Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
At the reception of the priestly orders of
The Rev. Canon Bill Lewellis
All Saints' Day
November 1, 1999
Bishop Paul V. MarshallEcclesiasticus 4
Revelation 7
Matthew 6There are not many times when a preacher is safe in claiming to speak for almost everybody present. This, however, is one of those times. In God's time this has become the time for Canon Bill Lewellis to resume his ministry as a priest in Christ's one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.
It's a no-brainer to say that for us gathered here that this cause for great rejoicing. Bill has been priest for so many of us, counselor and pastor to so many of us, that his resuming a role as steward of all the mysteries of God is a great gift to our diocesan community. Just mentioning his decision over the last month has brought smiles of joy and gratitude to many, many faces in the diocese, and I know that if everyone who wanted to be here today could be, we would have a holy riot on our hands.
I also know that Bill would be thoroughly disappointed and somewhat uncomfortable if my words were entirely about him. For this is neither an ecclesiastical Emmy presentation, nor is it a roast, so we check both sentiment and zany zingers in the sacristy. No, it is a great feast today, All Saints' Day. This is the day when we recall that by the power of God's great grace, holy women and holy men have built a road for us, have shown us that we can be faithful, and it is most of all a day to praise God for the victory he has won in their lives, a victory that is offered to us individually and as a church.
That gives all ministry, and especially ordained ministry a common goal, and thus our lessons for the day.
The first lesson gives us something of a reality check as well. There is that tiny fraction of one per-cent of humanity who are remembered in history. Those who we remember as the heroes of faith have names by which we can thank God for them, and names by which we can invoke their prayers. That is a great and glorious truth, and part of the job of liturgical leadership is to keep those names alive in human memory.
But there is another human truth here, and that is that most people, faithful or otherwise, are remembered for two or three generations at best. This even happens to people at the top of the ladder: Who here can tell us anything important about President Benjamin Harrison? Who remembers the healing words and deep insights of Dag Hammarskjold?
God does. To live in the memory of God is not just a statement about survival, it is a claim that what we contribute -- and I did not say, what we accomplish -- what we contribute is added to the store of human wisdom, culture, and faith often without a label. As women have come to rediscover their heritage and history, for example, the gifts and contributions of their sisters and mothers over the millennia have become cause for celebration and strength, even though there may be few names to recall. But God remembers, and priests are to help us remember. In preaching, teaching, and in proclaiming the great prayer of the eucharist, they spin the web of stories that liturgy carries. Priests have a duty to help us see the big picture -- a great opportunity for us to imagine ourselves in it, as the secrets of the universe are shared.
That may take more imagination than we are willing to admit or attempt. It's a toss-up whether in the gospel lesson we just sang, it is the virtues Jesus extols or the rewards he promises that are of less interest to the normal person that lives inside my skin, inside the skin of many. There is a real sense in which I'd rather be retired, rich, and thin. It takes conversion to want those truly blessed things in the first place; they look fine on counted cross-stitch, but at heart most of us -- well, I -- have more pressing needs and more burning desires.
That's where I need a priest to show me in preaching and presiding at the eucharist, in counsel and confessional, that as God incarnate, Jesus brings a new set of desires to human hearts, that hunger for God is the great unacknowledged craving behind so much sordid or tedious human behavior. Blessed, happy, are they who know what they are really hunger for, because that food is at hand. And like Melchizedek bringing food and drink to exhausted Abraham, week after week, priests bring word and sacrament to those who have had the good fortune to realize that they hunger for God.
Next time a Bible thumper tells you that there will be only 144,000 saved, show them the rest of the verse. Besides the gang from the twelve tribes, the scene in the epistle this morning envisions a crowd far beyond number, including all races, nations, and conditions of humanity.
Whether or not the Church always gets the picture, God means to gather all humanity into one. Humans specialize in making distinctions that do not distinguish, in excluding those who are different or challenging. We who live in the several middle classes of America are thoroughly trained from birth to think of the very rich and the quite unfortunate as separate species and we behave toward them accordingly.
Here I will simply say to Bill that his long, faithful, and quiet dedication to serving those with AIDS, a ministry Monica shares, that ministry goes a long way toward helping individuals who may feel outcast know that they are beloved sons and daughters of the Almighty. This is no small thing: a communicant of this diocese had his house fire-bombed when his neighbors discovered that he was HIV-positive. Two parishioners at Trinity, Bethlehem, had a cross burned into the front of their house a few years ago. In America. In the Pennsylvania whose founder dreamed of the love that sisters and brothers could have for each other.
Tribulation comes in even more ways. Christians still lose their lives or their freedom because of their faith, sometimes in countries where that is not what we would expect. To them God says--you are part of a host nobody can number, you will sing close to the throne forever, and here, let my dry your eyes.
It is for each baptized person to get the word and the deeds across to those who suffer for their faith. For us to do that well we need people to lead us, encourage us, and nurture us with word and sacrament, and to keep before us the vision of all God's people victorious over sin and death, united with God forever.
It has been years since Bill stood at an altar as we will today. Coming to this day has not been entirely easy for him, and for Monica and Matthew and Stephen it has implications, too, as it does for every family when a member takes up priestly ministry. Bill was kidding us that in preparation for this day, it was Monica who went on retreat, as indeed she was on retreat. I suspect that Bill may have prayed a bit, too. For a reason. When a space vehicle re-enters the atmosphere there are some bumps, a few tiles may fall off the exterior, and I want the Lewellis family of you to know that I realize this and that you are in my prayers as the re-entry into the public identity of priests begins to rattle a bit. Fortunately, this is a diocese where supports are plentiful, and Bill has been a principal player in establishing those supports. Cash in.
Whether Bill or any of us, ordained or not, will be remembered when the world gets ready to celebrate the year 2100 is not possible to say. What is a delight to say, is that surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, we all press on to be faithful, to sing a song of the saints of God, and thank God that to help lead and sustain us on the way the Holy One has called Bill Lewellis.
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