Sermon at the Diocese of Llandaff Service of Ordination
Llandaff Cathedral 24 June 2017
Revd Dr Trystan Owain Hughes
It’s an honour to be asked to preach today, not least because this is a journey I’ve shared with you down the years. I’ve been director of ordinands to eight of you, I’ve taken six of you through your discernment boards, and I even have one of you as my curate! Someone sat on my sofa last week, the same sofa that most of you have sat on many times, gripping a few of the books I’d asked them to read. They had a rather concerned look on their face. “Revd Trystan,” they said, “how am I ever going to live up to what a priest should be?” They then opened John Pritchard's The Life and Work of a Priest, a book most of you will have read, and reeled off sixteen roles of an ordained person –“creative leader”, “faith coach”, “wounded companion”, and “spiritual explorer”, to name but a few.
The candidate was right to be concerned. It’s a daunting list, to say the least. But this morning I want to give you some good news. Look at the priests sitting to the side of you…They may be a good looking bunch, but no deacon or priest, whoever they are, shines in all of those sixteen roles.There is, though, one thing that each of these priestsdoes daily, whether they are in Bridgend, in Neath, in the Valleys, in the Vale, in a large city church, in a small rural one, in a chaplaincy, in the Cathedral… andthat one thing is bringing Christ to their communities. That, more than anything else, is at the heart of ordained ministry.
In the words of the Catholic Auxiliary-Bishop of Los Angeles, Robert Barron,ordained ministry is, at its core, a call to be“a bearer of mystery”to our communities.“A bearer of mystery”.Your role, then, will be to notice, to announce, and to bring that mystery –Christ’s love, hope, peace, and compassion – toindividuals and communities. What an amazing privilege that call is – to explore and grasp the mystery and then bring others into it. You’re being ordained to open the eyes of your congregations to His presence, to open their ears to His call, to open their hearts to His love, and to open their ways to His will. The Catholic philosopherTheilard De Chardin described the priest as a “border walker”, traversing the border between our world and God’s kingdom, and bringing those on earth closer to God’s love.
Take the Old Testament reading this morning (Numbers 11:16-17, 24-29). The Israelites were wandering in the desert, hungry and tired, and they’d started to complain and moan. God saw their situation,and gave them manna to eat – that wonderful “bread of heaven”, as the great Welsh hymn puts it. But they continue to grumble– they fail to see the amazing thing they’d been gifted. So, God “puts His spirit” on the some of them. The Hebrew word that is translated “prophecy” here implies that these people have an intense religious experience – some Hebrew manuscripts state that they “spoke in ecstasy”. In other words, God chooses a group to lead the others away from complaint and to open their eyes to the wonder and care of God. And that is your call – tohelp your congregationsrecognise and appreciate the manna in their wilderness, to help them recognise the risen Christ in their daily lives.You are bearers of mystery,you are vessels of God’s joy, your call is to bring Jesus down to earth.
But I’m not going to pretend that’s an easy task. Like the Israelites, there will be times when we ourselves are tempted to fall into complaint, into cynicism, into pessimism, either about the state of the church or about the world we live in, which is increasingly suspicious and uninformed of faith.When I first moved to my parish, I visiteda local primary school and the whole school packed the hall. I thought I’d ease the kids into the assembly by asking them if they knew why I was wearing this little white collar here. Silence… and then, finally, one hand was raised slowly and a little voice asked “are you Jewish, sir?!” Then another hand shot up and an excited little boy asked, “are you a magician?” I tried to let him down gently, but, I have to say, I’ve never seen such disappointment in the eyes of a 6 year old! Then, a third hand was raised, and a little girl, with wonder in her eyes, looked up to me and asked “is it because you are Jesus, sir?!”
Now, those words “is it because you are Jesus?!” can help guard us against complaint and cynicism. After all, that little girl had stumbled across the bedrock of all our calls as Christians, but also your specific calls as ordained ministers. Some of you have just finished your academic studies. Thomas Aquinas studied theology for many years at the Universityof Paris, and, we are told, in his very final lecturehe raised his hand and asked his tutor “yes, but what is God?” Quid est Deus? What is God? As deacons and priests your call is to show people what God is, who God is, who Christ is. Show them by opening their eyes to God’s beauty all around them. But also show them by reaching out to the poor and disadvantaged in your parishes and ministry areas. Show them byofferingcompassion to the elderly, the lonely, the grieving. Show them by offering hope to the addicted, the weak, or lost. Show them in your sermons of, as our gospel reading put it, the “good news”. Show them in your personalities of joy and hope. “Is it because you are Jesus?”, asked the child. The theologian Paul Tillich wrote that our words and lives should be as if we are “holding up a picture of Christ” to others. As St Paul said, “it is not you who lives, but Christ who lives in you”.
