These past two Sundays have been a chance for me to take a break, to be away from my assignment by Bishop Rickel as the deacon at St. Stephen's Church, Seattle. I flew to Minnesota to attend my godson's Confirmation, and then I took a Sunday to... do nothing!
And it felt...both odd and good. First, the good part: it's always nice to take a break, and I love visiting my family. But I missed my "peeps" at St. Stephen's, and felt a little weird not being there as their deacon. Isn't that where I'm supposed to be?
No. I'm a deacon, and that means that not only do I need breaks from time to time (hey, even priests need those!), but my primary vocation is in the world, and it's not healthy for me to be in church every Sunday. It's not diaconal. Deacons are an icon of service in the world, a visible (and sometimes visible in their conspicuous absence) symbol of every baptized Christian's call to go out from the church to "love and serve the Lord." I'll be back next Sunday, and will even be preaching, but these past two Sundays were also significant days in the story of my ministry at St. Stephen's. As their deacon, I sometimes demonstrate to them in my absence that though the source--the heart--of our life together as a Christian community is the weekly gathering around God's Table, the world beckons. Often, we must be away.
Blessings to you in your coming and going as the diaconal presence of Christ in the world!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Bishop Greg's sermon at the ordination of four new transitional deacons, 2-15-2011
Sermon, Ordinations to the Transitional Diaconate
The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel
St. Mark’s Cathedral
February 15, 2011
See, I am sending you like lambs in the midst of wolves. Lovely words. I could stop there you know, and just leave it alone. Sit down, send you on out! Although some of you would love that, I feel as though I might try to to redeem it, turn it into some kind of good news, at the very least put a nice comfortable veneer on it for you. I am not sure I can, but let me try. Most of you have heard the line Woody Allen used for this, that in fact, the wolf might one day lie down with the lamb but the lamb is not going to get much sleep. It is the difference between metaphor and reality.
What is true here in the sense of what I have to live every day? That might be the question you have about now. What here is just so much rhetoric or adieu about nothing? I know, especially on this night, it might have been good to just let this line slip quietly away.
I tried to, but it just kept jumping out at me. It kept jumping out at me because it is so true. I often wonder why anyone would sign up for what you four are asking for tonight. Yes, there is much joy in this but there is certainly, these days especially, a lot of pain and tension and uncertainty. Just think of even the wearing of a cross around your neck. You see it everywhere, dangling from all kinds of places, and various body parts, of stars and peasant alike. What does it mean? What does it mean to live in a place where one can do just that, wear the cross, just about any way one wishes, and the difference between a society where to show one might mean arrest or even death? I suspect it makes us live differently. It is scary prospect that Christianity has really seemed to thrive best when it is oppressed. What does that mean as we live in a society where the faith has been completely co-opted. The cross is everywhere, and at the same time practically invisible.
The fact is we live in the luxury of not having to take this line very seriously. It can be overlooked, or seen as irrelevant, or perhaps even laughed at because we don’t know it, we don’t live it. It makes little sense to us now. I don’t want to be oppressed or live in fear of arrest or death and I am not saying that, but I do miss the edge it gives us. You can carry this line of thought into what it means to be the professional clergy. It is difficult not to agree with the premise that we lose a bit of our edge when we have pensions, salary scales, and benefits. I am not suggesting we lose those either, but the dilemma remains.
And then there is simply the experience of living in the church right now. I have seen, with my own eyes, the reality of lambs among wolves. The contempt for the familiar is high in the world of the ordained person and congregation. We all live in some fear right now and that often plays itself out in finding someone to blame, to make the issue a person instead of what it really is. You, four, head out into that.
This came to me even more this past week while talking to a person from another diocese that was 6 months a priest. He was sharing how little he had learned in his three years of seminary, and life for that matter, of just what was real out there. It is nothing like I thought it would be, he said.
Yes, it is one of those things you can’t know, until you know it, like having children, or being married, or bungee jumping, or wrestling alligators. It is one thing to watch the person you have in your mind’s eye when you think of the priesthood, the outward and visible reality of their being, what you know, and not have a view of the inward and spiritual reality of all that they carry, all that is on their heart, or mind, or soul as they go about the vision you have.
