year when parliament opens and now every day on their Parliamentary TV channel
While Lazarus continues to feed from what falls down from the rich mans's table.

Could it be that Moses and the prophets have lost their prophetic voice because they are invited guests at the table of affluence?
"Peace peace" they say, when there is no peace
They stand on the pulpit dressed in purple and fine linen, showing the poor whose side they are on
They prepare messages of comfort for the poor and take the poor on a spiritual high with their high tempo songs, only to leave the poor with a church hangover on Monday morning, still feeding from what falls from the rich man's table

THE RICH MAN SPEAKS FROM THE GRAVE
"have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire-Send Lazarus to my family"
Down here, the rich and powerful speak to the rich and powerful
White money circulates in white hands
In his eyes Lazarus is good enough to do the run around and keep his life comfortable
His repentance comes too late
It seems the only good rich person is a dead one

WILL WE EVER GET THE ATTENTION OF THE RICH
VS31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
The voices of the poor are falling on deaf ears
Our politicians are deep in the pockets of the rich
Many of God's prophets are dined and wined on the table of the rich

Who will hear the cry of the poor?
What other options do the poor have?
Can you blame the poor when they throw poo on the streets?
The violent service delivery protest that we see all over the country is proof that the poor know that for as long as the rich is dressed in purple and in fine linen and the table is set, nobody will listen to them
I think it is time to turn the table upside down just like Jesu did in the temple
He certainly got the attention of the money changers!