The Bishop leads the Church in her mission

Your eminences, worthy elect bishops, distinguished guests, dear friends, sisters and brothers in Christ Jesus. It gives me great pleasure to take part in the consecration of new bishops in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia. The Church of Namibia is a sister church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, very dear to us. The Namibian people are also dear to us.

Finland feels a deep mutual connection with you. It is felt not only between churches, but also between peoples and states. We are united by a desire for freedom, independence and the promotion of human rights. Finland has been involved in the development of Namibia ever since the time when first Finnish missionaries came to meet King Shikongo and ask for his permission to work in Ovamboland in 1870, up to a co-operation in the struggle for Namibian independence in 1990.

This week we have received a message of the passing away of the first President of independent Namibia, Sam Nujoma. We mourn together with the people of Namibia and offer you our condolences. Together with you, we remember him with respect and gratitude. He faithfully led his people towards freedom, peace, justice and a life in human dignity. May God grant him eternal rest, and may his unquenchable light shine upon him. May the God of all consolation be with his family and loved ones.

The new President, Vice-President Dr Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, will take office in just over a month as the current President Nangolo Mbumba steps down. The new President of Namibia will be the first woman to hold this office, which gives us a joyful connection to this episcopal consecration. Today also marks the consecration of the first woman bishop in Namibia. Rev Hilja Nghaangulwa will take up the office of Bishop of the Eastern Diocese. Dr Gideon Niitenge, Moderator of ELCIN, will be consecrated Bishop of the Western Diocese. He becomes the presiding bishop of the church.

Together with the assembled congregation, we thank God for his guidance and pray that he will bless his church through these two new bishops. To this end, no fewer than three bishops from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland have travelled to this celebration. We wish to support our sister church and its new bishops in our common mission. The dioceses of Tampere, Helsinki and Espoo are linked with the Eastern and Western dioceses of Namibia, and we will continue to develop our cooperation with the new bishops.

Personally, it is a great pleasure for me to participate for the second time in the consecration of bishops in Namibia. I was here in the same place in 2011 when Bishops Shekutaamba Väino ya Väinö Nambala and Josaphat Shangala were consecrated according to the apostolic manner with imposition of hands and a prayer to the Holy Spirit. I am once again happy to join my predecessors as Bishops of Tampere, beginning with Bishop Elis Gulin who consecrated Bishop Leonard Auala, Bishop Erkki Kansanaho who consecrated Bishop Kleopas Dumeni, Bishop Paavo Kortekangas who took part in the consecration of Bishop Apollos Kaulinge, and Bishop Juha Pihkala who joined the consecration of Bishop Johannes Sindano. Sindano, for his part, participated in my consecration.

Today, the bishops of Helsinki and Espoo will also lay their hands on the new bishops and join in praying God to equip them with a gift of the Holy Spirit. In this fundamentally charismatic way, we will share in the gifts of communion and continuity, which make up the essential duties of the episcopate.

This great feast makes visible the words of St Paul according to which in Christ Jesus there is “no longer Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female” (Galatians 3:28). Whether we live in the North or in the South, we have all been integrated to Christ in the holy baptism. We have all been made members in his body. All members of the body are important and necessary to the whole. We need each other, each other’s knowledge and wisdom, each other’s experience and discernment. Each of us has received gifts of the Holy Spirit in manifold.

The ministry of a bishop is also a gift from God. It is a spiritual gift. It is a gift, different from other gifts, because it calls us to serve others and the whole people of God. It does not elevate a person above others but calls him or her alongside others. It calls to welcome those who have a concern and to listen carefully to them. In the Bible, ministry is mentioned among other charisms, it is a gift of the Spirit of God. The English word ministry comes from the Latin word minister, which in ancient Rome meant a lesser official. In the state, ministers are servants of their people; in the church, bishops are servants of God’s people.

St Paul writes: ”Whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task.” (1 Timothy 3:1) The bishop’s task is to be an overseer, namely a spiritual shepherd. The word bishop comes from the New Testament Greek word episkopos, which means bishop. Literally, it means a person who looks over the heads of others. An overseer’s gaze extends to the wider world. A bishop sees a little further than his or her own flock. A bishop needs to see beyond his or her own immediate circle, own home, own family or own congregation. A bishop’s task is to look beyond, both geographically and temporally.

