A sermon preached by Bishop Brian Farran at the Chrism - PDF document

A sermon preached by Bishop Brian Farran at the Chrism Eucharists 2009. There are a series of curious circumlocutions for being ordained. Some people speak of ordination as ‘going into the church’, as if the laity always stood outside. There is the similar ‘entering the church’ as if ordination was a kind of procession. the cloth –but that is not a millinery proposal. And then there are the allusions to the collar. These circumlocutions seem rather inane. Without wishing to affirm hierarchy and classism of any ecclesial kind, I think that there is something heroic about being ordained or at least, potentially heroic. Ordination witnesses to the vision of placing a person’s whole life completely This complete disposal is visualized in the prostrations of deacons about to be ordained priests. Their prostration signifies total surrender and availability to God. And when first done at the moment before ordination as a priest doubtless that is the full intention. But such a self-expending intention can wane over the years and become a little too domesticated as other influences accumulate. Yet despite the mounting weight of diversions the flicker of original heroism is there, I wager, within all who have been ordained. There is the requirement that the ordained be leaders, out front, showing the way, moving ahead, sighting the signs of the kingdom of God and encouraging those whom they lead to move towards and embrace the irruptions of the kingdom of God. I conceded earlier that to speak this way of the ordained has the danger of implying that the only Christian heroes are the ordained. That would be demonstrably a false proposition. Yet the public life that the ordained are required to live as detailed in the Ordinal and accepted by the ordained does entail, for its faithful living, a degree of heroism. The constant visibility of such public office by which behaviour either commends or demeans the Gospel and thus God is very demanding and taxing. Although ordination is a privilege, it is also a very great responsibility. The Ordinal is punctuated with gravitas, especially in the Exhortation to potential deacons and priests and in the questions that the Bishop puts to the aspiring candidates. Providentially there are exemplars of heroism that not only inspire but also sustain. I am very conscious that ordination is a life-long commitment. Such a commitment requires not only perseverance but resilience to maintain one’s first love of the Lord, a love that is usually fulsome Yet we know that some clergy become beleaguered as time goes by. Somehow or other the on top of them, they wilt, and seem unable to be nd as they themselves long to be. An exemplar of heroism within the first apostles is, I consider, Thomas. Thomas is probably the apostle who most resonates with our culture given his agnosticism towards the others’ news that Jesus had been raised from the dead. However, it is Thomas’ heroic willingness to join Jesus in his death that captures me. You might forms the disciples that in order to attend Lazarus he will go again into Judea where he has already faced life-threatening opposition. The disciples recognize instantly the danger of returning to Judea. They quibble about this. Thomas regales their fear with his heroism; ‘Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’And later in the resurrection appearances Thomas does not persist with his demand for material ithout ever touching the Raised Christ. Thomas is able to give himself in adoration simply because he is strong enough to surrender to the experience in which he is very much the object. He does not bluster that his previously rehearsed demands must be met. Thomas recognizes the truth of the Raised Christ through the immediacy of the gracious experience. That is sufficient. And Thomas is an apostle thereafter. We all need the adrenalin of heroism, especially in these tough times of ministry. It would be ever so easy to drown in lament or to take refuge in ecclesial models that function as protective I found an unlikely hero through reading his theological writing. The hero who has energized me and whom I would love to have met and listened to is Canon Bill Vanstone. I did try to meet him in 1988 at Chester Cathedral but unfortunately he was not at home in his small cottage nestled in W. H. Vanstone published three luminous monographs – Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense ; The Stature of Waiting ; and Farewell in Christ . These books have fortified me, but more than that, opened up horizons of theological perspective that still nourish and sensitize to the nature of God and to God’s mission. Vanstone’s obituary in the London Independent Bill Vanstone was the most intellectually brilliant of the many able men who were ordained after the Second World War. He was a 20th- century John Keble who committed himself without compromise to a pastoral ministry as well as writing a number of small spiritual books, hymns and verses. Many had prophesied for him a glittering academic career. Occasionally Vanstone allowed himself a twinkle and would remark: "Seven of my friends have just accepted jobs which I have refused." He was greatly respected within the ministry of the churches. Both lay and ordained men and women who were lonely, questioning or deeply wounded found their way to his door and his lights often burned late into the night. and that each year its work became more difficult on the housing estates to which he had devoted his life. But he left on the characters of those he influenced the impression that they were valued by a God who was prepared to suffer without limit. Vanstone argued that humanity can achieve its true See John 14: 16. dignity through a life of prayer. In his own last years he lived out patiently his theme of An online eulogy from a priest in New Zealand working in middle-class suburbia said of Vanstone encourages me in the slow and lonely work of imagining something different; of seeing this place and the missio Dei within it, differently. Vanstone encourages me to persevere, to trust God; for this is God’s work.and Cambridge, in which he picked up three first class degrees, and followed them with another from the General Theological Seminary in New York, Bill Vanstone spent his working life in the decent obscurity of Anglican parish ministry on the nasty edges of unpleasant places like Manchester. Out of this experience Vanstone theologized and wrote his vitalizing books that are already recognized and valued as classics. Let me offer you a sample of his luminous thought. This is an extract from the chapter The Kenosis of God in Vanstone’s Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense The Kenosis [the self-emptying] of God means that, for the being of the universe, the being of God is totally expended, without residue and without reserve: expended in endless and precarious endeavour of which the issue, as triumph or tragedy, has passed from [God’s] hands to depend upon the response which [God’s] love receives. The response will not destroy or diminish [God’s] love: but it will mark it as triumphant or Vanstone heroically in very difficult contexts lived faithfully this theology. He too expended himself without residue and reserve. He waited upon the response that marked his ministry as a priest as either triumphant or tragic. Such waiting and such self-giving require heroism and a theology that appreciates the nature of God as self-expending love. Saint Thomas – ‘let us also go with him that we may die with him.’ Bill Vanstone – ‘the being of God is exAnd us? What of us? Might we not live heroically too? Teach us to serve you as you deserve; to fight and not to heed the wounds, Alan Webster in The Independent . London: March 11 1999. Cited at prodigal.typepad.com/prodigal_kiwi/2005/11/rev_w_h_vanston.html W. H. Vanstone.1977. Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense . London: Darton, Longman & Todd, pp.69 & 70. to toil and not to seek for rest, to labor and not to ask for reward, save that of knowing that we do your will.