Shameless

I met Rev. Nyondo in 2005. I didn't like him then. Twenty years later I really don't like him. It was a vibe, a sense of smarminess. He was always looking for gain, looking for a way of getting his piece, his cut.

He was a parish pastor in 2005.

Six years later he became the man in charge of all the pastors, the pastor to the pastors, the general secretary of the synod, the Synod of Livingstonia in Northern Malawi. A general secretary is like a senator, a governor, a cardinal and CEO all wrapped up into one person. Lots of power; lots of leverage. As general secretary Rev.  Nyondo used and abused his position for immense personal gain.

In 2015 I saw this. He demanded I go on a tour with him. No General Secretary had ever demanded anything of me. Seemed odd.

I went.

              On our tour there were no projects, schools, or villages in need of bridges as others had tried to show me.  We visited two of his four homes; we walked through the private school he built for his family to run.  All funded by gifts, private donations, support of his friends.  The tour was to show me his importance.

              This was unbridled shamelessness.  General Secretary Nyondo wasn’t trying to impress me; he was trying to insult me.  He was a big fish and shameless; I am not a big fish, and I must do what he says.

              If I wanted to keep working with the synod building schools and clinics, running programs, partnering with the churches, if I wanted to keep going, there would now be a price.  This was pay-to-play.  He gloated in the shake down.  He knew I wouldn’t take this well; he liked putting me in my place.

              Despising graft and bribes and given that what I brought to Malawi were funds donated through the church for the church, I refused.  I was not going to pay-to-play.  And I didn’t.  I moved all our programs into friendships and networks and partners that didn’t rely upon him.  I said no.

              At first this was fine.  I could simply fund churches directly, partner with other organizations unrelated to the synod.  And it worked until I saw the hidden cost.  Where a general secretary should be helping partnering churches to complete projects or build programs, Rev. Nyondo only did that for those who paid.  If you didn't pay, then your projects and partners would be sent a message: you can work with them or you can work with me, but not both.  And if a pastor did continue to work with us or had been a partner in the past they were now at risk. Friends were now in jeopardy.  Suddenly, their life fell apart.

              The general secretary decides which pastor goes went to which church.  Hundreds of pastors.  He could transfer someone at any time.  Sometimes, if he chose to, he could transfer a pastor without warning or reason, he could send a pastor to a new church to send a message, mete out a punishment, or just be cruel.

              As the general secretary and in response to my decision not to pay-to-play he relocated a dear friend. He sent a message.  He sent our dear friend Norman Harra to the worst place of all, Chatipa.     

              This was one of the most tragic moments in my life. I saw my friend, the Rev. Norman Harra, I saw his life become undone.  He was hurt because of my decision; he was punished because I said, "no, I won't pay-to-play.”

              Norman was a very successful pastor, but he was not a power player, or a politician, or grafter.  He was a delightful man, a humble man of great integrity.  Through his life in ministry, he had done well and was deemed a role model by his peers. 

              Yet, because Norman’s church had grown with support from the U.S. and this support was no longer flowing to the General Secretary, he was reassigned.  Norman was called away from a large, vibrant church in the largest city of the north, to a hard-scrabble, poorest of the poor village in the bush.  Norman finished his ministry in Chatipa—Chatipa is a by-word in Malawi.  You don’t want to find yourself in Chatipa.  At least you’re not in Chatipa. 

              This is a very hard place, hard life.  In Chatipa his health declined and his ability to fund his children’s education dried up.  But he stayed and served until he was done. A few months into his retirement he suffered a stroke and then he died.

              I would love to finish this vignette with some sort of justice restored, or vindication for Norman.  He went down swinging.  People rallied to his defence.  We figured out a way to rescue him.  Or maybe there could be some sort of syrupy saying: the good lord has a plan or someday what is broken will be made right.  But I don't have such an ending.

              Norman was destroyed and Rev. Nyondo is now Ambassador Nyondo.  He moved up, beyond.  I can’t begin to imagine how much he will gain with such a position; he will be leveraging a nation for his personal fortune.  He will.  Brazil is about to get one heck of a shake down. Norman is still simply a moment of regret.

              I had not thought of this for quite some time.  Frankly I don’t want to think of this tragedy as I find what happened to Norman to be so painful.  I struggle with guilt.  What if I had just paid-to-play; what if I had just given the grafter his piece?  Maybe Norman would not have suffered.  This is a very hard question, hard memory.

