The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold

Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest
Commencement Address

May 18, 2004
Readings: Romans 8:18-25; Mark 4:26-32

It is a tremendous privilege to be part of a significant moment in someone's life. This is a significant moment in the lives of those who gather here today: particularly, of course, those of you who are graduating, but also for the Dean and faculty, and others who oversee and are part of the life of this seminary, as well as your families and friends. This week is one of joy and celebration for me, as I have the opportunity to be here for the commencement of the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest and the Lutheran Seminary Program in the Southwest, and then travel to Virginia to take part in the commencement at the Virginia Theological Seminary. So, I am grateful for the opportunity to be with you, and to offer some reflections.

A number of years ago, while serving as Bishop of Chicago, I was asked to make some remarks at the conclusion of a meeting of the House of Bishops. It had been what I might call a "prickly" meeting. Though I don't remember now the presenting concerns, in the course of the meeting I had become aware of a great deal of what scripture describes as "murmuring," or -- in our more contemporary translations -- "complaining." In the hallways and over meals, bishops were voicing their discontents. As I listened to what they were saying, I thought of the complaining of the children of Israel as they traveled from Egypt through the wilderness toward the Promised Land.

Our readings of the account of the Exodus at Morning Prayer during the Easter season have put me in mind of all this. The children of Israel complained because, having escaped from Egypt, and now facing the rigors of the desert, and an unknown future, they yearned for a return to the safety and familiarity of Egypt -- a land of cucumbers and melons, onions and garlic -- somehow quite forgetting that there they had been slaves.

So they complained to Moses: "Why did you lead us out here? In order to kill us?" Moses in turn goes off and complains to God. "Why have you treated your servant so badly? Why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me?"

I remember saying to the bishops, we are in a hierarchical system in which laypeople complain to the clergy. The clergy complain to the bishop. And, when the bishops get together, they complain to the Presiding Bishop. In the context of my remarks I said: I wonder what the Presiding Bishop does with all this. Does he go out on the terrace of his apartment at the Episcopal Church Center on Second Avenue in New York and, after the manner of Moses, complain to God: "Why have you treated me so badly and laid the burden of all this church on me"?

Of course, I never dreamt that one day I would be the Presiding Bishop, and might actually experience this process of upward complaining. Let me hasten to assure you: though sorely tempted from time to time, I have not gone out on the terrace and railed against the heavens.

So, here you are, about to graduate and, in most instances, go off and become part of worshipping communities in which all kinds of emotions are writ large, and there you will be expected to exercise ministries of leadership. This brings me to what I would like to say something about today, and that is: how do you deport yourself as a leader in a time when there's a great deal of murmuring and complaining, not simply in the life of the church but also in the life of our society as well. If we as ministers of the gospel are given to murmuring, it is very hard for us to speak a word of encouragement, a word of hope, to those we are called to serve.

The Letter to the Romans speaks about being possessed of patience, waiting in patience, enduring in patience. I don't think we are very accustomed to being patient these days. Everything has to be instantaneous and immediate. Electronic communication has made this even worse. We send an email to someone and three seconds later are fit to be tied if we haven't had a reply. And, I might say: there are times I wish someone had taken a bit more time reflecting on what they had to say before hitting the send key.

I suggest what you are going to have to cultivate now is a spirit of patience -- "passionate patience" to use a phrase employed by the present Archbishop of Canterbury. This is a kind of patience that both grounds you as ministers of reconciliation, and also helps your people live the present season themselves with graced patience that is faithful to the spirit of the gospel.

Answers to urgent questions don't always come easily or quickly, or without ambiguity. Sometimes we have to live difficult and complex questions for a very long time before some clarity emerges and we are able to see the signs of the Spirit's work.

So, here we are, with all of our urgencies and impatience, on the edge of that time which will take us from Ascension Day and into a period of waiting for something to happen. And -- because we are in charge of the liturgical calendar -- we do know that what we are waiting for is the Feast of Pentecost. However, when the apostles were told by Jesus to stay in the city and wait to be clothed with power from on high, I doubt they knew what they were waiting for. Nor did they have any idea how long they might have to wait. I rather think that their joyful state described in the Gospel of Luke was shot through with a certain degree of impatience and wondering: When will it happen? And what did Jesus really mean by power from on high?

And here I wonder why, according to Luke's chronology which determines our liturgical year, the outpouring of the Spirit did not occur immediately following the Ascension. How much kinder it would have been had Jesus sent the Spirit forth with perfect timing just as his feet were disappearing into the clouds. Why didn't he, as he prepared to leave, say "I'm going now, but just hang on, in a few minutes, you're going to have exactly what you need." Why did he decide to leave them alone for some ten days before they received power from on high? Why did he put them through the ordeal of loss and having to wait and wonder when it would have been so much more efficient, and saved them so much anguish if, just as his feet disappeared into the cloud, the Holy Spirit descended?

