Sermon Preached by the Rt. Rev. David Colin Jones, Bishop Suffragan of the Diocese of Virginia of the Episcopal Church and Consulting Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh, at the Special Convention Eucharist and Ordination to the Priesthood of the Rev. Kristian Opat, December 13, 2008, at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Mt. Lebanon.
Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord, Jesus Christ.
It is on honor to be present at this service of ordination. I have had the privilege of working with your Standing Committee and meeting a number of your clergy. I am especially grateful for the generous and loving approach to the future of this diocese that has been presented by Dr. Simons in his address. His spirit of generosity is profoundly Anglican and will be a good foundation for your life together.
I bring you warm greetings from the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia and from Episcopalians across this country. I know that I also speak for the Pennsylvania bishops as we pledge the support and prayers of the wider church for your future life.
He described himself as a ruined man – a man of unclean lips. He did not feel worthy. His sin weighed him down.
But he had met the living God, in the year that King Uzziah died. That experience so transformed him that when he heard the voice of the Lord calling “Whom shall I send and who will go for us”, he responded, “Here am I, send me.”
In response, the prophet was sent to a people who did not understand, could not see, whose hearts were hardened and whose eyes were closed. And to this situation, the Lord said “Go and say to this people.”
This afternoon, Kris Opat is being ordained to the priesthood. Like the prophet Isaiah, he has answered a call. The Living God has conspired to direct His life toward a ministry of Word and Sacrament.
He is being sent into an increasingly secular environment, one that is sometimes hostile to the Church. And like the prophet Isaiah, he is being sent out with a similar command “Go and say to this people.”
But Kris is being sent with the words of Jesus himself who said "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.”
Kris is being ordained to
Proclaim the gospel
Administer the sacraments
Bless God’s people and
Declare pardon and absolution to sinners.
He will GO equipped with Gifts for Ministry
• armed with the Word of God
• filled with the Power of the Spirit
• and bearing a message of salvation
He is to care for God’s people
to go the suffering and needy,
to the powerful and rich,
to the lonely and oppressed
The message he will bear is good news for all times and for all people.
But the message of salvation will not always be welcome. Discouragement, disappointment, and frustration come with ordained ministry. No priest is free from rejection. We live with the presence of sin,
But that need not define the ministry of Jesus. We proclaim resurrection. We proclaim the possibility of healing and forgiveness and reconciliation. We encounter the world as it is with the grace and power of God.
The message of John the Baptist “prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight” speaks of readiness for life and ministry. To engage in life with vitality, we need to be ready.
I have been struck in recent days with the image of the back up quarterback standing on the sidelines, assisting the coach and calling in plays. He is watchful on every play –knowing that he might be sent in at any minute. He knows the plays, he knows the players, and he knows the defenses. All he needs is a nod from the coach. To the back up quarterback, there are no distractions that stand in the way of entering the game.
In ministry, we are called to that kind of watchfulness – an awareness of the presence of others near us – a willingness to respond to Christ’s prompting and a desire to do what God is calling us to do. When God calls, a response is expected. This response requires taking a step – a step of faith – moving toward God’s call without full knowledge of how the journey will end.
To carry the image of the quarterback even further, we are reminded of training camp and the weight room and hours and hours of practice. An essential dimension of ordained ministry takes place off the field and out of sight.
To fully engage in ministry on the field, the ordained person needs a healthy and balanced life off the field. And this includes taking time for Sabbath rest and for family, for personal retreat and personal vacation, for daily prayer and nurturing friendships, and for studying the Word of God and engaging in local culture.
Lay leaders need to encourage their clergy to have a life off the field so that they can give their absolute best on the field. On any given day of ministry, we rarely know what will unfold. So we need to be ready.
An important part of our preparation for ministry is the discipline of saying our prayers and reading our Bibles. It is not a waste of time, therefore, to sit in silence and wait for inspiration. Nor is it a waste of time to play with our children or to set aside a date night for our spouse.
We need to be ready and to stay ready.
An image of readiness that inspires me during this Advent Season is that of the young choristers at Kings College Cambridge at the Festival of Carols and Lessons on Christmas Eve.
King’s College Chapel is absolutely quiet. The appointed hour arrives. Each chorister is prepared to sing the first verse of the carol “Once in Royal David’s City” and then the choir master points to one of the boys who immediately begins to sing.
That is the kind of readiness to which we are called as we respond to God’s call “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?
Kris, will you please stand.
You are called to exercise the office of priest in the Church of God.
As you go about this ministry, keep your heart and your mind on Jesus. Pray for his strength and power. Know that it is Jesus who will empower your ministry.
Let the Bible be your guide and your inspiration and the source of your strength. Read your Bible. Mark your Bible. Love your Bible and the Lord of the Church.
Remember that your ministry will extend far beyond your congregation. You are part of the ministry of bringing Christ to all nations and peoples – that the name of Jesus may be known above all other names.
Prepare every day for ministry and the Lord will go before you and follow you. And at the end of the day when you go home, go home and entrust your ministry to the One who gave his life for our salvation.
So, as you move from altar to sick bed, from funeral home to wedding reception, from a baptism to sermon writing, and from a vestry meeting to a grieving person, know that you are about the ministry of the Lord, Jesus himself. In Him, you will find ultimate satisfaction and joy.
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