Sermon for the Centenary Celebrations of the Diocese of Namibia, St Mary's, Odibo

ARCHBISHOP THABO MAKGOBA

PRIMATE and METROPOLITAN OF THE ACSA

Centenary Celebrations, Diocese of Namibia

St Mary’s Parish, Odibo

23rd August 2025 

Readings: Ruth 2: 1-11, 4: 13-17; Psalm 128; Matthew 23:1 -12

May I speak in the name of God, who is Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Amen.

Your Excellency Dr. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, President of the Republic, we are proud and privileged that you are with us today, more especially since you are an alumnus of St Mary’s Odibo High School and you are also a member of the Order of Simon of Cyrene, the highest honour the church can confer on a lay Anglican. Thank you for being here. And Bishop Patrick, I want to express my gratitude to you and your team for all the hard work you have put in to enable this celebration to happen. 

Sisters and brothers, I greet you in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is an honour to have been asked to share with you the Word of God as you celebrate 100 years of witness, service and ministry through God’s love and grace to the people of Namibia. Wow!! A centenary, what a milestone! My thanks to you, Bishop Patrick, to your leadership team, and to the whole community of Namibia, for inviting me. Thank you everyone for your warm welcome. Thank you too to all those who have worked so hard on the preparations for this day. It is a great privilege to be here with you, especially since we are graced by the presence of your President, whom we claim as one of our own. I know it's been a while since your Inauguration, Your Excellency, but renewed congratulations from the Anglican Church across Southern Africa. 

A special welcome also to our other honoured and distinguished guests, former bishops of this diocese and their families, national and local government officials, the wider diocesan family, ladies and gentleman. 

You have made a remarkable journey over the past 100 years, one so unlikely, in fact, that we can understand it only if we accept that your origins and your transformation into what you represent today are the consequence of God's intervention in our lives. As a community of faith, you have worshipped, witnessed and served God in this part of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. Just as you have followed the example of Jesus, who came not to be served but to serve, and to give up his life as a ransom to many, so God has responded and has been faithful to you.

In the reading from the Book of Ruth (2:1ff) which we heard this morning, we are presented with the story of Naomi returning to her hometown with her daughter-in-law Ruth after the death of her husband and sons, and of Ruth's encounter with Boaz. Knowing nothing about Boaz, Ruth proposed to help Naomi by taking  advantage of the ancient law in Israel which allowed the poor and the vulnerable need to glean, that is to collect the leftover crops from fields after the main harvest. Not knowing the area, she followed other women to the fields where men were harvesting the grain, women were binding sheaves, and those in need could gather up what remained.  As a foreigner, Ruth could not assume she had a right to glean, so she was careful to ask for permission.

When Boaz arrived, he didn't recognise Ruth, so as one who lived in a society where women were usually part of households headed by men, Boaz asked his foreman who Ruth belonged to. Hearing who she was, he not only approved of her gleaning, but instructed the harvesters to allow her to take some of the grain they were collecting. Not only that, but since she evidently had no automatic right to the precious water brought from a well for the harvesters, Boaz also instructed that she be allowed to drink from it.

Overwhelmed by Boaz's generosity, Ruth asked why he had taken any notice of her, a foreigner. Boaz explained how he had heard about her kindness to Naomi and, wanting to encourage her faith in the God in whom she had put her trust, he told her that he wanted her to experience the reward which only the God of Israel could give. Still today, our Lord defends all those who take refuge in Him, and still today, God urges us to take special care of the widow and the stranger, including migrants who are foreigners in our lands.

The implications of the teachings in both the story of Ruth from the Old Testament, and our Gospel reading today, are clear: we are called to be inclusive and not to doubt our ability to overcome whatever challenges we face. The spiritual principle that undergirds both lessons is the affirmation that the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in us, reassuring us that the problems in front of us are minuscule compared to the God within us.

Sisters and brothers, we give thanks to God who has protected the faithful of this Diocese for the past 100 years. When we cast our minds back to the turmoil and the struggles this country has gone through—from the era of colonialism to the years when you here in Odibo were on the front line of the struggle for liberation, suffering the brutality inflicted on you by my countrymen of the South African Defence Force—and when we reflect that earlier this year you celebrated 35 years of independence, we can see how, just like Ruth, you too have been rewarded by putting your trust in God, the God of justice and liberation. 

People of Namibia, take this assurance to heart, that each one of you, transformed by your faith, is loved by God as if you are the only being in existence. And of course, this does not apply only to each one of you. It applied to those who came before you, to those who laid a solid foundation for this Diocese, to those whose legacy as faithful servants of our Lord and Saviour we honour today. We also remember all the bishops, clergy, the church wardens, lay ministers and lay leaders down the years who paved the way for our worship today. They are our inspiration in leading the witness of Jesus through some of the most difficult times of our history. 

And just as those who came before in this nation were nurtured and upheld through times of trouble and tribulation, from the first genocide of the 20th century to the struggle for liberation, so we too are upheld through the troubled moments of our times. Just as God sustained members of this Diocese through wars, a previous pandemic and military occupation, so God sustained us through the recent pandemic and will sustain us through the difficult economic times we are going through.

Dear friends, my vocation as your Archbishop, the vocation of my brother and sister bishops, and the vocation indeed of all those who are ordained in our Anglican Church, is to seek to discern the will of God for us and our church through the multiple lenses of Scripture, Reason, Experience and Tradition. Returning to today's scripture readings, the Gospel passage (Mt 23:1-12) also brings to us the fifth discourse of Jesus on judgment in which we hear a detailed criticism of the scribes and Pharisees who teach from Moses's seat in the synagogues. Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for placing heavy burdens on others while themselves failing to live up to what they preach. Jesus further makes clear that in the Kingdom of God true greatness is found in humility and service rather than in honours and titles. It is God and Christ who have true spiritual authority, and even those who call themselves “rabbi”, or teacher, are students. Scholars say it is doubtful that Jesus was forbidding the use of the term “rabbi”, but suggest that he was warning against the attitude of mind in which they saw themselves as being of more value than those whom they taught. Sisters and brothers, this lesson today is about being challenged. It is about being confronted, yet also being encouraged and treasured at the same time.

As we celebrate these 100 years, what can we say to God when we reflect on the situations in our diocesan community, in our country, and in the world? These are indeed times of great distress, not only in our own region economically, but also in other parts of the world. Uppermost in the minds of many of us is the appalling incidence of wars, hunger and violence and the killing and abuse of innocent women and children by those who should be protecting them. We grieve for the people of Sudan, afflicted by a vicious and bitter civil war. We grieve for the people of Gaza, victims of ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide, and increasingly for those on the Occupied West Bank of the Jordan, who now face acts of terrorism from extremist settlers. And we grieve for the people of Ukraine, and pray that peace will come to all these countries, and to the many other regions of the world wracked by conflict. 

So, as you move forward into the next 100 years and beyond, I leave you with a challenge and an assurance. The challenge is: What is your vision for this Diocese for the years to come? What can you do to enable it to move confidently into the next 100 years? Your founding fathers planted this Diocese through turbulent times of colonialism, oppression and war. I charge you today to pick at least one thing that will make eternal life felt in the here and now; something that will better the lives of many in and around Odibo, the rest of Namibia and beyond. Our assurance is that God has, again and again, met people and sent them out to proclaim his truth, with clarity and courage, through difficult and challenging times in the past. And he will do so again today and in the future. 

In closing, I congratulate you all very warmly on your Centenary anniversary. 

God loves you and so do I. Amen.

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