On Being Honoured

Reflections on a Festschrift – on Character, Pride, and Humility

This past Sunday (6 July 2025) my wife, Gilli, and I attended a book launch held in my honour. The church we previously pastored, Following Jesus, hosted the event. The launch and book project was supposed to have been a surprise. But, I confess, two weeks ago I became aware of what had been taking place ‘in secret’!

The event was awkward but amazing, a serious test of my character. The launch and the book (which I’ve not yet begun to read) prompted considerable self-reflection. I process feelings and thoughts by writing. Let me share my thoughts – some made public in my response at the book launch (you can watch the event). This is a once-in-life-time event, so I share at length my ‘confessions of a pastor’, hoping to add value for the reader.

My dear brother and colleague, Trevor Amafu Ntlhola, worked ‘secretly’ over the past two or more years on this project. He persuaded and even pressurised my family, friends, and colleagues – often against their better judgement – to write a ‘Festschrift’ in my honour. The German word refers to a collection of writings in honour of a scholar, typically published during their life-time. I first heard the word during my academic studies in the 1980s. A retiring professor was honoured by his colleagues with a festschrift at a theological conference held in his honour.

What Trevor has done is a hybrid personal version! I’m not sure if he intended it, but this coincides with my 50^th year in ordained ministry and 70^th year in life.

I rebuked Trevor for testing my character so severely with his endeavour. I know his heart, his deep respect for me as a spiritual mentor since we first met in Soweto in 1988. His intentions were sincere. I thank him for this labour of love. And I thank all who contributed to the book with their words of gratitude and affirmation. I especially thank Gilli and our son, Zander (who spoke at the book launch), and our daughter, Misha-Joy (unable to be there). But, frankly, it is difficult to be loved in this way. It raises ‘stuff’ in me that requires reflection and processing.

Why is it so awkward and challenging for me?

Because I know my heart. Because I’m part of a ‘species’ called spiritual leaders. And I know my heart within the prevailing culture and practice of leadership.

Leaders in general mirror society. The need to feel good and proud about ourselves. To be significant. To make ourselves great again. Leaders driven by unmet ego needs, grasping for position and power, title and turf. The narcissism of self-worship. Spiritual leaders, in the main, are no different. Many Christian (celebrity) leaders are a copy of political leaders. Only charisma and outcomes count. Character and morality have far less bearing on leadership in our post-truth world. Sometimes non-existent.

Knowing my heart within this context makes me tremble for my integrity as a person, let alone as a leader. Though redeemed, my heart still feeds in subtle ways off praise and affirmation. Who does not like the ‘likes’ we get on social media posts, or sink inwardly on seeing dislikes and angry comments? It makes me wonder: What is the grace of receiving, as Paul calls it? Can I receive honour graciously, as in this festschrift and book launch? Is it even legitimate? Is it not part of a culture of mutual back-slapping and title-affirming in the name of honour? Will praise on earth replace reward in heaven? Is that even a concern of mine? More important, what is uncovered and exposed in me, by all of this? That which still needs redemption and transformation in Christ’s humility? How do I guard my heart from pride?

What is the heart of the matter? The human heart, not honour.

Since my teen years as a young follower of Jesus, the words of the weeping prophet have echoed within me: “The human heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things, who can know it? Only Yahweh sees and searches the heart. And he will repay each according to the fruit of their deeds” (Jeremiah 17:9-10, my paraphrase).

Only God’s Word can penetrate the deepest recesses of the human heart, revealing it’s thoughts and intentions (Hebrews 4:12). I’m aware that my heart’s mixed motives and unmet ego needs subvert the formation of Christ’s character in me, seeking to reinstate the original sin of pride as king in my senses. It’s an ongoing war.

As wise Solomon said, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it” (Proverbs 4:23). “Guard” has two nuances: protect/shield your heart from what goes in and forms it, and nurture/cultivate it as the source of your life. God designed the heart as his dwelling, a Garden of Delight. But it is malformed, deformed, broken, full of weeds. Jesus said, “It is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come”, and lists what corrupts the heart, seen in what routinely comes out of us in our words, attitudes, and actions (Mark 7:21-23). It’s the root-fruit reality, the character-behaviour truth. So, our highest priority in life is to guard our heart. How we live flows from it.

Therefore, I ask, what is in my heart? Why do I still feed off recognition and affirmation for my sense of self – other than whom God knows me to be, fully dependent on him for my being and becoming as his son and servant?

What guides my considerations and ethical evaluation?

On hearing about Trevor’s project and book launch, my first thought was of Peter. Jesus said to him, “Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18). I’m being led to where I certainly do not want to go. However, the older I grow, life with God is a journey of ever deeper surrender, beyond my control, in purified faith in God.

All the good words are normally kept for one’s memorial service. Now they want to say it all while I’m alive. In my presence! In a book! I definitely don’t want to go there! Are they getting me ready to see Jesus sooner than later? Lord have mercy! I want to write more books and finish the work that you’ve given me to do, asking you, Lord, for the health and strength I need to do so.

Then I thought about the oldest temptation known to humanity. Our original parents in the garden gave in to pride: “Don’t you know you can be like God?” How do I resist pride? By its opposite, humility. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6). Thus, to counter this war of the heart I repeat the words, “Remember that you are dust”, spoken over us at the beginning of Lent when the sign of the cross is made with ash on our forehead. I am ash and will return to ash. I will be but a memory. So, I say to myself, I am but dust, though inbreathed by divinity. And I will return to dust, though in the hope of resurrection in Christ. Our human mystery is ground and glory, dust and divinity, by God and God alone.

