Faith from the Watchtower

Sermon preached at the ordination of Daryl Hay as a Priest of the Church

by the Very Rev’d Titus Presler, Th.D., D.D.,

Dean and President, and Professor of Mission and World Christianity,

 at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas,

in Christ Church, Tyler, Texas, on the Feast of St. Thomas, 22 December 2003

Lessons: Habakkuk 2.1-4; Hebrews 10.35-11.1; John 20.24-29

Picture the prophet Habbakuk doing what he said he would do:

            “I will take my stand to watch, and station myself on the tower,

            and look forth to see what God will say to me.”

Ancient and medieval towns and cities the world over have had watchtowers in which watchmen were stationed to watch out for visitors, whether friendly or hostile.

Possibly some of you in your travels have climbed such watchtowers —

            maybe in the walled city of Jerusalem,

            or the towers atop Mogul forts in India —

            now musty with the smell of bats,

            and you’ve imagined what it would be like to survey the countryside 500 years ago, or 2,500 years ago.

It’s such a watchtower in the wall of Jerusalem that Habbakuk had in mind in at the end of the 7^th century B.C.,

            but here he was watching not for friend or foe,

            rather, he proposed to watch for God:

            “I will look forth to see what God will say to me.”

Habakkuk was a prophet, and his prophetic gift depended on mystic experience, the experience of seeing God and hearing God,

            so he was looking, and he was listening. 

That’s what you’ve undertaken to do, Daryl:

You’ve undertaken to look for God and listen for God.

You’re undertaken to go up into a tower —

            you can think of your ordination vows tonight as a kind of tower of discipline,

            the tower of a set of commitments,

            the tower of a certain pattern of life —

You’ve undertaken to watch for God from that tower and alert the people of God to what God is up to in the world,

            to listen for God and proclaim what God is saying to the church and the world. 

We gather here in Tyler, Texas, to say to you, “Yes, Daryl, do that!”

We gather to lift you up into that tower to watch for God and listen for God.

Why do we do that?

 “Write the vision,” God says to Habbakuk, “make it plain upon tables,

            so he may run who reads it.”

A vision needs to be received — the people of God need to see as God sees,

            the people of God need to see forward into what God is up to and discern how they can participate in what God is up to in the world.

“Write the vision . . . so he may run who reads it” —

            seeing the vision prompts an action in the one with whom it is shared.

In watching for the vision and sharing it, Daryl, you will be acting as a leader,

            for in sharing the vision you will be catalyzing the people of God to commitment and action in the mission of God in the world.

That is the function of a leader in the church of God:

To catalyze God’s people to participate in the mission of God in the world.

In the examination that the bishop will shortly conduct with you,

            your role in the ministry to which you are being ordained is cited as that of pastor, priest and teacher,

            and your duties are set forth: to proclaim by word and deed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to fashion your life on it;

            to love and serve the people among whom you work, to preach,

            to declare God's forgiveness and blessing,

            to baptize and celebrate Eucharist.

Nowhere is the verb lead used, but in all those tasks the priest is to be a leader among the people of God.

A leader is a person whose presence and vision catalyze commitment and action in others.

The church needs that leadership, Daryl.

The church has discerned leadership gifts in you

            and is now ordaining you to a ministry of leadership in the church.

You are being ordained in a time that calls the church to exercise leadership in the life of the world.

Think of the challenges of this time.

In the post-9/11 world, religious communities everywhere are being called to reflect on how to express their identity and mission,

            how to live in a global community of religious communities.

In the post-9/11 world, we as American Christians must reflect on how we relate our Christian identity to our national identity

            and how we live with the growing religious diversity in our national life.

After a century that began with wondering whether religion would survive the unbelief and secularism,

            we find ourselves in a new century where we wonder whether religion will survive fanatical belief and sectarian violence.

More than ever before, the Episcopal Church is engaging mission seriously —

            the mission of evangelism in the 20/20 Vision that seeks to double our attendance by the year 2020;

            the mission of social justice in the continuing economic, racial and gender inequalities of our society;

            the mission of building community in the growing linguistic and ethnic diversity of our nation;  

            the mission of building community internationally through personal missionary presence in the poverty crisis, the AIDS crisis, and the environmental crisis that affect our companions around the world.

