Service on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/seeyouonsunday/videos/811819814503302 and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBy82_NUnP8

Born in 1931 Desmond Tutu was 17 when the white national party in South Africa adopted the apartheid policies laws that were passed a to classify the population by race and to segregate the land. By this point, there had already been 300 years of colonization by the Dutch and British, land had already been taken from the indigenous black communities, Who outnumbered their colonizers significantly, there had already been a system of separate and unequal apartheid really just legalized it.

And Desmond tutu was a child walking with his mother in the black neighborhood in which they lived, a white man and a strange collar. Priest, was walking down the street which first was unheard of to have a white man walking down the sidewalks of a black neighborhood and more extraordinary and praise tipped his hat and said hello to his mother. And this was incredibly impactful on tutu. He spoke of it for years to come that there must be good and hope and the possibility of something better if such kind use could be shown.

Years later that same priest would sit at tutu’s side while he was sick with tuberculosis, become a friend and a mentor throughout his life.

After Bishop tutu joins the priesthood of the Anglican Communion, of the Church of England.  He’s invited to study at King’s college in London in 1962. Well there. He is introduced to The liberation theologies of Latin America for those like Oscar Romero who were preaching for the well-being and freedom and liberation of their people. And he studied alongside a white South African priest. Someone for whom he would not study or work alongside of while in South Africa.

He had these glimmers, these moments of how things could be of how things should be, and it impacted everything he did going forward. He had seen and known the Injustice apartheid but he began speaking out publicly from his position of the evil of apartheid.

Apartheid comes to an end in 1991. The great fear from the white minority in South Africa was that there would be vengeance that the New Black government would inflict suffering upon those who had made them suffer. Instead, Nelson Mandela initiated the truth and reconciliation commission.

Everyone shared stories of harm that was done through legal or state sanction or in opposition of apartheid. And everyone got to share stories of how they had been hurt , of the damage to their bodies and loss of life and loved ones, the emotional and psychological torture. And listening to these stories for 7 years doesn’t sound like it would be the it would lead to reconciliation or forgiveness. But the first two steps in the path to forgiving according to Desmond Tutu and the Ignatius way of spirituality and 12-step groups is to name the the harm done and the hurt experienced. This was the ministry of reconciliation or as the translation we read today path of peacemaking and healing turning enemies into friends.

A Jewish rabbi asked his students at what point night turned into day. One student said, “It’s when you can look into the distance and tell the difference between a sheep and a dog.” “No,” said the rabbi, “that’s not it.” Another student claimed, “It’s when you can look into the distance and tell the difference between a peach three and a fig tree.” Again the rabbi said no. Instead, the rabbi claimed, “It’s dawn when you can look into the face of another human being and recognize him or her as your brother or sister. Then you know the night is over.”

The truth and reconciliation commission was to recognized in the face of each other, but they are all siblings.

Bishop tutu’s understanding of Justice and humanity and forgiveness and reconciliation are rooted in his experience of Christ and worship and reading of scripture. It also includes and understanding of philosophy of theology that comes from his indigenous people of Ubuntu. The full expression it comes from roughly translate to each individual’s humanity is ideally expressed in relationship with others or a person depends on other people to be a person. It’s often simply translated into English as I am because we are.

But

Ubuntu is very difficult to render into a Western language. Ubuntu means I am human through my relations with others. You are a person through other persons. It speaks of social or communal harmony as a human person is seen as corporate. It speaks of the very essence of being human. It is to say, “My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours.” We belong in a bundle of life. We say, “A person is a person through other persons.” It is not, “I think therefore I am.” The solitary individual person is in our understanding a contradiction in terms.  It says rather: “I am human because I belong. I participate, I share.”

A person with ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed, or treated as if they were less than who they are.

Ubuntu says I am human only because you are human. If I undermine your humanity, I dehumanize myself. Ubuntu speaks of warmth, compassion, generosity, hospitality, seeking to embrace others. You must do what you can to maintain this great harmony, which is perpetually being undermined by resentment, anger, or a desire for vengeance. 

Then relating it to the hearings: “That’s why you have these extraordinary expressions here of people saying ‘I just want to know who I should forgive.’ And its people who have undergone quite horrendous things. You wonder how they have the capacity to laugh and be human. That is ubuntu.”

As we come to an end of our Holy Disruptor’s Summer Series, I have some mixed feelings about it. You and I will unlikely to ever have the platform to speak to the world that Bishop Tutu had, or a weekly radio address like Archbishop Romero, or hide ourselves away in the desert to spend all our time of study, prayer, and reflection. It’s unlikely someone will add us to a summer preaching series. We’re probably not going to end a war, or racism, or hunger. We probably won’t change the world.