This is certainly an incarnational call, but this is also a sacramental call. Firstly, in the traditional sacraments you’ll leadpeople beyond physical matter to the wonder of spiritual beauty– to see beyond bread and wine to Christ’s body and blood, beyond the font of baptism to the water of life that can transform broken lives, beyond anointing with oil to the peace of inner healing, beyond the temporary joy of a wedding day to a spiritual covenant,and so on. But, secondly, you will also become living sacraments yourselves. You’ll do this by demonstrating, through words and deeds, God’s excessive and unconditional love. To use Philip Yancey’s words, you need to show people what's so amazing about grace.G.K. Chesterton wrote that to view the world properly youmust stand on your head. Your call is to stand on your head, and help others in your congregation to recognise God’s topsy-turvy, downside-up kingdom. Your call is to share Christ’s awe-inspiring and life-giving vision of the world around. Your call is to help others embrace the pearl of great price in their seemingly ordinary, everyday routines. Your call is to help themrecognise where God is in tragedy and suffering.
The risen Christwas often not recognised – at the tomb, on the road to Emmaus, on the shoreline. As bearers of mystery, youwill introduce people to the unrecognised Christ all around– yes, in the beauty of nature, in the silence of worship, in the smiles of their families and friends, and in the uplifting melodies of music, but also in the eyes of the oppressed and marginalized andin the compassionate response to those crying out in need. The early explorers of the South Sea Islands are said to have shown a window to the natives on one island, and, to their surprise,the inhabitants were not able to see through the glass. Instead, they focused on the glass itself and failed to see beyond it. Your role will be to help people see beyond –to experience the wonder of the creation story on a countryside walk, tosee the burning bush in any ordinary tree that they walk past, to recognise the cross and resurrection in times of grief, loss, or suffering, to meet Christ in theirfriends and in strangers, to witness God’s kingdom breaking through all around, to taste bread of heaven in every meal they share.
The psalmwe’ve just heard, Psalm 126, is a psalm of joy that Jewish people stillrecite after meals on the Sabbath. It was composed for those who returned from Babylonian exile and describes the Negev streams in Israel that are bone-dry in summer, before the winter rains bring a sudden and complete flood of life-giving water. You are called, with your ministry teams in your churches, to bringwaters of joy and hope to dry and arid areas of our communities, those areas where hope has been drained away. Recently, I asked my three-year old son what he’d like for his birthday. He thought about it for a while, and then answered, “I’d like alonger arm, please”. Not two longer arms, mind you, just one! Your call is to reach out to others around you, to offer them living waters, to help themwitness the transforming power of Christ’s love. This is the good news that our gospel reading today refers to.
So, to finish, I want to ask what you as the friends, families, and congregationscan do to help the nine people sitting in front of me.Well, firstly, the pace of modern ordained ministry gives so little time for study, contemplation, and prayer. You can help with that – encourage them to take time-out, to go on retreat, to have time to read and study, to spend time with partners, children, family, and friends. All these things will be like manna from heaven for them, to help them reject the complaining, the cynicism of the Israelitesand embrace their role ofjoyful bearers of mystery.
Secondly, though, you can pray for them. Ministry is unbelievably rewarding, but it can also be demanding and challenging. These new deacons and priests need your prayers, as do those who have been ordained for many years and those involved in the various other ministries in the church. On your way out you will be given a bookmark by our vocations advisors, it has a prayer on it for your use:“Loving God, we thank you for inspiring women and men of faith to various ministries in the church. Continue to fill them with your Spirit of wisdom and grace to proclaim the Good News and to take your love into communities with joyful and hopeful hearts. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen”
But, thirdly, if you turn the bookmark over to the other side, it encourages all of you to think about your own calling.The theologian Henri de Lubac wrote that there are two key moments in the communion service. First, and most obvious, is the consecration of the bread and wine, which our new priests here will be celebrating for the first time tomorrow. But the second key moment in the Eucharist, according to de Lubac, will be when our new deacons will proclaim tomorrow the final words of the service: “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”. Even the word “Mass” derives from the Latin equivalent of that phrase – “Ite, missaest”. So, I’m challenging you all now to think about how you go in peace tolove and serve the Lord. It may be that you find that God is pulling you in a surprising direction. It may be that you’ll feel a little tug towards ordained ministry yourself. If so, be brave and talk to your vicar, or your new curate, about this. Or you mightwant to talk to theminstead about a call to lay ministry – to lead services as a Reader, to be part of a pastoral care team, to assist at a Sunday School, to help during Sunday services. Most importantly, though, whether God is calling you to any of these things or if you are already following your vocation in some other way (in the church, in work, in your family, or in your everyday life), we must all keep in mind the advice of St Teresa of Calcutta: “It’s not how much you do that matters, but how much love you put into the things that you do”.