Lent IV, Year B
2 Chronicles 36:14-23
Ephesians 2:4-10
John 6:4-15
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Twelve years ago this morning, I knelt at the opening of our altar rail, and my bishop put his hands on my head and prayed, “Father, through Jesus Christ thine only Son, give thy Holy Spirit to Lane; fill him with grace and power, and make him a priest in thy Church.”
Recently, I’ve been thinking about priesthood a bit more than normal. Anniversaries of any sort are a moment for us to look back and to be renewed; a moment to deepen our commitment and sense of self; a moment to see how we’ve responded to God’s call; a moment to reflect on how we are learning and changing; a moment to think about where God may be leading us.
When I look back, I think of the bishops and priests and the many, many parishioners who have supported, inspired, and encouraged me. I am eternally grateful. Of course, I also look all the way back to seminary, and I chuckle, and sigh, at those intensely formative years. That sounds holy and pious, and for the most part it was, although it certainly had its shocking bits.
Virtually all of my seminary colleagues have labored in obscurity. Probably the most well-known person who attended my seminary is A.N. Wilson. He lasted only a year, dropping out to pursue what has become a celebrated literary career. Wilson found his faith wanting, but his perceptions of the place were keen. He aptly called the place a 'Firbankian madhouse.'1 Although it had mellowed a bit before I arrived nearly two decades later, it was still an exotic nut bin.
One of the peculiar features of life there was ‘names in religion’ – young men calling each other girls’ names, names like: Tawdry Audrey, Gladys Shagnowski, Maud, Daisy, Plum Tart. I’m told that I had a ‘name in religion’ – used behind my back, but I refuse to believe it. The whole scene was intensely camp. It struck me as bizarre, alien, unhealthy. I was used to fraternity life: throwing kegs to deal with anxiety, certainly a more anti-social behavior. Eventually, I relaxed slightly and came to appreciate some of its amusing elements, and now I think that I may even understand it a bit.
The business of becoming a priest is intimidating and awesome, as it should be. At seminary, we were trying to figure out how who we are relates to what God means us to be. We were trying on an identity much bigger than ourselves, and we had a lot of anxiety about it. Austin Farrer said that priests are pygmies in giant’s armor. We assume incredibly high ideals, and we know that we’ll never be adequate for them. There’s a touch of self-loathing in it all, knowing that we will never fully be what we pass ourselves off as. We deal with life and death issues, with purpose and suffering, with character and evil, with matters of eternal significance, and sometimes we make a mess of it.
Priestly life has to be marked by seriousness, earnestness, piety, and commitment, and my seminary had a lot of that. Wilson called his peers “an extraordinarily dedicated group of men.” But these virtuous qualities can also lead us to be intolerable prigs, without empathy, without humor, without humility, with charity, without mercy. The healthy antidote to all of this religious energy may be some silliness, even a lot of it, even if it’s extremely camp.
A couple years ago during one chapter of the Church’s interminable sexuality debates, A.N. Wilson reflected on his seminary experience in his column for The Daily Telegraph. He recalled doing a reading at a bookshop and running into Plum Tart: “such a pretty, clever boy 30 years ago. [But] ever since, he has given his learned, pious good life to the service of the Church.” Although Wilson’s life has in many ways been a success – lots of books, lots of attention, lots of money, lots of the meat that perishes, he wrote, “When. . . I had parted from Plum Tart, I went out, and like Peter in the Gospels, I wept bitterly. . . . because I thought, and think, that his life has been so much more useful, so much better in every way than my own.”
Wilson wrote of his former classmates, “These are men who have been prepared to devote their whole lives to working in poor parishes, visiting the sick, the housebound, the lonely, the prisoners and captives. They believe in, and live, the Gospel of Christ. . . . If I were so brave or as unselfish as they are, I should be proud of myself.”
When I read these words, I knew immediately why Wilson went to an Anglo-Catholic seminary. He has a strong romantic streak. No doubt, I had some, even many, extremely holy colleagues, but most of us know a little better that our own reality is not so saintly and courageous and perfect. But Wilson expresses well our ideal, our aspiration, what we hope to be, why the vocation can be heroic and vital. Wilson expresses our belief that God is intensely present in the overlooked and the ordinary.
The distinctiveness of ordained priesthood begins at the altar – saying mass. One of Pope John Paul’s last acts was a letter to priests released on Maundy Thursday, days before his death.2 On the day of the institution of the mass, the Pope wrote about the prayer of consecration, and he said that it had to be more than a formula of consecration, but a “formula of life,” the mass as our identity.
