As Archbishop Desmond Tutu ended his lecture at the Cathedral of St. Andrew, a member of the audience stood and expressed gratitude for the gifts the South African Nobel Peace Prize winner has brought to the world.
"Your Grace, thank you for the gift that you are," said Phil Phillips, a member of the congregation, his voice filled with reverence. "Thank you for the example of courage … for loving us the way that you do. Thank you, dear Grace."
The applause from the crowd of more than 500 reverberated in agreement.
Tutu, a prominent leader in the fight to overthrow the racist system of apartheid in South Africa, was the keynote speaker Saturday at the Peggy Kai Memorial Lecture, one of several events he has scheduled for his weeklong visit.
Phillips said he has been following the work of Tutu since his elementary school years when he felt the sting of racism as a "black kid" growing up in Philadelphia.
"When I heard about apartheid, I thought about what my life would be like in South Africa. Even though an ocean separated us, the origin of my people was in mother Africa — it just stuck with me all my life," he said.
Phillips said he was impressed with the courage Tutu showed in crusading against injustice, then facilitating the reconciliation between white and black people after apartheid ended in 1994.
"That is amazing to me," he said. "In most places, it’s about revenge."
In his talk, Tutu, archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, said each individual has received "marching orders" from God to feed the hungry, and care for the sick and the poor. If everyone did this, Tutu said, he looks forward to the day when "there won’t be anyone hungry anymore; there won’t be anyone poor. Please help me realize my dream."
He emphasized that "every single human being, each one of us, is created in the image of God," adding, "It’s utterly blasphemous to say the worth of a human being comes from the color of their skin. The only important thing is that you and I are human.
"It’s one of the most explosive things to say about me and about you, that as funny as we look — when did you last look at yourself naked? — that you, that I, are the stand-in for God," he said.
He also said God is "notoriously biased," adding, "God is biased in favor of the weak, the downtrodden, of the despised."
Rosanna Hsi of Honolulu, a Buddhist, said she came to see Tutu because "I want to be with greatness."
Like Phillips, she was struck by Tutu’s efforts to heal his wounded country, with the idea that "we are made in the image of God" and the need to treat one another with the compassion God exemplifies.
She agreed with Tutu that a person’s color, race, religion or profession are "all superficial things," adding, "What really, really matters is that we’re all human beings. We belong to one human family."
Hsi, who recently returned from a visit to South Africa, said black residents told her they survived the worst of apartheid by helping each other and sharing everything they had, based on the African philosophy of "ubuntu," which is a universal love of humanity.
In honor of Tutu, St. Andrew’s is establishing the Desmond Tutu Caritas Fund to promote justice and peace in Hawaii, and to initiate global social services. Caritas is the Latin word for charity.
