Sunday, January 14, 2007

Wedding Feast at Cana

Second Sunday After the Epiphany – Year C
Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 96 (96:1-10); 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11
Sunday, January 14, 2007 – St. Alban’s, Westwood

I’ve always liked the story of the wedding feast at Cana. Perhaps it’s because I enjoy a really good wine, and that is one of the central images in this story. But I had never spent a lot of time considering what about the story delights me so much, other than the imagery. I had never really taken the time to figure out what the story of the wedding feast says about our relationship with God and with Jesus Christ.

As I prepared to preach on this lesson, I did as I usually do – I read through the lesson a number of times and just allowed the images to wash over me. Some of the usual images came to me. There was the image of Mary, the typical worrying mother, thinking she needs to do something when the wine runs out, or rather, to have her son do something. Frankly, that image always bothered me a little. What business was it of Mary’s? It wasn’t her party. Why was she so worried? Even after Jesus told her to basically mind her own business, she continued to push. She went to the servants and told them to do whatever Jesus told them. She essentially forced Jesus to take action, even though he had already told his mother that the matter was none of his or her concern.

When his mother started in on him to do something, he said his hour had not yet come. This says to me that he was not ready to reveal himself to the rest of the world. Yet, in what certainly appears to be the next moment, Jesus does act. Perhaps, after reflecting on the situation, Jesus decided there was no better time than the present for him to act – for him to begin his public ministry.

What better place to reveal himself than through the performance of a miracle at a very public event like a wedding? The choice of place is an important indicator. It says a lot about what is important to Jesus, and by extension, to God. It says a lot about who Jesus is. Weddings are cause for celebration – for public celebration. We know that Jesus did not shy away from celebratory occasions. The Gospels are full of stories of Jesus eating, drinking, and generally having a good time with all sorts of people. In fact, the Pharisees even accuse him of being a regular party animal – dining with tax collectors and sinners, of being a glutton and a drunkard. Personally, I think they were just jealous because Jesus got invited to all the cool parties and they didn’t. At any rate, Jesus’ predilection for attending dinners and other celebrations shows that he was not about being all ascetical and somber. He was about enjoying life in a very communal way, about sharing joyous times with family and friends.

This desire for joy and celebration is evidenced at the wedding feast at Cana. Perhaps it was this overriding desire that got the better of him and caused him to change his mind about revealing himself. After all, the party had run out of wine. How can you have a celebration without wine? There is not quicker way to kill a party, short of inviting the Pharisees, than to run out of wine. So to prevent this from happening, Jesus chose to act – he chose to provide what was needed for the party to continue. By changing the water into wine, Jesus revealed himself, and God, to be concerned with the happiness of humanity – with the joy of the party guests.

Jesus providing what is needed for the banquet to continue is an appropriate image for Jesus himself. Because of God’s love for us, because of God’s concern for our well-being, because of God’s desire to be in relationship with us, God provided what was needed for us to continue in joyous celebration of our life and relationship with God – Jesus Christ himself. The banquet that we call the human race was on its way to destruction and despair. To keep the banquet going, we needed something to enliven it, to enliven us. And God provided what we needed in the form of Jesus – a savior who would care for us and lead us in a new direction – not down a path of destruction and of despair, but down a path of new life and of hope. With Jesus, the banquet does not end, but promises to continue forever.

Yes, the occasion of a celebratory banquet is certainly fitting for Jesus’ revelation of himself to humanity. Throughout the New Testament, there are stories of other banquets and feasts, with the allusion to the fact that these are pale images of the eternal heavenly banquet that awaits us all – a banquet where God and Christ are the hosts and we are the honored guests. The manner in which Jesus begins his earthly ministry points out what we can expect not only in our lives here on Earth, but for eternity.

But this revelation of himself did not occur at just any banquet. The fact that Jesus’ first miracle took place at a wedding feast is also poignant. Weddings are about new life – the new life together of the bride and the groom. Jesus chose to reveal himself to humanity not just at any social event, but at an event celebrating love. This is a celebration of the beginning of a new life together for two people, of the formation of a new family, bound together in love. This reveals Jesus’ desire for us to live together in a community of love, as a family. Throughout the Old Testament, God is imaged as a bridegroom, and his people are imaged as the bride in whom God delights. Similarly, the New Testament uses imagery of Christ as a bridegroom. By revealing himself to humanity at the wedding banquet at Cana, Jesus invokes this imagery of God as bridegroom, foreshadows himself as bridegroom, invokes the image of us, his people as bride – bound together with Christ to form a family of faith, of which he is the head.

Then there is the act of changing water into wine – a pretty cool trick. Frankly, I was hoping that after my ordination to the priesthood, I would be able to do that one. It could come in real handy at parties. But, apparently that is not one of the gifts conferred at ordination. But back to the wedding feast. We are told that Jesus turned the water into wine, and that it was obviously top shelf. He did not turn the water into the same old glug that was being served at the wedding. This was not Ripple or even Two Buck Chuck. This was the really old, really expensive stuff that you save for very special, intimate occasions with your family or closest friends – not what you would serve at a large party of relative strangers – and particularly not what you would serve after most of the guests were already tanked. I have always wondered why Jesus turned the water into the really good stuff. If he felt like he needed to do something (thanks, Mom), why not turn the water into the same old stuff that had been served all evening? No one would be the wiser. Why call attention to himself by producing wine of a better quality and vintage than what the guests had already been drinking?

