Saturday, October 31, 1998

Archbishop Tutu has a simple message: 'God loves you. God Loves Me.'

By Lauren R. Stanley

Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- I met a holy man the other day.

Actually, I sat with 450 other people and listened to a holy man preach the Gospel, so I didn't really "meet" this man. But I did get to shake his hand later on.

This holy man, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, stood before an assembled congregation of priests, pastors, theologians and friends of Virginia Theological Seminary, and told us boldly that he had "only one sermon to preach."

He stood before us and held us entranced with that one sermon, the one he claims he has preached all his life and will continue to preach until his life ends.

Tutu, a small man physically with a wonderfully lilting voice, didn't preach a sermon that soared to new intellectual heights. He didn't stun us by revealing "new truths."

To hold our attention -- so much so that you could have heard a pin drop -- he simply preached the Gospel.

"God loves you," he said. "God loves me."

Nothing new.

Nothing stunning.

Nothing soaring.

Just a simple message of love from the God who loves us, told by a man who has known and preached about God's love all of his life.

Before the service began, a friend and I had been talking about sermons, and how sometimes preachers can get too wrapped up in the technical details of the Scriptures and thus turn Christianity into some sort of rocket science.

Keep it simple, I said to my friend, just ordained a deacon of the Episcopal Church. Not simplistic, but simple. Tell the story of God's relationship with us. Let people feel God's presence in their lives with them. Let God do the speaking.

And then, a few minutes later, Tutu did just that.

And I knew, personally, why so many people believe Tutu to be a holy man.

"God loves us," he said, "from before the foundation of the world.

"We are not afterthoughts. We are not accidents.

"We are loved, not because we are loveable, but because God loves us."

Hundreds of people sat in that congregation -- people who have devoted their lives to the church, to the Gospel, to God -- and barely breathed, barely moved. The occasion for the gathering -- the annual convocation of the seminary -- was larger than normal, in great part because this holy man was the featured preacher and recipient of an honorary degree.

For any preacher, this would be a tough crowd. These were people who know the Scriptures, many of whom preach them week after week. But the South African archbishop, recipient of the 1984 Nobel Prize for Peace, leader of the fight against apartheid, chairman of the Reconciliation Commission that is striving to overcome that hated apartheid, held us in the palm of his hand.

We don't receive this great love from God, Tutu said, because we deserve it. We aren't loved because we have worked for that love. "There are no works," he said, that we do that earn us that love, "no virtue" that we have that can claim that love.

"Everything," he said, "is a gift in grace. There are no achievements on our part."

"If Christ had to wait until we were die-able for," Tutu preached, "Christ would have had to wait until the cows came home."

But Christ didn't wait, he said, because "we are in a relationship (with God) in which God will never let us go."

And then Tutu's voice grew very quiet, and we all strained to hear him.

"Because," he said, "because ... God loves you.

"Because," he said, "because ... God loves me."

I met a holy man the other day, and I even got to shake his hand.

From that holy man, I heard anew the most basic message I'll ever need to hear.

God loves you. God loves me.

X X X

(The Rev. Lauren R. Stanley is a priest of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. Readers may write to her care of Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, 790 National Press Building, Washington, D.C., 20045.)

(c) 1998, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.