Was you sent ...

Chrism Mass Sermon
By Bill Lewellis
Cathedral, Bethlehem
Joshua 1:7-9; 2Cor 4:1-6; Luke 4:16-21

[The sermon as given was less than the text below. As I was delivering it, sensing that it was a bit too lengthy, I dropped the "Avatar" section toward the end. Thanks. –Bill]

May God's word be on our minds, on our hearts, and on my lips ... 

Bishops Paul and Jack, my sister and brother priests and deacons, and all my sisters and brothers marked as Christ's own for ever in baptism ...

Today, Bishop Paul will bless oils that from the thumbs of priests and bishops will touch thousands throughout our diocesan community from the joy of baptism to the anguish of illness. Not only that

Today is also the feast of the Annunciation, of Mary's Fiat, Be it done unto me according to your word. Whatever the Marian feast, however, I seem always to focus Mary through a later meeting when she told Elizabeth that she sees God large in her life,  Magnificat anima mea Dominum. 

Today, we also reflect, in the light of the gospel passage, on Jesus’ mission statement proclaimed by Luke from the Book Isaiah as we deacons, priests and bishops renew our call to be who we are and to serve the Church in the name of Christ, following his example  (while receiving the support of the prayers, gratitude and love of the congregation). 

That's today: blessing and setting apart oil for sacred use ... seeing God large in our lives ... good news to the poor, release to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free ... and the Spirit of the Lord upon us, my sister and brother deacons and priests and bishops, because he has anointed us. That’s today.

Romero

And there’s yesterday, the 30th anniversary of an assassination at the altar, the martyrdom of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero. When I was a young man, considering my call to be a Roman Catholic priest, Father Damien, who ministered for almost 20 years among the isolated lepers of the island of Molokai in what was then the Kingdom of Hawaii, was my hero; somewhat ironically, the year before I left the RC Church, Oscar Romero became my hero. 

Romero, a conservative bishop who sided with the local power brokers who kept the poor oppressed, was made archbishop in 1977 as a “compromise” candidate who was not impressed with Vatican II renewal.

When Oscar Romero was named archbishop, the local liberation theology Jesuits threw up their hands and wrote him off. They had been asserting heroically by their ministry that “the contemporary church must wield not only the teaspoons of charity, but also the bulldozers of justice, and become the voice of the voiceless.”  (1)

Over the next few years, however, especially after personally witnessing early morning clean up of bloodstained corpses on San Salvador's streets, victims of paramilitary death squads, and the slaying of his good friend, Father Rutilio Grande, Romero became a powerful critic of those in power who sanctioned atrocities.

When his Jesuit friend was gunned down in his jeep, Romero cancelled all services in San Salvador the following Sunday except for a single Mass outside the San Salvador Cathedral, celebated with 100,000 people. His repentance and transformation accelerated after these and other events turned him around the bend. Reprisals intensified, while rightwing groups were leafleting the nation: Be a patriot: kill a priest.

“Romero's journey was not easy,” Canon Gerns said yesterday in a homily at Trinity Easton. “He was not raised to be a radical. He was raised in privilege and was appointed to care for the church in his archdiocese in a rather conventional way. Appoint priests, oversee schools, manage the books...don’t rock the boat. But he had a heart for faith, and was willing to go where Jesus led him. At first tentatively, and later boldly, he began to connect the dots. He believed that the job of the church was to care for the weakest of God’s people. For Romero, this was a death sentence.”

