Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
The Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, 2001
The Reception of the Rev. Patrick Malloy
Bishop Paul V. Marshall June 29, 2001Thank you all for being here today, and let me particularly welcome those who have come from Pittsburgh and Connecticut to be with Patrick as his ministry enters a new phase.
All faithful people inherit, with today's first lesson, the idea that in God's faithfulness, in God's compassion, God seeks out the scattered, the injured, the weak, and restores them to safety ... and to purpose.
In Jesus of Nazareth those promises have been sealed, and a community established that is to be in every generation the living and active agent of the shepherd-king's compassion.
To encourage, support, nourish, and provoke that community called the Church, God gives the apostolic ministry, stewards of the mysteries of God. Today we celebrate Peter and Paul, who are the Romulus and Remus of the Church, and arguably its Oscar Madison and Felix Unger as well.
That isn't a throw-away line. I rejected Gilbert and Sullivan, Martin and Lewis, Laverne and Shirley, and Lucy and Ethel. Felix and Oscar were both quite good at what they did professionally, but were such different and limited people, that their trying to live together was hell for themselves and for those around them. Perhaps only the British show "Fawlty Towers" did a better job in demonstrating how people so unnecessarily create their own suffering.
Yes, I know it is almost required these last thirty years to point out the human flaws of the saints in order to make them accessible and perhaps even to cut them down to size. We do this to make ourselves more comfortable with our own somewhat timid discipleship on bad days, and on good days to remember that each of us, as St Paul said, is what we are by the grace of God, and ought to be taken seriously for that, if for nothing else, for God's grace is not in vain.
It is in the service of that latter concern that I stand in amazement at the prospect of a Church built on the heritage of a muscle-bound puller of nets, strong as an ox and twice as smart, on the one hand, and on the other hand a man who was good with a needle and thread and who went from being a brilliant Pharisee with zero tolerance for competing ideas to being a brilliant Christian ... with zero tolerance for competing ideas.
But God works with what is, raises up what is fallen, and Paul and his bro Cephas were chosen for their gifts and possibilities, not for their squeaky clean track records. God saw what they could contribute and called them to do it.
Whether you are drawn to the strong but inconsistent prince of the apostles who apparently found time to take a correspondence course in Greek, or to the one-person think-tank whose neuroses keep popping out like blemishes on a teenager's anxious face, you've still got to say that despite our reservations, without the strength of the one or the genius of the other, Christianity would look very different today.
It is doubtful that Peter understood himself as the first pope in any sense we would recognize, and it is equally doubtful that Paul knew he would turn out to have been the primary architect of Christian theology. God knows us well enough to give us calls to function, to get something done, and leaves it to the devil (and Wippell's) to provide the fantasies kingdom, power, and glory.
Things get done by people with limiting thorns in their flesh, things get done by people with incurable wounds. This is a warning to those for whom the thorn or the wound becomes excuse not to function. What if Meryl Streep had decided not to act because she is not a ravishing beauty, or Glenn Gould had decided not to play the piano because he had a bad habit of humming when he did? Unthinkable.
Those of us who serve the church do so with a kind of amazement that God's Holy Spirit can heal or work-around our limitations and use the gifts we have been given for the good of the Church. The more experience one has at this, the greater the amazement, the greater the gratitude.
For five short years I have been enjoying the most profound experience I have ever known of the presence and power of God. -- Yes, Joe, I've had the fun. -- Although a devout introvert, I have learned that my gifts are best exercised and focused in relationships, especially with co-workers. I have learned in a new sense the profound devotion Diana lives out in acts of support small and great. I have learned that merry bands of eccentrics at 333 Wyandotte street or in a host of diocesan committees really do resemble the empowered church that one reads about in the book of Acts. That's a compliment, by the way.
I am grateful for those of you who have been patient with me as I have learned this job, who have forgiven me when I have blundered, and who have encouraged me when things seemed to have been useful.
I deliberately chose this day of personal, vocational, and communal thanksgiving for our joint ministry to welcome Patrick Malloy into the ranks of the ordained ministry of the Episcopal Church and of this diocese. Like St Peter, and perhaps like me, Patrick may be a little startled to see that now that he is older than Jesus or Peter were in our gospel, he has been led to a place he may not have at first imagined himself going. The stripping for that journey has been severe and at times painful. But the joy of being able to answer a call outweighs, at least in the long run, the fact that such calls very often come collect.
Last night, sweaty and bug-bitten, we were driving home from the clergy family outing at Knoebel's Grove, and Diana elbowed me to point out a enormous sign in front of a salesbarn that offered in all-capital hand-painted letters, DEACON'S EQUIPMENT. It seems to me, Pat, that when I read the list in Second Timothy, the words about persistence in proclamation, patience in teaching sound doctrine, endurance of opposition, and so on, you are splendidly equipped, and the church is receiving a tremendous gift in and through you. The welcome we have gathered to offer you is sincere, enthusiastic, and thankful to God for letting our paths cross, so to speak. In a perfect church you wouldn't have had to be bound for a season and then led from a steel city in the west to a steel city in the east, but God does not waste journeys; God does not waste journeys, and stripping for them reveals our strengths.
The epistle lesson tells the readers that St. Paul is about to be poured out as a drink offering. I am drawn to that language, with its sense of flow, movement, and feeling. While Paul was shortly to have his blood splashing out of a headless torso in a most unattractive manner, for most of us the pouring out will be more prolonged, a thank-offering more than a blood-letting. The offering for most of us is gentler and more of an act of the will. Alexander Schmemann observed some twenty years ago that the essence of sacrifice is surrender. I think it can also be said that in any walk of life, when the offering of self coincides with vocational dream or vision, that pouring out is also a continual joy, even if blood it spilled.
The vision of our work together in Bethlehem is still emerging, always growing. Much of what lies ahead will stretch us. Our witness to the Episcopal Church seems more important than ever. One important thing I have learned in the last 5 years is not to be afraid: "He who calls us is faithful; he will do it."
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