SERMON PREACHED BY THE REV. DR HAROLD T. LEWIS

RECTOR OF CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA

AT THE ORDINATION OF DEACONS

IN TRINITY CATHEDRAL, SAN JOSE, CALIFORNIA

SATURDAY, JUNE 21, 1997

 

 

"And the Lord said to me, 'Behold I have put my words in your mouth."' (Jeremiah 1:9)

 

Let me say first what a great pleasure and privilege it is to be here this morning, and to see that the church is alive and well in California. Someone once asked why it is that the Episcopal Church never really flourished west of the Mississippi. The answer was that at the time of the Westward Expansion, when the Baptists, Methodists and even the Roman Catholics jumped in the first available covered wagons, the Episcopalians waited for the tracks to be laid!

I am grateful to Bishop Shimpfky for inviting me to lay this homiletic offering before you today as we gather to set apart and ordain our well-beloved sisters and brothers in Christ, Michael, John, Catherine, Debra, Margarita and Victor, as deacons in Christ's holy catholic church. And it would appear that the holy catholic church is here assembled. Some hail from the east coast, others from the west. And there is your preacher, a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker who now finds himself in the land of the Pirates and the Steelers. There are gringos and Latinos and Afro-, Latino- and Asian-, and all the other hyphenated groups that contribute to the beautiful American mosaic; and, if we are to be politically correct, those of mixed race, who in the year 2000 will probably have their very own box to check on the Census form. And like the Medes, Parthians, Elamites and all those other ethnic groups on the Day of Pentecost, we are all speaking the same language. For we are the church, where water, the water of baptism, is thicker than the blood of race, tribe and clan.

But this is a truth which has not always been readily acknowledged by all who have professed and called themselves Christians. I have been asked to contribute a book to the new Church's Teaching Series, on social justice in the Episcopal Church. A friend remarked, only half in jest, that it will be a very short book. Our church has a checkered history, at best, in this area. The conferral of second class citizenship of racial and ethnic minorities, women and gays, to name but a few of those who have been deemed "the least, the lost and the last" in our society, has been the order of the day. This is why, if we may paraphrase the Marines' slogan, the church, and the Episcopal Church in particular, needs a few good prophets. Now a prophet is not someone who predicts the future by reading a crystal ball, but one who interprets the signs of the times for the people. This morning I ask that you focus on this aspect of the diaconate as these men and women begin their ordained ministry.

The lesson from the Prophecy of Jeremiah is the account of that prophet's call in which the Lord announces that he is sending Jeremiah forth to be a prophet to the nations. The Lord makes it clear that he did not pick Jeremiah's name out of a hat; rather he had been destined for that ministry: "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you," the Lord proclaimed; "and before you were born I consecrated you." Despite this unambiguous statement, Jeremiah balks. "Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am oniy a youth." In offering this excuse, of course, Jeremiah is in good company. Moses pleaded his speech impediment. Isaiah reminded the Lord of his unsavory past and his low-life friends; and Mary thought her very virginity would somehow make her unfit to carry out her part in the Divine economy.

But the Lord doesn't accept Jeremiah's excuse. As usual, the Lord does not take "no" for an answer. Just as he anointed Aaron to be Moses' spokesman; just as he placed hot coals on Isaiah's lips, and just as he assured our Lady that the Holy Spirit would overpower her, so he offers Jeremiah a remedy for his tender age. After promising Jeremiah that he would be with him always and would not forsake him; and after telling Jeremiah that he would instruct him where to go and to whom he should prophesy, the Lord put forth his hand, and touched Jeremiah's mouth, and said, "Behold, I have put my words in your mouth."

My sisters and brothers in Christ, the Episcopal Church is fast becoming a non-proPHET organization. As we approach the end of the twentieth century, we are, as the hymn reminds us, "rich in things and poor in soul." We are suffering from an identity crisis at every level of the church's life. Let us look at the new Catechism. To the question: "Who are the ministers of the church?" the answer is: "The ministers of the church are laypersons, bishops priests and deacons." The good news here is that this answer provides a corrective to an unhealthy clericalism rooted in medieval theology, in which the clergy were just a little lower than the angels, and the laity were expected to "pay, pray and obey." The bad news is that it has created mass confusion. We too often find ourselves in a situation in which since everybody is in charge, no one is in charge. Everybody has a ministry of equal weight --- one person's ministry is to fold corporals; another's is to iron them; and the ministry of a third is to place them in the burse --- so that ordained ministers sometimes find themselves afraid "to speak as one with authority."