Here again, just as the venue for Christ’s first miracle, for his revelation to humanity, reveals something about our relationship with God and with Christ, so, too, do the particulars of the miracle reveal something about that relationship. In this simple act (for him), “Jesus inaugurates his ministry with a vivid enactment of the gift he has to offer” (O’Day, 536). Let’s start with the water. Water is a common substance, found in everything in creation. We ourselves are about two-thirds water. Water is nothing special because it is so common – comprised of two very ordinary elements – hydrogen and oxygen. But at the same time, it is so necessary to life. Life as we know it could not exist without it. In his miracle, Jesus takes this common, ordinary, substance and makes it into something special – wine. While wine is a fairly ordinary drink in many cultures, we still associate it with festive occasions. If you want to turn an ordinary dinner into a special event, you pop the cork on a bottle of wine. If you want to celebrate something, you open a bottle of wine. As the psalmist tells us, God made wine “to gladden our hearts” (Ps. 104:15). This miracle reveals that in Jesus, the common, the ordinary, is made special, is made extraordinary. Through Jesus, we have a gift that is meant to gladden our hearts – to bring great joy to all who partake.

The amount of wine produced is also significant, in more ways than one. The Gospel tells us that the water was in six jars, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. That’s 180 gallons of water. That’s 180 gallons of wine! That’s certainly an extravagant amount of wine. That’s more wine than could possibly have been needed to end out the banquet. But it is “the extravagance (of the amount of wine produced) [that] is at the heart of the miracle.” In this miracle, we are “shown the superabundance of gifts available through Jesus” (O’Day, 538). He is able to provide us with more than we could possible want, need, or imagine. His grace is limitless.

But abundance is not the only issue. There is also the issue of quality. As we noted, Jesus did not just turn the water into any old wine. He turned it into a top quality vintage. It is apparent that God’s grace, bestowed through and manifest in Jesus Christ is not only about abundance – it is also about quality. Not only is there 180 gallons of wine, but there is 180 gallons of really, really good wine. Not only is God’s grace limitless, it is also comprised of the best of the best. God doesn’t just want us to have good things. God wants us to have the best possible things. And that’s what God provides in and through Jesus. The wine steward’s words to the bridegroom “‘you have kept the good wine until now’ have a double meaning. They work on the level of the story line, but the steward’s words also inadvertently witness to the deeper truth. He attributes the good wine to the beneficence of the bridegroom whose wedding is being celebrated, when in fact the wine derives from the beneficence of Jesus, the true bridegroom” (O’Day, 538).

The miracle at the wedding at Cana is one of abundance, of quality, of extravagance. It is one of transformation and of new possibilities. This miracle “is significant because, in showing forth the unprecedented grace of Jesus, it reveals the glory of Jesus and anticipates his ultimate moment of glorification, his death, resurrection, and ascension. The extravagance of Jesus’ act, the superabundance of the wine, suggests the unlimited gifts that Jesus makes available. Jesus’ ministry begins with an extraordinary act of grace, a first glimpse of the ‘greater things’ to come” (O’Day, 540).

We are all guests at the wedding feast. We have been invited to share in a celebration of love. We have been invited to share in a celebration of new life and of hope. We have been invited to celebrate a community of which we are a part, a family bonded together with one another and with Jesus Christ, the bridegroom. We are invited to partake of his unlimited grace, freely offered. In this gracious gift, Christ has taken what is ordinary and made it extraordinary. If Jesus can do something as fantastic as taking some plain old water and turning it into top-quality wine, imagine what he can do with something even more wonderful like a human life. Imagine what more he can do with a collection of human lives, like this community here gathered.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.


References

O’Day, Gail R. “The Gospel of John: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflection.” In Vol. IX of The New Interpreter’s Bible. Edited by Leander E. Keck, et al. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.


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Sunday, January 07, 2007

First Sunday as a Priest

Today I presided at the Eucharist for the first time, twice. The 8:00 service went off without a hitch – everything went very smoothly. And Moki gave an absolutely beautiful and inspiring sermon (see sermon text). After the service, I got some very positive feedback. People really liked the way I did the Eucharistic Prayer, how I slowed down at certain points to make it more meditative, giving people a chance to think about what the words mean.

The 10:00 service was not quite as smooth. I made one blunder during the Eucharistic Prayer. After the Lord’s Prayer, I had a slight moment of disorientation. I thought there was supposed to be a musical fraction anthem, so I waited. When nothing happened, I looked at Vivian (the Minister of Ceremonies), who kind of motioned for me to continue. So, I did a said fraction anthem. Then, after I said the “Gifts of God for the people of God” piece, I looked down at the paten and saw the whole priest’s hose and realized that I had not actually done the fraction. My breaking of the host was supposed to be Jim’s cue to start the music for the sung fraction anthem. I felt like an idiot. But no one seemed to notice.

