St. Thomas Anglican Church
Fr. John A. Roop

A Homily at the Ordination of Joe Gunby to the Sacred Order of Priests
(Is 6:1-8, Eph 4:7-16, Phil 4:4-9)

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Isaiah 6:1(ESV): 6 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Your Grace, Fr. Daniel and fellow clergy, brothers and sisters in Christ at St. Thomas: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I trust you won’t object if I turn my attention to Deacon Joe — soon to be Father Joe, God willing and the people consenting — for just a few moments, will you?

Joe, you have successfully completed your Presbyter Exam, or we wouldn’t be here this evening. We know that you know matters essential and matters important: the grand sweep of the Biblical narrative, the essence of our catholic faith as summarized in the Nicene Creed, the core doctrines of that faith — Christology, anthropology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, Trinitarian theology — and the particular ways those are expressed in our Anglican formularies, The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer. You have on paper and in your service as deacon demonstrated your understanding of liturgy and your ability to conduct the services of this church; your proficiency to exegete a text and outline a sermon, and to faithfully preach God’s word to God’s people. You have successfully completed your Presbyter Exam, so we know that you know matters essential and matters important. Frankly, all of that is assumed by now, or we wouldn’t be here this evening.

But, in just a few moments the real Examination will begin. You will stand before a successor of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ in the person of Archbishop Foley; you will stand before the people of God for whom our Lord Jesus shed his blood, those whom he will soon commit to your charge and care; you will stand before angels and archangels and all the company of heaven; you will stand before the throne of God and before the One who sits upon it, and you will be examined.

This examination, this real examination, is not firstly about what you know, but about what you believe — not firstly about your mind, but about your heart. Before all else, the bishop will ask you this:

Do you believe in your heart that you are truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to the Canons of this Church, to the Order and ministry of the Priesthood (BCP, p. 490)?

If we are to go forward, you are required to answer, “I do so believe” (ibid, p. 490). It is an awe-filled and audacious answer the Prayer Book demands of you — of any ordinand: I do so believe! Understand this: we believe it of you. Your brothers and sisters in the Body of Christ believe it of you; your discernment committee, your Rector, the Canon to the Ordinary, and Archbishop Foley all believe it of you. For what it’s worth, I believe it of you. Otherwise, we would not be here this evening. But all of that pales before the question addressed solely to you: do you believe in your heart that you are truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ…to the ministry of the Priesthood? From where does such bold belief arise?

Isaiah 6:1–7 (ESV): 6 In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

4 And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

Do you believe in your heart that you are truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to the Canons of this Church, to the Order and ministry of the Priesthood (BCP, p. 490)?

The boldness needed to say, “I do so believe,” starts for all of those called where it started for Isaiah: with a clear vision of God enthroned, high and lifted up; with the thundering sound of seraphim proclaiming the utter holiness of the Lord of hosts throughout all the heavens and the earth; with the disorienting shaking of all earthly foundations; with the great clouds of incense that are the prayers of the saints; with the ego-shattering grasp of one’s own unworthiness — one’s own uncleanness — to stand in the presence of the thrice-holy God. “Holy, holy, holy,” and “Woe is me,” are the twin pillars upon which the priestly vocation are founded, the twin revelations that allow you or any ordinand to say, “I do so believe.”

Isaiah’s vision, in all its particulars, is unique to the prophet; it is not a template for all servants of God, not necessarily a paradigm for you. I do not know exactly what you’ve seen and what you’ve heard, Joe, but somewhere and somewhen you found yourself caught up in this great mystery and in this blinding vision: that God, in his holiness, has chosen you, in your unworthiness, to be his fellow worker in the redemption of the world by, in, and through our Lord Jesus Christ. Your vision may have been as seemingly “ordinary” as a growing conviction in prayer or a movement of the Spirit while reading the Scriptures. It may have come through the words of others. The details are between you and God, but you have seen holy things and you have heard holy things and your life can never be the same as before. Cherish that vision; hold fast to it as Isaiah surely did. Keep it ever before your eyes and ever filling your ears. Treasure it and ponder it in your heart just as the Blessed Virgin Mary did with the vision and prophecy that moved her to say: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Lk 1:30). “I do so believe,” is your fiat, your “let it be done to me according to your word.”

