April 4, 2023
Christ Church Cathedral, Hartford
Isaiah 6:1-8
Psalm 43
Ephesians 4:7, 11-16
Matthew 9:35-38
There was a moment during my consecration six months ago that I will never forget. I had just been vested and I had no idea what came next. I was heading back to my seat and I looked to my left. And there you were, most of you anyway, the gathered clergy of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. You were looking up at me, your new bishop.
As I looked back at you I put my hand on my heart, to thank you for being there, and for the prayers and the support I could feel emanating from that section in the ballroom.
As I sat down, I thought, “You better not mess this up, Mello. Don’t let me mess this up, God.” I may have used different language in the safety of my own thoughts.
Since becoming your bishop, I have messed up a bunch of times. There was the time I asked someone to hold my crozier for me and it was facing me, instead of the congregation. Bishop Laura wrote to ask if I was feeling okay. “Sure,” I replied, “Why?” Apparently, if the crozier is facing the bishop, the bishop is deceased.
There was the time I visited a parish, and upon viewing a beautiful depiction of an eagle, I remarked, “Oh, of course, for St. Mark.” “Uh, St. John, right?” “Yes, St. John, of course.”
There was the time I was presiding at the Eucharist and for some reason I don’t yet know, I could not for the life of me find the proper prefaces, though I’ve found them thousands of times before. Like someone who jogs for a few steps after tripping on the sidewalk to cover up their trip, I flipped around the prayer book as though someone had moved them on me. “Page 377”, one of the newly ordained offered off the top of their head.
Then there was the pre-visitation meeting with a newer priest who asked a question to which I responded, “Good question. Let’s see what the rubrics say.”
“I’m so glad you need to look this up, too, Bishop.”
“Anything I can do to help,” I thought.
I could go on and on. And these are just the fumbles I have made that I can remember. These are just the ones I’m willing to share. These are the ones with consequences I can handle.
I share these with you not as some exposure therapy to build my tolerance for embarrassment, but because these examples remind me of just how silly that first prayer I offered upon becoming bishop was. “Don’t let me mess this up God.” As if I had any choice.
What I wish I had prayed, and what I pray on a daily basis now, is simply that God give me the grace and power to do the things I promised to do, the things I have the will and desire to do.
It is like that prayer from the marriage rite: “Give them grace, when they hurt each other, to recognize and acknowledge their fault, and to seek each other’s forgiveness and yours.” Give them grace when they hurt each other, not if they hurt each other.
The ordination rites in the church do not ask or expect those of us who have said yes to these calls to be perfect, or to know the right answers all of the time. Our ordinations do not rid us of our humanity and all that comes with it: the frustration, the exhaustion, the disappointment and the hurt, the longing and the aching, the grief and anger, the jealousy and the shame.
What we pray for is that, in our humanity, God will meet us. And what we don’t know, God will show us. What we can’t do, God will take care of. What we are uncertain we can do, God will give us the grace to do. What I am too weak to do, God will give me the power to do.
The readings today are so familiar to us, and yet they are striking in their wisdom for this time, in this place.
Isaiah reminds us that it is God who makes us worthy of the call. Each of us have our own stories of hot coals on our lips. Those times in our lives when we have felt completely unworthy, not up to the task, and God has come in and made us worthy. Lifted us up to the task before us.
The letter to the Ephesians teaches us again that it is God’s grace and God’s grace alone that equips the saints for the building up of the Body of Christ.
And this passage from Matthew could be the Dwelling in the Word for just about every Vestry meeting, Transitions meeting, committee meeting in the diocese.
“The harvest is plentiful. The laborers are few.” (MT 9:37)
But there is good news in this Gospel, if we are open to hearing it. The laborers are few, sure. But, don’t forget, the harvest is plentiful.
How tempting it is to dwell only on the shortage of laborers and not on the abundance of the harvest.
I know it is easy for me to let myself get completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of open positions and shortage of clergy as I listen to congregations all but begging me to help them find a priest.
I leave these conversations wondering what I’m supposed to do. How can I fix this?
And I forget to give thanks that there are faithful Episcopalians who long to gather with clergy in their midst to equip them in building up the body of Christ.
Why is it easier to complain about what’s wrong, than it is to give thanks for what is good and right?
I focus only on the shortage of laborers. I dwell in scarcity and not abundance, and I wonder why I’m suddenly in a funk.
The psalmist asks, “Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me” (Psalm 43:5)
Why are you so full of heaviness, O my soul?
Maybe it’s because I spent my time worrying about the lack of laborers and not enough time rejoicing in the abundance of the harvest.
If only Jesus had said, “The laborers are few, sure, but the harvest? Oh, the harvest is plentiful.”
The vows we took at our ordination, and the vows we will re-affirm today contain everything we need to be the ordained people of God that God needs us to be in this moment.
I know you didn’t learn how to unclog a toilet in seminary, or set up live streaming, or write grants or whatever challenge meets you in the course of your ministry. Seminary or deacons’ school might not have. But your ordination did.
Because, if you are a priest, everything you meet in the course of your ministry is only a challenge because it is part of what it takes these days to “nourish Christ’s people from the riches of his grace and strengthen them to glorify God in this life and in the life to come.”
If you are a deacon, the challenges in ministry are there only because you have a desire to live out a ministry of servanthood, to serve all people, the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely. To make Christ and his redemptive love known and to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world.
You may not have learned everything you need to do, or are expected to do, in the course of your ministry during your training, but everything you need to do your ministry well was given to you at your ordination and every day since.
You need not be perfect, only faithful. You need not have all the answers, only the longing.
The laborers are few, sure. But praise God that the harvest is plentiful.
I know, faithful members of the clergy, that you have the will. Rest assured that God will give you the Grace and the Power.
AMEN.
© 2023 The Right Reverend Jeffrey W. Mello