We may not be able to point to any one event during which Romero was born again. As it is said of most Episcopalians, he was born again and again and again ... transformed, transformed, transformed and transformed. Not long after Archbishop Romero’s incremental transformations – and actions taken in line with his transformation – Romero was shot on March 24, 1980, in the shadow of the cross. “Be strong and courageous,” today's reading from the Book Joshua encourages us; “do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

For those of us who have read Mountains Beyond Mountains, it might be enough to note that Dr. Paul Farmer, living at Duke University when Romero was murdered, marks his own conversion and transformation from that event, from the witness and transformation of one man. Farmer, a Harvard doctor, reinvented international healthcare to bring medicine and healing to the poor in Haiti, Rwanda, Russia, Peru, Mexico and other nations. (1)

Recognizing that Oscar Romero was anointed by the Spirit and opened himself to being transformed in Love, the Episcopal Church recently added him to Lesser Feasts and Fasts, to be titled in new publication, I think, Holy Women, Holy Men, Oscar Romero was attentive, intelligent, reasonable, responsible, in Love … and, when necessary, he changed.

Just last week, by incredible coincidence, there was an attempt on the life of Bishop Martín Barahona and his closest collaboraters of the Anglican Diocese of El Salvador, while police stood just a few yards away.

Was you sent …

Indulge and forgive me, please, my sisters and brothers, if my next few words seem self referential. I have a larger point. (It has been said, however, that all sermons are somewhat autobiographical.)

First, an anecdote from a book I recently listened to. A young seminary graduate who was being considered for a poor rural parish in a West Virginia church had given a less than inspiring sermon that lacked passion and conviction. What might we say … he could have mailed it in. After the service, a deacon at the church, an old coal miner who made up in wisdom what he lacked in education, asked with a voice rich in irony: Was you sent or did you just went? 

It’s a question I’ve heard occasionally in quiet moments away from my ministry – perhaps a few of us have wondered at times – Was I sent or did I just went? 

I believed I was sent when I followed the call to be a Roman Catholic priest. I believed I was sent for a few years to two parishes in Reading, and to Catholic high schools in Reading and Allentown. I believed I was sent to serve on the bishop’s staff in the RC Diocese of Allentown. I believed I was sent even as I resigned from that position and later married Monica. I believed I was sent to minister as an Episcopal lay person on the staffs of Bishop Mark and Bishop Paul. I believed I was sent when I followed the call to be received in 1999 as a priest of the Episcopal Church. I believed I was sent when Bishop Paul asked me to fill in for a year at Grace Allentown during a particularly troublesome time.

Had anyone asked me at any of those times, however, to articulate why I believed I was sent or how I knew this to be so ... I would not have been able to translate the urgings of the Spirit. Perhaps, from your own experience, my sisters and brothers, many of you can join me in this: that for the most part, we truly recognize the call – that we were sent rather than just went – toward the end of our ministries, by looking back, rather than at the front end of the cryptic call of God ... or its many crooked lines … when we discover “It’s a Wonderful Life” moments.

It’s a Wonderful Life Moments

John Sexton is the president of NYU University in New York City. He often sounds more like a deep thinking Christian theologian than one might expect from an academic at that level of a secular university. Bill Moyers recently asked him how a poor kid from Brooklyn came to be president of a university with influence that circles the globe … and found that Sexton will always give credit to one memorable high school teacher, a man named Charlie.

“Charlie had a phrase” Sexton said: ‘Play another octave of the piano.’” Reach out, stretch yourself.

“Charlie, for generations of young men at this high school, would be the greatest teacher they ever encountered. Charlie began to lead us down a mystical journey of thinking strange. He taught us to see things we never would have seen by looking at them in a way we never would have thought to look at them. So, he would ask questions or say things to us that would just jog one to a different vantage point.”

I hope Charlie is still alive and hears John Sexton talk about him. If he ever doubted before, he will know he was sent.

By the grace and mercy of God, we are strengthened by being able to look back and get a hint of one or another It’s a Wonderful Life moment.

Aha … at the front end

There was one time in my life, however, that I did hear a call clearly at the front end. It was during a conversation with Bishop Paul.