So this, for you four, will be your foray into being a deacon. You all have declared you are not called to this office, although the Church still insists you are, at least for a time, and so here we are at this time. I don’t really mind our ecceastlical hoop jumping on this that much as long as, if we are going to do it, we do it with reality and with intention. You, tonight, unless you change your mind, and there is still some time, will be made a deacon. You will be asked to live that life out, and I hope you will truly be one, as much as you are able in this time, be one as if it is for life, as if you were called to it, because for now, you are. Learn from other deacons, most especially those who believe they are called to that office, in short use the time wisely Don’t let it be simply a waiting period until you get to where you really want to be. I would say, if this is truly the way it should be done, that you be a deacon in order to be a priest, then own that, be one, and if you don’t, you won’t be as good a priest when you take on that office.
It is amazing and good that this night is the night we celebrate Thomas Bray, Priest and Missionary, who came from London back in 1699 to Maryland to try to shore up the church there. He was only in Maryland for 10 weeks. 10 weeks. In that time he founded 39 lending libraries, and began work that would continue in helping First Nations people, and slaves. He founded the Society for the Propogation of the Gospel and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, both of which thrive today. 10 weeks. He stayed focused and did what he was called to do. Your diaconate will be a short time, but a lot can be done, learned, instilled in that time, Bray being a perfect example for this night.
This past week I spent time with Reggie McNeal, author of Missional Renaissance which many of us read together last Lent. He was speaking to mostly seminarians. A spouse of one of our seminarians asked him what he thought those heading for ordination ought to think of in this time of rapid change. He answered, what they should probably have thought of in any generation, but his thoughts were these
First, Be employable. Learn all you can, and be real about what the church is today, and what is not.
Second, IF Jesus didn’t die for it, don’t you either. Choose the hills you are going to die on, but do be prepared to die, metaphorically or otherwise if you have made that decision.
Third, Be faithful to the vocation, but the vocation may not turn out to be the profession, the job.
Easy to say, but not always easy to know
As you might be aware by now, I always give deacons a towel directly from my kitchen, a real kitchen towel. My wife loves this because she gets new towels. I make a point of giving you one that has been used. Trust me they are clean, but they are used. They have been about the everyday, mundane routine of life, doing their work, their servant work. They are meant for exactly that for you, to be draped over your arm, since you are, more or less the waiter at the table. Hi, I am Janet, and I will be your server today. Hi, I am Irene, and I will be your server today. Hi I am Hal and I will be your server today. Hi I am Catherine, and I will be your server today. Don’t be afraid to use them, to get them dirty, to give them away for those who need it should that become necessary. They are implements of work, cleaning up, service.
I will give you each one. In memory and thanksgiving for Thomas Bray, whose prayer is a prayer for each of you this night too, that you might see the needs of the Church in this New World, and may you be led to find ways to meet those needs. Lambs amongst wolves, perhaps, but with everything you need, and with who you need with you at every step. Go, knowing, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”
The Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel
St. Mark’s Cathedral
February 15, 2011
See, I am sending you like lambs in the midst of wolves. Lovely words. I could stop there you know, and just leave it alone. Sit down, send you on out! Although some of you would love that, I feel as though I might try to to redeem it, turn it into some kind of good news, at the very least put a nice comfortable veneer on it for you. I am not sure I can, but let me try. Most of you have heard the line Woody Allen used for this, that in fact, the wolf might one day lie down with the lamb but the lamb is not going to get much sleep. It is the difference between metaphor and reality.
What is true here in the sense of what I have to live every day? That might be the question you have about now. What here is just so much rhetoric or adieu about nothing? I know, especially on this night, it might have been good to just let this line slip quietly away.
I tried to, but it just kept jumping out at me. It kept jumping out at me because it is so true. I often wonder why anyone would sign up for what you four are asking for tonight. Yes, there is much joy in this but there is certainly, these days especially, a lot of pain and tension and uncertainty. Just think of even the wearing of a cross around your neck. You see it everywhere, dangling from all kinds of places, and various body parts, of stars and peasant alike. What does it mean? What does it mean to live in a place where one can do just that, wear the cross, just about any way one wishes, and the difference between a society where to show one might mean arrest or even death? I suspect it makes us live differently. It is scary prospect that Christianity has really seemed to thrive best when it is oppressed. What does that mean as we live in a society where the faith has been completely co-opted. The cross is everywhere, and at the same time practically invisible.
