Richard's Ordination-Passion Sunday

*Preached at Grace North Church March 28, 2004.*

I remember as if it were yesterday driving up to Washington State to be ordained a deacon. It was thirteen years ago, and I had just hit a brick wall in my hopes of being ordained an Episcopal priest. I remember praying, "God, I believe you want me to be a priest, but it looks like the Episcopal Church is not going to be the place for it. What do you want me to do?" 24 hours later, I was perusing the pages of Gnosis magazine and came across an ad for the Church of Antioch, one of many small Old Catholic denominations. I wrote them immediately, and within a week's time I was talking to an Old Catholic bishop. I did some private study under this bishop's direction, and the next thing I knew I was in a car speeding towards the Pacific Northwest. Bishop Timothy, it turned out, was quite a character-he and his wife shared their one-bedroom apartment with twelve cats, for instance-but he was also an idealistic dreamer as in love with the church as I was, and he became a very close friend.

There, amongst the redwoods, he laid his hands on me and ordained me a deacon in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. My ordination to the priesthood would come months later, but newly empowered with the apostolic succession, I lost no time in getting down to business. I contacted a local convalescent hospital and volunteered to lead ecumenical worship services.

They assigned me to the Alzheimer's Unit. Now, I had never had any contact with Alzheimer's patients before, and I have to admit, it was a bit of a trial by fire. But I soon got the hang of it. I brought by guitar and we sang old hymns that everyone knew, like "The Old Rugged Cross" and "Amazing Grace." I visited with each of the patients individually, asked them about how their week had gone, played along if, in their dementia, they thought I was someone else, and if they were completely uncommunicative, I gave them a little stuffed lamb to hold, touched them on the shoulder and talked to them as if they were any normal person, making sure to say their names often.

The convalescent hospital was not a grade A kind of place-it was more like C-. The smell when you stepped through the doors was overpowering and took about ten minutes to adjust to it. Many patients were openly hostile, and one woman threatened to report me to the Roman Catholic bishop for daring to minister there. It was quite a learning curve, but it was not always grim. One woman was certain I was her son, "Jerry," and she was pawing at something in the air and demanding that I help her with it. I had no idea what she was trying to do, and I looked at her daughter and son-in-law with a panicked, "What should I do?" look. They shrugged, and finally, exasperated, the woman dropped her hands and dismissed me, saying, "Ah, you never were worth a damn anyway, Jerry!" The pronouncement was so final, and the circumstances so confusing, that we all broke out laughing. Even the old woman began to giggle and she marched off to pronounce judgment on something or someone else. "That's my mom," her daughter said, and laid a comforting hand on my shoulder.

It was not always easy, but the days I spent in that hospital were some of the most rewarding I have ever experienced. I learned almost everything I needed to know about being a minister from those people, whom society had warehoused as if they had nothing left to contribute. They contributed to me, and I hope that in some small way, I contributed to their lives, as well.

The ministry of a deacon is not well known outside the ranks of the clergy. In catholic churches it is the bottom rung of a three-rung ladder: deacon, priest, and bishop. One must start at the bottom and work their way up.

The role of deacon is different from that of priest. Whereas priests often focus on teaching and pastoral work in a parish setting, deacons are often out there on the ministerial front lines, working with the homeless, as social workers, with every kind of marginalized community, organizing, getting their hands dirty, doing the hard work of ministry that nobody else wants to do. The word "deacon" literally means, "servant," and in the early church were famous for their work amongst the poor. They still are. They give their lives for the poor in money, and the poor in spirit.

They are the very embodiment of Jesus' admonition in our gospel reading today, when he said, "You know that those who are regarded as rulers among the Gentiles lord it over them and their notables wield authority over them. But with you it must be otherwise. Rather if anyone wants to be of note among you, let them be your servant, and if anyone wants to be number one among you let them be everyone's slave." Deacons do not take the glamorous ministries-and I'd like to point out that "ministry" and "glamour" are to my way of thinking oxymoronic, and if in the "real world" they are not, then they ought to be. And if you are looking for glamour amongst the Old Catholics, then my friend, you are really barking up the wrong tree!

If we liken the Roman Catholics to Bishops with all their grandeur and influence, and if we liken the Protestants to the priests, with their emphasis on teaching and parish life, then we Old Catholics are the deacons, for just as many of us have fallen through the cracks, the people we minister to have often done the same. We marry the couples that the Roman church will not, because the groom is divorced, or the bride is Jewish; we hold services in nursing homes few dare even to enter, because we are welcome there and we are needed. We hold services in bank lobbies on Sundays when the banks are closed, or like Fr. River Sims in San Francisco, hand out clean needles and condoms in the Tenderloin, because that's where we are needed.