During my time on Bishop Mark’s staff, he had encouraged me several times to be received as an Episcopal priest. Later, Bishop Paul had given me similar encouragement several times. I had responded to each encouragement with some variation of this: “Why would I want to be received as a priest? What would I do differently as a member of your staff? On Sundays, according to my theology of priesthood, I celebrate as a priest in whatever pew I sit, and do it more contemplatively. I love to preach, but I can do that on any given Sunday … somewhere in the diocese. So why would I want to be received?”

How selfish. How stupid. How arrogant.

Finally, in 1999, Bishop Paul said he would ask me only this one more time. I responded similarly. What more would I do that I can’t do now?

These were Bishop Paul’s few words: "Being a priest is not about what you do, it’s about who you are." I knew that in my heart, still It was an Aha moment. “I’ll get back to you in a few minutes,” I said. “I have to talk with Monica first.” It was a call clearly heard, and words whose wisdom I continue to mine: that being a priest or a deacon is first a matter of being before doing.

My sisters and brothers, all of us marked as Christ’s own for ever in baptism ... if you share some of my hubris, if we share anything in common, you may think as I sometimes do that you have not done enough to make a difference for enough people. You’ll try again tomorrow ... and come up short. Save yourself some grief. Being a priest is not about what you do, it’s about who you are. Being a baptized minister is not about what you do, it’s about who you are. Yet – perhaps one of the most powerful words in the scriptures – yet, we do what we can ... today.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,” Jesus read from the book Isaiah, “because he has anointed me ...” Then he sat down to preach: Today ... today, today. Not someday, “today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Telling secrets

More than 30 years ago, I accompanied a Roman Catholic bishop to the former Mary Immaculate Seminary in Northampton where he was to ordain a group of priests. A good friend of mine preached. Bob Maloney's characteristic style was to gradually lower his voice when he wanted to punctuate a point. He leaned toward the congregation to whisper. The congregation leaned toward him to hear. Because there was no speaker near the presider’s chair, Bishop McShea heard none of the high-point whispers. Rightly, I suppose, he was annoyed. When we returned to the sacristy, he said to me, still annoyed: “Bob Maloney preaches like he’s telling secrets.”

That phrase, since the 1970s, became my mission statement as a priest and as a lay person, one I've frequently recommended, and not only to preachers: Tell secrets, tell secrets of the kingdom, tell secrets of God’s visitation, tell secrets of the Spirit. Live God's love: tell what you have seen and heard.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us ... today, today, today. Expect to be transformed. Be strong and courageous. Since it is by God's mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.

Transcendence … longing

One of the questions John Sexton asks his students in courses he still teaches is: “Is there anything in your life today that you see as evocative of another dimension?” What the students find, how they choose to incorporate the notion of something transcendent in their lives, of course, he can’t say.”

It’s a classic Charlie course … a strange question that pushes one to another level.

I have not yet seen the movie, Avatar. Though I usually wait for films to come out on DVD, I had no desire to see this film. I have a hard enough time to keep up with complex familiar characters, no less unfamiliar characters. Besides, I resist putting on glasses that trick my vision on top of my own glasses that are already tricking my vision. But a recent review broke through to me. It was written by Lloyd Steffen, Lehigh University chaplain and professor of religion studies.

Listen, please, to his conclusion: “Avatar may be one of those powerful cultural events that shows us aching for a moral and spiritual connection to some order of meaning and value that is ‘our supreme good’ and neither corrupted nor corruptible. It is a story of longing for community untainted by selfishness and evil, a yearning to adjust ourselves harmoniously to realities beyond ourselves, and an encounter with the human desire for the holy that we ignore to our peril.”

Being before doing. From the promises we will soon renew … Giving ourselves to prayer and study. Ministering the Word of God and the Sacraments of the New Covenant that the reconciling love of Christ may be known and received. Being faithful servants of all those committed to our care. Patterning our lives in accordance with the teachings of Christ. Being wholesome examples to God’s people.

Since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.

Amen

(1) A few facts and phrases in the section about Oscar Romero were drawn from a column and sermon by Father John Dear S.J.