Comedian Robin Williams has a list of reasons of why it is good to be an Anglican (Episcopalian).

You don't have to know how to swim to get baptized

You can believe in dinosaurs

Free wine on Sunday

All of the pageantry, none of the guilt.

Man, look at that pageantry! Let’s get ready to humble!

Actually, today is a great day and most of these party frocks will get to go to more than one wedding.

It is good day – full of solemnity, but full of joy and fun too.

The fun thing I should mention is that when Ross invited me to preach I talked with him about aspects of his life and ministry and things that he wanted to maintain.

One response was that he wanted to maintain his sense of humour.

Rest assured, buddy, nobody is going to take you too seriously when you wear one of those hats.

It is good to be here. Ross, I am humbled by your invitation of offer some other words into this service.

Fortunately, most of what needs to be said about being a bishop has already been said.

The ordinal (as the service is called) actually represents some of our best thinking, refined over centuries; carefully crafted prayers and phrases that express what we believe a bishop should be and do.

We stand in a tradition in which there are deacons, priests and bishops.They are called and empowered to fulfill and ordained ministry. And to enable the whole mission of the church.

In that statement alone lurks a huge segment of reformation debate which I won’t bore you with now. The point is: we have hammered all of this out and the words in your hand represent the distillation of our praying and our thinking.

I should add that while I was thinking through those words I was directed to an earlier manuscript, the 1552 Prayer Book, which has this wonderful line…

Bee to the flocke of Christ a shepherde, not a wolfe, fede them, devourse them not, hold up the weak, heal the sycke, binde together the broken, brynge agayne the outcasts, seke the lost; …

It’s hard to improve on that image – “be a shepherde, not a wolfe.”

In non-churchy language what we are about is obvious: Ross is to be a leader of the oldest diocese in New Zealand. It is a great diocese, and it has had some truly great bishops.

I need to add that Auckland is a beautiful and great city but, as it is unfolding, it won’t be a great ‘Super City.’

The sidelining of so many recommendations by the Royal Commission is a travesty, and not least among that failure is the sidelining of Tangata Whenua.

It might be possible to dismiss the Royal Commission but I don’t think it is possible to dismiss Te Tiriti Waitangi o Waitangi or the generosity of Ngati Whatua.

The so called ‘Super City’ threatens our regional social and cultural riches.

Of course, Ross, the diocese is more than the city and many of 91 ministry units are set in rural parts beyond the city walls where right now it is so dry that not even the wretched kikuyu is growing.

Northland, part of your diocese has amongst the highest rates of poverty and unemployment in the country.

So, Ross, there are some real challenges in this region and you will find yourself demanding that you are listened to on behalf of those you seek to serve as bishop of this great diocese.

Many bishops of Auckland have done just that. We are a church sustained by the sacraments but we will not and must not be contained or silenced in our sanctuaries.

We have a word that is sharpened over centuries by the prophets and we will cry out against injustice. And while we will protest it won’t be a thin note but one both broadened and deepened by a pastoral heart.

Leadership and the church

We do leadership differently. At least we are supposed to – deep down.

Leadership and management courses are in vogue at the moment. I am interested in the topic of leadership. I am particularly interested in what might remedy the failure of nerve in our leadership. Where does courage come from? And where does it go?

Our mainline is Jesus, and Jesus offers just a few obvious leadership lessons.

The first is just after he is baptized (the primary ordination for ministry). Jesus is sent into the wilderness and is tempted with great honour and power.

This is the lesson that addresses one of the deep tensions for a bishop: your position requires that you speak and act with authority, our faith requires that you live in submission.

This was a prayer we used in College throughout Lent:

You, Lord Jesus, knew great power,

To heal, to transform,

To proclaim the reign of God.

So you met great temptations,

Glittering, full of majesty and wonder, more victorious and imperial than any earthly ruler.

But you said, ‘No.’

Forever for us

We pray for ourselves, tempted like you:

When we seek political power

Jesus stay with us

When we long to become wealthy

Jesus speak to us

When we strive to impress with splendor

Jesus give us simplicity

When we wander from the way of self-giving

Jesus hold us

'Do you love me?'

Probably the second most important leadership course happens in a triplicate questioning of Peter: “Do you love me?”

This is the one thing you have to sort out, Ross.

Stuff management and leadership courses; this is what matters: This is your vision, your mission, your KPI, your one-year and your five-year business plan, your everything, the one thing, your call: do you love Christ?

Now in case this seems too abstract, look at the hands-on leadership lesson we get from Jesus is in the Gospel we just heard. If you want to do leadership right, wash feet.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of this lesson. We are a sacramental church, we believe that outward and visible signs can be and are signs of inward and spiritual grace.

Footwashing is the sacrament of Christian leadership. In the additional directions for ordination services there a line: Symbols of ministry may be presented to the newly ordained provided they do not obscure the prime significance of what is prescribed in the service.

Let me say that cardinal red doctoral gowns and rings and all of those favourite things of episcopal office run the risk of obscuring the gospel! I would argue that you should get at least get a basin and a towel.

Footwashing should somehow be part of ordination liturgies. And even as you think about including it, you can imagine how logistically difficult that would be.

It would be uncomfortable, awkward and untidy … and it would not do to tidy it away and make it into a handwashing because handwashing has only one association in the story of Jesus and no Christian leader needs help in practising that.

What footwashing brings home is how deeply transgressive and how ludicrous and how loving Christian leadership really is meant to be. So, a basin and towel would be good.

A shepherd's crook

Last thing: You will get a shepherd’s crook.

I have been thinking about a reflection by Yale professor James Dittes: The pressure is to be “the good shepherd” – “be a shepherde, not a wolfe.”

The problem is that, in spite of Pelagius being deemed a heretic, under that pressure we fall into the same falsehood and think that ministry is about our effort, our busi-ness.

So, Ross, the pressure will be on, and it will come from within as well as without: run the best programmes, chair the best meetings, understand all those trust deeds, and all the time seek and find all those lost sheep in the highways and byways.

Be the compassionate pastor, the strong and agile good shepherd, and above all, be able, be omni-present and omni-competent.

There is nothing wrong with striving, for you are certainly very able and you have many gifts and sometimes God means for us to stretch.

But Dittes is right when he says the parable contains another message, probably the one Jesus intended: “You have a good shepherd. When you are lost, you will be found; alone, you will be joined; cast down, you will be lifted up; loveless, loved.”

This diocese has a good shepherd, too – the same, Jesus Christ – and you may have some of your best times and your most fruitful ministry when you acknowledge we are lost together and we find ourselves found by the good shepherd.

You don’t have to be superman. Just you will do. These people of God have called you to be bishop for them. Trust God in that … we do.

Rev Canon Jim White is Dean of the College of the Southern Cross. This is an edited version of his address.