Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
The Pre-Disastered Priest -- News You Can Use
Sermon at the Ordination of R. Jane Williams as a priest
Christ Episcopal Church, Reading, PA 12/19/1997
The Rt. Reverend Paul V. MarshallSometimes the things that it is good manners to say are also true. Thus I have a double pleasure when I say that I am truly grateful to be with Jane and all of you tonight as we sing and pray over her, asking God to make her a priest. You don't need me to tell you what a fine and Christlike person she is: your presence testifies to that.
Before we go further with the liturgy tonight, I want to stop to make it very clear what we are not doing. The canons of the church provide additional language to be read at this event or recorded on the ordination certificate. It says that we are "acknowledging the ministry which Jane Williams has already received and hereby adding to that commission the grace and authority of Holy Orders as understood and required by this Church for the exercise of the ministry of a Priest." The Episcopal Church has no desire to denigrate the ministry Jane exercised as a Methodist, no thought that the sacraments she celebrated were without effect.
As Jane has expressed her desire to serve in this church, we come together tonight to transmit what we have received, remembering that ordination is not for the priest, but for the church. Our epistle has reminded us that all the gifts God gives individuals are for building up the members of the body of Christ. Like the eucharist, the sacrament of ordination is not magic, but mystery. Like the eucharist, it starts with the people and ends up for the people.
It is worth repeating: ordination is all very like the eucharist. We will bring bread and wine, and then give thanks and pray over them, only to receive them back with new meaning and power. Just so, through the pre-ordination process, and most clearly in this liturgy, the people of God have presented Jane to be offered to God, and received back with new meaning and purpose, for the guidance, nurturing and maturation of the people of God.
She has lain as though dead as we prayed for her and for the church and for all the world. She will kneel in our midst as we all pray for the power of the Holy Spirit, and then, in succession to the apostles, it is my privilege and responsibility to be the first of those many here who lay on hands, and to say the words asking God to make Jane a priest. And that's important to remember: the grace of ordination is not something we can create or bestow, like representative government or a life sentence as parish treasurer. As in any sacrament, we receive its grace from God, with thanksgiving. In Holy Baptism God makes us all part of a priestly people. It takes another act of God to make a presbyter and we must receive that act humbly.
In precisely that context of receiving a priest as a gift from God, I want to say a word about the "Pre-disastered Priest." It helps us understand the gospel's image of a shepherd's self-offering for the sheep.
There is a scene in the movie "Garp," where T S Garp and his wife are looking for a home. As they stand on the sidewalk looking at a lovely colonial that they have just toured, a small plane crashes into the house and stops in the master bedroom. Garp immediately says, "We'll take it." His wife and the realtor look at him dumb-founded. Nobody actually needs to pronounce the word, "Why?" for the question fills the very air around them, and so he answers their stares. "Because it's pre-disastered." He goes on to say that there is only so much terrible stuff that can happen to a house, and this house has just had it happen. (Don't you love optimists?)
I have Jane's permission to use that expression tonight. In many ways Jane comes to priestly ministry as one who is pre-disastered, one who has born many of the very worst things life has to offer -- and has come through them to new life. I mention this to say that like many other deeply spiritual Christians, she uses the memories of her suffering and the knowledge of her finitude. As she herself puts it, when Jane is dealing with people she is "not horrified" by whatever pain or burden or experience they bring. In that context, the priest can help people discover what comes next in their journey, making it safe to move to the next step in the love of God. She is a priest who can truly sympathize.
But there is another thing about being pre-disastered. The pre-disastered person knows how little we can actually control life, knows how important community is as we bear each other up along the way. The pre-disastered person knows that it is only by Grace that we prevail in life. But above-all, the pre-disastered person knows and reminds us that all of our brokenness has been borne by Christ, and that it is very often in facing head-on the disastered quality of our own lives that we find God, or find ourselves in a much deeper relationship to God than ever before.
I have to use a word Episcopalians are not used to hearing in church. That is, because it is in terms of the pre-disastered person that most of us can see in ourselves, that we can most helpfully come to the question that has always plagued Protestantism and that plagues Anglicanism a great deal: authority.
The priest bears several kinds of authority. The most obvious is that the people have offered this person to God to be a priest who is steward of word and sacrament, who is teacher, preacher, celebrant. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania gives the clergy of all denominations the legal authority to preside at weddings. The parish gives the priest certain authority as one of its corporate officers. The bishop makes the priest a colleague and adviser.
In each of those areas, what seem so simple, so cut and dried, priests can and do get into real trouble, because they do not remember that behind all those instances of "authority," there must be the personal authority that comes of integrity, honesty, of walking humbly with God. There must be the authority of knowing like Saint Paul, that "it is not ourselves that we preach, but Jesus Christ and him crucified." In the quiet authority that comes of locating oneself at the foot of the cross, God can speak volumes through us.
While that needs to be true of all baptized people, without it a priest will fail utterly. My prayer is that Jane never lose her knowledge of herself as pre-disastered: it makes her an effective pastor, and gives those she cares for permission to look at painful areas in our lives, so that from death and decay, God can bring resurrected life.
All of which reminds me of the unhappy "zap" theory of ordination, the theory that once the bishop has laid hands on her head and said the right words, Jane's being will be changed, and she will instantly become a cross between Albert Schweitzer and Julie Andrews -- all done, all taken care of; next case. But after the ordination prayer begs for the Holy Spirit so that Jane might be a priest in God's church, it goes on to pray for her ministry in terms that are all continuous, all cumulative. What we ask God to do today will need to grow for the rest of Jane's life, and priests need to be careful stewards of that growth.
I am saying that priestly, pastoral spirituality has a distinct quality. It is much more, but not less, than learning to worship while also leading liturgy. Priestly spirituality means living the day conscious of those for whom you care -- always watching, contemplating the stuff of our lives so that you will know how and what to preach, and how and when to listen. Priestly spirituality is a commitment to constant and compassionate contemplation of the human scene in general, and in Reading, Pennsylvania, in particular.
In that contemplative context more than any other, there grows the priestly ministry of intercession for the people. It means studying the Bible with a special lens: what here will nurture the flock?
When that compassionate and contemplative encounter with the world ceases to mark the priest's daily life, she is in danger of becoming the worst kind of fraud, the unintentional fraud, throwing herself into this or that fad in an effort to keep things rolling in a ministry cut adrift.
The heart of being a deacon, priest, or bishop is to tend in one's heart that flame that knows something of and seeks to feel more fully Christ's love for his one great flock. That flame must be guarded. Priests try to avoid behavior and conversation that can keep oxygen from getting to the flame, letting it flicker or even go out in the choking atmosphere of cynicism, pride, or ambition-even ambition to serve. Don't ask me how I know this. The priest needs to know self-care for her own sake and for the sake of the people: keep the lamp cleaned and fueled.
That love for God's people makes leading worship a special time, a special act of love. It saves preaching from being either guilt trip or power trip, keeps preaching a version of news you can use.
SO, JANE, cherish all that you bring tonight from your previous ministry as you receive this one; welcome daily what the Holy Spirit begins to give you tonight; help us to know our brokenness so that we may know healing and wholeness in Christ; give us an example of practical self-care; and tend that flame of love for God's people that so obviously burns in your heart. May God make you a blessing to many.
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