At the same time, the sexuality issue has thrust the Episcopal Church into the severest crisis it has faced since the ordination of women a quarter century ago,

            so this ordination is taking place at a time when our church’s members, congregations and dioceses are unusually polarized,

            when people are asking whether the unity of our province of the Anglican Communion will survive.

What is the resource for leadership in such a time as this?

From where does the strength of leaders come in such a time as this?

This ordination takes place on the Feast of St. Thomas,

            when, on the threshold of Christmas, we hear the gripping story of the resurrected Jesus meeting his disciples, and Thomas in particular.

Yes, Thomas signifies solidarity with our doubts,

            but I believe that historically the church has celebrated Thomas not for his doubts but for his willingness to have his doubts overwhelmed by the presence of the risen Christ,

            not for his skeptical insistence, “Unless I place my hand in his side,”

            but for his ecstatic exclamation, “My Lord and my God!”  

Our time, like every time, is a time that calls for faith.

Our time, like every time, is a time in which the church needs leaders who have at the heart of their life a deep and abiding confidence in the risen presence of Christ in their lives and in the life of the world. 

Why, after all, do people come to church?  I say, To meet God!

Why do people make appointments for counseling? 

            I say, They’re looking for help in meeting God in the challenges of life.

What are people looking for as they look up at you from the sickbed in hospital?

            I say, They’re looking for an experience of the presence of God —

So that they can join Thomas in that resurrection exclamation,

            “My Lord, and my God!”

Deep down, in the midst of it all, Daryl, you are called to be a person of faith in the watchtower.

“Now faith,” writes the author of the Letter to the Hebrews, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Faith is not something you have, it is something you enact.

In faith we project our hope into the coming presence of God,

            in faith we join the movement of what God is up to in the world.

At the heart of faith is the mystical experience of union with the resurrected presence of God in your experience.

Last week we were shocked in the life of the seminary.

The 31-year-old wife of a young seminarian was admitted Monday night to St. David’s Hospital in Austin with flu-like symptoms;

            by 5:45 the next morning she was dead of a pneumonia that had swiftly gone septic. 

Mark Eddy, the seminarian, sat by Jeanette’s bed through the night dreading, praying, weeping,

            and he was accompanied by a group of students, staff and faculty dreading, praying, weeping. 

When Jeanette went on to glory and Mark and the group were gathering in the ICU waiting room, Mark said he wanted to sing a particular hymn,

            so we did, piecing it together as we went along:

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

It is well, with my soul,

It is well, with my soul,

It is well, it is well, with my soul.

That is the bedrock faith that the church needs in its leaders.

Three years ago when I was back in Zimbabwe I visited dear friends in the village of Chirarwe, in the eastern highlands, near the Mozambique border.

We gathered at the home of Edward Mangwanda, the catechist in the local congregation, and his wife Beatrice —

            there were about fifteen people, older and younger, in the living room for a time of prayer and song and preaching to one another.

Time were hard: the political climate was one of fear and intimidation,   

            the farm takeovers had just begun and the economy had started its steep sprial downward.

Everytime I’m in Zimbabwe I’m struck by the new hymns and choruses that have grown up from the grassroots and are now strengthening the church’s life,

            and this time was no exception:

                        Kunyange zvorema,

                        Kunyange zvorema,

                        Daidzai Jesu,

                        Ndiye mutungamiriri wakanaka,

                        Daidzai Jesu,

                        Ndiye mutungamiriri wakanaka!

                        meaning: Even though things are hard,

                        Call upon Jesus,

                        He is the good leader!

As the prophet Habakkuk himself says at the end of his prophecy:  

“Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines;

            though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food;

            though the flock is cut off from the fold and there is no herd in the stalls,  

            yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will exult in the God of my salvation.  

“God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, and makes me tread upon the heights.”

[The Charge:]

Daryl, you are gifted with deep and diverse gifts. 

In this ordination, offer those gifts to God for the building up of the body of Christ. 

Know that you are called to be a leader in the church of God.

As you watch and listen for God from the prophet’s tower,

            hear God calling you to equip the saints, to mobilize us to join God in God’s mission in the world.

Embrace with Thomas the reality of the risen Christ,

            and may your ministry be one continuous exclamation of awe and delight,

            “My Lord, and my God!” 

With the writer to the Ephesians:

“I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through the Spirit, 

            and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.

“I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

            and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  

“Now to God who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,

            to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”