• If political support can be obtained by corrupting the people, as well as the religious sector, with bribes, property and money, so be it.
• We cannot, therefore, in our times today, be complacent to let the abomination of desolation stand where he ought not to stand
Image: faith matete
May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of all our hearts, be acceptable to you of Lord our God. Amen.
When my Lord Bishop Kodia requested me to come today and pray with you at this wonderful church, I didn’t realize that his invitation was a double-edged sword.
For, when the letter finally arrived confirming the date, there was a rider to the invitation.
“Please come and give the sermon of the day as well.”
That is what the Americans call “getting two for the price of one”.
No wonder the Bishop is so good at fundraising!
Notwithstanding that acumen for getting me here, I must say I am extremely delighted to see the progress being made in this diocese under the Bishopric of my brother here.
And I am sure it is all being done in the spirit of building for the future and not just for today.
Many years ago when I was in high school at the Alliance High School (please underline the word “the”), our school motto was STRONG TO SERVE.
And I believe Bishop Kodia is living up to this motto as he builds for the future of this Diocese.
He is showing true leadership.
And since we are just about to elect our leaders in a General Election which is coming up in August this year, I thought I would take this rare opportunity to reflect with you on this daunting subject of leadership.
Being one such human being with the tag of being a leader, obviously, you are right to sit there and wonder whether I can be objective in leading this reflection.
But this reflection is not entirely mine, it comes from the New Testament, from the four Gospels which recorded the life and teachings of a Jewish charismatic leader and preacher named Jesus Christ who lived more than 2000 years ago, and we as his followers, appropriately calling ourselves Christians, believe he was the Son of God.
And there is no doubt, from the Biblical accounts, that he lived an exemplary life, a life no other human being has lived before or after him.
And he himself never shied away from calling himself “The Son of God” or “The Son of Man”.
He was not afraid to proclaim his identity and to be judged by who he said he was and the implications of that in his role in society.
In the Gospels, Jesus used the term “Son of Man” 102 times, and the term “Son of God” 76 times.
He further claimed that God was his father 54 times.
He did all this knowing very well that the ruling and powerful Judaism religious authorities, the Sadducees and Pharisees, would not accept this kind of claim which they regarded as heresy in Judaism.
In Luke 20, the scribes (Sadducees) and the high priests (Pharisees) sought to have Jesus arrested because of blasphemy.
In John 5, they wanted him killed, and in chapters 8 and 10, they tried to stone him.
But why were they so hostile to Jesus?
Because unlike them who regarded the masses with disdain, Jesus was always out to listen to the problems of the masses, always ready to visit them in their homes and in market places and even ready to testify in their defence in the hostile religious courts of the ruling class.
He was always ready to discuss with them in their own “bunge la wananchi.”
This is because Jesus, from the beginning to the end, had a consistent MISSION STATEMENT which he repeated to the people everywhere he went, even when he was under trial by the ruling class of his time.
His father, he argued, had sent him to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.
And he pursued this mission statement from the beginning of his life up to the time he was crucified on the cross precisely because of living up to this mission statement.
You will remember at his trial when Pontius Pilate (the Roman Emperor) asked the Jewish leaders what reasons they had to insist that Jesus, and not Barabbas, should be sentenced to death.
Barabbas a convicted thief, was, by Roman law, the one Pontius Pilate had served with the death sentence. According to Roman law which Pontius Pilate was depending on, there was absolutely nothing wrong with what Jesus did.
But the Jewish leaders insisted that he had violated their own religious law: and he had to die for it.
In the end, Pontius Pilate washed his hands off the matter and handed Jesus to the murderous hands of Judaism to crucify him by themselves.
And Jesus had predicted all this much earlier.
And had said that because he would be faithful to his mission from the beginning to the end, he knew he would suffer for it, and even this unfair suffering he was prepared to endure for the sake of fulfilling the mission for which he was born by the virgin Mary.
The clarity in mission, consistency in word and deed, strength and ability to stand for what you as a leader believe in, always ready to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind at whatever cost to your own comfort, security or even life is what makes a true leader stand out of the crowd of those who claim they are leaders but have neither the substance nor the conviction to lead people under difficult circumstances.
Today we see many leaders emerging in the political scene of our Republic, suddenly proclaiming themselves as saviours of the people, as unifiers of the nation, and as those who are most passionate about the plight of the common man.