For the Eucharistic prayer, I chanted all the appropriate parts. I did okay, but not as well as I could have. This was for two reasons. First, I started developing a cold yesterday evening, which made it difficult for me to control my voice and to hit some of the notes. And second, I was really nervous. Not only was there a larger crowd, but also my parents were there. But after church I talked with both Vivian and Jim (the Music Director) and both said they thought I did pretty well for a first time.

Moki gave another wonderful sermon – this one different from the one at 8:00 (see sermon text). There were some parts that were similar, and the overall message was essentially the same, but the words and illustrations were different. It was a very moving sermon – a real blessing.

After the service, I was talking with a couple of parishioners. One of them asked me if I felt different now that I was a priest. I told her I felt a little different. She then said that I looked different – I carried myself differently, seemed to have more confidence, and had a more spiritual air about me. She thought I seemed like a different person than I was before my priesting.

After church, Moki and I went to Santa Monica and had lunch at PF Chang’s on Wilshire Blvd. Then we walked along the 3rd Street Promenade and looked in some shops. When we were done with that, I took him to LAX and then went home. Overall, it was a great day. Very tiring, but definitely satisfying. It was a good kind of tired.

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Moki's Sermon at the 10:00 Liturgy

Following is the text of the sermon delivered by the Rev. Moki Hino at the 10:00 liturgy on Sunday, January 7, 2007 at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Westwood for the occasion of my first celebration of the Eucharist.


Two thousand years ago a group of wise men – some say they were astrologers, some say they were magicians – took a leap of faith and set out on a journey across the Eastern desert and followed a star – a star of peace, a star of hope, and a star of love. And at the end of their journey, they found the Christ child, the Messiah, and they were overwhelmed with joy.

Four hundred years later, another group of people took a leap of faith and set out on a journey over a different kind of desert – a vast, deep, blue desert, the Pacific Ocean, sailing in double-hulled outrigger canoes from the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific and north toward a land – a land they had no certainty was there. It was a leap of faith. They had no idea what they would find at the end of their journey, if anything at all. The only thing they had to go on was the knowledge that a golden bird, the plover, that flew to the Marquesas from the north and never settled on water but only settled on land. And after watching this, they deduced that there must be land somewhere north in that vast region beyond the blue ocean. And so they set off, and as they sailed north, they looked at the night sky and watched constellations like the Southern Cross disappear behind them, but they also noticed groups of stars that they had never seen. And then one night they saw the star Arcturus, and below it they saw the silhouette of the Hawaiian Islands, the islands that became their new home. They were overwhelmed with joy and named this zenith star Hokule`a, the star of gladness.

This first group of Polynesian sailors charted a course from the Marquesas to Hawai`i and shared the knowledge with others who came in waves from the Marquesas, from Tahiti, and from other islands in French Polynesia. And on every subsequent voyage they would set out in their double-hulled canoes, sail north, and look for and follow Hokule`a, the star of gladness, to the islands of Hawai`i. And as they settled there they began to develop legends, lore, and tenets - legends, lore, and tenets based on lives connected to the land and lives connected to the sea. I ka olelo o ke ola, I ka olelo o ka make. In the word there is life, in the word there is death. Mohala i ka wai ka maka o ka pua. Unfolded by the water are the faces of the flowers. O na hoku no na kiu o ka lani. The stars are the spies of heaven.

But the one I like best is the old Hawaiian saying that at birth, God gives each of us a bowl of light that reflects God’s goodness, that reflects God’s purity, and that reflects God’s love. And we hold our bowls of light in front of us wherever we go and those around us take it in, embrace it, bask it in, delight in it. But sometimes there are rocks along the paths in our lives and we pick them up and place them in our bowls – when we do inappropriate deeds, when we say unfortunate things, when we hold unsuitable thoughts. And as we go along, sometimes our bowls become so full of rocks that very little light can come through – and we have trouble giving glory to ourselves, we have trouble giving glory to others, we have trouble giving glory to God. We each hold a bowl of light. And in it we each hold a bowl of rocks. This is part of human life.

