Remember Your "Why" [Chrism Mass - Matthew 9:35-38]

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Matthew 9:35-38

 

 

Remember Your “Why”

Cathedral of All Saints and St. Thomas, Tupper Lake

 

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus never once checks his email.  And I think we all know what that means: he is going to fall hopelessly behind – and then have to spend the rest of the week desperately trying to catch up. 

 

Of course, I am only kidding: no one ever catches up on email, not even Jesus.  Because they just keep coming – always and forever. 

 

The expectations of ministry have certainly changed over the centuries.  Priests and deacons of the past would never have imagined the shape and demands of ordained life in the 21^st century.  And it is not just your inbox.  Administrative expectations and mundane tasks constantly clog up our to-do lists.  You have to fill out the parochial report.  And beg someone to serve on the vestry.  And proofread the bulletin.  And pester your warden do her safeguarding courses. And respond to the facebook complaint about the livestream’s poor audio quality.  And negotiate a lease for a copy machine that will eventually break down during the Christmas program’s print run.  All of the tasks will lock you in an office, in front of a computer screen, for much more time than you ever imagined.  They are mostly necessary and must be done and, in some strange way, each little task is an act of pastoral care.  And yet, probably not the reason you answered the call to ordained life.

 

Very few people lay prostrate on their ordination day dreaming of snow removal contracts and the hours of life spent on the phone with Church Insurance.  

 

And it is for this reason that we gather here today.  Today, before God and your Bishop, you are given the sacred opportunity to remember your “why.”  In the renewal of your vows, you are reminded of the Gospel dreams that carried you through the years of your ordination process, that sustained you as you studied and wondered and struggled and prayed along the way.    

 

Today, as you recommit yourself to your sacred vocation, as you renew your vows, be reminded that your ministry as a deacon, your ministry as a priest, is not an amalgamation of tasks or the accumulation of accomplishments.  The things you do do not define the value of your ministry or of your person.  The ordained life is not something you do, it is who you are. 

 

When you took your vows, you took on a strange and wondrous life, a peculiar life: a life of obedience and sacrifice.  In responding to the call of God, you relinquished the precious temptation of individual liberty.  Instead, you chose a life lived in the crucible of sacred community.  With St. Peter, you took up the burden of the belt.  You submitted to a life in which God and the Church will sometimes take you where you do not wish to go, will demand of you an aching   vulnerability, will challenge the limits of your love – for the sake of the flock and for the salvation of the world.  If you are unwilling to take losses, unwilling to bear the cost, this is not the life for you.

  

But if you are, the weight of this life will become your most profound source of joy.  You will spend your mortal days trembling before the sacred honor of this calling.  You will hold in your hands holy things: the bread of life, the cup of salvation, healing oils, life-giving waters, also the paper-skin of dying hands and the cloudy tears of the precious people who call you pastor.

 

Never forget your why.  I know the tasks pile up.  I know the daily demands demand your precious time.  I know there never seem to be enough hours in the day to pray for everything and everyone who needs your prayers in this fragile and broken world.  I know that you wish you read more and knew more and did more.  I know that there are emails you haven’t yet answered; they are probably from Canon Neal.  I know it is difficult to balance all the ministries to which God has called you – priest, deacon, parent, spouse, friend, religious, other. 

 

I know it is a lot.  And that is why we are here today.  This is when we remember our why.  We are here today because we are so captured by the Gospel of Jesus that we had to say yes to this wild life, this strange and beautiful vocation.  We are here because the harvest is plentiful and the laborers are few.  You are here because, to quote Frederick Buechner, this is the space in which “your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

 

Friends, you are called to proclaim the Gospel; you are blessed to be set apart for this incredible work.  It is not always easy, but it is always a privilege.

 

Remember why you said yes to this calling.  Remember the holy dreams that filled your heart as you felt hands on your dizzied head: to be an ordained minister of the life-changing, world-changing Gospel of Jesus, to be a pastor to the flock, to be an icon of the love of Christ amidst this groaning creation, to be a laborer in the harvest.  That is who you are.  With every breath, at every task, in every moment.