But, it didn't happen that way. Instead, the period between the Ascension and Pentecost afforded the apostles a profound experience of their own powerlessness. There was nothing they could do except wait. Had the Spirit immediately come upon them they might have rushed off to preach the gospel filled with a sense of their own power and competence. They needed to know something about their own powerlessness and their utter dependency upon God's grace. They had to be undefended and, in some sense, stripped naked before the power of the divine mystery, in order properly to receive the gift of the Spirit.

I have learned over many years that resting upon notions of my own competence is extremely dangerous. However, one of the realities of life in seminary is a focus -- and indeed a necessary focus -- on competence. We are taught how to interpret Scripture. We are taught how to baptize babies. We are taught how to preside at the Eucharist. We are taught how to assist people in making ethical decisions. We are taught how to deal with unexpected questions from importuning parishioners while we try to juggle a Styrofoam cup and a cinnamon bun in the context of the coffee hour. We are taught how to visit the sick, comfort the grieving and bury the dead. But, beyond all these competencies there is a power that comes not from us but from the Spirit of the Risen Christ. And, in moments of powerlessness and uncertainty we discover how true this is.

When I was newly ordained I became the junior assistant at the most affluent parish in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. Whenever I was called upon to preach, which was infrequently, I would mount the pulpit steps and pause dramatically. It was the custom for the sexton to dim the lights in the church at this point, and bring up a spotlight to illuminate the preacher. The congregation would then settle back in expectation and reverential silence. I must confess this routine certainly gave me an incredible sense of my own competence and power.

After several years in that parish I was called to be rector of a very different congregation. There was no sexton and there were no lights to dim. The space itself was like a large living room, which made some of the homiletic flourishes that had worked so well in my former situation -- might I say -- excessive. I have no doubt that I was taken away from that secure and affluent environment, and led into a very different congregation, for my own salvation. I had to begin all over again. I realized that the preaching competency I might have claimed for myself was in part grandiosity and self-inflation and had very little to do with the actual proclaiming and preaching of the gospel. I discovered something of my own poverty. I really didn't know how to preach in a way that connected with the life of the congregation. They themselves had to show me. And, over time, they pulled out of me a living word that I didn't even know was deep within me.

Therefore, it is with fear and trembling that we enter into the life of a worshipping community. We are going there not simply to instruct and proclaim but -- in a profound way -- we are going to be shaped and formed by the very people we perceive we have been sent to serve. On our part, this calls for an undefended heart. It calls for a willingness to enter that place between Ascension and Pentecost, in which we open ourselves in patience to the promptings and motions of grace. This is not always easy, particularly when we are tying to lead with our competencies.

We need, therefore, to give root room to the Holy Spirit, for it is the Holy Spirit -- the living bond between the Father and the Son -- who draws us into God's own life through baptism. And it is the Holy Spirit who plants deep within us some dimension of Christ's fullness -- not for our self congratulation but for the common good, and the upbuilding of Christ's risen body in the world.

How reassuring it is when St. Paul tells us in the 8th Chapter of the Letter to the Romans that the Spirit helps us in our weakness, and that indeed we do not even know how to pray as we ought. "But that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words." Those of us who are called upon to pray "competently" need to know that it is in our inarticulateness and inadequacy in prayer that the Spirit most deeply prays within us.

Over time, the Spirit forms Christ in us and conforms us to the "image of [God's] Son," working in us the mind of Christ, and transforming us into ministers who proclaim the good news not only with our lips but in our lives. As Francis of Assisi tells us: "Preach the Gospel always and, when necessary, use words." So, the Spirit shapes us into gospel persons. But, that shaping requires of us a kind of relinquishment -- a giving over -- a willingness to be formed over time by the Spirit of a God who loves us deeply.

Paul tells us in the Second Letter to the Corinthians that it by an act of God's mercy that we have been called to ministry and therefore we should not lose heart. Just think of that. You have been called to ministry not primarily because you are useful in God's sight, though indeed you may be. You were called to ministry through the mercy of God in order that God might love you more deeply and reveal the image of Christ in you more fully. This is the work of the Spirit.

And how does the Spirit do this work? We find an answer in the Acts of the Apostles, which we have been reading at the Eucharist during these days of Easter. The Acts of the Apostles recounts the work of the Holy Spirit, and how the power of Christ's resurrection unfolded in the life of the early church and in the lives of the apostles.

What becomes clear as we read the Book of Acts is that the Holy Spirit is always somewhat ahead of the community, turning things upside down and expanding the apostles' understanding of the ways of God.