But we can learn to look into the face of another and see them as a beloved child of God and our sibling.

We can name the harm we have done, the hurt we have felt, and move toward forgiveness and reconciliation.

We can discover and affirm that our humanity is wrapped up in the humanity of everyone else, that we are interconnected, that each part of the body of Christ is important, and recognize that we can’t do this life alone.

We can learn and practice the way of peacemaking and healing, turning enemies into friends, strangers into siblings.

It’s about healing what we can, within ourselves and between us and all that God made.

Not everything we do is going to be big. But I hope that the stories we’ve heard this summer have given you courage, hope, ideas, peace.

“My name’s Morris. I’m 78. Live alone since my Edna passed five years back. Every Tuesday, I catch the 10:15 bus to the library. Same seat. Same walk. For years, it was quiet. Just me, the pigeons, and that old green bench at Oak Street stop.

Then last winter, I started noticing the kids. Not playing. Not laughing. Just…. sitting. Heads down. Fingers flying over phones. Even in the rain. One Tuesday, a girl in a purple backpack sat hunched, shoulders shaking. Not crying, just empty. Like the bench swallowed her whole. My chest hurt. I remembered my grandson, Liam, before he got that scholarship. Same look. Like the world forgot he existed.

I went home restless. Edna always said, “Morris, you fix what’s broken.” But what’s broken here? Phones? No. Hearts.

Next morning, I dug out my grandson’s old tablet. Spent three shaky hours learning QR codes (turns out YouTube tutorials are for young eyes!). Printed simple signs,

SCAN ME. TELL ME YOUR STORY.

I’M LISTENING.

Taped them to the bench corners. Used duct tape—Edna’s favorite “fix-all.”

First week? Nothing. Kids walked past like the signs were trash. Mrs. Gable from 42 scoffed, “Foolishness, Morris. They want screens, not old men.” Maybe she was right.

Then, a miracle. A boy, maybe 12 scanned it. Sat there 20 minutes, typing. Later, I checked the shared Google Doc (yes, I set one up! Edna would’ve laughed). His words,

“My dad’s sick. Mom works nights. I’m scared. But I drew a dragon that breathes glitter. It’s in my pocket.”

My hands shook. I bought glitter glue and left it under the bench with a note, “For the dragon artist. Keep shining. —Morris (the bench friend)”

Next day? A folded paper airplane landed beside me. Inside, a glittery dragon. And “Thanks. Dad’s smiling today.”

Word spread. Kids started coming early for the bus. Scanning. Typing. A girl wrote, “Bullies call me ‘robot’ ’cause I love coding. But robots don’t feel sad, right?” I left a book: “Ada Lovelace, Girl Who Dreamed in Code.” She left cookies the next week. “Robots eat sugar too”

It wasn’t perfect. Rain washed away signs. Some ignored it. But slowly…. the bench changed. Kids sat together. Talking. A teen scanned and wrote, “I’m failing math. Too ashamed to ask.” Two girls saw it, messaged him, “We’ll help. Meet us here Saturday.” They did. Now they tutor three kids a week.

Then came the cold snap. I slipped on ice, broke my hip. Two weeks in hospital. Felt useless.

The day I got home, I shuffled to the bus stop… and stopped dead.

The bench was covered. Not in trash—but in notes, drawings, tiny gifts. A knitted coaster (“For your tea!”). A Lego robot (“From the coding club!”). A photo, kids holding a sign “MORRIS’S BENCH: WE SEE YOU.”

Mrs. Gable was there, hammering a new sign into the post. “Took you long enough to heal,” she grumbled. But her eyes were wet. “We added a real mailbox. For stories too long for phones.”

Now? Twelve bus stops in town have “listening benches.” Run by teens, retirees, even the grumpy postman. No apps. No donations. Just… space to be heard.

Yesterday, the glitter-dragon boy (now 14) helped me plant marigolds in a pot by the bench. “You taught us,” he said, patting the soil, “loneliness is the only thing that really needs fixing.”

I think of Edna. She’d say I fixed the bench. But the truth? Those kids fixed me. They reminded me that broken hearts don’t need grand gestures. Just a safe place to whisper, “I’m here.” And someone willing to say back, “I hear you.”

We’re not waiting for buses anymore. We’re waiting for each other. And that? That’s how the world gets warmer. One scanned story at a time.”.

It seems like a little bit of ubuntu, a little bit of learning to see the full humanity in each other, healing what is broken.

It’s that simple. And it’s that difficult. It takes intention, and courage, and vulnerability.

But the night is over when you can look into the face of another and see them as your sibling.