But the vision of God’s holiness given so graciously also imposes upon us the dreadful and unwelcome vision of our own uncleanness: “Woe is me! I am lost! I am a man of unclean lips!” That is you, Joe, and you know it. No one who has seen a vision of God high and lifted up and holy can ever again believe the “I’m OK, You’re OK” drivel that our culture peddles. What self-deluded, devilish nonsense! “You’re Pathetic, I’m Worse” is nearer the truth; it is the truth. Would Isaiah even have survived the vision if not for the grace of God in sending one of the seraphim, one of the “burning ones”, the throne guardian angels singed and flaming from being in the very presence of the thrice-holy God, to touch the prophet’s lips with a live coal from the altar? The boldness for you to say, “I do so believe,” begins with a vision of God high and lifted up and holy, yes, but it continues with the “woe is me” conviction of your own sinfulness. Oh, but — thanks be to God! — that is followed with your cleansing, not by a living coal, but with “the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pe 1:19). The boldness to say “I do so believe,” begins with the water of baptism, with your death and burial and with your resurrection to new and abundant life in Christ. There is a straight line from the dripping wet, newborn child of God to the ordinand who declares, “I do so believe.” There is a straight line from the oil of chrism used to anoint the newly baptized to the oil of chrism used to anoint the new priest. There is a straight line from the living coal taken from the altar passing through the manger, cross, and empty tomb, plunging through the baptismal font, piercing your heart in a vision of God, and sending you to your knees before the altar and the throne of God this very night as you prepare to say with everything that is in you, “I do so believe.”

Only after — only because of — the two-fold vision of God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness, only after — only because of — the purging of the future prophet’s lips, comes the voice of the Lord saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us” (Is 6:8)? “I do so believe,” answers Isaiah, “that I am that one.” Those are not the words he said, but that is nonetheless precisely what he said. And you will be asked that same question in a matter of moments, not in those words, but the same question nonetheless.

Do you believe in your heart that you are truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to the Canons of this Church, to the Order and ministry of the Priesthood (BCP, p. 490)?

Whom shall I send and who will go for us?

I do so believe. Here am I. Send me.

Vision. Conviction. Purification. Calling. Commission. Isaiah likely had no more notion of what the prophetic vocation would entail than you have understanding of what the priestly vocation will entail. And thanks be to God that is true; you could bear neither the full weight of its burden nor the full weight of its glory if either were revealed all at once. Joe, let the vision of God’s glory sustain you and strengthen you to bear to the burden of the cross that you take upon yourself when you answer, “I do so believe,” and when the priest’s stole is draped around your neck.

This same pattern — vision, conviction, purification, calling, commission — resurfaces in the New Testament: as with prophet, so with apostle. It is Chapter One of St. Paul’s story, in which a persecutor of the Church is knocked off his donkey by the blinding vision of the risen Lord Jesus; in which a voice like thunder addresses Saul, calls him by name, and convicts him of standing in opposition to God; in which that same thunderous voice instructs the now blinded and humbled future apostle to go into Damascus and await further instructions. In that city, at the hands of Ananias, who had had his own vision of the Lord, Saul was purified by baptism, called and commissioned, and shown just how much he must suffer for saying, “I do so believe. Here am I. Send me.” Paul never recovered from that vision. It was the bedrock of his apostolate, the unshakeable foundation of his calling and vocation. We know this, because he recounts it twice more in the book of Acts at crucial moments, recounts it as his apology for a life spent tramping around the Roman world preaching the resurrection of a crucified messiah now become Lord of all. Vision, conviction, purification, calling, commission: as with prophet, so with apostle, and so with priest.

Even as I speak these words to you, I speak them to myself and to all others here who have dared answer a bishop with the words, “I do so believe.” And, I feel the weight — the gravitas — of them pressing down upon me; I hope you do, as well, for that is good and right and proper. It is not insignificant that the Hebrew phrase kabod YHWH translated as the “glory of God” also means the weight or burden of God. C. S. Lewis got it just right — as he so often did — when he wrote and spoke of the “weight of glory.” That describes the blessed burden of the priesthood: the weight of glory.

