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Well, we've come a long way since the days when, in some eyes, the lowest form of ministry was a woman worker. The Church of England was amongst the first to ordain women to the priesthood in 1992 and hopefully, we shall not be long before we take the next step as some of our sister churches in the Anglican Communion have done, and make it possible for women to be ordained as bishop.
I am not here tonight, however to jump on that bandwagon - but rather to celebrate ministry, and particularly Bryony's ministry, for which we meet tonight, to give thanks.
Her ministry did not begin 10 years ago when she was ordained priest. Before that she had been a deacon and prior to that a Reader, serving in Barking. She was also a headteacher of a church school and before that her Christian faith led her into all sorts of opportunities for Christian service, including, I believe some association with the Guides. Nor was her ordination to the Priesthood the end of the line, or should that be the pinnacle of her vocation! She served initially as a Non-Stipendiary Minister and then as a full-time stipendiary (ie she started to get paid!). She moved from being curate in the team to associate priest and then in 2005 she was appointed Team Vicar. Unfortunately for her, all these posts were served under the same Team Rector, but then, life sometimes gives us a raw deal!
In Bryony's vocation there is a pattern of progression which is common to many who take the Gospel seriously and who turn to Christ as Lord. There is always the call to do the next best thing, but alongside this is the spiritual faith progression that grows out of a deepening sense of God's love for us and our response to that love. God always takes our offering seriously as dear Isaiah found out when he blurted his Here am I; send me! I dare say Isaiah might have have sometimes regretted the hastiness of his words because it isn't always an easy thing to seek to do the will of God. But Bryony knows, as I know, that there are so many joys in ministry and so much privilege. They far outweigh the sadnesses, doubts and hurts.
So ten years on, what is left to say to a priest who has so much ministry under her belt and so many joys to celebrate? I want to say - Be True
First Be True to the Present
That means being faithful to the ministry God has given and to the service in Epping to which he has called you.
On the anniversary of my ordination, I have found it helpful to read through the Ordination Service and especially that part where the Bishop describes the work of a priest. Bryony will remember that the Bishop said that we are to be servants and shepherds among the people to whom we are sent. We are to proclaim the word of the Lord. We are to call people to repentance and, in Christ's name to absolve and declare the forgiveness of sins. We are to baptise, prepare people for Confirmation; preside at the Eucharist and lead people in prayer and worship, interceding for them; blessing them in the name of the Lord; We are to teach and encourage by word and example; to minister to the sick and prepare the dying for their death. We are to be Pastors, who, following Jesus the Good Shepherd, are to care for people, visiting them in their homes, watching over them in need and joining in a common witness to the world that Jesus is Lord. We are to be messengers, watchmen, stewards, teachers, feeders, seekers of the lost. Most of all we are to be thankful for the treasure of people given into our care and we are to serve people with joy, build them up in faith and do all in our power to bring them to loving obedience in Christ. We are also reminded that we cannot do any of this in our own strength but only by the grace and power of God. So we must pray earnestly for God's Holy Spirit. Only so will we be enlarged and enlightened in our understanding of the Scriptures and grow strong and mature in faith.
These are both thrilling and awesome things and they are also a check-list. We must constantly measure ourselves against them asking the questions, Is this what my ministry is like? Is that what other people see in us? It is by prayerful attention to God that we shall indeed remain true in our present ministry; remain true to our calling.
Secondly, I suggest Bryony, that you are true to your past. By that I mean a remembrance of your roots. Not just thankful for the many influences that have shaped your faith and vocation but remembering that, for the most part these have been ordinary Christians who simply practice deeply the faith in which they believe. Whatever vocation we may be called to exercise in the Church or in the world, the common vocation we all share is that of being the Laity - the Laos - the Baptised people of God.
Sometimes, and certainly in the history of the Church, laity have been regarded as little more than pew fodder. In a hierarchical set up that the Church has sometimes become, it has seemed that the laity are the bottom of the pile. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. The Laity - most of you here - are God's frontline troops - called to the highest vocation of all - that of being God's chosen, redeemed and loved people. Secure in the knowledge of that, your call is to reach out to a broken world, in need of great healing and be witnesses to God's holiness, mercy, justice, freedom and love.
