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Sermon: Proper 6, Year A
As preached at the service of Evening Prayer on Saturday, June 17 at St. Thomas' Episcopal Church in Glassboro, NJ.
Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
Romans 5:1-8
Matthew 9:35-10:23
During the pandemic, Fr. Todd, Jonathan W---, and I had a Zoom book club going on in which we would read theology books and discuss them on Monday nights. At one point it was my turn to choose the next book, and I chose this, The Crucified God, because I already owned it and had been wanting to read something by the author, Jürgen Moltmann, for some time. Jonathan and Fr. Todd agreed and so I opened the book to read the introduction and first chapter, and found this inscribed into the first page. For those of you who cannot see, which is probably everybody, it says “George E. Council, 3/83.”
I don’t know what 3/83 means–is it the third of 83 books? Did he procure it in March of 1983?--but George E. Councell (pictured in my icon above) was of course the 11th bishop of New Jersey. He was ordained to the episcopate in 2003 and retired in 2013, being succeeded by our current bishop, William Stokes. Bishop Councell sadly passed away in 2018.
This book passed into my ownership at a diocesan convention where, knowing that he wanted to downsize his theological library, Bishop Councell set out a large number of his books, free to a good home. My parents will attest that I am constitutionally unable to refuse a free book, and the rest is history.
Sharing the contents of his library was only one of the ways that Bishop Councell shared his faith in Christ during his episcopate. In 2008, Bishop Councell laid his hands on me in the sacrament of confirmation. While some traditions allow priests to confirm under certain circumstances, in the Episcopal Church confirmation is exclusively the responsibility of the sacred order of bishops. And of course, Bishop Councell preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ in his leadership of the diocese by both word and example.
Our prayerbook catechism describes the ministry of a bishop as representing Christ and his Church, particularly as apostle, chief priest, and pastor of a diocese; guarding the faith, unity, and discipline of the whole Church; proclaiming the Word of God; acting in Christ’s name for the reconciliation of the world and the building up the Church; and ordaining others to continue Christ’s ministry.
Empowered by the holy grace of God, Bishop Councell fulfilled all of these roles faithfully and lovingly, as has Bishop Stokes after him.
In our Gospel reading this evening, Jesus summons the Twelve and gives to them a special authority. Anglicanism understands our current bishops to exist in continuity with the Twelve and to inherit their authority, even if there is not always agreement over the exact mechanism of that continuity. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey describes “the essential function of the Apostles” as having a “two-fold significance”:
As I’m sure most of you are aware, one week from today the office of the Bishop of New Jersey will pass from Bishop Stokes to our bishop-elect, the Rev. Canon Dr. Sally French, as she is ordained to the sacred order of bishops and becomes the 13th Bishop of New Jersey. She will also, of course, be the first ever female Bishop of New Jersey.
The episcopate, the order of bishops, exists as a visible sign of both the unity and the diversity of the universal Church: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. It is only appropriate that the episcopate represent the entire range of genders and gender identities, of sexual orientations, of races and ethnicities and nationalities.
Jesus did not die just for the salvation of thirty-three year old Palestinian Jewish men, but for all of us. Just as Christ’s role as the firstborn of creation, the perfect model of all human beings, is not limited by the contingent features of his earthly existence, neither is our capacity to participate in his priesthood so limited.
Church of England bishop and Biblical scholar N.T. Wright articulates this concept by pointing out that “[p]art of the point of the new creation launched at Easter was the transformation of roles and vocations: from Jews-only to worldwide, from monoglot to multilingual (think of Pentecost [which we celebrated just a couple of weeks ago]), and from male-only leadership to male and female together.”
It is a contingent historical fact that the disciples named in Scripture as “The Twelve” were all men. And yet the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of St. Paul all speak of many women filling leadership roles in the early Church, performing the functional equivalent of Archbishop Ramsey’s description of the role of Apostle. Of particular significance are Mary of Magdala and the other women who stood as witnesses to the resurrection and conveyed that good news back to the Twelve, acting as “apostles to the apostles.” In St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, there is a mention of a Junia who is “well known” or “outstanding” “among the apostles,” which some interpret as Biblical evidence that the apostolate in the early-Church was not limited to a single gender.
In any case, patriarchy quickly reared its ugly head, and even the Church was not immune, resulting in nearly two millennia of an all-male episcopate. It has only been within my own lifetime that women have begun taking their place within the sacred order of bishops, starting with the ordination and consecration of the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris in 1989, and even now it remains not without controversy, even within Anglicanism. Out of the 40 autonomous provinces which make up the world-wide Anglican Communion, only twelve have consecrated female bishops.
Jesus’ command to the Twelve in our Gospel reading is to “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, declare publicly that the kingdom of heaven has arrived. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse people with skin diseases, cast out demons.” Bishop-Elect French will probably not have much call to raise the dead or heal lepers, but you can be certain that she will declare publicly that the kingdom of heaven has arrived. And while she most likely will not perform literal exorcisms, she will continue in her predecessors’ example, leading our diocese to confront head-on the demons of poverty, bigotry, and gun violence.
I invite all of us to support our new bishop with our prayers and actions as she starts her new ministry as apostle, chief priest, and pastor of our diocese, proclaiming the Word of God which cannot be chained, but is living and active.
Amen.
Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7
Psalm 116:1, 10-17
Romans 5:1-8
Matthew 9:35-10:23
During the pandemic, Fr. Todd, Jonathan W---, and I had a Zoom book club going on in which we would read theology books and discuss them on Monday nights. At one point it was my turn to choose the next book, and I chose this, The Crucified God, because I already owned it and had been wanting to read something by the author, Jürgen Moltmann, for some time. Jonathan and Fr. Todd agreed and so I opened the book to read the introduction and first chapter, and found this inscribed into the first page. For those of you who cannot see, which is probably everybody, it says “George E. Council, 3/83.”