Not long ago – maybe six or seven years back, Michael held a bowl of light and, like all human beings, in it he held some rocks. And one day he felt a stirring that said, “Something isn’t right. Something needs to change.” And with that stirring, that thought, he took a rock out of his bowl and some of his God-light came through. “I feel called to ordained ministry, to Holy Orders.” And with that thought, he took another rock out of his bowl and even more God-light came through. He talked to his parish priest and another rock came out, more God-light came through. Together they formed a discernment committee, another rock came out, more God-light came through. He undertook a ministry study year – another rock out, more light came through. He went before the Commission on Ministry and the Bishop – we’ll take out two rocks for that one! The light continued to grow stronger. He quit his very lucrative job, sold his house, and moved into a cramped studio apartment at seminary – not in warm and sunny California, but in cold and windy Chicago- and another rock came out more light came through. He spent a summer in a hospital with the sick, with the dying, with their loved ones – another rock came out, more light came through. He graduated from seminary and headed home to California. Another rock came out and more light came through. And then yesterday, he said, “I will,” in front of you, in front of me, and in front of seven bishops. Six times he said it, “I will. I will. I will. I will. I will. I will.” And the rocks flew out of his bowl like they were flying out of a popcorn machine. And Michael’s light came through and the bishop lay hands on his head and confirmed what God had already decided, making Michael a priest, and for that one special God-filled moment he holds a bowl of pure light, shining so strong that it’s as if it rises above him on the wings of that golden plover for all of us to see, that Hokule`a, that star for wise men from the East to follow, that star for the Polynesian voyagers to follow, that star for you to follow, that star for me to follow, that star for all of us to follow. That Hokule`a, that star of gladness, that star which is God.

Two thousand years ago, wise men in the desert found hope. Four hundred years later, Polynesian voyagers from the Marquesas Islands found hope. Yesterday, a new priest found hope. They followed a star. But the Epiphany story isn’t just the wise men’s story. The Epiphany story isn’t just the Polynesian voyagers’ story. The Epiphany story isn’t just Michael’s story. The Epiphany story is your story. The Epiphany story is my story. The Epiphany story is a story that belongs to all humankind. Each one of us holds a bowl of God-given light. And as life goes on, we each put rocks in our bowls. It’s an inevitable part of the human experience – jealousy, resentment, self-doubt, anger, fear, self-righteousness, complacency. And yet in spite of all of it, the Christ child at the end of the star redeems us. The Christ child at the end of the star redeems us at Christmas, The Christ child redeems us at Epiphany, The Christ child redeems us at Easter. The Christ child at the end of the star redeems us at baptism and every time we renew our Baptismal Covenant saying, “I will, with God’s help.” We’re redeemed when we come to this table, this table over which, in a moment, your new priest will preside. This table of spiritual nourishment, this table of spiritual renewal. This table where we say, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” When we set our hearts on that, it’s one moment in our lives where we, too, hold a bowl of pure light in front of us, in front of our neighbors, in front of Christ.

What will you do with your bowl of light? In a moment we will recite the Baptismal Covenant and we will make some very serious promises. My prayer for you, for me, for all of us this morning is that we will continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. That we will continue to persevere in resisting evil, and that when we fall into sin, we will repent and return to the Lord. That we will continue to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. That we will continue to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. That we will continue to strive for justice and peace among all people, and that we will continue to respect the dignity of every human being.

We’re called to follow the star. We’re called to follow the star and go beyond the four walls of this church building and into the world with our bowls of light, beacons of God’s goodness and stars of gladness, serving those who have yet to come through our doors, whether it’s our students across the street at UCLA, our hungry people who need a meal this morning, our sisters and brothers living with chronic diseases like HIV/AIDS, or those in our midst, who like us, need the help of others, need the help of others to take the rocks out of their bowls so that their light can shine forth – shine forth as stars of peace, stars of hope, stars of love, stars of gladness.

The wise men in the desert followed a star. The Polynesian voyagers followed a star. Michael followed a star. You can follow the star. I can follow the star. We can all follow the star, the Hokule`a, the star of gladness – and so can our sisters and brothers out there – with your help, with my help, and with God’s help. And may the Hokule`a, the star of gladness, lead you to the Christ child, the Messiah. May the star of gladness lead you to peace, to hope, and most of all, to love.


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Moki's Sermon at the 8:00 Liturgy

Following is the text of the sermon delivered by the Rev. Moki Hino at the 8:00 liturgy on Sunday, January 7, 2007 at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Westwood for the occasion of my first celebration of the Eucharist.


I lost my father quite suddenly in a boating accident thirteen years ago, December the 28th, right between Christmas and New Year’s. It was a sad time. And about ten days later, around the time of what would have been the Feast of the Epiphany, I got a sympathy card from a cousin that I tucked it away and saved, for it had some of the most beautiful words I have ever read, words by Sarah Williams:

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.


And I have love the stars fondly - the stars that represent hope, the stars that represent dreams, and the stars that represent possibilities that are larger, that are grander, that are more vast than our world, that are larger, that are grander, that are more vast than ourselves, that are larger, that are grander, that are more vast than our fears.

The world of Joseph and Mary two thousand years ago is a time of darkness to many – it is a time of political tyranny, oppression, fear. And in the midst of this world, a child is born, a star rises in the night, and wise men feel compelled to follow the star across the desert and to the child, and when they find him, they are filled with joy. And after offering their gifts, the frankincense, gold, and myrrh that are the tools of their trade, they leave for their own country by another road, hopefully filled hope, dreams, and a sense that things that seem unattainable are now attainable. Christ is in their midst.