How are you to stand under that weight? St. Paul, who bore the weight of glory more than most and as well as any, has this word to say to you and to all of us:

Philippians 4:4–5 (ESV): 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.

You are in for unexpected challenges, unanticipated difficulties, surprising conflicts, sleepless nights, and wearisome days. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Did you get that, really get that? Rejoice. Not that Bob thinks your sermons are too long or that Norma is angry that you didn’t return her call within fifteen minutes or that Thomas plays a continual game of one-upsmanship every time you lead a Bible study; not that the world is going to hell in a hand basket and you can’t seem to slow it down; not that the church — at every level — often seems messier than you would like. You are in for unexpected blessings, unanticipated graces, surprising acts of mercy, prayerful nights and holy days. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say rejoice. Not just that Thomas hints that he thinks you’re a better preacher than Fr. Daniel; not that Mary is so grateful for your responsiveness to her concerns; not that Bill is amazed by the depth of your knowledge and your gift of teaching; not that, while Athens is a typical secular university town, you are actually making some evangelistic inroads; not that this church, St. Thomas Anglican Church, seems to be prospering under the pastoral leadership of which you will be an integral part. No. Not in any or all of this. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice (in the Lord). You have been called into the mess and muddle, into the grace and glory of the priesthood because God wants you there. And you can rejoice in the Lord because he is with you there in the mess and muddle, with you there in the grace and glory; the Lord is at hand.

So, you need not be anxious about anything. You will be, but you need not be; the Lord is at hand. You are His, and the Church is his, and the kingdom and the power and the glory are all His, and he is with you now and unto the ages of ages. Then, what is there to be anxious about, really? Instead, pray; in everything pray. Prayer is the lifeblood of the priesthood. St. James, the brother of our Lord, reminds us that we do not have because we do not ask (see James 4:2); so, ask. Let your requests be made known to God. And whether you receive what you ask for or not, you will receive “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” and it will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.

And remember this:

Philippians 4:8 (ESV): whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Fill your heart, fill your mind, fill your life, fill your vocation with the good, the true, and the beautiful: supremely with our Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in Word and Sacrament and Worship and in his Body, the Church; but also in the love of family and good friends, in good books and good music and good food, in all the legitimate pleasures this God-created world affords; in the temple of Creation: be a fisher of fish as well as a fisher of men; just don’t stretch the length of that trout beyond credibility in your stories and sermons! “The glory of God is a man fully alive,” wrote St. Irenaeus, and a man fully alive is a man fully in Christ, doing the work God has given him to do, rejoicing always, and feasting on the good, the true, and the beautiful. Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say, rejoice.

Do you believe in your heart that you are truly called, according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and according to the Canons of this Church, to the Order and ministry of the Priesthood (BCP, p. 490)?

All of us gathered here, long with eager expectation, to hear you say, “I do so believe.”

And now, to the good and faithful people gathered here, to the saints of St. Thomas Anglican Church, though I do not know you, I am emboldened by the Word of God to speak his word to you.

You are being given a gift this evening through the power, mercy, and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who ascended on high, led a host of captives, and gave gifts to men (cf Eph 4:8):

Ephesians 4:11–14 (ESV): And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Joe is Christ’s gift to you, the saints in Athens, GA — the saints at St. Thomas Anglican Church. This gift is not a nickknack, not a decorative trinket to sit around collecting dust on some shelf somewhere. This gift is more like a power tool, a gift with a function and purpose. And that purpose is not to do the ministry of the church in your stead, but rather to equip you for the ministry to which you were called in baptism and to which you committed yourself in confirmation. Joe is Christ’s gift to this, His church — His body — to equip you for the work you’ve been given to do, to challenge you and to help you mature in Christ, to reach the full measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, to attain the unity of the faith. So, you, too, were examined tonight with two questions:

Is it your will that Joe be ordained a Priest?

Will you uphold him in this ministry?

You answered, “It is,” and “We will.” Know full well the weight of each answer; know full well what each answer means and what each answer requires of you. God is giving Joe to you and giving you to Joe, because he is the giver of every good gift.

Dare we believe all of this? Yes, we do so believe. Thanks be to God.

Amen.