Homily for the Ordination of Christian Carroll to the Priesthood

By The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven

Numbers 11:16-17, 24-25
Philippians 4:4-9
John 6:35-38

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.... The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." May I speak in the name of the Living God. Amen.

We come here today in this season pregnant with transforming grace to make our request known to God. We come expectantly: to ask God to send down his Holy Spirit upon Chris and make her "a priest in Christ's holy catholic church." We come, just as Moses and the 70 elders came to the tent of meeting - that the Holy One might "talk to [us] here," might take some of the Spirit that God has given to those called to lead God's people in the past and put it on Chris. It is, as it was in the book of Numbers, a one-time event. It is, like baptism, unrepeatable, indelible, an eternal change.

People sometimes refer to ordination as being "set apart." We clergy find that somewhat flattering until we find out that "set apart" can quickly become "set aside." "A priest is not 'set apart,'" Dean Fenhagen of General Seminary used to tell us with some frequency, "but 'set within.' Priests only make sense 'within' a community of faith" - whose life they are called to nurture by Word and Sacrament and within whom they stand as icons of the sacred calling to sacrificial love and service to which the whole Body is called. (The Rev. Jim Fenhagen, paraphrased from conversations with him at GTS, 1985-1988, author of Mutual Ministry.) Ordained ministry is not 'set apart' from lay ministry but set alongside it in a relationship of mutual ministry - as the dean's book on the subject was later called. We're all in this together.

It is such a leap of faith what we do today - on your part, Chris, and on ours! We ordain you to be a minister of Word and Sacrament among us: Word in a world where words can so easily seem just words; Sacrament in a world of such suffering that water, a bit of bread, a sip of wine, the touch of a thumb in oil can seem small indeed. Still against all odds, with a certain disarming foolishness, we do what Christians have always done: taken certain people of our community, set them in the midst and called upon God to empower them to help midwife us into the full measure of the stature of Christ. We say to them: live out among us what we say we believe.

Beneath the surface of things we believe that God created us in love, by love, for love - that God is with us, for us, just as we are not as we might have been. We believe God is at work in our lives blessing, healing and transforming us - turning guilt into gratitude, fear into forgiveness, birthing joy from the wreckage of despair. We believe we have a mission in the world, that our lives serve a larger purpose, that we have a destiny beyond the merely personal having been knit together into the Body of the Risen Christ and filled with his Spirit and sent in his power.

We believe that there is more to life than meets the eye. But it is easy to forget that we believe that because what meets our eye is war in Iraq and Afghanistan and shootings in a mall in Omaha. What meets our eye is homelessness and hunger, racism, sexism, and bias against those who differ from us, politics fueled by expedience and self interest, blatant disregard and contempt for the least, the lost, the lonely and the left behind. We see all this but we believe something else. We hope something else and we need your help in remembering it.

Chris, please stand up. We're not ordaining you to run a church - though churches need running and some of those tasks you'll do. We're ordaining you because the community needs help in keeping its memory and its hope alive and you're it. You're the one God sent. "Tell me the old, old story of Jesus and his glory," the old hymn goes. "Tell me the old, old story of Jesus and his love." That is your vocation among us: to remind us of whom we are and whose we are, to keep us from veering off into lives of fantasy, futility or despair, to keep what we believe in our hearts, by the grace of God, before our eyes.

Be on the lookout for grace among us. Show us where you see green points poking up out of the ground - and do your best to keep us from stepping on them. Look for your story within THE story and help us to do the same. Help us to see ourselves as God sees us not perfect but "very good" - "and God looked at everything that God had made and lo it was very good." Encourage us. Challenge us. For goodness sake, do us all a favor and shake us out of our individualistic mindset - introduce us to the fact that we have some 20 centuries of company steeped in this same life giving scripture, seeking this same obedience to Christ, sustained by this same saving life giving bread and wine. We are never in this alone no matter how it may appear to any one of us from time to time. In a similar vein we rarely have a "lock" on the truth. Teach us how to tell one another the truth in love by telling us the truth in love and then do your best to listen when we try to tell you. We're all in this together. We all need help expanding our vision and turning our worries into prayers. In the words of The Message, "It's amazing what can happen when Christ replaces worry at the center of your life."

"Let your gentleness be made known to everyone" but don't let gentleness and humility be the bushel under which you hide your light. Let your light shine. Let your light shine before all people. Christianity has been shaped by such wonderfully arrogant men - like St. Paul and St. Augustine - that all of us are constantly on the lookout for the sin of pride. Women tend more toward the sin of self erasure. You are a curious and dedicated student; be an equally curious and dedicated teacher. Share what you do know and HAVE found because your job is to devote yourself with real intention to these things. There are other jobs - we will be doing many of them - but this is yours. We have much to learn from you: your palpable prayerfulness, your dependence on God, your relationship with Chris, your integration of contemplation and justice.

You've labored as a social worker - digging deep and getting dirty. Help us to put our hands and feet where our hearts and minds are. Help us to do more than talk a good game. Call us to service beyond self - to strive for justice and peace among all persons loving our neighbors as ourselves. Help us to embody hope - to one another and to the world. There will be days when we miss the mark and wander off the way and not want to hear it. There will be days when you will do the same and not want to speak it. Do it anyway. Baptize us, marry us, preach, preside and pray - in season and out of season when you feel inspired and when you do not. You are a priest: Carry us in your heart as Christ carries you. This is your ordination vow. This is your calling among us.

"Rejoice in the Lord always" and thank God for the self evident charisms with which God has equipped you for the work of this ministry - three master's degrees, in social work, psychology and divinity - all of which will prove useful for it has been wisely observed whenever two or three are gathered together there will be problems. Thank God for your pastoral abilities - healing and profound and desperately needed. Thank God for all that has taught you to be aware of the dark and unafraid to sit in it. It is a gift that will cause many to rejoice and deeply, especially if, as I hope you will, you offer yourself as a spiritual director.

"Finally, Beloved" Chris, though there will be many temptations to do otherwise, resist the demons of negativity that seek to pull us down and away. "Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence - any at all! - if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me" - keep on offering yourself to God, keep on consecrating your life to Christ, day after day after day - "and the God of peace will be with you." "The Lord is near" - loving and upholding you now and always.

Remember in whose strength you go. In Christ's name we wish you joy.

© 2007 The Rev. Anne Bolles-Beaven