What Just Happened? Reflections on Ordination
Matthew 28:16-20
July 1, 2012[1]
I’d like to tell you about a
pretty important day in my life. A day
in which, amidst the best wishes of family and friends, surrounded by pageantry
in a large auditorium, I launched into a new career. I had survived a long educational process,
paper writing, examination, interviews. On
that day, I made some pretty solemn promises.
I had dreams. I had visions of
the good that I could do in the world.
The date was November 2, 1979 when I was sworn in as an Attorney and
Counselor at Law before the Supreme Court of Ohio.
Recently, I had another pretty
important day in my life. I think about
the similarities and differences between that event that took place more than thirty-two
years ago, and the event that took place just eight days ago when we gathered
for the Annual Conference in Roanoke, Virginia and I was ordained. Once again, there were family and friends
surrounding me. There was pageantry and
a large auditorium. The day came only
after the completion of a long educational process, paper writing, examinations
and interviews (a process that was every bit as thorough, if not more so, than
the process of becoming a lawyer). Once
again, I was asked to make some promises about how I would be faithful to my
calling to ministry. And I had dreams
and visions for ministry. So what was
different?
In reality, the question “what
was different” is only the tip of the iceberg for the much larger question
“what is ordination, anyway.” For me, it
begs the question, “What just happened.”
Carol told me that the look on my face in some of the pictures after
ordination betrayed that question—I had that “deer in the headlights look” that
can come over you when you have the feeling that you have just encountered
something or someone so much greater than you and you are trying to take it all
in.
And there was a lot to take in.
·
There was the shock on Friday evening of sitting
at dinner at Logan’s Roadhouse and hearing familiar voices from 550 miles away
asking, “May we join you?” Bob and Janet
Machovec, dear friends of ours since 1980 took me completely by surprise by
giving up a week of vacation time to attend.
·
There was the joy of having so many of my
friends from Cunningham join us on Saturday to attend the Ordination
Service. I can’t begin to express how
important your love, your support and your prayers have meant to me during this
journey.
·
There was the joy of having my family
present. My extended family watched via
the internet and beyond. One of my
siblings sent me a message following the service that said he believed my mom
and dad were doing “high fives” in heaven afterward. To have our children and their families
present was both a joy and an honor. And
what can I say about all that Carol has meant to me during this journey
together? She has walked with me, hand
in hand, for more than thirty-six years.
She has been my partner, my support, my editor, my wife, my best friend.
Yet, I had friends and family
celebrating with me when I became a lawyer.
This occasion was so much different.
What just happened?
When you boil it down to the
moment, it was simple enough. Carol and
I walked on to the stage. I knelt down,
with my Bible opened. I had “cheat
sheet” for Bishop Kammerer on top of my Bible, placed there to help her remember
my name (I was, after all, part of the largest Ordination Class that the
Virginia Conference ever has taken in).
I closed my eyes and soon felt the hands of Bishop Kammerer gently
moving my hands on the top of my Bible so she could read the cheat sheet! And then I felt the weight of the hands of
Bishop Kammerer, Bishop Innis of Liberia, Brenda Biler, our District
Superintendent, the Rev. Justin White, who served as my pastor while I attended
Seminary, Carol, and four other representatives of the Conference. Their hands were placed gently on my head and
shoulders. Bishop Kammerer spoke these
words: “Almighty God, pour upon Thomas
E. Frost the Holy Spirit, for the office and work of an elder in Christ’s holy
church.” Bishop Kammerer then gave me
this instruction: “Thomas E. Frost, take
authority as an elder to preach the Word of God, and to administer the Holy
Sacaments in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”
And it was done. A red stole was placed around my neck, a
certificate of ordination was placed in my hand, and that was it. Or was it?
To the casual observer,
maybe. But not to those of us looking
through the eyes of faith. For through
those eyes, we understand this simple ceremony to mean so much more.
Throughout our Judeo-Christian
heritage, the laying of hands has represented a couple of different
things. It has marked the passing of
authority. In our Old Testament Lesson,
Moses laid his hands on Joshua. The scripture
tells us that the spirit was in him (Numbers
27:18). The Lord instructed Moses to
give to Joshua some, but not all, of the authority that Moses possessed. Joshua was not expected to become a second
Moses; he was, however, expected to take up the tasks that God had set before
him. In a similar fashion, Bishop
Kamerer told me to “take authority”—not open-ended, all consuming authority,
but authority to do certain two specific things. To preach the Word of God and to administer
the Holy Sacraments. Within those two
tasks, I think I have my hands full!
