Chapel of the Cross, Chapel Hill, NC

Clad in snowy white vestments and a bright pastel stole, Archbishop Tutu addressed the more than 500 clergy and laymen who had gathered in historic St. Paul's Chapel for the Consortium's closing Eucharist. In his sermon he emphasized the importance of compassion and good works as "our response of thanksgiving for what God has already done."

The sequence of the ritual of the Eucharist, he insisted, is essential: first God takes "divine initiative" in calling us and communicating His gift of himself to us through the bread and the wine; then, fortified by bread and wine, we can, as the deacon instructs us, "go forth to love and serve the Lord." The initiative is God's; the obligation - to move out and be God's friend, as Abraham and Moses did when they were called - is ours.

Nor, said Tutu, does God wait until we are worthy of receiving it to pour out his grace upon us. "If Christ had waited till we were 'die-able' for," he joked, "He'd have waited till the cows came home!" But because we are God's children, "we are all loved unconditionally." Sensing perhaps that a largely Type A audience in a Wall Street setting needed to hear this particular message, he urged us to lay aside our feeling "faith of achievement," our feeling that we need to impress God and instead to "relax into God's acceptance of who we are." Cupping his palms in front of his face, he declared, "Your name is engraved on the palms of God's hands as He cuddles you to his breast."

When we "luxuriate" in the certainty that nothing we can do can make God love us more or less than He does, Tutu continued, we will see more readily the worth of others and commit ourselves to ensuring that they have worthwhile lives - "lives of dignity befitting those who are loved by God." And so he sent us out: "Go and make this world a more compassionate place, please. Go out and make this place a more gentle and caring place, please. Go out and make it beautiful."

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