English ‘humility’ is derived from Latin ‘humus’, used by Jerome in his translation of Genesis 2:7. Adam was made from ground/dust (Hebrew adamah, Latin humus). To be humble is to be ‘grounded’ in our humanity. To embrace our ‘dustness’ in dependence on God for our every breath, for our being and becoming his image, growing in his likeness of character in right thinking, speaking, behaving. To be humble is not to grovel in self-pity or false self-humiliation. That’s seeking self-attention, a form of pride. I’m conscious that even this writing, and sharing it publicly, can be subtle pride.

I’ve been helped by Erik Varden’s book The Shattering of Loneliness – On Christian Remembrance (a Cistercian monk and current Bishop of Trondheim, Norway). He points out that when Israel came out of Egypt, she was motivated in her journey with God by the vision of the Promised Land. But, in anticipation of entering the land, Yahweh said through Moses, “Remember that you were a slave in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand” (Deuteronomy 5:15).

By remembering we were slaves to sin, we cut presumption of prideful achievements and rights at the root, remaining dependent on God for his grace of inheritance. To remember is ‘re-member’ – regular renewal of our membership to God. Jesus gave us bread and wine as our memorial of him. Whenever we eat and drink, we re-member ourselves to him, and him and us, in the covenantal union of amazing grace.

I see in Paul this journey of shifting consciousness in humility by re-membering (in my Doing Spirituality, pp.20-23). Briefly, in his earliest writings Paul saw himself as “the least of the apostles, not deserving to be called an apostle because I persecuted the Lord’s people” (1 Corinthians 15:9). He remembered where he came from. Years later, he pegs himself lower, “I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people” (Ephesians 3:8). Then lower near the end of his life. Facing death, Paul twice called himself “the chief of sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15-16). He didn’t say “I was…”, he said, “I am the worst of sinners”.

That’s negative confession brother! No, it is the refined consciousness of true humility by remembrance of our dustness, our slavery, our unworthiness of God’s great grace saving us by Christ’s death and resurrection. It’s God’s justice as sheer mercy! We must remember that, after he rose, Jesus was identified by the marks of the cross in his resurrection body. We will see those marks forever, throughout the coming ages, as an eternal witness and memorial of God’s prodigal and scandalous grace, due to our sin, and our salvation from its slavery.

This recalls Micah 6:8: “What does the LORD require of you? To act justly, and love mercy, and walk humbly with your God”. Our life’s mantra.

Concluding story and my most important consideration.

I’ll never forget sitting next to Dallas Willard in the late 1980s at the Northfields Methodist Church (Benoni, South Africa). My good friend Trevor Hudson asked me to introduce Dallas at the start of a conference on ‘Eternal Living Now’. I held a paper with his illustrious bio. Dallas touched my hand and gently but firmly said, “Now, Bushy (my nickname at that time), do not read that or even refer to it. Simply say, ‘Our friend Dallas is here to share God’s word with us.’” I knew he meant it!

He did five ministry trips to South Africa. I was part of them, accompanying him to do a conference in Cape Town. He stayed in our home on two occasions. I say this, not to name-drop, but to make the observation that Dallas was truly a Christlike humble man, eschewing any and all praise. I noticed, after he had taught, he never once asked for feedback or fished for (affirming) comments. That rebuked me to the core. When I asked him about it, he simply said (I’m paraphrasing, this is not verbatim memory), “I live and teach what I know to be God’s truth and leave the rest to God. The outcomes are his business. It’s a matter of obedience, doing what I’m called to do and trusting God with the results. Whom God knows me to be – his view of me, not what people think or say of me – is most important. I live for the audience of One.”

That brings me to a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche that I read from Eugene Petersen. “The essential thing in heaven and earth is a long obedience in the same direction.” I’ve used this, along with what Dallas lived and said, to counter temptation to pride in my untransformed self-consciousness. I’ve sought to make that long obedience in the same direction my life’s business, being Jesus’ love-slave, apprenticing myself to him. Jesus is my human example: “I must be about my Father’s business”, saying at every turn every day, “Father, not my will but yours be done.”

But, my most important consideration is the instruction of my Master. “Do you thank the slave for doing what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were ordered to do, say, ‘We are worthless slaves; we have done only what we ought to have done!’ ” (Luke 17:9-10 NRSV). Jesus was speaking to his apprentice followers. We are his love slaves (“bond servants”), as he was God’s love slave. He instructs us live for the audience of One, our Lord and Master. We do not live for likes, to impress others, for effects or outcomes, for recognition or reward, for people’s praise or honour.

It’s all about Jesus. It’s not about us… least of all me. ALL the honour, literally, is for Jesus. We live for God and his glory as unworthy slaves – enslaved by God’s great love in Jesus of Nazareth. And in service of that self-sacrificing love to the world around us, to everyone we meet every day.

A long obedience in the same direction. Daily saying, and ending up saying with our last breath, “I am your worthless slave; I’ve only done what I ought to have done, what you called me to do! That’s been my honour, which you’ve given me. Thank you Jesus.”

Anyway, I do thank Trevor Ntlhola, my family and friends, and Following Jesus, for all their love and care and words of blessing. It leaves me feeling embarrassingly humbled!

God have mercy!