There is a parable about confusion about ministry and authority which I would like to share with you. The story is told that in a certain diocese, it was the custom that the newly ordained deacons clear the tables after the convention dinner. The first bishop of the diocese had instituted the practice since, he maintained, waiting on tables was part of the deacon's job description as described in the Book of Acts. So after the dinner, the ordinary made the accustomed announcement: "The deacons will now clear the tables." Now there was a certain deacon, extremely bright, a budding liturgical scholar, who had graduated summa cum laude in his class. He asked to be recognized and then rose and addressed the bishop: "According to my theology, Bishop, orders are cumulative --- that is, when one is ordained a priest, one is a deacon and a priest; and when one is consecrated bishop, one is a deacon, a priest and a bishop. So it would appear to me that you, too, are a deacon, and therefore you, too, should clear the tables." The bishop responded, without so much as batting an episcopal eyelash: "You are quite fight, Mr. Jones, and your theological point is well taken, so we shall change our announcement: Those who are only deacons will clear the tables."

My friends, it is my prayer that as the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit are invoked today, the Lord may put in the mouths of these ordinands words that edify. Their job will be to build up of the Body of Christ, not to tear it down, as so many seem intent on doing. Our people want to come to church to be inspired and uplifted, to be given the strength to take on the world for another week. In a world which demeans, belittles and marginalizes; in a world in which we are reduced to numbers --- Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, people must be reminded, in the words of the old Ordinal, that the people committed to our charge are "the sheep of Christ, bought with Christ's own blood." They must be reminded that they are those for whom Christ cares. They must be assured that Christ knows every hair of their head. Once my mother-in-law of blessed memory was staying with us at Christmas. I couldn't get to first base on my Christmas Eve sermon. "Mom, what should I preach about?" I asked. "Harold," she advised, "Tell them the old, old story of Jesus and his love." This is what people need to hear. May these people about to be ordered deacon edify their people, charging them:

My prayer is that the Lord may put in their mouths words that heal. Just as our mortal bodies need to be healed of various infirmities and diseases, so does the Body of Christ need healing, from the sores, the boils, and yes, even the cancers that infect us. As we prepare to go to the 72nd General Convention next month, our branch of Christendom is divided and broken. It would appear that Samuel John Stone had the Episcopal Church in mind when he wrote:

The issue of human sexuality is threatening to undo the church. No issue in the history of the Episcopal Church --- not slavery, not Prayer Book revision, not churchmanship, not the ordination of women, has elicited such acrimony, such diatribe, such distrust. While Northern Episcopalians and Southern Episcopalians, liturgical traditionalists and modernists, the high church and low church parties, and those for and against the ordination of women, have for the most part mended fences, or at least agreed to a d6tente or a cease-fire, our inordinate concern with sexual orientation has driven such a wedge between Episcopalians that there is a great gulf fixed between us, over which neither side seems willing to cross. To such factions, our new deacons must proclaim:

But political footballs aside, there is ample need for healing words in the parish. Just as the symptoms of physical disease are not always apparent, so is it true that we do not know what ills beset the faithful who, although they roar up to the church door in eight cylinders, and are decked out in the latest fashion, are nonetheless hurting inside, as they come to the altar singing "Just as I am without one plea." Twenty-five years in the ministry has shown me that the parish ironically often serves as a kind of hothouse where jealousies, petty rivalries and animosities can flourish. It is a place where people often, as St. Paul warns us, "think of themselves more highly than they ought to think", and where they lord it over others, based on their misplaced and misguided sense of importance. It will be these new deacons' job to assure those in such pain that there is indeed "a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul." It will be their responsibility to bid them

It is my prayer that the Lord will put in the mouths of these his servants, words that liberate. Throughout their ministries, they must ever be mindful of the text of our Lord's first sermon (and remember, too, that Jesus was thrown out of the Temple for preaching it): "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Because the Lord hath appointed me to preach good tidings to the meek, he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and the opening of the prison to those that are bound." But the poet reminds us, "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." Our new deacons' ministry must be marked by a willingness to preach a gospel of liberation to all in need of it.