Here the account of Cornelius the Centurion comes to mind. Cornelius is told by an angel to send toJoppa for Simon Peter. Meanwhile, in Joppa Peter is praying on a rooftop and, in a trance, he sees a sheet being let down from Heaven filled with unclean animals. He then hears a voice saying "Get up Peter. Kill and eat." To which Peter replies "I've never eaten anything profane or unclean." "What God has made clean, you must not call profane," the voice answered. This happens three times and Peter is left scratching his head and wondering what this is all about.

Messengers then arrive from Cornelius and Peter returns with them to Caesarea. He gets part way through preaching and suddenly the Holy Spirit descends on these Gentiles, on Cornelius and his family. Amazing. Imagine Peter exclaiming in confusion: "My God, I thought this was only for us. They don't even believe the right things! They're outsiders, they are beyond the pale and the Spirit has descended upon them -- just as it did upon us!"

So, what happened next? Well, then the Church had to catch up with the Spirit. God was up to something they didn't comprehend. They had to rush back to their Scriptures and completely reread them and interpret them in new ways and see in passages that heretofore had seemed peripheral a whole new level of meaning. They could then say: "Ah! This is the key, this is the clue. All those things about the Gentiles we ignored. Now, suddenly they are relevant and alive because of what the Spirit has done."

As well, we can look at the persecution in Jerusalem that happened after the stoning of Stephen. (And let us note here that the coats of those throwing the stones lay at the feet of a man named Saul, who comes back into the story again a bit later.) The stoning caused a number of the disciples to disperse and flee to Gentile cities. And what did they do there? Of course, they proclaimed the gospel. And that too was the work of the Holy Spirit -- moving them out into the world.

So back to the man named Saul. Here he was going off to persecute more Christians and Christ flattens him. What an incredible about face that was. We have heard this story so often we are almost immune to its power. What a life-changing experience this was for Paul. It was truly a death and resurrection. Of course, the apostles were horrified, wondering: can we trust this man? They believed he was a spy. It was Barnabas who finally coaxed them to give Paul a hearing. And we know what happened next. Such are the strange and often paradoxical workings of the Spirit.

Sometimes, something that we perceive to contradict what we understand as God's will and God's intention is precisely the way in which God deepest desire is seeking to make itself known.

Speaking to those of you who are graduating, I would venture to say that there will come moments in your ministry when things are going amazingly well and you give yourself a pat on the back and a gold star. Then suddenly something happens that pulls the rug out from under you and you find yourself in confusion. And yet, when you look back and reflect upon what seemed so devastating at the time, you realize it was actually the Spirit opening you to something new, or pushing you in some new direction. I hope when you have these experiences, which you surely will, you might remember these words from your Presiding Bishop, who is no stranger to what he is saying.

Being available to the vagaries of the Spirit is terribly important and here I think of a phrase I have used often in the context of spiritual direction, when suddenly whacky and untoward things seem to be happening in a person's life that appear to be inconsistent with what they perceive to be the ways of God. The phrase is from the Book of Ecclesiastes: "Consider the work of God. Do not make straight what God has made crooked……Do not make straight what God has made crooked."

Quite frankly, my friends, and I've been at this long enough to speak with some authority, the workings of the Holy Spirit are often crooked indeed, which is part of God's strange and wild way with us.

So, as you think about the ministry to which God is calling you, be ready for surprise, be ready to be disconcerted, be ready to be turned around and aimed in the opposite direction, be ready to be thwarted at every turn, be ready to be unsettled by the goings on in the church; but always be ready to be patient and listening, because you just never know when God is going to use the most bizarre circumstances to unfold more fully the mystery of God's incredible and overwhelming mercy and love.

In the gospel Jesus speaks of God's reign in terms of planting seeds with the expectation that there will be a rich harvest in the future. This applies as well to ministry. The Spirit moves through us, through our ministries. The Spirit is always planting seeds of some kind, seeds that need to be given time to grow and mature. And, of course, as Jesus tells us, seeds have to die -- as it were -- in order to bear much fruit.

Many of our expectations and assurances, our clarity about the ministry we have been called to exercise, the stunning vestments we've ordered from domestic or foreign ecclesiastical outfitters -- all of these things may have to fall apart in some way, or the seams give out, in order for God's deepest desire to break free and emerge.

Returning to patience, Jesus says that seed, once planted, grows on its own and we have to be patient with its process of maturation. We need to be patient, also, with the ministry to which God calls us, the shape of which has yet to be made known. We are all -- always -- becoming. "What we will be has not yet been revealed," we are reminded in the first letter of John.

I've been ordained for 41 years and I am still wondering what the ultimate shape of the ministry to which I have been called will be. The fact is: I never dreamt of being a bishop, let alone Presiding Bishop. As a priest I had what I might call a reverent disdain for the episcopal office. And then, the divine sense of humor had me become the very thing I disdained. Well, I can assure you, this took a lot of ego adjustment.