              Two things evoked this memory, this tragedy for me.  The first is a unique part of our reading today, a Greek word found only in this short teaching of Luke.  A word mistranslated as well.

              The second is a 400-million-dollar moment of graft.  The plane given by Qatar to President Trump.  When I read of this plane, I couldn’t help but think of Ambassador Nyondo.  Shameless, shamelessness.  But let’s lay aside the plane for a moment as it has neither good news nor any redeeming factor.

              In our lesson from Luke there is a word we read right past because it was softened in translation.  Closer to the original language, the claim of Jesus should be this: I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his shamelessness he will get up and give him whatever he needs.  His shamelessness, not quite the same as persistence.

              I can see the connection.  The shameless are relentless and do not yield nor care for the needs of others, they are persistent, they do not take no for an answer.  So persistence does have a connection to shameless, but we miss the power of the story by softening the audacity, the tenacity, and temerity of the man who knocks at midnight.

              What is more we miss the radical claim of Jesus and its unique status.  In all the ancient literature we possess, of all the times authors described someone as shameless, our reading today is the only instance when such a description was meant to be positive.  Shameless, shamelessness is not a mark of a good character.  When I say the Rev. Nyondo is shameless, and he is, I am not intending this as a compliment.  And because he is shameless, he has no care of my critique.  That is part of being shameless.  

              When Jesus spoke of the man at midnight who does not give up, when he described him as shameless, he is claiming something new.  Scholars and theologians for centuries have struggled to make sense of this.  How can shamelessness be good?  How does the man at midnight serve as an example to follow?  As irony will have it, as Rev. Nyondo is a great example of the negative, I can see how Norman was a great example of the positive.

              What I admired and so many others as well in Norman was a purity of heart, a readiness to sacrifice and stand up for what is right.  It was as if he was willing to endure slings and arrows, the punishment with courage.  And this courage was shameless in that he was not afraid of the shame, not willing to be led by what others would think or gossip or infer upon him.  What did Norman Harra do that was so bad to be sent to Chatipa?  He didn’t cower or strike back, he persisted as a man of faith.

              In our world it is not hard to find instances where greed and power merge and create people who are shameless.  They take what they want, ridicule and reject, without concern or care.  And these instances unfortunately are not far from us.  We groan when we read of graft, of pay-to-play becoming intertwined in our politics, wherever politics are found.  Before his elevation to an ambassador, Rev. Nyondo used the politics of the church to his gain.  The church is never immune to corrupting greed and shameless graft.  There is though a question of scale and degree.

              What is curious even more than the unique use of shameless by Jesus, the inference that freedom from fear can be positive as well, what is curious is how little need Jesus felt, how little energy he gave to the negative.  Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's is not a stinging rebuke to the Nyondos, to the Qatar planes.  When faced with tyrannical politicians or the graft of the Pharisees, Jesus could have spoken out.  When Jarius’ daughter was dying, when the centurion’s slave was ill, he could have rebuke those who abuse their power for gain, who are corrupt. Instead he offered mercy. 

              Perhaps shaming the shameless is futile.  So why do it?  Perhaps greed and power are so beyond our control, why waste our time or our outrage?  Maybe. 

              But there seems to be a powerful lesson, a way of reimagining shame.  Like Norman, like the man at midnight you do not take no for answer, you are tenacious and stand with temerity because you are not afraid.  Norman died how he lived. I saw him in the last few months of his life.  As his body was falling apart his soul was still magnificent; the man who is dancing on the cover of the bulletin was still there. The pastor who rose from a seat of honor to dance with the boys of a local village, that man was yet alive.

              I believe the graft-filled gift of Qatar bugs me because I saw the other side, destruction brought upon others when people in power lose all sense of shame in the classic sense, where they live without concern or care for the dignity of others. 

It is not etiquette or civility or decorum, it’s the destruction of people like Norman.  That is the classic meaning of shameless.  The pain and suffering meted on the humble by the arrogant.  When I saw that plane all I could think of was: people are going to suffer.  Not because of the plane itself.  The suffering is found in the scale and degree, unbounded graft.  I have seen that scale, nothing good comes from it.  Arrogance builds with fear and fear is not a place to build something good.

Strive to be like the man at midnight, seek a heart as pure as the one who was Norman Harra.  Strive to live beyond fear, not as indifference or arrogance, live beyond fear as the courage to live in faith, live in modesty, honesty, as if you cannot take no for an answer when no is no justice, no mercy, no humility.  Have no fear of shame.  It is not worthy of you.  Amen.