I don’t know what 3/83 means–is it the third of 83 books? Did he procure it in March of 1983?--but George E. Councell (pictured in my icon above) was of course the 11th bishop of New Jersey. He was ordained to the episcopate in 2003 and retired in 2013, being succeeded by our current bishop, William Stokes. Bishop Councell sadly passed away in 2018.
This book passed into my ownership at a diocesan convention where, knowing that he wanted to downsize his theological library, Bishop Councell set out a large number of his books, free to a good home. My parents will attest that I am constitutionally unable to refuse a free book, and the rest is history.
Sharing the contents of his library was only one of the ways that Bishop Councell shared his faith in Christ during his episcopate. In 2008, Bishop Councell laid his hands on me in the sacrament of confirmation. While some traditions allow priests to confirm under certain circumstances, in the Episcopal Church confirmation is exclusively the responsibility of the sacred order of bishops. And of course, Bishop Councell preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ in his leadership of the diocese by both word and example.
Our prayerbook catechism describes the ministry of a bishop as representing Christ and his Church, particularly as apostle, chief priest, and pastor of a diocese; guarding the faith, unity, and discipline of the whole Church; proclaiming the Word of God; acting in Christ’s name for the reconciliation of the world and the building up the Church; and ordaining others to continue Christ’s ministry.
Empowered by the holy grace of God, Bishop Councell fulfilled all of these roles faithfully and lovingly, as has Bishop Stokes after him.
In our Gospel reading this evening, Jesus summons the Twelve and gives to them a special authority. Anglicanism understands our current bishops to exist in continuity with the Twelve and to inherit their authority, even if there is not always agreement over the exact mechanism of that continuity. Former Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey describes “the essential function of the Apostles” as having a “two-fold significance”:
They are “sent” to bear witness to the historical events [of Jesus’ ministry], and they are officers of the one people of God, which is behind and before all local communities. As time goes on the form of the ministry develops; while in the apostolic age there was a local ministry of presbyter-bishops and deacons and a “general” ministry of Apostles, a change takes place, and in the second century century there appears the ministry of Bishops with a growing emphasis upon their necessity as links with the Apostles. [. . . ] And if the Apostles, by their place in the structure, set forth the Gospel, then there will be needed in subsequent ages a similar ministry [. . .] with a similar relation to the Gospel and the Body [i.e., the Church]. The Apostle, and the Bishop after[wards], is the link with the historic events and the organ of the one Body [of Christ].Alongside the Scriptures, the Creeds, and the dominical sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, the order of bishops is one of the four elements considered essential to the nature of the Church by Anglicans. It is so important that we in the United States call our Anglican province “the Episcopal Church,” where “episcopal” derives from the Greek “episcopos,” bishop.
As I’m sure most of you are aware, one week from today the office of the Bishop of New Jersey will pass from Bishop Stokes to our bishop-elect, the Rev. Canon Dr. Sally French, as she is ordained to the sacred order of bishops and becomes the 13th Bishop of New Jersey. She will also, of course, be the first ever female Bishop of New Jersey.
The episcopate, the order of bishops, exists as a visible sign of both the unity and the diversity of the universal Church: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. It is only appropriate that the episcopate represent the entire range of genders and gender identities, of sexual orientations, of races and ethnicities and nationalities.
Jesus did not die just for the salvation of thirty-three year old Palestinian Jewish men, but for all of us. Just as Christ’s role as the firstborn of creation, the perfect model of all human beings, is not limited by the contingent features of his earthly existence, neither is our capacity to participate in his priesthood so limited.
Church of England bishop and Biblical scholar N.T. Wright articulates this concept by pointing out that “[p]art of the point of the new creation launched at Easter was the transformation of roles and vocations: from Jews-only to worldwide, from monoglot to multilingual (think of Pentecost [which we celebrated just a couple of weeks ago]), and from male-only leadership to male and female together.”
It is a contingent historical fact that the disciples named in Scripture as “The Twelve” were all men. And yet the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of St. Paul all speak of many women filling leadership roles in the early Church, performing the functional equivalent of Archbishop Ramsey’s description of the role of Apostle. Of particular significance are Mary of Magdala and the other women who stood as witnesses to the resurrection and conveyed that good news back to the Twelve, acting as “apostles to the apostles.” In St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, there is a mention of a Junia who is “well known” or “outstanding” “among the apostles,” which some interpret as Biblical evidence that the apostolate in the early-Church was not limited to a single gender.
In any case, patriarchy quickly reared its ugly head, and even the Church was not immune, resulting in nearly two millennia of an all-male episcopate. It has only been within my own lifetime that women have begun taking their place within the sacred order of bishops, starting with the ordination and consecration of the Rt. Rev. Barbara Harris in 1989, and even now it remains not without controversy, even within Anglicanism. Out of the 40 autonomous provinces which make up the world-wide Anglican Communion, only twelve have consecrated female bishops.
Jesus’ command to the Twelve in our Gospel reading is to “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, declare publicly that the kingdom of heaven has arrived. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse people with skin diseases, cast out demons.” Bishop-Elect French will probably not have much call to raise the dead or heal lepers, but you can be certain that she will declare publicly that the kingdom of heaven has arrived. And while she most likely will not perform literal exorcisms, she will continue in her predecessors’ example, leading our diocese to confront head-on the demons of poverty, bigotry, and gun violence.
I invite all of us to support our new bishop with our prayers and actions as she starts her new ministry as apostle, chief priest, and pastor of our diocese, proclaiming the Word of God which cannot be chained, but is living and active.
Amen.