Ascension, 2022
Awaiting What Power from on High?
In David Ford’s most excellent Commentary on the Gospel of John published last year… you’ll not find commentary on today’s Gospel and Acts readings. Guess what? We have a little hiatus here into the Gospel of Luke for Ascension, then we’ll be back to John again. It really is an excellent book… even though I’m still in early chapters!
So now we stand with the disciples. Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptural prophecies about him, that they are witnesses to all of these things about him, including the proclamation of repentance and forgiveness, and then he orders them to stay where they are to await being clothed with power from on high.
What is this coming power? What is happening to us? Jesus has just told us to stay put, has blessed us, and now has been taken up beyond the clouds, into glory a glory too glorious for us to behold… This same God who delights in, who lives for, self-revelation is now revealed in our imaginations, crowned for whom we have witnessed him to be, and revealed in departure itself and in a promise of return and of a new power to come our way. And here we are, waiting.
Two days ago I was reminded that it was on a May 27 that I and five others in the diocese were ordained priests. A few weeks beforehand, we all spent some time in retreat over a couple of days, sharing in prayer and preparation and a fair dose of anticipatory excitement and… fear. For some there was an extra buzz that came with moving house, starting new responsibilities in a parish, new jobs. I was in a slightly different place in that in my situation I was to continue on in my regular responsibilities, the same ole job, but differently. I continued in the same work that I had been doing for nine years as a layperson, and I assumed a new role and identity alongside the same ole’ in the workplace community of what is called Church House, or the General Synod or national office, in Toronto. Those of us in that pre-ordination retreat, we all went on to quite different sorts of priestly ministries. In that retreat time we were united in wondering together what on earth was about to happen to us!
For the twelve years since then the main context of my priestly presiding, preaching, and pastoral witness and support has been – and continues to be – that small community of staff colleagues at Church House and, particularly the even smaller community within that who gather weekly around the font and altar for eucharist. It took me a really long time to figure out some basic things about being a priest, and as the saying goes, what I learned most is how much more I am always going to need to learn and am still learning.
The collar was fun at first, as well as being awkward. Did it set me too much apart from people? What does the collar trigger in people? What sort of power and authority is it assumed I have amongst my peer and superior colleagues when I wear it, what does it mean to choose to not wear it sometimes. Those are some of the common big and immediate questions for newbie clergy.
In my context it was the struggle of how to preach to my peer and superior colleagues that was a weekly challenge. Eventually I figured that my job in that community – which actually has few Anglicans in it, we’re thick with Roman Catholics and Presbyterians as well as Anglicans and United Church members at the staff level – I felt my job has been to help us each and all to together to reflect on the vocation given to us in our baptism to be about healing and reconciliation, justice, mercy, and love within the work that we do together, and within the variable contexts of whatever pleasant weather or storms we happen to be navigating in at any time. We’re united in the common work and we’re united in our common baptism. That’s a power from on high, the power of the Holy Spirit that unites us in the Body of Christ, and that sends us out to serve, to teach, to tend to the needs in church and world.
The thing about those lines from Acts and Luke is that Jesus was talking about the power from on high, the power of the Holy Spirit that we are to receive in baptism – the power with which we have been clothed on high is what we know to be given to us all as we are washed in the same forgiving and welcoming waters as was Jesus, and as we are sealed with the Holy Spirit.
Thinking back to that pre-ordination retreat I’m convinced that one of the best things that those preparing for ordination can do is to reflect on our baptism and what it really is to be a part of the community of the baptised that is the Body of Christ, a community that as that Body of Christ doesn’t just contain deacons and bishops and priests within its membership, but that Body that is itself diaconal, episcopal, and priestly. That’s what we’re waiting for, over and over again each Ascension, a coming of power from on high that shapes and reshapes us, over and over into this Body, whose power is found in service, faithfulness, and transforming love.
