OUR FIRST Open Table community in Liverpool hosted its annual carol service this month, with traditional and contemporary readings. This year, it included this reflection from Desmond Tutu, former Archbishop of Cape Town in South Africa, the first black African to hold this senior position in the Anglican Church.

He was also a passionate advocate for LGBT+ people and those living with HIV, and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. He died on 26th December 2021, but his legacy lives on.

For a very long time - I shouldn’t say always - I thought that this was how things were ordered. That the setup of whites being top dogs and the rest of us being trodden underfoot was by divine arrangement. 

And yet, you see, there is something in all of us that is always rebelling, that refuses, that is almost recalcitrant: there is something which says, I know I am made for something different. I am not a chicken, I’m an eagle, and when I’m pointed at the sun, I must soar. My spirit tells me I am made for transcendence…

We have a God who is not neutral, we have a God who is very biased in favour of those who are always shunted apart.

THANK YOU Archbishop Tutu for your inspirational life of love and reconciliation.