While they proclaim themselves as democrats of today, we know only a few years ago they were denouncing democracy and jailing without any trial those who spoke for the downtrodden and oppressed.
Hardly twenty years ago they led the most ferocious youth movement that was hell-bent to defend a most atrocious authoritarian regime that had ruled this country for 14 years with an iron fist, ruthlessly detaining and killing political critics and murdering political rivals.
This group helped to sabotage the election of 1992 to once more keep in power the notorious Moi regime for yet another 10 years.
When democratic changes came, thanks to the heroes of the Second Liberation which brought freedom to all and sundry, this manipulative group took advantage of the changed circumstances to join the bandwagon of democracy and re-invent themselves as new crusaders for democracy.
Like the Pharisees and Sadducees, they have been keen to exploit the law of the land, and use it to their own advantage all the time.
If political support can be obtained by corrupting the people, as well as the religious sector, with bribes, property and money, so be it.
That is an easy route to political popularity and search for votes.
They have put our democracy on auction for the best bidder with little regard for political hygiene or moral decency.
The Pharisees and Sadducees could connive and bribe even those who were close to Christ, so as to know the opportune time to accuse him falsely before Pilate and arrest him.
Judas Iscariot, a former Tax Collector who had become the disciple of Jesus, fell victim to their machination and revealed to them the whereabouts of his master so they could easily arrest him and take him to the gallows.
Veterans of the Second Liberation like our leader Raila Amolo Odinga have travelled this road with the Judas Iscariots of our time, so-called leaders who trade with their self-interest, in the marketplace of political competition, and call it democracy.
We know them, and the people know them.
believe in the difficult route of consistency to the mission of democratic struggle and the true liberation of our people from the shackles of poverty, ignorance, disease, ethnic discrimination, class exploitation and the socio-economic marginalisation of our women.
We are married to this mission, and we are not just about to divorce it any time soon.
Instead, we are appealing to join us in pursuit of this mission.
We are committed to travel along the difficult route of consistency of purpose and clarity of vision in uniting Kenyans within a broad democratic coalition—AZIMIO LA UMOJA—for purposes of winning the coming elections and continuing with the tremendous progress that we made under the NARC and coalition governments.
Kenyans will remember that in 2002 we travelled along this road of consistency of purpose and clarity of vision and established one of the most progressive, democratic and developmental governments in Kenya since 1963.
Kenyans were then rated the happiest people on earth and our economy grew by leaps and bounds.
All procurement officers in government were sent home on the very first day that NARC came into power, and corruption was drastically minimised in government.
But even within NARC we were cohabiting with our own Judases who very soon betrayed us when corruption reared its ugly head in the infamous Anglo Leasing scandal.
After the post-election violence that followed the election debacle in 2007, we established the Coalition Government, again under Mzee Mwai Kibaki, to usher in DEVOLUTION which has been a big game-changer in Kenya’s development, especially at the grassroots.
But the Jubilee government that came to power after the August 2017 elections not only threw us back to the dark old days of wanton corruption in the government of the Moi type but proceeded to canonize and sanitize corruption as a source of philanthropy when its proceeds are given as donations in our churches and to our church leaders.
In the book of Mathew, chapter 24, verses 15 onwards, says:
“Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place—(be sure to understand what this means)” It means, as the Gospel of Mathew proceeds to point out, that there will be trouble in our land if indeed we let the “abomination of desolation” standing where it ought not to stand.
Otherwise, someone who is on top of the roof of his house will have to come down, gather his belongings, and run.
Woe unto the media, men and women: even fleeing into a church compound will not guarantee them their lives.
In the time of Jesus, the abomination of desolation that stood where it ought not to stand were the Jewish religious leaders who, rather than let Pilate deliver judgement in line with Roman law, hijacked the process and used their own laws to judge Jesus.
The result would have been disastrous had Jesus not risen from the dead after 3 days.
But that miracle only happened once: never again.
We cannot, therefore, in our times today, be complacent to let the abomination of desolation stand where he ought not to stand, i.e. win the coming elections.
God has fortunately preserved for us, throughout these many years of the struggle for the second liberation, a man whose fortitude and strength for good and democratic leadership has been tested and proven to be built on the solid rock of consistency, steadfastness and faithfulness to a mission and vision which have stood the test of time.
Your guess of who this man is is as good as mine.
Please register to vote and elect Raila Amolo Odinga as the fifth President of the Republic of Kenya.
Peter Nyong'o is the governor of Kisumu County.