Sermon preached by The Reverend Dr. Harold T. Lewis

SERMON PREACHED BY THE REVEREND DR. HAROLD T. LEWIS, RECTOR CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH, PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA AT THE INSTITUTION OF THE REVEREND DR. MONI McINTYRE AS RECTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY CROSS SATURDAY 17 SEPTEMBER 2005



"Proclaim the word; be persistent, whether it is convenient or inconvenient." (II Tim. 4:2)



This, as my revered mentor, Bishop Richard Martin would say, is "an high day in Zion." Today, we gather in this sacred place to induct, institute and install our well-beloved sister in Christ, Moni McIntyre, Doctor of Philosophy, as the eighth rector of the Church of the Holy Cross. It is an honor for me to be the preacher today not only because Moni is a dear friend and colleague, but because Calvary Church claims her as a daughter of the parish, since we had the privilege of presenting her for ordination. I commend the Vestry of Holy Cross for their perspicacity in calling Moni to this office, and Bishop Duncan for his wise concurrence with that choice. But that said, we must add that this wasn't rocket science. Most rectors called to parishes are like the proverbial pigs in the poke, who come highly recommended (sometimes by other parishes who want to get rid of them --- present company excluded, of course) and who put their very best foot forward in the courtship process. But Moni is a known entity. The good people of Holy Cross have come to know her as a devoted priest, a sensitive pastor and a gifted teacher, a woman who knows who she is and Whose she is. We have every confidence, therefore, that Moni and the Holy Cross family will together continue to carry out a ministry which is characterized by mutual love and respect.

As we celebrate this new ministry today, it is altogether fitting and proper that the Gospel is taken from St. Luke's account of the beginning of our Lord's public ministry. Jesus' sermon in the Temple at Jerusalem is his inaugural address; it is, quite literally, his mission statement. And he delivers it not just in any old temple, but in the one in Jerusalem where he had grown up. Having made a few cameo appearances elsewhere in the region of Galilee, he now comes to the main event. Imagine the congregation murmuring, as they fanned themselves with the Sabbath bulletin, about how proud they were of Joseph's son. Home boy makes good! In his sermon, having just returned from the desert where he was tempted by the Devil, he makes it abundantly clear what his priorities will be, what he will be about between that moment and the moment on the Cross when he declares "It is finished."

Now when I teach introductory homiletics, I have a lesson entitled "Lewis' Ten Commandments for Good Preaching" and the first of these is "Thou shalt not preach a text-less sermon." The words of the preacher should hang, as it were, on a few words of Scripture. It gives focus, both to preacher and congregation, as the sermon unfolds. Jesus' choice of text is a little longer than I would have recommended. It constitutes what Biblical scholars call a pericope --- literally a clipping, which tells an entire story. This is what Jesus quoted from the Prophet: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he has anointed me To bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To let the oppressed go free, And to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Having announced his text, Jesus ceremoniously hands the scroll to the acolyte, and the congregation, their eyes fixed on the preacher, settles in for a scholarly, insightful and hopefully inspirational exegesis. But that was not to be. In Jesus' lopsided homiletic offering, his sermon was shorter than his text. His entire sermon was: "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." In other words, "The Prophet Isaiah is talking about me!" And then Scripture tells us that the congregation was so irate at Jesus' apparent presumption and sacrilege that they drove him out of town, took him to the brow of the hill intending to hurl him into the abyss below. But Jesus, we are told, "passed through the midst of them and went away."

Now I like to say that the difference between Gospels and epistles is that Gospels tell stories, epistles give advice. In today's Gospel, Jesus announces his agenda for a prophetic ministry --- a ministry to those at the margins, and we learn of the price that sometimes must be paid for such a ministry. In today's epistle, Paul, on his death bed, urges Timothy --- and us ---to exercise such a ministry nonetheless. Listen to what he says: "Preach the word, be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient." This phrase, in the KJV "in season and out of season," is translated several ways. One translation reads: "whether the time is favorable or unfavorable," another "whether the time is right or not" And here's my favorite: "whether the people want to hear it or not." Paul seems to iterate the advice of Ezekiel: "Whether they hear or refuse to hear, they will know that a prophet has been among them." It means that the preacher must not only comfort the afflicted; the preacher must at times afflict the comfortable. Unfortunately, the church is plagued with preachers who think the ministry is a popularity contest. At the risk of offending someone, they edify no one, with the result, to borrow a phrase from Jeffery Rowthorn's hymn, "the gospel goes unheard."