In the 1890s my great-grandparents in Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, Japan lived in a time of darkness – it was a time of political tyranny, oppression, and fear – all in the wake of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Meiji Restoration, where Admiral Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay and forced the Emperor to open Japan’s doors. Japan, a country that had been closed off and isolated for over three hundred years became open, and dreams and hopes of places beyond its shores became possible – places like the Hawaiian Islands. My great-grandparents followed a star to the sugar plantations of Hawai`i.

In the darkness of their night – their poverty and their desperation – in the darkness of their night an Epiphany star, a glimmer of hope shone in the hearts, minds, and aspirations of my great-grandparents and, like the wise men, they set out on a journey across a vast, deep, and blue ocean desert in search of a dream. They followed a star. And yes, there was hardship. Seasickness, harsh work in the hot sun of the Hawaiian sugar fields, fear of the overseer’s leather whip as he rode by on his horse. But my romantic side wants to think of my great-grandparents under the Hawaiian skies, with no ambient light, looking at the stars and shooting meteors the way I do in my home in Hawai`i today, the way I do when I need that God-shot telling me that there is hope and that what may seem unattainable might actually be attainable. After all, my great-grandparents – plantation workers from Japan - lived to see their children and grandchildren become educated enough to work as teachers, accountants, Army Majors, Air Force Colonels, attorneys, insurance executives, judges, diplomats, biologists, engineers, systems analysts, bank managers, pilots, and the list goes on to include great-grandchildren who became architects, actresses, and even priests. My great-grandparents left their country by another road and they, too, loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

It is said that the wise men not only offered gifts, but also sacrificed and shed the tools of their trade as astrologers and magicians when they followed the star and presented the Christ child with their frankincense, their gold, and their myrrh. Not long ago, your new priest did much the same, shedding a healthy pay check, a comfortable home, an honorable job, presenting the Christ child with the frankincense, gold, and myrrh of his trade so that he could follow a star, saying yes to God’s call, busting through the fear of the night that swirled around him saying, “You’re not ready, you don’t have what it takes, this must be some kind of mistake,” and setting off on a journey – a journey to seminary – not in warm and sunny California, but in cold and windy Chicago, and then coming back to his own country by another road – a road that was paved by worship in the Seabury chapel, academic formation in classrooms, a summer in a hospital ministering to the sick, to the dying, and to their loved ones, developing relationships with people who have become lifelong friends, and then finally, yesterday, saying, “I will,” so that your bishop could lay hands on his head, confirming what God had already decided, and making Michael a priest. Michael followed a star and came back to his country by another road. He, too, loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

Two thousand years ago, wise men in the desert followed a star. A hundred and twenty years ago, my great-grandparents followed a star. A few years ago Michael followed a star, a journey that culminated yesterday in his ordination to the priesthood. They followed a star.

But the Epiphany story isn’t just the wise men’s story. It isn’t just my great-grandparents’ story. It isn’t just Michael’s story. It’s your story. It’s my story. It’s a story that belongs to all humankind.

The darkness of the night is an inevitable part of the human experience – where we experience fear - fear in the form of jealousy, resentment, self-doubt, anger, self-righteousness, complacency. And yet in spite of all of it, the Christ child at the end of the star redeems us. He redeems us at Christmas, he redeems us at Epiphany, he redeems us at Easter. The Christ child at the end of the star redeems us at our baptism and every time we renew our Baptismal Covenant saying, “I will, with God’s help.” He redeems us when we come to this table, this table at which, in a moment, your new priest will preside for the first time. This table of spiritual nourishment, this table of spiritual renewal. This table where we say, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” It’s one moment in our lives where we, too, can say, “I love the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

And we know that there’s more to the story. In our Baptismal Covenant we made some very serious promises. My prayer for you, for me, for all of us this morning is that we will continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. That we will continue to persevere in resisting evil, and that when we fall into sin, we will repent and return to the Lord. That we will continue to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. That we will continue to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves. That we will continue to strive for justice and peace among all people, and that we will continue to respect the dignity of every human being.

We’re called to follow the star. We’re called to follow the star and go beyond the four walls of this church building and into the world with love, serving those who have yet to come through our doors, whether it’s our students across the street at UCLA, our hungry people who need a meal this morning, our sisters and brothers living with chronic diseases like HIV/AIDS, or those in our midst, who like us, need the help of others, the help of others to see the star – the star of peace, the star of hope, the star of love.

The wise men in the desert followed a star. My great-grandparents followed a star. Michael followed a star. You can follow the star. I can follow the star. We can all follow the star – and so can our sisters and brothers out there – with your help, with my help, and with God’s help.

