• How should the clergy conduct themselves during funerals?
  • We take you through the weird side of the men of God at burials, which makes them look like anything but comforters

Sometime back a man in Ebushiloli Mwilonje-Vihiga County, became a ‘pastor’ at his son’s burial because he could not raise the Sh5,000 church fee needed to have the men of the cloth preside over the ceremony.

Shadrack Andrew Opekwa, who lost his 2-year-old son to severe malaria presided over the last prayers for his departed baby.

His boss had given him Sh8,000 to fuel the vehicle that transported the infant’s body home, where his rural home church pastor Margaret Walukoye asked for Sh5,780 to buy three chickens, three kilos of meat, four kilos of flour, three litres of milk, one kilo of sugar and vegetables.

On top of this, he was to keep an ‘envelope’ of Sh2,000 for the pastor to carry home after the burial. Opekwe decided to do the burial by himself.

Opekwa’s story is just one among many that have exposed a side of some clergymen unknown on many.

Four months ago at Emalindi village in Kakamega, pastors fought over who would preside over a burial after three daughters of the deceased walked in with a pastor each.

So chaotic was it that the villagers chased the lot away and decided to carry on with the funeral. Apparently the pastors we not irked so much at being denied the privilege to serve as much as they were that they would miss the chance to be served at the funeral.

They would miss the high table and sumptuous chicken that comes with it, the greetings and the ‘envelope’ at the end of service, which is a reserve for the presiding pastor.

Jonathan Wafula, a resident of Kimilili, says pastors come to a funeral with strange demands that often leave the bereaved discouraged and hurt.

“I have witnessed several incidents where pastors go away with all the collected sadaka (offertory) at the funeral, leaving the bereaved struggling with how to settle funeral and other expenses left behind by the departed,” he says.

Wafula is saddened that even as the men of the cloth were given free gifts by God to serve, they have made it a habit of demanding from the downtrodden and the suffering; like bereaved families.

He quotes Mathew 10:8-9: “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give. Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts. No bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep.”

On demanding choice foods, Wafula says pastors who come to preside over funerals should be ready to take any food given just like any other mourners.

“They should stop demanding choice delicacies since it’s not a joyful event but a sorrowful one and sometimes even that food may have cost the family a lot,” Wafula said.

Peter Musyoka remembers an incident in Makueni where the clergyman together with the members of the church collected the offerings and disappeared. Usually the pastor disappears for a while before resurfacing to preside over church services in the town.

“It’s time pastors understand that a bereaved family needs our support both emotionally, materially and financially and not vice versa. Many bereaved families are in financial need and it would be fair to let them retain the offerings,” says Musyoka.

Recently Catholic Diocese of Embu Bishop  Paul Kariuki during an ordination of four priests and six deacons at St Paul and Peters Cathedral, urged priests to desist from misusing offerings at funerals to fund their drinking habits.

Stories have been told also of some pastors’ demand that the bereaved families cater for their logistical expenses, which may include being sent a taxi to bring them to the funeral. Bereaved families may also be made to send the preacher money to “buy fuel” even if his home is a stone’s throw away.

In Kisumu a family had to beg a church to bury their own who had died in Mombasa. It is believed that the Kisumu mainstream church got intelligence from their sister church in Mombasa to the effect that the deceased was not a churchgoer. Her husband too, the Mombasa church said, was a non-believer.

“After the body was brought to Kisumu from Mombasa, the pastors never turned up as is custom to stay vigil as they pray for family until they bury the dead. They acted as if they never knew the lady,” says Jared Okeyo a Nyakach resident.

He went on: “It took convincing to get the reluctant clergy to bury her. They said they did it because of the respect they had for the elderly mother-in-law.”

When they arrived they did it lethargically and went away after staying for about 15 minutes.

“Ni msaada tu tunafanyia huyu kafiri haikuwa tumzike (We are only being kind to the pagan. We were not going to bury her),” one pastor was overheard saying.