Jesus provides for us the real model for ministry. He does not come in power, as a king or one with authority, he does not have riches or influence. "Even the Son of Earth does not come to be served," Jesus says, "but to serve."

One of the reasons that all priests and bishops must begin their ministries as deacons is so that we can learn the true meaning of ministry. Before graduating to the respectability and influence that the parish priest often is afforded, we must start our ministries on the street. And if we are wise and mindful, we will not forget where we came from once we are priested.

Richard Whelan-Stevens, now a deacon in the Old Catholic succession, has been doing this diaconal work for quite some time and knows its joys and vicissitudes well. He has told me often of his work as a hospital chaplain, of how he has found no work quite as fulfilling as working with patients. I have met few people with so great a passion for chaplaincy as he.

Which is part of the reason we are standing here today. Richard began his trek to ministry in the Lutheran denomination. But Lutherans, God bless them, do not traditionally have a diaconal ministry, and they do not know what to do with people who want to minister in any capacity that is not the standard parish ministry model. Quite simply they did not know what to do with him. He did not fit into their mold. Just as I had to give up on my dream of being an Episcopal priest, Richard had to abandon his dream of becoming a Lutheran minister.

Just as Jesus found in the Garden of Gethsemane, letting go of our best-laid plans is often excruciating. For myself, and I will venture to say, for Richard-and possibly this is true of Fr. Richard as well-we had to die to what we thought we were supposed to be, so that we could be reborn as something we hardly expected.

On this day we commemorate Jesus' suffering and passion. Jesus the man dies to make way for Jesus the divine being. Richard Whelan-Stevens participates in this archetypal mystery today as the layman dies and the clergyman rises. And yet, I would like to remind us all that there is no order of ministry that is not simply held in trust for the laity. Deacon, priest, and bishop, all of these are symbolic roles, ultimately. They are metonymous for the proper functions of the laity. Just as deacons are hard at work being Jesus to those on the street, they remind us that it is every Christians' duty to be Jesus to everyone that he or she meets. Just as priests teach and support the community, this role is only useful to the degree that we remind the average Joe in the pew that it is HIS responsibility to teach and support the larger community of which he is a part. And just as the bishop provides oversight for the clergy, this role reminds us that it is the job of every church member to oversee their clergy, to hold them accountable, to communicate what he or she needs, and to point out where those needs are or are not being met.

I am proud to be part of a parish that really seems to "get" this notion of being a servant to one another. In our ministry together, you have really taught Fr. Richard and I how to minister in a way that, I believe makes Jesus proud. Richard and I couldn't "lord our authority" over you if we tried. You have taught us the true meaning of priestly celibacy, and the model of servant ministry we are pioneering here has influenced more communities and touched more lives that any of us are aware of. I am proud of us, and proud that this is the model in which, by example, we are mentoring Richard Whelan-Stevens. I've often said that folks who feel like they don't fit in elsewhere always seem to end up here. Deacon Richard is no different, and I am honored to call him my colleague, as I am humbled by his gifts and his enthusiasm for chaplaincy.

I want to say thank you to this parish for welcoming him as our intern. I want to say thank you to Bishop Charles for giving a wayward Lutheran a chance to do his life's work and to shine, and I want to thank Richard Whelan-Stevens for remaining true to the call that is within him-a call not to prestige or to power, but to being a servant, even when you couldn't see the way ahead.

I think I see the way head, and pretty clearly. It is filled with long hours of tedium in hospital halls, and excruciating sessions with prison inmates. It is also brimming with the joy and satisfaction of finding the soul's true vocation and home. It is, finally, a icon of fidelity for all of us, and when your life's work is done, Richard, I have no doubt what you shall hear: "Well done, my good and faithful servant." Well done, Richard, God bless you in your ministry.

Let us pray

God of the poor, you who have given your life in exchange for many,
We ask your blessing today upon Richard Whelan-Stevens,
That this man whom you have called,
and who against all odds stands today as a minister of the Good News
We ask that you will teach him wisdom and patience,
Hone his instincts, and inflame his passion,
That he may be a servant to many
And the ruler of none
And that he may one day, after decades of untiring service,
Find his rest in Thee. For we ask this in the name
of the King who showed us what it means to be a servant,
even Jesus Christ. Amen.