And may the words of Sarah Williams hold true for all of us today:

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

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Saturday, January 06, 2007

Ordination Day

Epiphany – the feast day celebrating the revelation of God to all of humanity through the person of God’s Son Jesus Christ. What a glorious day for an ordination! At the ordination to the priesthood, the ordinand is charged by his or her bishop to “proclaim by word and deed the Gospel of Jesus Christ” to all people, declaring to them God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness. The ordinand similarly vows to “nourish Christ’s people from the riches of his grace, and strengthen them to glorify God.” In our meeting with Bishop Bruno during our pre-ordination retreat, he told us about one of his favorite icons, an icon of the Blessed Virgin Mary entitled the Theotokos (“God-bearer”). He talked about this as an image of what it means to be priest – to be the God-bearer to all those whom we serve. In a follow-up discussion, our retreat leader quoted from William Countryman, who explains that the function of priest is to point the way to the holy that is already in our midst – to help people see the holy in their lives and within themselves. By being God-bearers, by discerning and pointing the way to the holy in our midst, we are called to facilitate the on-going Epiphany of God to humanity. You couldn’t ask for a more symbolic and meaningful day to be granted the awesome privilege and responsibility of being priest than on this day.

The actual ordination day was nothing short of awe-inspiring and awe-filled. All through the pre-ordination retreat, I had many mixed feelings – anxiety, nervousness, questions as to whether I was truly ready and able to undertake such an awesome role. Those feelings and the accompanying knots in my stomach continued throughout the morning. But then, about 9:45, as we were beginning to line up for the procession into the church, I was filled with an incredible sense of peace. All my anxiety, all my questions, subsided. I knew I was ready to walk into that place, to kneel before my Bishop and have him lay his hands on my to invoke the grace and power of the Holy Spirit that would make me a priest in God’s Church. With that sense of calm, that sense of assurance that could only have been a gift from the Holy Spirit, I was able to confidently walk into the church to the processional hymn “St. Patrick’s Breastpate” (“I bind unto myself today the strong name of the Trinity”), which happens to be one of my favorites.

The whole service was incredibly mystical and miraculous and transforming. There are way to many details to cover in this entry. But there were four definite highlights for me. The first was the sermon (see sermon text), given by the Right Reverend Michael Ingham, the Bishop of the Diocese of New Westminster (Canada). Bishop Ingham talked about the meaning of Epiphany and the meaning of being a priest. It was undoubtedly one of the best sermons I have ever heard. The second highlight was when I knelt before Bishop Bruno and he placed his massive hands firmly on my head while invoking the Holy Spirit. I wish I could remember Jon’s exact words, as he used unique biddings for each ordinand, biddings specifically related to the gifts and talents of the individual. All I specifically remember was reference to my gifts and passions for kindness, honesty, and equality. The third highlight was having the Bishop anoint my hands with oil, making them “holy hands.” What an awesome act – to realize that now my hands are now holy, and that I am charged with using those hands solely for the work of God. And the fourth highlight was the vesting in stole and chasuble, which was done by three of my seminary classmates who came for the event – the Rev. Michelle Bolt (deacon, Diocese of California), the Rev. Moki Hino (priest, Diocese of Hawaii), and the Rev. Shana Price McCauley (priest, Diocese of California), and. I was incredibly moved that classmates would travel all the way to LA for this event, and even more moved that they were the ones to vest me in the symbols of my priesthood.

Following the ordination service, as is customary, the newly ordained priests were available to give blessings to anyone who wished to receive them. I was privileged to provide blessings and prayers of thanksgiving for several bishops, a number of colleagues, parishioners, and friends. Each individual blessing was powerful in its own unique way, just as the people I blessed are unique gifts in my life. I realized, as each one thanked me for my blessing, that I was just as, if not more, grateful to them for allowing me the privilege of granting a blessing. It was a very moving and powerful experience for me.

As I was finishing my blessings, I was approached by a homeless man who wanted prayers and a blessing. He was incredibly disheveled and wreaked of alcohol. At first, I felt like I did not want to have anything to do with him. He was getting in the way of me enjoying “my day,” taking me away from spending time with friends. And then, all of a sudden I was blessed with a lesson from the Holy Spirit. I realized that the Bishop had just ordained me as priest, with holy hands to help with the hurts of the world. And here was someone who really needed healing, prayers, and blessing – someone that others merely look at and walk past. I was moved to stand there and listen to his story – a story of much pain, a story of illness and addiction, a story of self-loathing for ever having taken a drink of alcohol. I listed as he poured out his soul to me. After he was finished, I offered a prayer for healing, for him to know God’s love and to be strengthened by that love, and blessed him as a beloved child of God. In talking with Moki later in the day, he said I had learned a valuable lesson as to what it means to be a priest, that I had lived into that calling in the simple act of listening to that man and taking time with him when no one else would. As Moki said, for all we know he may have been Christ in an unlikely form. Maybe, maybe not. I will never know, but I do know that man gave me an incredible and priceless ordination gift – the understanding of what it means to be a priest and a brief glimpse at the true meaning of the vows I had taken only an hour before. For me, he made those vows more than just mere words – he embodied them, and in so doing, helped me to embody them.

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Ordination Sermon

[Following is the text of the sermon preached at my ordination to the priesthood on Saturday, January 6, 2007 at St. John's Episcopal Church, Los Angeles.]

Epiphany Ordinations 2007 – Diocese of Los Angeles
Sermon by Bishop Michael Ingham (Diocese of New Westminster)


What an awesome day to become a priest! Epiphany: the manifestation of Christ to the world. This is the day Jesus became known beyond his immediate family and people: the day you become his servants and apostles to continue that work.