A priest must never forget that we are set-apart not from people but for them in order to enable people to do this work. Nor must we ever forget that it is out of the life of this Holy People - God's Holy People - that our vocation came to fruition. We are all Laity in the sense of 1 Peter 2:9 - the Royal Priesthood of all believers whose call is to proclaim the mighty acts of God who called us out of darkness into his marvellous light. So, Bryony, never forget your past which is rooted in this Royal Priesthood and out of which your ministry has come. It brings its own kind of comfort actually because sometimes, on those rare occasions, people might complain about our inadequacy, we can happily say, as a Bishop I once worked for, put it - well, you see, we only have the Laity from whom to choose the clergy!
The third thing I want to say that we must be true to is a bit more difficult because it is something that is still emerging. Be true to the future. In the ten years since Bryony was ordained and certainly during my own time as a priest, the Church has changed almost beyond all recognition. It is safe to say that this change is on-going. Indeed, I believe that there is a fundamental shift which is changing the role of the priest and which for many of us is taking us way beyond our comfort zone.
Helen Oppenheimer, writing an essay in a book about priesthood called Stewards of the Mysteries of God, spoke a tongue-in-cheek truth when she said:
A priest is something definite. If
only we could be sure of that.
She wrote that in 1979 and there is an odd kind
of prophecy which 30 years later contains more than an inkling of
truth. We are less certain today about the nature of priesthood,
not least because, we have fewer full-time priests, so we are having to
face the question of deployment and of using them more
effectively. We know the truth of this in the Epping District
Team Ministry and the Epping Forest Deanery. But the fundamental,
even seismic, shift has little to do with that. It is much
more about a developing understanding of the Laity in the role I have
just described. Alongside this is the way in which the Church is grappling, ever struggling, with new ways of being Church, of which Fresh Expressions is a tangible sign. How are we in the 21st century England to respond to a thirst for the spiritual which, by and large, is by-passing the established churches? I have just started to read a mind-blowing book by Dave Tomlinson - Re-enchanting Christianity - in which he suggest that many outside the church, including those who for whatever reason have left the Church's fellowship, may not be as beyond the pale as we'd like to think. He makes this point:
The assumption is often made that those
who struggle with doubts and questions, those who drift away from the
Church or even mainstream Christianity, are in some way spiritually
sub-standard; that they lack the grit or piety to pursue the Christian
faith. Yet the reality is quite the reverse: it is the
doubters, the people who have outgrown the hand-me-downs of religious
certainty yet continue to ask the questions, who are on a genuine faith
journey.
Perhaps he's being a little harsh on the witness
of faith by so many who remain within the Church's fellowship but he is
right about the challenge we face, not so much about making Church more
relevant, but more about how we engage with people who may seek God in
whatever way they perceive him but have little time for what we do in
Church. It is all too easy to ignore this if we sit in our
ghettos and carry on as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall
be.The reality is that we must all work together in a time of great change. The current economic crisis has exposed a deep uncertainty in our society. Stability will not be found in mammon. If the Church cannot bring to people's lives something of the grace of God and with it the principles of the Kingdom - which are about those characteristics of God's holiness, mercy, justice, freedom and love - then we shall fail our society, our world, ourselves and most of all, God.
Yet we have all the resources to both change the world and to bring renewed hope to our society. Part of that resource sits here before me. AS St Paul reminds us, we've all been given grace and that grace must be meted out to the world through service and through struggle as we seek to help people make good - which is not far from them making it to God. In the future to which god is calling us, the work of the Laity is the prime work and it is the priest's task to enthuse, encourage, educate, equip and enliven God's holy people for this task which our Gospel passage tonight reminds us is about being bringers of Good News - the Good News of Jesus Christ who alone can renew the world He came to save.
No longer can priest remain on a sacerdotal pedestal of other-worldly pre-occupation, as I am now, six feet above contradiction. Priests need to become resource people for a mix of ministry, leaders of teams which reflect the royal priesthood of all believers. It is still a leadership role but a very different one from the past. As an ordinand I knew once wrote in an essay about priesthood:
The job of the clergy is to support and
resource an overworked and underpaid laity!
We are all in this together as partners with
Jesus. We are all called to walk together, confidently, into an
uncertain but grace-filled future. But it must be God's future
just as it is God's Promised Land of the Kingdom towards which and
within which we walk.So, Bryony, not much to do then! Thank you for your ten years of ministry and priesthood. One final thing: there is an Orthodox saying that a theologian is one whose prayer is true. Be true to prayer. Not just Bryony, but all of us. If we are - then all will be revealed - because it will be, as it always has been, God's revelation. Only when we are true to God will any of this make sense.
My prayer to Bryony, is that you will go on being true to the God who has called you and blessed you and who will always be true to you.