Will you join me on this journey?

This past month, Francis was consecrated as the Bishop of Garissa in Kenya. The following is his first sermon as bishop, which he shared at his consecration service.

Bishop Francis Omondi

First Sermon

by Francis Omondi

By the providence of God, my ordination and enthronement fall on the Sunday of Good Shepherd feast.

I have built this sermon on the work of my teacher, Prof Henri Nouwen’s INJ In the Name of Jesus; SJ Sabbatical Journey, and, SWC The Selfless Way of Christ.

I select this scripture to guide my ministry: “I will give you shepherds according to my own heart, and they will feed you with wisdom and understanding” (Jeremiah 3:15).

Jeremiah spoke of God’s promise to his distressed and scattered people, to give them shepherds who understood the heart of God. This ought to be the model of a bishop’s heart in exercising his ministry. So, I aspire to be modelled thus, a ministry posturing close to the heart of God.

Jesus, the chief shepherd, modelled for us a posture of humility. It is so countercultural that it does not make immediate sense. No one wishes to be marginalised. Everybody wants to be counted and to contribute significantly where we are. As a result, we are constantly confronted with that irresistible pull to be indispensable, competent, productive, and in control.

When we equate our calling and personal vocation with the secular concept of a career, we succumb to external pressure to deliver the ministry’s goods. And so, when our significance is marked by our ability and readiness to respond to every need to be met, we crave to be assured of our worth as ministers. And we would erroneously think that productivity is the basis of ministry. This consequently distorts even our sense of identity.

However, in Jesus’ model of the shepherd, the true minister of God is called, argues Henri Nouwen, “… to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her vulnerable self” (INJ:17). This is the kind of shepherd I long to become among you.

My ambition is to know the true heart of God and be driven not by a need to be significant but by a desperate love for Jesus, and his works in the world.

For, according to Henri Nouwen, “Knowing the heart of Jesus and loving him is the same thing” (INJ:27). He recommends Contemplative Prayer, because, as Nouwen warns, “When we do not live in deep communion with God ... then we use religion to serve our desire for success, fame, and stardom” (SJ:164). I concur that this is the means to becoming a shepherd after God’s heart.

I desire to minister with inner conviction, which can only be archived when one is contemplative, one’s identity is to be rooted in the love of God, and one practices the discipline of dwelling in God’s presence through prayer (INJ:29). I invite you to the regular practice of contemplative prayer, only through which we can learn to listen and discern God’s voice and “find the wisdom and courage to confront whatever challenges we face.” (INJ:31).

So, we must act by God’s prompting, and NOT respond to needs induced by our ambition and compulsion to make something happen according to our desires and gainful advantage.

Prayer should be an act of holiness as it is an act of ministry. Through the discipline of prayer, we remember “that our limited actions are rooted in the unlimited power of his name.” It is to say, ‘I am human, and you are God.’” Ultimately, it is not our agenda that matters.

Moreover, prayer is not only an expression of our dependency upon God but also our vital interdependency with other people. In fact, “we get closest to God when we are willing to be vulnerable when we are willing to say, ‘I need somebody else.’” We will learn that it is in the community, “where God happens”- that is when people pray and contemplatively listen to God and each other in silence. So, going forward, we will not only practice the presence of God in our lives but also practice the presence of one another in our community.

We live at a time when popularity has replaced the true essence of ministry. Nouwen observes, “We act as if visibility and notoriety were the main value of what we are doing” (SWC:56). We, therefore, face the temptation to prove something.

I want to hear the voice of Jesus, in the gospel tasking Peter, now a shepherd: “Feed my lambs, look after my sheep, feed my sheep.” We today hear these words in an individualistic way for we are not being sent on a heroic mission. But the shepherding, Jesus speaks about does not envisage a brave, lonely shepherd caring for a large flock of obedient sheep. Ministry is a communal and mutual experience:

First of all, we are called to proclaim the gospel together in a community. We must inculcate the notion that ministry is “a communal and mutual experience” (INJ:40).

Ministry is everybody’s undertaking in the church and not just done by the celebrated people. Because, only when we minister together, “…people would recognise that we do not come in our name, but in the name of the Lord Jesus who sent us” (INJ: 41).

The theme of mutuality in ministry within the larger context of community life. For, we minister as we are ministered to. One cannot ignore the numerous “one another” epistles texts.

We give as needy people who are willing to receive in the process.

We must, therefore, cautions Nouwen, be open and humbly willing to confess our neediness and brokenness to overcome the snare of “individual heroism” (INJ:45). We minister best out of our authentic selves—— utterly powerless apart from God’s infusion of power.

Furthermore, we need always to be ready to ask for forgiveness from one another when necessary, so that our ministry takes place within the context of the healing and reconciling presence of Jesus.

In God’s eyes, we are all the same. We all, as your bishop and you Christians under my charge, need God desperately and we need each other completely. All of us in this diocese, will need a vital accountability to confess and all of us should forgive.

As a bishop, the temptation to be powerful is the most seductive represented in domination, control, and self-assertion.

I pray that, while exercising my leadership, I develop healthy, intimate relationships and do not slip into power and control instead. I thus “want to give and receive love” (INJ:60) and not exercise heavy-handed authority devoid of love and concern for people.

The shepherd’s vision that Jesus espoused entails having a willingness of heart to be led where we would rather not go, even if that might mean pursuing a downward path instead of an upward path. As your shepherd, I pray “to constantly abandon power in favour of love” (INJ:63). May God help me be the shepherd who treads the route of powerlessness, servanthood, and humility.

I echo the concerns of Rowan Williams, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, that “The church that is theologically vague about its sacramental life will be careless in practising her liturgical habits”. Hence, I seek to mould a diocese that reflects theologically and is coherent in its liturgical practices.

Theological reflection will be, to us, the process of seeking meaning that resides in the rich heritage of our Christian tradition as a primary source of guidance. Such reflections will allow us to discern critically where we are being led. Thus, helps us to learn to think with the mind of Christ and not rely on our wisdom.

Doing so will minimise the pressure to seek power other than what God provides. That kind of power is found in weakness.

Addressing our burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness. Because we gravitate to our sense of self and are caught up in our opinion about a given subject. However: it is possible to remain flexible without being relativistic; convinced without being rigid; willing to confront without being offensive; gentle without and forgiving without being soft; true witness without being manipulative (INJ).

During my service, I will seek to uphold Liturgy. Cardinal Ratzinger, argued, "Liturgy in the proper sense, is part of this worship, but so too is life according to God's will" This is why we must be careful to shape our communal life to be witness for Christ since, "the focus of the Church’s life is its mission ... of making Christ known" (William, 2008).

Will you join me on this journey?