And priesthood is an awesome calling. Despite all the negative publicity of the last few years, priests today still enjoy an extraordinary level of public respect. Priests have access to people's lives, to their homes, to their stories and confidences, in a way no one else in our society does. You will meet and get to know people at every level of your communities, from the poor to the rich, from the marginalized to the powerful, people of every language, race and nation. We are the profession that still makes house calls. We are welcome at births and deaths, marriages and times of sickness. We help people through deep moments of sorrow and high moments of joy.


This access to people's lives is not given because of us. It is given because of Christ. A priest is the servant of Christ, and when people invite us into their homes and lives it is Christ they are expecting to receive. Along with the office of a priest comes an authority we have not earned. It's an authority given to us by the people themselves because Christ has entrusted us with his ministry. An ordained person is therefore to be an icon of Christ, and this is a very sacred trust indeed, a trust being given to you today by the Church, a trust you must honour and preserve with dilligence. For when we fail in our office, as some of us do, it is Christ himself who suffers as well as those who have placed their trust in us in his name.

A priest is given authority upon ordination, but earns respect through being part of a local community. As you work among people, as you become involved in their lives, as you become the holders and keepers of their sacred stories, you will see the power of God come alive in new and astonishing ways in your community. The greatest reward you will ever receive as a priest is when someone says "you were there for me when I needed you. You helped me when I had nowhere to turn. You will never know how important you were in my life."

The rewards of priesthood are not material. They are certainly not financial. The deep satisfaction is to know that at a given moment, in the life of a particular person or community, you were the incarnation of Christ to them. You were the love of God made real. You changed their darkness into light through the grace of God working in you. There will be no rewards greater than these, at least not in this world.

This is an extraordinary privilege you are being given today. But it's a privilege given in uncertain times, in tumultuous times. We live in a polarized world, and a polarized Church. We are deeply divided over important matters – war and peace, poverty and wealth, justice and power, moral values, the sustainability of the planet on which we live. You are being ordained today into all the chaos and tumult of these divisions. And your job in this situation, as in every situation, is to be an icon of Christ in the midst of it all. In these deep discontents, you are to be the love of God. What does this actually mean?

When I became a bishop someone told me that the job of a bishop is to sit on the fence while keeping both ears to the ground. I tried this for a while, and found it rather painful. I asked myself, is this what it means to be an apostle of Christ in contentious times? Did Jesus look for any fence to sit on? Did Jesus make the mistake many of us do, which is to become managers instead of leaders, program directors instead of teachers, mediators instead of pastors, or even worse, avoiders of conflict for the sake of a spurious peace?

There are two temptations facing leaders in a time of crisis. One is to find where the nearest fence is and get on it as fast as possible. The other is to become one of the protagonists in the conflict, one of the poles in the polarity, pulling as hard as you can against the other side.

I remember one time I started a new job in a parish and one of the church wardens said to me, "In our church everyone is encouraged to join a group. There are two main groups, Group A and Group B. The purpose of Group A is to undermine Group B, and the purpose of Group B is to sabotage Group A." This was the parish in which I found myself back then, and I've seen many of them since as a diocesan bishop, and I am sad to say this is the Communion in which we find ourselves today.

What does God require of us in such a time, in such a Church. Fence sitting? Divisiveness? Are these the only options? It's important to ask, what does God require of us? It's not the same thing as asking what the Church might need, or even our local communities. Despite what some might think, you are not being ordained today to save the Church. That is God's responsibility. You are being ordained to be an icon of Christ and to further the Reign of God in people's lives and in this world.

What God needs, and has always needed, from us is faithfulness to the witness of Jesus Christ; the Jesus who came to serve and not to be served, the Jesus who said 'put away your sword: those who live by the sword will die by the sword', Jesus who had compassion upon the lepers and the widows and even unbelievers, Jesus who refused to condemn the sexual sins of his day but roundly condemned the spiritual ones, Jesus who created new kinds of community among people the world rejected, Jesus who loved at the cost of his own life, and died that we might live.

This is what God requires of us. But there is even more. Priests are not merely local. You will be priests of the whole Church, the whole family of God stretching throughout time and space. You will be priests of the Church visible and the Church invisible. We live in a time in which the pressures in our world are driving people apart and into separate camps, where it takes great courage to stand in the centre. We live in a time of extremism and rising fundamentalism. And there are different kinds of fundamentalisms we have to deal with, not just one. There are religious kinds, and secular kinds.

You know that religious fundamentalism is growing in every major faith tradition, including our own. Religious fundamentalism is based on fear – fear of change, fear of loss, fear of the future and what it means to personal or tribal identity. When people see all their anchors being pulled up, and the world they know set adrift upon uncertain seas, they re-assert old dogmas, old traditions, and insist that God demands all this to stem the tide of change.

In itself this is understandable. It is a natural human reaction. But it is a human reaction and should not be confused with God's action. And one of the jobs of a priest is to know the difference between God's action and human reaction, and to help people avoid the mistake of confusing one for the other.