But Paul exhorts us not just to preach but to rebuke when necessary, to encourage, and finally to teach with patience. And then he tells us why: "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings." My sisters and brothers in Christ, I think that time has come. Within the last few years, we have witnessed an unsettling shift in Anglicanism. Once a church community whose governing principle was covenant, we now seem to be governed by a sense of contract. I don't remember much from seminary, but I do remember a pep talk given by our dean on the eve of our graduation. "Gentlemen," he said (which shows how long ago I went to seminary) ) "if you must appeal to the canons to assert your authority as rector, you have already lost the battle, if not the war." In other words, like any leader, the rector should command and not demand respect. People should respect your leadership because they have trust and confidence in you, or otherwise put, because they are engaged in a covenantal relationship with you, not because you tell them that the canons give you this and that right. What our dean warned about at the parish level, now seems to be working itself out at the diocesan and even global level, where, in an effort to assert control, this canon or that is invoked at the drop of a biretta. In the meantime, disparate groups, each proclaiming to know the truth and the mind of Christ, issue documents, manifestos and declarations with what we used to call gay abandon.

We were once a church that prided itself on being tolerant of a broad range of views under the Anglican umbrella, but we now find some people claiming to be the only ones entitled to the umbrella's protection, while having no compunction about sending others out into the elements. We were once a church guided by Isaiah's gracious invitation, "Come, let us reason together though our sins be like scarlet," but we seem to have moved to a default position that differences will not be tolerated, with the result that those holding differing views are deemed unfit to remain in fellowship with the dominant group. What is worse, it has become all too commonplace for the position of an individual, congregation, or even an entire Province on one particular issue to be now considered a litmus test which determines fitness for ministry, moral worth and membership in Christ's holy catholic church. "The cry goes up, 'How long?'"

What would Richard Hooker say? Hooker, Mr. Via Media, to whom we are indebted for Anglicanism's three-legged stool of Scripture, tradition and reason, also wrote this: "I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian Religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received." He wrote those words in the 16th century in response to those who challenged the vision of an emerging Anglican ethos which held that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was greater than the differences that threatened to divide them. The Church today seems to be making the transition from a commodious inn with "all sorts and conditions" of people, to a cramped cottage just big enough for the few who deem themselves, like Donatists of old, to be the faithful remnant.

Many of us were present at the clergy conference earlier this week at which Dr. Craig Barnes, pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church, talked to us about seeing the meaning behind Biblical texts and human situations through portals. One of the portals he cited was irony. And as we celebrate Moni's institution today, we are struck by the irony that this is a parish founded as a colored mission early in the last century because at the time African American communicants were not deemed fit to worship with other Episcopalians. Over the years, and notably during the rectorship of Canon Junius Carter, Holy Cross has fought for inclusion of this parish in the councils of the diocese, and has fought for equal rights for African Americans in this parish and in the community it is privileged to serve. One of the fruits of those labors is that the parish, believing that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, is now liberated enough to break a mold of long standing, and call as rector a priest who is not a black man! How sad and ironic it would be if this parish, having thrown off the shackles of racial discrimination should exchange them for chains of ideological intolerance. But whatever the future holds, I know that this parish, because it has borne the burden in the heat of the day, because all too often it has been forced to make bricks without straw, because it knows what it means to have been "'buked and scorned," will be equal to the task.

And what is that task? It is to be ever mindful of mission, inspired by the words of Archbishop Temple who said that the church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those not its members.

What is that task? It is to be mindful of your responsibility to be a model for the Gospel imperative of inclusiveness, proclaiming to the world through your actions that every human being has a claim on the saving grace offered through Jesus Christ.

What is that task? To remember that your greatest joys in ministry may come not from ministering amongst your own people, but to those at the margins, those who strain to look through panes of opaque stained glass to catch a glimpse of the heavenly Jerusalem.

What is that task? It is to be a sign of love and reconciliation so that one day our church may truly be one flock under one Shepherd.

What is that task? It is, in the words of the beloved twelfth Rector of Calvary Church, Sam Shoemaker, to stand at the door of the church to welcome those who would come and knock.

Moni, I rejoice that there is a close relationship between our parishes, as well there should be between a church called Calvary and a church called Holy Cross. We are named for that holy place of our Lord's Crucifixion, and you are named for that "emblem of suffering and shame" on which our Lord died. We are today within the Octave of Holy Cross Day, which, as I am sure you know, used to be called the Feast of the Invention of the Holy Cross --- which doesn't mean that somebody came up with the idea of the Cross and got a patent. "Invention" is from the Latin word invinere, to find. And I am sure that you know who, according to pious legend, is credited with finding the True Cross. It was Saint Helena, the mother of Constantine, the emperor who converted to Christianity (and all the empire with him) when he saw a cross in the sky, with the inscription, "In hoc signo vinces" --- in this sign shalt thou conquer.

Moni, as you preach the word, whether it is convenient or inconvenient, find the true Cross. Like Helena, discover that Cross through which Jesus Christ drew all creation to himself.

On those occasions when you encourage the faithful, find the true Cross. Like Helena, discover that Cross by whose virtue joy has come into the whole world.

Moni, as you teach with patience, find the true Cross. Like Helena, discover that Cross beneath which we fain to take our stand.

And now, Moni, may the Lord who has given you the will to do all these things, give you the grace and power to perform them, +In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN.