The ManicaPost
Morris Mtisi
WHILE most men and women of cloth, pastors, reverends, whatever you call them in your church, look up to poor church members to give them up-keep through tithing and offerings, the bishop of the Evangelical Anglican Church International, Elson Jakazi, works hard to fend for his family and himself.
We drive up the Vumba Road one beautiful Saturday morning, not very long ago, admiring the scenic view of the green hills and thick roadside bushes and trees. We quietly acknowledge the divine artistic hand of the Creator of the beautiful mountains and green valley and His sense of beauty. We talk and chat casually about different topics. That is what civility means. All men talk when they are together, and laugh and joke and all of it. But we are not tourists.
We are going to Gombakomba High School located there in the middle of nowhere, close to Guta Ra Jehovah shrine and headquarters. Yes, in the middle of nowhere yet in the middle of the best of natural vegetative Mother Nature. If you drive up the Vumba Road and you don’t see proof of God’s hand in Creation, you are blind both in the physical and spiritual eyes.
It is a Saturday morning and Sabbath Day for me. I must be at church. But I am going to Gombakomba with Bishop Jakazi. Why?
The man of God wants me talk to the youths of his church assemblies.
There is a Youth Conference lasting two days. And Bishop Jakazi has invited me to address his youth, interact with them is more accurate, on the challenges facing youths in their day-to-day life today.
This is not the first time the good bishop has invited me to talk to his church youths on some topic affecting them. Two years ago he invited me and I gladly obliged.
Today the youth conference falls on my holy day-Sabbath Day. I must go to my church and nearly told him so as an excuse. Then something (Someone) silently told me, “You don’t only share my word and confine me to your church.
There is something I want you to share with these youths at Gombakomba…and remember they are mine as those at your Adventist church are mine. Go there and speak to them!”
I can already hear some skeptics asking, “And you too, God talking to you? A voice of God talking to you?” Yes, and I too, God talking to me! You don’t need a British passport for God to talk to you. If yours is not talking to you, better ask Him why not? My God’s voice is not like Temba’s or Lorraine’s, your friends. Neither is it like your church pastor’s which is esoteric or loud enough to pull down your church roof. My God’s voice is calm, gentle and faint divinely issuing from a distant farness you cannot imagine but converting my questions, as He always does, into clear answers and divinely deleting all doubt replacing it with certainty.
So my God easily instructed me to turn from a foolish, narrow-minded and selfish Adventist into an obedient, humble servant willing to share His Word of guidance and counsel with whomsoever He and only He chooses to be ministered to. “…Go yee therefore and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…”(Matthew 28 vs 19).
So I say yes to Bishop Jakazi. And that is why we are driving to Gombakomba on this day-Sabbath Day and my road leads me to this Youth Conference. Not my usual church.
As we switch from topic to topic, and now almost getting to Gombakomba, suddenly and from nowhere, a pushing question pushes to be asked.
And I ask. “Bishop Jakazi, I know many pastors and church leaders who because the economy is so bad, and church members can hardly feed themselves and their families, resort to squeezing these member’s empty pockets for a dime of thanks-giving or offering. Some have gone as far as attacking them, shouting at them and ‘scripturally’ shouting at them and intimidating them? Kutoshatirwa kwazvo, kupopota nekuchityidzira vatendi nenyaya yemari. What has gone wrong with church today?
The sweetest part of the Bible is now, “If you don’t tithe you are a thief stealing from God!” True, the Bible says it all…loud and clear.
But does it say not tithing and not giving offering are the only sins? You can gossip, fornicate, be adulterous, hurt people in the church with your big mouth and foul tongue, that’s fine…so long as you are tithing and paying offerings, you are fine-ndizvo here Bishop?” I ask.
The bishop is driving and listening. He is a very good listener too.
The question is too long and perhaps too searching, but hopefully very clear. I continue asking: “The Bible is as clear as it is about every other transgression and sin.
Why do I hear almost every church leader, pastor, reverend, whatever, shout desperately and angrily about tithing and offering, almost only? Is it because they so much feel pity for these non-tithing and non-offering sinners? Is it because they are so full of the understanding of kuitwa kwebasa raMwari muChurch or there is a human push factor which is not anything like kuitwa kwebasa raMwari in church? Makuhwa haana basa here bishop muchurch? Upombwe, kucheukacheukira maziso vakadzi kana varume vevaridzi hakuna mhosva here bishop? Kupfuhwira varume kuti vaite madutuwende vakadzi vavo vachihura hakuna basa? Ku distribyuta mishonga nemipfuhwira kumadzimai emuchurch hazvina basa here bishop? Chero mutendi abvisa hake mari yokuti basa raMwari riitwe?
Does God want the money of these transgressors to do His work in the church? Does God pardon sinners on account of their dollar power exhibited through offerings and tithing?
I ask questions whose answers I know here. Or do I really know? May be I don’t.
(to be continued, Don’t miss Part 2 next week)