The mass is Christ’s self-giving, sharing his benefits, his sacrifice with all. The mass is thanksgiving, cultivating in us “a constant sense of gratitude for the many gifts [we] have received.” The mass is the victory of life, inspiring us with missionary zeal, nurturing us to serve one another, uniting us with God, with eternity. The mass is about human transformation. It’s bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Jesus, life animating the lifeless.
Now in case you haven’t noticed, clergy can be self-important when talking about their vocation. The mass is the formula for life not just of priests, but of every Christian. What A.N. Wilson praises his classmates for is what every Christian is called to be. The vocation of every Christian is heroic and vital. While priests celebrate the mass and have some unique leadership responsibilities, most of a priest’s vocation is that of every other Christian. When we are baptized, each of us becomes part of Christ’s body; each of us shares responsibility for Christ’s ministry; each of us becomes part of his royal priesthood. Jesus calls everyone of his followers, every Christian, to offer sacrifices and to help make God present in the world.
Indeed, in recent years one of the primary themes that has characterized the spiritual growth of our parish family is our shared responsibility for Christ’s ministry. We don’t see ourselves as church volunteers. We don’t see ourselves as helping out the priest. We see ourselves as Christ’s ministers – whether it’s taking communion to the shut-in, praying for other parishioners, or washing dishes following a church dinner. It’s to serve and glorify God.
We’re learning to see ourselves as producers of ministry, not consumers. We don’t ask, “What can the Church do for me?” Not “What can God do for me?” We’re learning to ask, “What can I do for the Church? What can I do for God?” The gift God has given us is the privilege of serving him, of making his love and mercy known to other people. That’s heroic. That’s where purpose in life comes from; that’s where self-esteem comes from; that’s where happiness comes from. Purpose, self-esteem, happiness come from serving something bigger than ourselves, being fully committed, being possessed by a holy cause, something of eternal value and significance.
The vocation, the calling of every Christian is much bigger than we are. When we reach an anniversary in our Christian lives, the date of our baptism or confirmation, even the date of particularly remarkable religious or mystical experience, that is a moment to renew our sense of call. Why did I become a Christian? What was that excitement that drew me and energized me? What made me so enthusiastic, so daring? And then, how has God used me? How has he changed me? Is this pygmy growing, stretching into the giant’s armor even in the slightest? We have to ask those questions time and again throughout our lives. It revives us and helps us live up near the dignity of our calling.
Life is full of pettiness and inanities and meanness and dishonesty and fears and rigidity and betrayals. We succumb to these all too often, but the challenge is to live above all of the little, crushing horrors and still to be involved with people, to care for them, to feed them. Jesus did it. Everyone around him – the scribes and Pharisees, the crowds, even and perhaps especially his disciples – tried to narrow his vision and meaning and to use him for their own narrowness.
In today’s gospel, the crowd wants to enthrone Jesus as king not because the crowd understood who he was, but because Jesus had fed them, because Jesus had satisfied their immediate material desires. The crowd wants him to be king in order to use him, to control him, to serve their own agenda. The crowd wants liberation from the Roman occupiers, not from sin and death. The crowd acclaims earthly power – not the power from above. The crowd isn’t looking for God.
If the crowd had eyes to see, they would have seen the feeding of the multitude as an invitation to live with Jesus, to participate in the divine life. The crowd would have seen it as the formula for life. The crowd would have noticed three points in particular. First, true power is not being served, but serving. It is being a minister to others, feeding those in need. It’s Plum Tart and his classmates, ministering to the poor, the sick, the lonely, the stranger, the forgotten, the prisoner.
Second, the feeding points both to our destiny beyond this world and to God’s presence with us in this world. It’s a sign of God’s transcendence and abiding love for us. It’s a sign that we live for more than this world, and also that we are not alone, that God enters the ordinary, the darkness, the banal of this world, and he transforms it.
Third, Jesus gave thanks over the bread. It’s an invitation to give thanks for everything we received from God. Giving thanks is the way to eternal life.
Service, transforming presence, giving thanks – that’s the mass, that’s what nurtures and sustains us, that’s what we pray shapes our lives, that’s our formula for life.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
1. A.N. Wilson, ‘Tawdry Audrey, Bobo, Maud, Pearl . . . All Better Men Than I,’ Daily Telegraph, 17 June 2003.
2. Letter of the Holy Father, John Paul II, To Priests, For Maundy Thursday, 2005.
© 2006 Lane John Davenport