Secular fundamentalism is quite different, but no less real. This is the distorted view that we are sufficient unto ourselves, that all we need is an effective marketplace where all our human problems can be resolved to everyone's mutual profit. It is the view that everything important in human life can be measured, that everything significant can be quantified - by economic indicators, for example, or the expanse of our lawns - that the purpose of human life is to maximize individual well-being, and that people are to be valued by their success in the market place as the principal indicators of their human worth.

I would say this is the dominant religion of the West today. It's the culture we live in, the air we breathe. So we have these two fundamentalisms – one religious, one secular; one based on fear, the other on pride: one that has tried to co-opt and capture God, and one that has tried to banish God – and in the midst of this our priests and leaders have to be not just pastors but also prophets, not just comforters but also sounders of the alarm. We need from our priests, and indeed from all the baptized and faithful members of our Church, the leadership and vision to set us free from captivity both to false religion and to false ideologies alike.

Fear and pride are the very opposite of biblical values. They are not what God wants nor what God offers us through Jesus Christ. Our Scriptures bear witness to a Son of God whose very incarnation sets us free from idolatry, free from false attachment to bad religion and to unsustainable economic systems. Genuine biblical spirituality opens us to truth from any source so long as it incarnates the compassionate grace and mercy of God who has created all people as inter-connected, members one of another; as St. Paul says, to be one with each other and with the earth that supports us.

Kenneth Leech, a great Anglican writer, says genuine Christian orthodoxy is subversive, not conformist, it overturns human convention in the name of divine wisdom, it is not dogmatic but transformative, it doesn't fit into patterns of domination and exclusion but stands against them for a radical inclusion. Christian orthodoxy is not a tribal theology, a God-on-my-side sectarianism. It's a global vision of a world united in its very plurality, a world at one in its respect for difference and its deep commitment to justice. This is not the narrow orthodoxy of fundamentalists and demagogues, nor even may we say of some archbishops and primates. It's the radical orthodoxy of Jesus, grounded in his incarnation as the Son of God, who also lived in dangerous and polarized times and who refused all its temptations of avoidance and power.

We celebrate today the visit of strangers from a far country to the manger in Bethlehem. They were not Jews, and certainly not Christians. They are called in Greek "Magi." This is wrongly translated as 'wise men' and even more wrongly translated as 'kings.' They may well have been wise, but they were not kings. We do not even know if there were three of them because we are not told that.

In the ancient world a magos was an astrologer, an observer of astral phenomena, and also a priest. So the strangers who came to visit Jesus were priests from a far country, priests from another religion, scientists of their day who had observed something quite unusual in the stars and decided to pursue it. They were scientists open to the religious meaning of the universe. There was space in their understanding for God. They did not function with a closed, mechanistic view of reality. They made no separation between the spiritual and material dimensions of existence. They were seekers of knowledge, both divine and earthly, and they were willing to pursue it wherever it might lead. That's what we need from you, the priests of our Church.

And they trusted their dreams. They were guided by their dreams. St. Matthew tells us their dreams were reliable guideposts that led them safely home. These were remarkable scientists, were they not? Attentive to the mysteries of the universe, alive to their own inner voices, to the whisperings of God in the non-rational world.

This is what God needs of our priests today: people who have a deep trust of God, people who have a deep hope despite all the evidence of tragedy, people whose spirituality has set them free not shut them down, people who are acquainted intimately with the mysteries of the inner life and can show others the way to the very heart of God, people of prayer, people of courage.

[Sari, Joseph, Gabriel, Michael, Martha, William, Sarah, and Colleen, please stand up.]

You are about to be given one of the greatest gifts of your lives. It's a gift that will test you to the very limits of your humanity. It's privilege few others in our society can understand. It's a sacred responsibility that – if you are truly called to it - will not burden you, but set you free in ways you cannot possibly imagine.

Take this gift and be an icon of Christ to us all. Be the love of God that people long to have in their lives. Be pastors and prophets not only to your local community, but to the world and all the people that still long for fulfilment, justice and peace.

Push the tradition forward if you must, but always stand within it. Remember it is not your authority you carry but that of Christ himself. Do no harm in his name. And above all else have courage: courage to build up, courage to draw the circle wide, courage to resist your own fears, courage to let the grace of God flow freely in you. My prayer is that your ministries may set you and all of us free, and that your dreams always lead you safely home.


Source: Ingham, Michael. “Epiphany Ordinations 2007,” The Episcopal News, Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, 17 January 2007,
http://episcopalnews.com/ViewDailyArticle.php?key=3363 (17 January 2007).


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Friday, January 05, 2007

Diocese of Los Angeles Meets the Matrix

Moki took this picture at the ordination rehearsal session. The mysterious looking woman to the right is my Soul Sister, the Rev. Alexandra Conrads, who was one of the Ministers of Ceremony for the service. I love this picture because it has that surreal, Matrix-esque quality that I imagine comes with life in the priesthood. (Love ya’ Alexandra – this is sooooo you!)













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