Last Sunday evening, as some of you - including Peter - will remember, Clive Mansell, a former Curate of the Priory, was our visiting preacher. It also happened to be the 28th anniversary of his own ordination as a Deacon. Clive recalled how this took place in Worcester Cathedral in the morning of that day, and then in the evening how he made his first public appearance here at Priory Evensong.
To quote: "At the end of that service, one of the older members of the Priory congregation… came up to me as I stood beside Canon Bill Richards, the Vicar, at the church door, and she said to me "either you or the Vicar will have to grow a beard. We can't tell the difference between you". - I was too slow - and too new- to respond by saying "Oh, I'm the good-looking one", - but then perhaps Bill would have said the same thing!" Peter, when I was ordained Deacon 23 years ago in Holy Trinity Windsor, I made it easy for my Vicar Paul, as I already sported a worthy beard - ask Mary if you don't believe me! Don't worry, beards are not obligatory!
Today, Peter, you've followed the same pattern as your predecessor did all those years ago - ordination as Deacon in the morning, first clerical appearance at Evensong on the same day - it's good to know that some things don't change! We're delighted that God has led you to this special day, and that we have been able to share it with you - whether at Worcester or here in Malvern, or both. And it's also lovely that friends from your former home parish in Bury have been able to join you here this evening.
Today is the beginning of a new chapter in your life, as well as ours. There will doubtless be all sorts of expectations - the ones you (and the other newly ordained) bring with you to ministry, as well as the expectations of those among whom you will now be living and serving. However, I do hope that such expectations are nowhere near as high as those produced by a survey of the traits of the perfect minister. This is a person who works from 6 am until midnight, gets eight hours sleep, and stays healthy; someone who prepares sermons every week for forty years, and never repeats an idea, an illustration, or a joke; the perfect minister has a burning desire to work with teenagers, and spends all of their time with senior citizens; someone who is forthright and confident, and yet never says anything anyone might disagree with; the perfect minister earns £100 per week, wears good clothes, buys good books, drives a new car (Toyota Yaris perhaps?!) and gives £50 a week to the poor; someone who is about thirty years old and has been in the ministry for twenty-five years.
Sometimes we can expect too much of ourselves, or of one another. But do we expect enough of the Lord who calls us to His service? It was the great missionary pioneer William Carey whose life motto was this: "Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." That's surely where the focus for Christian expectation needs to be - not on ourselves, but rather on the Lord who calls us, equips us, and who commissions us to be labourers in His harvest.
And what a rich and varied harvest it is! I wonder if anyone saw the first episode of the new comedy Rev last Monday evening at 10 pm on BBC2?! We were introduced to the new Rev - the Rev Adam Smallbone, played by In the Loop actor Tom Hollander - as he begins his ministry in an inner city parish in London. And what a mixture of people he finds himself having to deal with! In his review of the first episode, Canon Giles Fraser writes: " Adam Smallbone, here is my advice to you as you take up your new parish. You walk on many of the fault lines of modern social politics. Parish ministry is not arranging flowers in Dibley; nor is it the management of some private holy club. It is helping all those in your care to catch sight of the glory of God. And it is right that you see this role as fundamentally a comedy. All our efforts to live up to our better selves are threatened by pomposity and hypocrisy. We must laugh and keep on laughing only because the whole thing is so serious."
Helping those in your care to catch sight of the glory of God. And humour that helps to keep the role of the clergy in healthy perspective. For Christian ministry of whatever kind - lay or ordained - is not 'my' ministry or 'your' ministry. Rather is the ministry that the Lord graciously shares with us, and calls us to undertake in His Name, and with His authority. We're reminded of that in this evening's Bible reading from Luke's Gospel. Luke tells us how "the Lord appointed seventy ... and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest" (Luke 10: 1-2).
Like Father, like Son. Like Son, like disciples - then, and now. In the light of Easter, and the power of Pentecost, all who enroll in the 'school for the Lord's service' (as St Benedict puts it in his Rule) have a job to do as labourers in His harvestfield. We all have a part to play, as we labour with Christ to bring in the harvest of His Kingdom. Yet we also always need to remember this: It is His harvest, and His field. We are the workers with a vital part to play, but He alone is the Lord of the harvest.
The twentieth century martyr Archbishop Oscar Romero, expressed this important truth in these words:
"It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction ?of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying? that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.? No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.?
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation ?in realizing that.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own."
"The magnificent enterprise that is God's work … we are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs."
Today, Peter, you and others who've been ordained to the diaconate have been ordained to serve as ministers of the gospel. Like those seventy disciples, you have been called, prepared, and then sent by the Lord to join with His people in proclaiming that "the Kingdom of God has come near." As you do so, may you rejoice in the privilege of playing your part in what the Lord has been doing, is doing, and will do, in this place, and among this people. Remember William Carey's motto: "Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God." And, above all, don't forget that it is Jesus Christ who alone is the master builder of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
John Barr
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