But the laying on of hands also
signifies for us the empowering of the Holy Spirit. God does not send us out unprepared. When Jesus commissioned his followers to
preach, make disciples, baptize and teach, Jesus promised to be with them—even
to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). That is the promise of Pentecost, that the
Holy Spirit will dwell in us and empower us.
So the Bishop’s prayer for the empowering work of the Holy Spirit was
not mere words; her prayer joined the prayers through the centuries that God
would send people to teach and preach.
Some would say that Ordination
is mere tradition. Certainly tradition
is present. One of the certificates that
I was given contained a sort of “family tree” of Methodist ordinations dating
all the way back to John Wesley, who ordained Thomas Coke, who ordained Francis
Asbury, and continuing through the generations until it reaches the final line
that Charlene Kammerer ordained Thomas Frost.
But ordination is more than
tradition. And it is more than the end
of a journey. It is a directive—marching
orders to get busy. We have a job to
do.
Ultimately, ordination is not
about the people who are ordained; ordination is about God. Ordination is about the One who created us,
who loves us, and who calls us back home.
Ordination is about the One who forgives us, and who perfects us in
love. Ordination is about the One who
invites us to be part of the divine Kingdom of Heaven, a Kingdom that seems a
long way off but, in some ways, already is breaking out around us.
One part of the Ordination
Service that will always stick out in my memory was that those being ordained
formed an “Ordinands Choir”. The anthem
that we sang were based on the words of Psalm 84:9 that we read earlier. The words to the anthem went something like
this:
I’d
rather be a servant in your heavenly house
Than
to be a king living anywhere else…
I’d
rather spend one day in your heavenly house
Than
to spend a thousand thousand days living anywhere else.
Now I offer myself to
you.[2]
Those words express exactly the
way I feel about God’s house. I was
elated that night. Even Ethan could
sense that something special was going on.
As David, Nicole, Ethan and Grace were leaving the two-hour service,
Ethan looked up at David and said, “Church was fun, Daddy.” [Actually, we were proud of this moment
because no one had told him that he would be attending a church service in the
Roanoke Civic Center.] Yes, Ethan,
church was fun. It left me so high up on
cloud nine that not even a bout with food poisoning a few days later could bring
me back to earth.
If ordination was only “fun,”
then the fun will be short lived. If it
was only a celebration or a checkpoint in the journeys of the lives of 32
people, then its significance will fade away quickly. But if Ordination was truly a call to action,
a call to live and to preach the news of the Kingdom of God and to administer
the Holy Sacraments, then the joy and the call of Ordination will continue—for
we have a lot of work to do. And it is
work that does not only involve the thirty-two ordinands. It is a call for all of us.
We all are part of the body of
Christ that we call the church. As the
Apostle Paul reminds us, the different parts of the body have different
functions, but we all are needed for the body to function in the way God
intended.
Ordination was not about
me. Ordination was about God and the
work that God calls all of us to do.
The same God who nudged me to seminary has a calling for you, as
well. Your calling may be to run a
classroom, to run a library, to run a county or to run an office. Your calling may be to clean a hospital, to
clean a house, or to clean a church sanctuary.
Your calling may be to prepare health kits for people in need thousands
of miles away, or to care for loved ones right in your own home. Your calling may be to raise a family or to
raise a vegetable garden. Your call may
not be the same as my call, but it is a call to do God’s work, nonetheless. We are invited, in “whatever [we] do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17, NIV).
As we were being ordained, a
verse of scripture was displayed on the screen in the Civic Center. Each person being ordained had been invited
to select a verse that was significant to them in their lives and
ministry. The verse that I selected was
Matthew 6:33—“Strive first for the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and
all these things will be given to you as well.”
My Bible was opened to that verse as I knelt before the Bishop.
The Kingdom of God is the
Kingdom I am seeking. This is the
Kingdom that I am working for.
What about you? In what ways has God been nudging you to work
for the Kingdom? Perhaps your nudge is
one that is so gentle and so subtle that it is difficult to discern. Perhaps your nudge is more direct, insisting
on your immediate attention. Either way,
God’s nudge is one that must be listened to.
It is important to test out those nudges, to make sure that they come
from God and not from ourselves. But
when they have been affirmed, I promise you that there is no greater joy than
in responding with those words, “Here I am, Lord.”
If you are willing to respond to
God’s nudge this morning, I invite you join me in saying “Lord, I give myself
to You.”
May it be so! Amen!
Copyright © 2012 Thomas E.
Frost. All rights reserved.
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