The fact is we live in the luxury of not having to take this line very seriously. It can be overlooked, or seen as irrelevant, or perhaps even laughed at because we don’t know it, we don’t live it. It makes little sense to us now. I don’t want to be oppressed or live in fear of arrest or death and I am not saying that, but I do miss the edge it gives us. You can carry this line of thought into what it means to be the professional clergy. It is difficult not to agree with the premise that we lose a bit of our edge when we have pensions, salary scales, and benefits. I am not suggesting we lose those either, but the dilemma remains.
And then there is simply the experience of living in the church right now. I have seen, with my own eyes, the reality of lambs among wolves. The contempt for the familiar is high in the world of the ordained person and congregation. We all live in some fear right now and that often plays itself out in finding someone to blame, to make the issue a person instead of what it really is. You, four, head out into that.
This came to me even more this past week while talking to a person from another diocese that was 6 months a priest. He was sharing how little he had learned in his three years of seminary, and life for that matter, of just what was real out there. It is nothing like I thought it would be, he said.
Yes, it is one of those things you can’t know, until you know it, like having children, or being married, or bungee jumping, or wrestling alligators. It is one thing to watch the person you have in your mind’s eye when you think of the priesthood, the outward and visible reality of their being, what you know, and not have a view of the inward and spiritual reality of all that they carry, all that is on their heart, or mind, or soul as they go about the vision you have.
So this, for you four, will be your foray into being a deacon. You all have declared you are not called to this office, although the Church still insists you are, at least for a time, and so here we are at this time. I don’t really mind our ecceastlical hoop jumping on this that much as long as, if we are going to do it, we do it with reality and with intention. You, tonight, unless you change your mind, and there is still some time, will be made a deacon. You will be asked to live that life out, and I hope you will truly be one, as much as you are able in this time, be one as if it is for life, as if you were called to it, because for now, you are. Learn from other deacons, most especially those who believe they are called to that office, in short use the time wisely Don’t let it be simply a waiting period until you get to where you really want to be. I would say, if this is truly the way it should be done, that you be a deacon in order to be a priest, then own that, be one, and if you don’t, you won’t be as good a priest when you take on that office.
It is amazing and good that this night is the night we celebrate Thomas Bray, Priest and Missionary, who came from London back in 1699 to Maryland to try to shore up the church there. He was only in Maryland for 10 weeks. 10 weeks. In that time he founded 39 lending libraries, and began work that would continue in helping First Nations people, and slaves. He founded the Society for the Propogation of the Gospel and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, both of which thrive today. 10 weeks. He stayed focused and did what he was called to do. Your diaconate will be a short time, but a lot can be done, learned, instilled in that time, Bray being a perfect example for this night.
This past week I spent time with Reggie McNeal, author of Missional Renaissance which many of us read together last Lent. He was speaking to mostly seminarians. A spouse of one of our seminarians asked him what he thought those heading for ordination ought to think of in this time of rapid change. He answered, what they should probably have thought of in any generation, but his thoughts were these
First, Be employable. Learn all you can, and be real about what the church is today, and what is not.
Second, IF Jesus didn’t die for it, don’t you either. Choose the hills you are going to die on, but do be prepared to die, metaphorically or otherwise if you have made that decision.
Third, Be faithful to the vocation, but the vocation may not turn out to be the profession, the job.
Easy to say, but not always easy to know
As you might be aware by now, I always give deacons a towel directly from my kitchen, a real kitchen towel. My wife loves this because she gets new towels. I make a point of giving you one that has been used. Trust me they are clean, but they are used. They have been about the everyday, mundane routine of life, doing their work, their servant work. They are meant for exactly that for you, to be draped over your arm, since you are, more or less the waiter at the table. Hi, I am Janet, and I will be your server today. Hi, I am Irene, and I will be your server today. Hi I am Hal and I will be your server today. Hi I am Catherine, and I will be your server today. Don’t be afraid to use them, to get them dirty, to give them away for those who need it should that become necessary. They are implements of work, cleaning up, service.
I will give you each one. In memory and thanksgiving for Thomas Bray, whose prayer is a prayer for each of you this night too, that you might see the needs of the Church in this New World, and may you be led to find ways to meet those needs. Lambs amongst wolves, perhaps, but with everything you need, and with who you need with you at every step. Go, knowing, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”
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