For you who are graduating today: we celebrate you -- and the end of one chapter -- and the beginning of another, the shape of which is not yet known. I want to say to you that I am quite certain that some big shifts and surprises lie ahead for you in terms of what you think your ministry ought to be, and what it actually will be. So, knowing the inevitability of change, knowing that life will surprise you, knowing that the Spirit may well take you where you had not imagined you might go, what are you to do?

The answer is quite simple, at least in its articulation. Be rooted and grounded in your own companionship with Christ. Without an intimate and enduring companionship with the risen Christ, our ministries are dead in the water. Yes, you may be charming. You may preach eloquently. You may have a fine bedside manner. But without this relationship, something is fundamentally missing. And, this is why you must be rooted and grounded in your own companionship with Christ, who -- as the gospel tell us -- also had to live a series of shifts and changes. Because of his own life experience, Jesus could speak compellingly about seeds having to grow secretly, about people having to turn the soil to find the treasure. These images suggest the need for patience, not simply with others, but with ourselves.

We need to be patient as the Holy Spirit works in us: shaping and forming us and making Christ shine through our lives in all their angularities, in all their thorninesses, yet in all their glory and mystery because, in the end, we are the beloved children of God.

I also want to say here that, particularly for those of us who are ordained, an authentic companionship with Christ is a necessary counterbalance to the ever-present temptation to become fascinated by the institutional life of the church and its interior workings. We can so easily lose ourselves in the mechanics and political intricacies of church life that we risk losing sight of what the whole enterprise is about.

I think too that the future of our church, the quality of our evangelization, the integrity of our preaching, the force and power of our sacramental celebrations and how they give us a glimpse of the transcendent reality, all of these -- all of these -- require ministers who are rooted and grounded in the mystery we are proclaiming and celebrating. You cannot proclaim resurrection if you haven't lived it, and you can't live resurrection if you haven't died. The paschal mystery is at the absolute heart and center of companionship with Christ.

And this is where we must take with full seriousness the implications of our baptism. Focus is often given to the baptismal covenant and the promises we make. This is important, to be sure, but we must not lose sight of the baptismal act itself. That is, through it we are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. We are brought into a lifelong process of experiencing multiple dyings and risings, losings and findings. And, through all of this -- our living of the paschal mystery -- the Spirit is working. And you will recall that I said earlier that the Spirit's work in our life is sometimes experienced as problematic or unsettling, or seems to take us into places where we do not want to go.

This brings us back to companionship with the risen Christ. And here, I want to say a word about the nurturing of that companionship. The essential thing is prayer. Being a person of prayer means being available in a deep and undefended way to the stirrings of the Spirit. Prayer isn't so much about the words we form. Prayer is about our availability to what the Spirit is up to deeply within us.

God, as the psalmist tells us, speaks in our heart and says "Seek my face." To which we, along with the psalmist, yield ourselves in reply saying, "Your face Lord will I seek." Our prayer is our "yes" to the deep tugs and pulls of the Spirit within us.

In the Letter to the Galatians, Paul tells us that we've been given the Spirit of the Son. And, it is that Spirit who cries, "Abba," within us. And thus our prayer - which we so often think of as paltry, inadequate, and self-serving -- is caught up into, and made whole, by the unceasing prayer of the risen Christ.

Prayer, in the words of Julian of Norwich, "ones" us to God. Prayer works in us, over time, the mind of Christ. Prayer gives us the interior suppleness that allows us to move with grace in a variety of directions. Prayer gives us the imagination to see God at work in unlikely ways and unlikely places, and to see below the surface of things.

Flannery O'Connor, whose stories bear witness to the strange ways of grace and redemption, once observed that being a serious writer involved following "lines of spiritual motion as they can be perceived on the surface of life…into some point where revelation takes place." She characterized this work as "an attempt to track down the Holy Ghost through a tangle of human suffering and aspiration and idiocy. It is an attempt," she concludes, "which should be pursued with gusto."

What Flannery O'Connor says about the serious writer can also be said about serious ministry. Serious ministry is about tracking down the Holy Ghost at the heart of our all too human existence with its vagaries, contradictions and paradoxes. And, it is a pursuit which must be undertaken with gusto: that is with the confidence, courage and unwavering patience that only the Spirit of Christ, suffusing our own spirit, can supply. "I can do all things through him who strengthens me," cries Paul.

It is my prayer for you that in the strength of the risen and ascended Christ, who fills all things with his unrelenting and death-defying love, you may enter upon the ministry that lies ahead with nothing less than gusto. It is my prayer for you that you may know deep within yourselves that "God's power working in us can do infinitely more that we can ask or imagine."

May God bless you and keep you, and may you seek always the companionship of the risen Christ as you move forward from this place with the love and prayers of us all.
Amen.

photo -- The Presiding Bishop with the ETSS faculty