Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
How God has Touched me Through Mother Romeril's Ministry
By Bishop Paul V. Marshall November 25, 2001
Preached at St. Andrew's, Bethlehem
Upon the retirement of The Rev. Canon Gwendolyn-Jane RomerilWhen a rector retires there are many feelings. We rejoice with and for Mother Romeril and Bob today. But we also have some feelings of loss and some uncertainty about the future. At today's celebration we will put some of those other feelings on hold for a while (they will keep), and focus on thanking God for what we have received in such a remarkable priest. If anybody demonstrates that God gives the church faithful shepherds, certainly Mother Romeril does. Thank you, God, for sending her among us.
The collect for today tells us that God's offer to the world is restoration and reunion in Jesus Christ. The epistle lesson tells us that in Jesus we see the image of God. Both of those ideas are fairly easy to say, but getting them to take root deep inside where our fears and failures and disappointments live is quite another thing. At best it is a challenge.
Our spiritual leaders are here to assist and support us in that life-long project of welcoming the reign of Christ in our hearts. Priests do that with their words, their actions, and their presence, and encourage us to do precisely the same thing with our own words, actions, and presence.
So then, perhaps the best I can do this morning is tell you a small part of how God has touched me through Mother Romeril's ministry, how she has made what is invisible to some quite evident to many. I hope that my words are a thank you to God, and an assurance to Mother Romeril that we didn't miss her point.
There is a gentle strength that Gwendolyn-Jane has cultivated that makes me safe in her presence. Life's battles have taught her a compassion that enfolds me whether she is saying what I want to hear or not. She has helped me through some very difficult moments in my ministry, and has shared her strength as I have needed it. But it is absolutely vital to say that Gwendolyn-Jane's strength points beyond itself. It points to Christ who alone can bear all of our burdens. I know that you have had similar experiences. It is also true that St. Andrew's had some difficult days awhile back. With you I am grateful for the healing of which your rector has been so much a part.
Sticking more closely to images, every now and then I found in the mail a photo that Gwendolyn-Jane has taken of me, always including a note with some encouraging observation. The first one basically said, "You look a lot less terrified than you used to." The most recent one I scanned and enlarged, and just framed on Wednesday. (show) It is a souvenir of a very special moment in my life. The point is that Mother Romeril helps people see themselves in new ways. She helps them see themselves as God sees them. You cannot fake that kind of ministry.
"Odd coincidence" is precisely the phrase that may least describe the fact that the two priests I have asked to preach to the clergy are here this morning, your rector and Canon Carr. They are among our best and most effective heralds of God's word. Preacher and poet, Gwendolyn-Jane uses words with a care that reminds me what a precious and fragile gift language is. Our culture doesn't always encourage us to be careful about how we use words-but when she preaches I know that something important is going on, something that will show me Christ. When my mother was battling cancer, one of the gifts she received was a series of loving and Christ-centered note from Gwendolyn-Jane, whom she had never met. Mother Romeril's words show us God's power.
There is something like a paradox here. I believe that Gwendolyn-Jane speaks and writes so well because she is so good at listening, for hours when necessary. This is also the work of God: it is a terrible thing to feel that no one will listen to us. It is part of God's embrace of our lives that people are sent to hear us and to listen to us, to let us feel as though we are worth listening to.
Yet that conversation between people, important as it is, is preliminary. The ultimate conversation happens when we trust God in the risk and embrace of prayer. If you have ever prayed with Gwendolyn-Jane you know that the Holy Spirit breathes in her prayer, and you then feel that it is not insane to cast your burden on the Lord. Talking about prayer is relatively easy; praying with someone, out loud, cannot really be faked because all the relationships involved need to be genuine.
There are dozens of people in this diocese, many of them now her colleagues, who have had Mother Romeril's personal guidance in their spiritual development. Once again we come up against the concept of genuineness, but there is something else that draws people to her. When the epistle uses words like strength, or speaks of "rescue from the powers of darkness," we are reminded that ours is not a religion of quick fixes. It is a religion of perseverance and paradox.
We see paradox when we are invited to see Jesus our King reigning from a cross in today's gospel. His promise of paradise to the man who asks for it has the power to move me because it comes in the midst of Jesus' own suffering. Gwendolyn-Jane and her family have had their share of pain and sorrow, and live with some difficult situations that are not going to go away. Her frankness about that, HER TRUSTING US with her pain and her faith where there is a great deal of sorrow gives each of us permission to trust others with our pain. It also gives us permission to rejoice in Christ in the midst of our suffering just as she rejoices in the midst of hers.
That is a very hard lesson for most of us to learn. Most of us in this room would do just about anything to care for others. It is much, much harder to let others care for us. As long as anyone says, "I don't take charity," they cannot enter the Kingdom of God, which comes as a gift or not at all. The Kingdom of God comes as a gift or not at all. When we learn that this is good news, the world looks different, looks like a gift, and joy can happen. Even during a war, a divorce, or in the face of our own death.
I am not very expert at joy in general -- I find it chiefly in my work, which is probably a good thing -- but there is a person who keeps reminding me about the larger joy, keeps pointing me to a God who is by no means dreary, and I know I speak for many here in acknowledging that. And for her ministry of genuineness we will always come to God with glad and grateful hearts.
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