(5) Thus says God, the LORD, who created
the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who
gives breath to the people upon it and spirit to those who walk in it: (6) I am the LORD,
I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have
given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations, (7) to open the eyes that
are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in
darkness. (8) I am the LORD, that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise
to idols. (9) See, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
- Isaiah 42: 5-9
Every year, on this Sunday, more than a hundred of us come up to the chancel and lay
our hands on the shoulders and heads of a handful of kneeling Presbyterians whom we have
elected to serve us as our leaders. Presbyterians are not the kneeling type, having
overthrown King George some years ago. We leave that to the Anglicans. But this a special
day. Ordination recognizes that to lead is to serve, and so we kneel. It is an awesome
sight to see a third of us come forward for the laying on of hands. It always gets to me.
From the chancel, the view is particularly poignant because I get to see the watery eyes,
the flushed skin and the power and the awesomeness of it all.
We have this audacious tradition of claiming that some are set apart. While all are
called to ministry, some are called by God through the voice of the congregation to be
special by leading and serving. And unlike most other variations of Christianity, we
Presbyterians ordain lay folk, not just clergy, because long ago in a town in Switzerland
we stood up to the church authorities at the time and have reminded the world ever since
of the revolutionary claim that God's call is poured out on all flesh. Everyone is gifted.
Everyone is special.
Some are picked out of the heartache and hope of life and claimed by God to do special
work for the Gospel and for the kingdom. It is an audacious claim that Presbyterians have
been making for 500 years. That claim is ritually enacted here today. Some of us will
kneel, others will lay on hands, and others will watch and pray, and we will never forget
it.
We ordain and install today so that some of us can go to a lot more meetings than
others of us. We need leaders as we discuss budgets, total returns and flower delivery
schedules, newspaper ads and broken water lines, organizing potluck dinners and who will
cut bread into cubes for next month's communion. This is ordinary church business or so it
seems but there is more here than meets the eye.
Underneath the tasks and agendas, behind the sometimes simple and sometimes vexing
ordinary work of the church, we are engaged in the holy, sacred and extraordinary work of
liberation, for we are bearers of hope even when we can not see it.
Let me illustrate. Did you know that you are collectively engaged in act of liberation
every Wednesday afternoon? Every Wednesday, Luis Madrigal turns the key of our old church
van and chugs down the Harbor Freeway to Belmont and picks up a couple of kids from that
blighted neighborhood. He then chugs back up the Pasadena Freeway to a Rainbow Choir
rehearsal. The young children that he picks up, the ones whose parents can't speak English
and can't afford to live anywhere else, see drive by shootings, murder and filth nearly
every day of their young lives.
When they enter that van that says on its side "Pasadena Presbyterian
Church," that's your van. When they run from your van into this massive,
architecturally stunning church in affluent Pasadena and race on down to the children's
choir room and in a movement of controlled chaos, open their mouths at Greg Norton's
direction and sing about a baby Jesus who is the light of the world and about his peace,
so that, at least for a moment, the world is safe, then, my friends, you are participating
in a monumental, historic act of liberation.
That is what ordination is about: to lead in a way that helps those children know that
they are loved. They can sing. They are safe in Jesus' church. All the meetings and the
discussions, the fits and starts, the budgets and the little irritations and all the rest.
Ordination is about liberation. That's what ordination means.
Or another example: Tonight, after we gorge on enchiladas and kimchi, my Czech
dumplings with homemade sauerkraut and Barbara's Norwegian cookies, we will hear stories
of people who are sojourners in our midst. We will hear those who were lost being found.
We will hear stories of deliverance.
We will hear what it is like to flee for one's life when the Iranian revolution made
life for Presbyterian Iranians intolerable when Khomeini came to power.
We will hear of the hope of coming to America and experiencing freedom but also that
some doors are shut if your skin is olive, or your eyes are Asian or your hair is tightly
curled.
We will hear of what it means to be welcomed into a majority-culture church committed
to the Gospel truth that all are equal, no one is any better or any worse than the other,
whether you live on South Orange Grove or West Villa, whether you were born in Guatemala
City, Seoul, Tehran or Pasadena.
We will hear stories of deep pain and ugly racism.
We will hear stories of joyous gratitude for being welcomed, accepted and loved, so
that at least there is one place in the life, the church, PPC, where Jesus' inclusive love
is practiced and hope is proclaimed.
This is what ordination is about. It is to lead so opportunities for such grace-filled
opportunities are made ever more possible. We are about the work of liberation.
Or when those bread cubes are cut up in the church kitchen by Thurston and Ruth Ann
LeVay or Don and Roz Shrader or Paul Floyd or Elizabeth Neuder early Sunday morning, they
are involved in an act of liberation. Those ordinary bread cubes may end up in the mouth
of one of us just diagnosed with cancer looking for strength to make it through another
day; or one of us looking for healing and acceptance after a failed relationship, or they
may end up on the tongue of a 95 year old widow who never leaves her apartment and for
whom that home visit by a minister and elder or deacon who serve her holy bread and holy
juice represents for her life, itself. To cut up bread into those Presbyterian style
wafers is no ordinary task. It is an extraordinary act of liberation. This is what
ordination is about.
We make the audacious claim that God picks us. God selects us out of the ordinary
course of human existence as teachers and lawyers, musicians and students, realtors and
the unemployed and through the collective voice of the congregation we are chosen to lead
by turning the ordinary into what is extraordinary. We name it our calling and that
calling makes extraordinary demands on us.
We come to believe that God, whose providence is mysterious beyond measure, picks us
and says you are special and you are mine. Now take your life, whatever it has been, and
consecrate it for the rest of your life to the work of Christ and to the work of
liberation providing hope for the hopeless, love for the unlovely, and healing for the
broken-hearted.
This is what ordination is about. It is bold. It is audacious. It makes us no better or
no worse than anybody else. But it sets us apart to lead to lead in the way so that what
is ordinary can be made extraordinary.
Hear the words of the prophet Isaiah: (from Isaiah 42)
5) Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who
spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people upon it and
spirit to those who walk in it: 6) I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I
have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a
light to the nations, 7) to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from
the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.
My friends, this is the faith and the calling to which you are called. It is holy work.
Honor it. Cherish it. Consecrate your lives to the high calling to which you have been
called and work for the liberation of all God's children. May God bless you and your
ministry with abundance. Amen.