Those are gifts of power that are given to the whole church first and foremost and in some ways baptism can be considered our first ordination to discipleship and the mission of God to which we are all called, together, to bring healing, reconciliation and new life into the world through mercy and justice and proclamation of repentance and forgiveness. That’s for all of us! The ordained are those whose particular gifts are particularly focussed in a sense of identity that inhabits one of these callings more intensely (is a rough way of putting it). And the church – you, us, all of us – sets some aside, consecrated for particular service. And the point of folks like us isn’t to be elevated away from the rest of the church, – only Christ gets that glory! but rather the inverse, it’s to be serving the whole church’s ministry of love and service, sacrament, teaching, and governance. Here’s how that goes.
Now, I confess that a lot of what follows is cribbed from my day job, in which I’m involved right now in revising the ordination liturgies in the BAS. But it was also the Church House chapel context that has had me thinking obsessively about the relationship between baptism and ordered ministries for over a decade. So, here’s how it goes.
All Christians at baptism are called to priesthood, to live together in reconciled communion, to name the presence of grace and the cross in God’s world, to point to God’s transfiguring power, calling attention to the holy in what is ordinary and what is exceptional alike. All of us. We do that here at St. John’s in sacramental worship, and in our trying each day to find anew that Jesus we are to follow, to seek his holiness and faith. Some are called, equipped, and ordained to embody priesthood as presbyteroi (elders), serving the gathered community, “caring alike for young and old, strong and weak, rich and poor,” engaging us all in eucharistic worship, in community life and learning, in prayer and spiritual growth. As such, priests in sacramental presiding, teaching and pastoral care invite us deeper into the holiness of God, and in fact into that priesthood that we all share.
The Greek origins of the proper word for bishop is found in the concept of episcope – from which you get the word Episcopal. Not just bishops, but rather All Christians at baptism are called to episcope, and that means to strive for unity with one another, and to attend to and communicate the story of God in scripture and tradition. We do that when we choose to gather here from our many different places, when learn together, and when we make decisions together in Parish Council or Synod or committees. Our episcopal ministry is to ensure order among the ministries we share with others, to be stewards of the talent and treasure given us by grace, to study and learn from the teachings that have been handed down through scripture and tradition, to participate in the good governance of our gathered life. Some are called, equipped, and ordained to embody episcope as bishops, to seek unity, to engage in the study and teaching of scripture and tradition, to ensure good order and pastoral care within the diocese for the sake of God’s mission. As such, bishops invite us further into the fullness of the living Body of Christ that is diverse, complex, and One.
The Greek word behind the word deacon is diakonia and it essentially means service, but with more. All Christians at baptism are called to diakonia, and that is to bring the light of Christ where there is darkness, to recognize and respond to situations of injustice and need, to organize and distribute resources for their remedy, to bring the brokenness and hunger of the world to the attention of the faithful for prayer and nurture and healing. Our diaconal ministry is to serve, to proclaim the gospel by our words and in our lives, to seek a preferential standpoint with those who are poor or vulnerable. We do that here when we offer prayers of the People, when the servers set the table, when we tidy up the picnic table, and open our kitchens and classrooms as sanctuaries of care. Some are called, equipped, and ordained to embody diakonia as deacons, to exemplify to the faithful what it is “to serve all people, especially the poor, the weak, the sick, and the lonely.” As such, they invite us into proclamation and service of the gospel for the sake of the healing and reconciliation of God’s world.
Next week is Pentecost, often referred to as the birth of church because it is about the baptism of church. We’re in the waiting and preparation time for the day when we will renew our Baptismal Covenant. I urge you to pick up a BAS – you can look it up online at www.anglican.ca at home – and to look at pages 158 and 159 in the Baptism liturgy. What is the sort of power from on high that baptism brings us? First it is a power that unites us in love, as one Body in which the diversity of gifts needed for the whole community are given to the whole community. It is not a power from on high that sets hierarchy as a divisive pyramid of power, and only Christ has ascended into glory! – but rather one that animates us all for faithful service, in which leaders, whether clergy or lay, serve the faithful service of us all.
The Rev. Dr. Eileen Scully