On My Fortieth
Isaiah 40: 1-9
December 1, 1996
Today is a very special day. It is special for the church, and special for me personally. For the church, it is the beginning of Advent – a time to prepare for that wonderful grace of God which breaks into our hearts at Christmas. But it’s also a time of celebration for me personally – a time to celebrate my fortieth anniversary as an ordained priest. This day gives me an opportunity to explore, in a very specific way, God’s surprising manner of breaking into my life.
Forty years, that’s a long time to do anything, and particularly the priesthood. At the time, I was one of the youngest people to be ordained. Can you imagine being ordained at twelve? But seriously, I recall thinking, “How can this be happening?” Here I was, young in years, young in the faith, not terribly certain what I believed. I remember saying to myself, “If they really knew what I was like, they would stop the whole procedure right now.” I didn’t so much feel I was making a mistake. The mistake was on the Bishop’s part, who was ordaining me,
Spiritually speaking, I have always seen myself as a slow learner. I have grown into being a Christian very slowly. Being ordained has been one way in which I have developed. I often wake up in the morning, surprised that I have been given another day to see if I can “get it right.” And in the evening, when I say my prayers, I often use that simple Celtic prayer (it’s only one line so even I can remember it.) The prayer goes, “0, Son of God, do a miracle for me and change my heart”
My vocation to the priesthood came to me in my early twenties while I was a youth worker on the Lower East Side of New York City. But it didn’t come as a glowing feeling to help people, or some blinding light. It was more of a challenge. “Well, if you are going to try to be a Christian, you’d better do it with all that you have.” I guess I was a romantic. Once I was admitted to the round table of Christ’s followers, working with teenage gangs, I was ready to go off (to use a Hopi term) on a Vision Quest. The Hopi Indians used this term to describe going into the desert in a quest to discover who they were and what God was beckoning them to become.
My attraction to ordination was, no doubt, a mixed bag of motives, some neurotic and unhealthy. I remember my mother saying that I should go to a psychiatrist. She also said, “How long will it take you to become a Bishop?” I am sure I would not have made it through the very convoluted screening process that the Church uses today. Somehow, underneath all the rational reasons I had for being ordained, was a very deep wish to be accepted. The Episcopal Church seemed like a great club, where only the smartest, the best, the most interesting were its leaders.
And deep down, I wanted to be a part of that club. I have to admit, as I got closer to ordination and began to see the mixed bag of clergy and to identify all the craziness of the church, I felt like part of the problem and not the solution, particularly when I was in seminary. I felt more and more like Groucho Marx, who, when invited to join a club, declined with the words, he didn’t want to be a member of a club that would accept the likes of him.”
But don’t misunderstand me. I’m glad I was ordained. Even though I must admit I had no idea what I was getting into 40 years ago. I suppose to some degree it’s helpful that we don’t look to closely at our motivations. No one who is wide awake would dare to be ordained. I was driven, forty years ago, by a crazy romantic desire to do something for God. To bind myself to God. Now, I see, that God has done something for me. Forty years ago I looked on ordination as a way into acceptance. Now I feel it’s an entrance into heart-work, which includes, more often than not, heart-aches. And where we constantly find ourselves praying, “0 Son of God, do a miracle for me and change my heart.”
You know, we ordained priests should be an enormous encouragement to you who are not formerly ordained, but still understand that ministry starts at Baptism. We who are formally ordained are living signs that God can come into our hearts, and God’s will can go forward in the most unlikely of people.
I think that was what Handel was communicating in his magnificent oratorio. The text, as you know, comes from Isaiah. And it’s the words given to discouraged, burned-out, beat-up people. The oratorio starts out with the soloist repeating with variation, “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people – saith your God.”
The word comfort doesn’t mean retreat, bandage your wounds, suck your thumb, or give up. Comfort here means to strengthen, go forward into the future, and let God’s spirit lift your heart. The intent of the passage is to urge people to watch and wait for the God who comes to make the crooked in our lives straight, and the rough places smooth. The choir expressed this hope so beautifully when they sang, “Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.”
It was really serendipitous that Bill Roberts chose this day to treat us to parts of The Messiah, for the words of hope, encouragement, and faith really speak to me as I reflect on my years in the priesthood. As I think about going from a suburban parish to the inner city of New York on the edge of Harlem to a mission in a small town to a suburban commuting community and now, to here, a metropolitan, it’s been a long road. One that I will continue for at least three or four more years. A friend of mine asked me on Tuesday, “What makes you keep going when human nature is so rotten and you have been in so many places, both good and bad?” My answer is that through the years there have been a lot of heartaches and headaches, but mostly its been fantastic… and God’s spirit has been there, changing a lot of pain into joy, problems into challenges, and crises into opportunities.
Let me try to pull our thoughts together on this highly personal reminiscing day by quoting that marvelous part found in Fred Buechner’s book, Godric. Godric comes to a point in his life where he wonders whether it’s worth continuing. And the ghost of St. Cuthbert prays over Godric that the Holy Spirit will come down and strengthen him. The prayer goes like this: “Oh Thou, who art the sparrow’s friend, have mercy on the world that knows not even when it sins. Oh, Holy Dove, descend at last and roost on Godric here, that a heart may hatch in him at last.”
Imagine the Holy Spirit roosting on yourselves. We are all like Godric, set aside. And in a sense, I’ve been talking a lot about my priesthood, but it’s really a joint priesthood, and this anniversary is for all of us. So, the word of God to each of us as we celebrate this day is: May God’s spirit come down to us, that a heart may hatch in each of us – as we pray, “0, Son of God do a miracle in us – and change our hearts so that the Glory of the Lord may be revealed.” Amen.