Ordinations: Grace Church, Holland, Michigan December 14, 2024
Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 43; Philippians 4:4-9; Matthew 9:35-38
Jonathan, Matt, Kris, John, take a look around this room at the people who join you here today. They are here because they care about you, they care about their faith communities and the life of our Diocese, they care about the ministry to which God invites every single one of us, and many have participated in forming you into the person and ordained deacon and priest you are and will be in God’s Church.
And because we celebrate you, we also celebrate them, because this ordination liturgy is not only about you, but a celebration of the whole Church. One of the reasons we call you out to receive the laying on of hands of the bishop in ordination, is so that you can be an icon, a window, to remind all the people of God of their own diaconal, priestly, and indeed episcopal ministry, given and received in baptism. That is, all of us are to be conduits of the holy, all of us are to be outward and visible signs of the grandeur and beauty of God in service, in eldering, in oversight, for the sake of the world.
What might the call of the prophet Isaiah, back around 742 B.C.E., teach us about what is going on here at Grace Church today? Isaiah was facing the domination of Assyria and its plan for world power. In the face of such a threat, he attempted to proclaim a vision that would lead the people of Judah to a singular hope in God in the midst of deeply troubling and violent times. Specifically, he sought to address the power struggle of the nations as, get this, Syria and Israel invade Judah to try and force them into a coalition against Assyria. Here we are 2700 or so years later—bulletin at 7 PM. Some things don’t change much.
So let’s listen again for a moment to this call on Isaiah’s life: “Above God stood the seraphim; each had six wings; with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of God’s glory.” Faces, feet, and flying—what can this teach us about the ministries to which we are called, and specifically, your call as ordained people?
Faces, here covered by wings out of reverence, averting their eyes to avoid looking at God directly, for there was to be found a holiness, an otherness, so magnificent they could not bear the sight. Here, Isaiah is granted a vision of that holiness, so much so that he declared God holy three times for emphasis. Holy, holy, holy means super holy. God is the Holy One, yet God’s people are holy as well as we see God’s mark on us all, celebrated in our baptism. Our holiness is derived from the holiness of God. A part of your ordained ministry is to continually be reminding God’s people of their inherent worth, their holiness in Christ.
One of the great dangers in the exercise of ordained ministry is to get so caught up in the tasks of ordained life that we become technicians of the sacred, rather than standing as windows through which we all are invited to gaze upon the holiness of God, and everything God has created. You are to be consistently proclaiming a vision of God that is ever expanding. One of the great calls of ordained life is to assist God’s people to uncover their eyes and discover their own holiness. Doing so we can begin to confront the fear that does not want to see the beauty of that presence in us all, especially those most different from us. Your ministry is to call forth the ministry of every human being to join in a deeper conversation with a holy God. Isaiah’s contemporaries did not like his teaching. It was unpopular, seen as irreverent, even seditious. Don’t be afraid to walk to that edge even as did Isaiah. (It’s also good to let your bishop know when you do, for support.)
Now feet. We know that “feet,” in this image from Isaiah, is a euphemism for “sexual parts.” Sexuality is a powerful, wonderful, and yes mysteriously beautiful part of being human. God knows, the Church has not always done a very good job in this arena of human experience. Yet classically, we understand this as the seat of desire, which leads me to St. John of the Cross, whose Feast happens to be today. One of his central themes, as he wrote in the late 1500’s, is the transformation of desire. His point is that all of our desire, at the root, is a desire for God. Your ordained life is to be grounded in that passion and directed toward the Holy One who will not let us go.
The Isaiah narrative is filled with energy and excitement. It calls us to that place where all of our passion, including the glorious passions and desires we experience in and through these human bodies, are understood as gift and given over to God so that all can fall deeply in love with God and God’s vision for all creation. It is a call for fidelity, a call for radical obedience, the way of the Cross.
And flying? May we be given wings to go wherever it is we are called. It was the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who said that Christians are meant to fly, but too often we act as if our wings have been clipped, thus we remain penned in and diminished in God’s intent for us. In Isaiah’s image, the wings enabled the seraphim to deliver the coal of cleansing, and offer purification and forgiveness to a world ridden with guilt and confusion, hell-bent on its own destruction.
When my daughter was a little girl, I was driving her to preschool. NPR was on the radio describing troubled places in the world. Apparently, she was listening as she said to me, “Daddy, are the people in the war just having a bad dream?” This could have happened yesterday as we struggle with world events just this past week. Her question took my breath as I witnessed her sweet innocence slipping away. After recovering I said, “No Emily, it is all real, and a lot of people are being hurt, but you are safe with me.” Each of you are to embody for us an ordained life where you name clearly what you see, declare that brokenness and injustice are all real, dare to show us where it raises its ugly head, and then proclaim God’s hope for perfect justice, God’s offense at the oppression of the weak, and where we are to join you in living out in our actions the transformation God is calling forth. Discipleship. Not convenient or minimalist political posturing at the expense of the neighbor God calls us to serve and offer radical welcome.
Dare to name it when you see it. Tell the truth in Christ. God is not pleased, Isaiah tells us in other prophetic teaching, if this rite of worship today does not also usher in work for righteousness and peace. Have the courage to use your wings and fly wherever God calls you to go, and may we have the faith and courage to join you and support you, even if you or we are seen as seditious, irreverent, and unpopular as Isaiah.
One more time. John, Kris, Matt, and Jonathan. Look around. Call us through your diaconal and priestly ministries to our diaconal and priestly ministries. Give us a vision of our holiness in God’s loving presence. Call us to be on fire with a passionate love for God and to know God’s passionate love for us. Call us to be honest and truthful for all that distracts us from God’s vision for us as tireless workers for justice and peace. And may I also say today, thank you for being you, and for offering yourselves to God’s Church and to us, for this good work. Amen.
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