ORDINATION SERMON for Dr ROBIN WAKELY. Clogher 7th September 2003
The Reverend Lady Durand
You are all gathered here this evening in festive mode, to celebrate something joyful. Something that is very solemn of course but also joyful. But YOU are not just here as observers. You have a part to play.You have had a part to play already. Robin does not come to you out of the bleu, but he has been offered for ordination by the Christian community. When I say community I mean of course community in the widest sense, regardless of religious denomination. You have some of you played a part in his selection and training for the ministry. "How?" you ask. You have given him glowing references. You have financially supported him. You have encouraged him,and you have accepted with happiness this service tonight in you midst - I saw no protesters with plackards at the door!!
Although there are not many words for you to actually say in the ordination Service, you are by your prescence here ordaining him in a way, in the sense that you are decreeing that he is a suitable person, you are agreeing to what is about to happen. The Bishop does the laying on of hands, but you are not just going to "gawk" you will be supporting Robin prayerfully and so being part of the action.
After the laying on of hands, Robin will be given a stole to wear around his shoulder. The origin of the stole is lost in the mists of time, No-one is sure exactly what it is ment to symbolise, and so this vagueness does give us a bit of licence to use our imaginations and say that tonight we shall see this stole and indeed the black scarf, as a symbol of the towel with which Jesus girded himself in order to wash the disciples' feet. Robin is being made a deacon tonight, someone who serves, so a towel is an appropriate symbol, the first of three i am going to suggest to Robin this evening.
Robin may the stole you will wear for the neat year around your shoulder, and the black scarf, remind you that your new job historically descends from the early deacons whose tasks included serving at table. The lowlier jobs. Of course you will be doing all the more glamourous jobs as well, and those that will call for all your gifts, all your training and all your personal strength and compassion and prayerfulness. But you will also have to do some jobs which you may feel like complaining about. I used to "give out" about the time I had to spend in administration, particularly inbuilding management. I now realise it has been a training for me. It has formed my character, and it has all been a learning experience.
The second context in which Robin is being made deacon is that of the wider church. So Robin's learning experience is widening out, he can learn from his colleagues, especially the more senior ones, from Bishop Michael, from Jesus Christ, but also from his flock - this is important.
The second symbol I want to suggest to Robintonight is the yoke. Next year when he is ordained priest the stole will be turned a different way- he will wear it over his neck and shoulders, which we can see as very similar to a yoke. Do you know what ayoke is? There are several meanings. It can be a wooden bar carved to fit neatly over the shoulders of one person to enable them to carry a load at eachof the two corners like the old milkmaids in children's nursery rhyme books. It can also mean a wooden bar tied over the shoulders of two oxen joining them together for ploughing, making them into a team. When Jesus said "take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy, and my burthen is light" we are not sure which of the two meanings was intended.
But Whichever the meanings are rich in parable. If Jesus meant an individual burden bar, we think of him in the carpenter's shop in Nazareth turning out beautifully crafted yokes which fitted to perfection. The word translated as "easy" means well-fitting, and Our Lord knows exactly what are the burdens Robin is well-fitted to bear in Clones. Interestingly enough it was only when I did a Month's parish placement in Derry that I first came across a wonderful saying "God fits the back for the burden".
If it is the second meaning, which I prefer, each time Robin puts the stole over his shoulders he can remember that he is yoked together with Jesus Christ, both facing the same direction, following his lead in ploughing for the Kingdom of God. One reason I prefer this interpretaion is that a favouite icon of mine is the so-called friendship icon from Egypt, where Jesus and Abbot Mena stand together facing the world. The hand of Jesus is upon the abbot's far shoulder and the arm of Jesus in between the two men's heads is thin and curved, suggeating a yoke. The younger is being led by and learning from the older.
Robin has learnt so much in his life already, his preparation for ministry has taken years, none of which will be wasted. But he has not stopped learning now! He will be learning from Our Lord as he follows him and listens to his wuiet voice. I have found that the first years of parish life are a wonderful learning experience. I do not mean this in a sort of sarcastic way, that it has been painful. It has in fact been very happy. I have learnt many human and spiritual lessons, the sort of things that cannot be taught in theological college, and I wish Robin happy learning in his situation yoked with Jesus.
We have looked at the community as the context in which robin is to serve, his new serving role symbolised by the trowel which the stole represents for us. We have looked at the wider church as also the context for Robin's ordination, where he learns from his colleagues and from the Lord he follows and proclaims and with whom he is yoked together which is symbolised by the stole and also represented by the scarf. Ordination however is more than this. Robin does not become ordained just because Bishop Michael lays hands upon himand gives him a stole and a Bible - otherwise you might all be assiduously avoiding shaking your bishop's hand afterwards for fear you get ordained by mistake! The extra thing, the 'magic ingredient' ( in inverted commas I hasten to add) is that the Holy Spirit will come upon Robin. This is the inward spiritual grace of the sacrament that laying on of hands to ordain is the outward sign of. The Holy Spirit is already in Robin of course, and will be coming upon him again. But tonight He will, we believe, descend upon Robin to empower his ministry, and to transform him into a deacon. Really it is only the start of a long process or journey of transformation.
The third symbol I want to suggest to Robin is something he will be handling with great frequency in the parish - the chalice. For the first year of being a deacon Robinwill be administering the chalice to the people. What does the chalice make you think of? To me it is very much trtansformation. The chalice represents both something that we offer to God and somethingthat He gives to us. When we offer things to God He tends to change them. The chalice has the additional suggestion of a container - a vessel capable of holding within it something of the lighht ane life of God. First though we have to offer it to Him.
This summer I spent a wonderful two weeks in Russia. When I was there I was honoured to see the original icon of the Virgin of Vladimir and a very old copy of Rublev's Old Testament Trinity icon, with which most people are familliar. I was staying with a Russian family and the husband was 98% blind, but he used up some of his small bit of remaining sight to look at this remarkable icon with me. We discussed and shared our thoughts about it for hours. Mind you i do not think icons are for discussing - but he was a colleague of minein the study of philosophy. Together we worked out what the artist might have been intending. I would like if I may to share something of thst with you.
Each feature of an icon is of importance. In this one the middle angel who is wearing the earthy colour brown, is pointing to the chalice and its contents, in which there is something brown lying, as if to say: "offer to God your earthly nature". The second angel is withdrawing his hand from the chalice and alredy his raiment has become blue - the spiritual has become dominant in him replacing the physical. The third angel has a robe of great transparency, the spiritual nature is shing through, he is already transformed. This third angel is being looked at by the other two regarding him as the perfect one, the culmination of the process of sanctification.
Sanctification -or deification - is something that has to be acheived in EACH ONE OF US by the Holy Spirit, but the process begins when we offer all we are and have to God. The chalice then becomes something different, a vehicle of God offering Himself to us. So the third symbol I offer to Robin for his ordination as a deacon is that of a chalice - a container, an emptiness to be offered to God, and that chalice coming to us filled with light. Often a communion wafer has light flowing from it in religious pictures, as it sits in the mouth of the chalice. That chalice is our lives, Robin's in particular ...Robin, as you offer your life to God tonight in ordination, may you become a chalice filled with the light of God. May He bless your people abundantly through your ministry. Amen