The bishop looks back, to history, to the origins of the Church and its mission, as well as forward, to the future. His or her task is to lead the Church in its mission. The bishop also unites the diocese and its local parishes and parishioners. When the bishop visits a parish, presides over the Eucharist or preaches, he or she shows that each local parish belongs together with the others and that they share a common faith.

In this way, the bishop ensures the continuity of the church across time and space. The bishop acts like the apostles of biblical times: they planted churches and appointed elders, or leaders, to each one, whose task it was to tend their flock, as recorded in Acts 14:23. The apostles then communicated with their congregations, wrote letters to them and came back to visit them again. The apostolic practice of regular visitations in parishes is still a fundamental task of a bishop.

The office of bishop is based on the mission and mandate given by the Lord Jesus to his apostles. He sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. He said: ”Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:22-23) Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he gave his disciples a mission of reconciliation under his authority. They do not base their mission on their own authority, but on the love of the Lord Jesus for people.

Jesus sent his disciples by saying: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to speak English…” No, he didn’t say that! He said: “Teach them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” (Matt. 28-18-20)

We white men from Europe have imagined that our task is to teach the whole world to be European. The countries of the North wanted to colonise the South. In the history of the Christian Church, it was still the case a hundred years ago that the majority of Christians lived in the North, namely in Europe and America. Now it is different. Most Christians live in the southern hemisphere. Africa alone has more than 700 million Christians. The demographic centre of gravity of Christianity is in Africa. In Europe the church population is falling, here it is growing.

The shift of emphasis southwards also affects the shape of the global Christian church. How will Christianity in Africa develop when it is clothed in African languages and cultures? The late Gambian-born professor of theology Lamin Sanneh argues that the global context has shifted towards a post-Christian West and a post-Western Christianity. This implies a change in the global profile of Christianity, which has already begun. African church leaders take responsibility for the Church of Christ and her mission in an African way.

Sanneh believes that the greatest and most lasting impact of the European churches’ missionary work in Africa was the translation of the Bible into different indigenous languages. Indeed, it required first the creation of a written language and then the teaching of literacy. In the process, the vernacular Bible became the model or norm for many African tribes and peoples on how to use the vocabulary and expressions of their own language.

At the same time, of course, it conveyed the message of the Gospel and made Christ known. But in creating a written language, the vernacular Bible became in many places a unifying factor, which also made the emergence of nations with a cultural identity possible. How important it was in Namibia that people were able to read their own paper Omukwetu at a time when they were oppressed by apartheid policy and suppressed from learning and education!

I am sorry that I too must give this speech in English! I know that without an own language, no nation can embrace the message of Christ and learn to keep what he told his own to keep! But I am glad that the Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission FELM worked for more than 150 years in Namibia, helping the people of this beautiful country spiritually with prayers and by word and sacrament, but also by starting schools.

The message of the Gospel has an inherent power to transform people and their communities. It transforms their churches and their societies. It transforms humans and their countries, making them to reflect the justice, peace and dignity characteristic to God’s Kingdom we so eagerly long and wait for. The Gospel of Christ transforms nations into a people of God who praise and serve his name, even though they do so in many different languages and cultures all around the world.

Over the past decades, Christianity has grown into a truly global religion. It is confessed on all continents and has nowhere one single centre of power. Although Christianity has its origins and its own history in the homeland of our Lord Jesus Christ, this faith, as it has spread everywhere, has always been integrated in the local culture. Unlike other world religions, it has not been tied into its original homeland or its language and culture. It has nowhere any one and only genuine shrine to gather worshippers into, neither any sacred language in which to worship God in the right way. God can be worshipped and prayed to everywhere and in all tongues of the world.

The unique message of Christianity is that God, the Father Almighty, has sent His eternal Word to be born as a human being. Jesus is the Son of Man, but also the Son of God. In him, God is committed to human life, to their limitations, their weakness, their hunger, their suffering and ultimately their mortality. God sent his Son to speak the language of humans, to eat the food of humans, and to suffer the death of human beings. But even more, the Father sent His Son to reconcile humanity and all creation to Himself, and to overcome its transience and mortality by His own death and resurrection.

It is as ministers to this message of reconciliation that you will be ordained today, dear sister Hilja and dear brother Gideon, dear bishops-elects. May the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit bless you. Amen.