This year, we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the desegregation of Central High School In Little Rock. And we who are old enough to remember those riveting scenes that dominated our front pages and our television screens, of black boys and girls being escorted to school by armed National Guardsmen are reminded that today all is not at ease in Zion on the racial front, on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line. Indeed, despite many outward and visible signs of progress, there are new signs of the recurrence of racism and xenophobia. Some would have us believe that the white male thinks that an affirmative action policy here or there will threaten his position of prominence and privilege in our society, and is now declared himself to be the most oppressed member on the endangered species list. They fail to mention, however, that he has long been the chief beneficiary of an affirmative action policy so woven into the fabric of American life as to be invisible). We pray that these men and women consecrated to the order of deacon today may be emboldened to preach a gospel of liberation --- not only to oppressed "minorities," real and imagined, but to all whose lives are diminished by the sin of racism. Let them proclaim to all to whom it is their privilege to minister:

The rest of what I have to say is for the ordinands, but the rest of you may eavesdrop if you like. Michael, John, Catherine, Debra, Margarita and Victor, you will be deacons for the rest of your life. If one of you is called to be dean of this cathedral, you will still be a deacon. If another of you succeeds your beloved Father-in-God as bishop of this diocese, you will still be a deacon. And if one day, by the grace of God, still another of your number is enthroned in the Cathedral Church of SS. Peter & Paul as presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, you will still be a deacon. As you exercise your lifelong diaconate, be ever mindful that the Lord has put his words in your mouth. He has not given you license to say what you please. He does not intend for you to bare your soul in the pulpit. It is not his wish that you mouth platitudes, sending comfortable words to "the beautiful people" ensconced in comfortable pews. No, he has put his words in your mouth. He has charged you to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Someone once said that the problem with the church is that the reverend clergy have traditionally dined with the rich and preached to the poor. Until we learn to dine with the poor and preach to the rich, the kingdom of God will be slow in coming.

The Lord has entrusted you with the high privilege of preaching Christ and him crucified. It is his hope that as his ministers and ambassadors you will preach, as the Blessed Apostle told Timothy, "in season and out of season," or, as another translation reads, "when it is convenient and when it is inconvenient." Because he has put his words in your mouth, he wants the people to whom you speak, like those to whom Ezekiel spoke, whether they hear or refuse to hear, to know that a prophet has been among them.

And as you prepare to receive diaconal ordination at the apostolic hands of Richard, by divine permission, Bishop of El Camino Real, I leave you with a prayer, not mine but Archbishop Cranmer's, a prayer that unfortunately did not survive Prayer Book revision, a prayer that no one hears any more, but needs to hear. It is the old postcommunion collect for the ordination of a deacon, and it goes like this:

Almighty God, giver of all good things, who of thy great goodness hast vouchsafed to accept and take these thy servants unto the office of deacon in thy Church; make them, we beseech thee, 0 Lord, to be modest, humble, and constant in their ministrations, to have a ready will to observe all spiritual discipline; that they, having always the testimony of a good conscience, and continuing ever stable and strong in thy Son Christ, may so behave themselves in this inferior office, that they may be found worthy to be called unto the higher ministries in thy Church.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, behave yourselves. And I mean this first in the obvious sense --- that you should be a wholesome example to the flock of Christ, and not a scandal. Do not be seduced by the specious notion that total ministry means that you are in the same boat as laypeople. Remember that at the end of the day you will be held to a higher standard! Remember, too, that as members of the clergy goodness is your stock in trade, and that your integrity is your most cherished possession. And in this contentious and litigious age, in which a reputation can be destroyed between mattins and evensong in one day, an age in which the Church Insurance Company has virtually redefined the way we do ministry, it is not enough to eschew scandalous behavior. You must also go to pains, ever mindful that perception is reality, not to give the appearance of engaging in scandalous behavior.

Behave yourselves as you undertake a disciplined life of prayer. For those who do not pray cannot exhort others to pray.

Behave yourselves as you undertake a disciplined study of Holy Scripture. For those who are not firmly grounded in Scripture are like lawyers who know nothing of the Constitution, or physicians who have never heard of anatomy.

Behave your selves. Be true to your integrity. Do not be easily swayed by the ever-present temptation to be popular. Do not be bought, either subtly or not so subtly. Remember that although you are men and women in authority, Holy Orders means that you will always be under authority, and that you must ultimately be responsible to Jesus Christ, the head cornerstone, the author and finisher of our faith, the bishop and guardian of our souls.

And finally, behave yourselves as you receive the words that the Lord has put in your mouths, words that edify, words that heal, words that liberate the holy people of God. And may you, with the prophet Jeremiah, proclaim to the Lord:

Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.

And now, my friends, may the Lord who has given you the will to do all these things, grant you the grace and power to perform them,

 

+In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.