The Best of Times

The Ordination of Will Ferrey to the Diaconate

8 May 2011

St George the Martyr Anglican Church

Victoria BC

The Rev’d Dr. Richard Geoffrey Leggett

+ My sisters and brothers, I speak to you in the name of God, Three in One and One in Three, the Weaver who weaves us into the pattern of the Word through the shuttle of the Spirit.  Amen.

         In 1859 an English novelist published a work that began with a memorable paragraph that many an student of English literature has memorized.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

These memorable words form the opening paragraph of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.  The novel, if you remember, takes place during that period of the French Revolution known as the ‘Reign of Terror’, as the guillotine claimed both aristocrats and revolutionaries alike and England trembled with the thought of republicanism being exported across the Channel.

         But as is often the case with genuine literary brilliance, Dickens’ words express the emotions and views of people beyond the nineteenth century audience for whom Dickens wrote his novel.  Indeed, his words are timeless in their recognition that any period in history has its promises and its curses.

         A case in point was the ancient city of Alexandria, a cosmopolitan metropolis of several million people:  Egyptians, Greeks, peoples from all around the Mediterranean, peoples from Asia and Africa and, in particular, one of the largest Jewish communities outside of Palestine.  There had always been particular tensions between the Jewish, Greek and Egyptian communities in the city.

         These tensions reached their height in the year 38.  In the past the Jewish community had sent a traditional declaration of loyalty to the emperor on the occasion of his accession.  But in the year 38 the Roman governor had failed to send this declaration of loyalty to the new emperor, Gaius Caligula, whether intentionally or not is still not clear.  This political lapse was complicated later that year during the visit of Herod Agrippa, the titular Jewish king, who had been sent to Alexandria on a mission from Caligula.  Herod had never been popular with the Jewish people and it appears that the Jews of Alexandria insulted him in some fashion.  When the governor failed to take action, the Greek and Egyptian population rose up to take direct action against the Jewish community.

         Jews were forced to abandon their homes in four of the five districts of the city and were forced into what we would now call a ‘ghetto’.  Jewish businesses were destroyed and thousands of Jews were killed on the streets, in the amphitheatre and by extra-judicial executions.  Statues and pictures of Caligula were forcibly placed in Jewish synagogues causing the Jews to rise up to resist the desecration of their places for prayer and teaching.  Eventually the riots came to an end, but the damage done to the Jewish community lasted until the year 117.  In that year the emperor Trajan annihilated the Jewish community in Alexandria as part of the Roman effort to quell yet another Jewish rebellion in Palestine.

         Sometime during these troubles, a member of the Jewish community in Alexandria took pen in hand and wrote what we now call the book of Wisdom or the Wisdom of Solomon.  A portion of this book is frequently read at funerals particularly because of its simple yet hopeful beginning:  “But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them.  In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.”  (Wisdom 3.1-3)

         Less familiar but no less meaningful are the words we have just heard in praise of Wisdom.  Imagine, for a moment, that you are living in a city torn by ethnic strife and that you belong to a segment of the community upon whom the authorities have declared an open season.  Imagine that context and then ponder whether you would have been able to write, “Although (Wisdom) is but one, she can do all things, and while remaining in herself, she renews all things; in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God, and prophets . . . Compared with the light (Wisdom) is found to be superior, for it is succeeded by the night, but against wisdom evil does not prevail.”  (Wisdom 7.27, 29b-30)  Imagine writing these words as the cries of women, men and children filter in from the streets where they are being beaten and killed.

         Even if the present time is fraught with evil and injustice, the author affirms that it is still wiser to act morally and faithfully because moral and faithful actions plant the seeds that will eventually bloom into the harvest of righteousness, peace and justice.  Perhaps the writer of Wisdom expected the seeds to sprout in the next generation, but he probably did not live to see this happen.

         Jump forward more than thirteen centuries into medieval England.  Throughout the country agricultural workers are being displaced as lands are diverted from farming to sheep in order to fuel England’s growing wool industry.  Towns are growing and the old order, dependent upon land as the foundation of wealth, is faced with the growth of what we would now call the ‘money’ economy, a phenomenon we are all too familiar with after the financial collapse of recent years.  The social order is undergoing a seismic shift, including the emergence of English as the language of both rich and poor.

         Politically England is entering a lengthy period of instability as the growing tensions between the White Rose of York and the Red Rose of Lancaster would lead to a lengthy civil war ending in 1453 with the victory of Henry Twdwr of Lancaster over Richard III of York.  Internationally England is embroiled in a series of wars with France that lasted from 1337 to 1453, leaving thousands of families without husbands, fathers and sons, and the national economy wrecked by taxation to fund military endeavours.

         Into this turmoil the voice of a woman whom we now know as Dame Julian of Norwich sought to speak words of calm and words of hope.

The heart of Julian’s visions was the knowledge of God in the crucified Christ. Because the Saviour bore and nurtured a new humanity on the cross, she took up an image often employed by other spiritual teachers in the Middle Ages and likened him to a mother. This image of Christ, and all else in her book, found fulfillment in the divine love. For in everything that God showed her, Julian wrote, “Love was our Lord’s meaning. And I saw for certain, both here and elsewhere, that before ever he made us, God loved us, and that his love has never slackened, nor ever shall.”  (For All the Saints, p. 164)

Julian dared to say to a troubled time that all will be well and all manner of things will be well, because she knew the abyss of God’s love was infinitely deeper than the abyss of sin and death.  Her words encouraged her contemporaries and these words continue to inspire us more than six hundred years after they were first shown to her.

         Although it may have been the best of times and the worst of times, a time of light and a time of darkness, there is one certainty:  For times such as the writer of Wisdom, Julian and Dickens faced, God provided them with the leadership that was needed.

         This afternoon we gather to confirm, by prayer and the laying on of hands, God’s call to Will to exercise the ministry of a deacon in preparation for his eventual transition to the ministry of a presbyter.  Will comes to this moment at a time when our community of faith, indeed many communities of faith, are divided and, in the eyes of many observers, dispirited.

         Our Sunday assemblies are no longer the destination of choice for the majority of people who live in British Columbia.  Religious discourse has, in many ways, been reduced to the repetition of catchy slogans, whether of ‘orthodoxy’ or ‘progress’, that often do not bear the weight of closer scrutiny.  The media tends to portray all religious people as fundamentalists or as vaguely spiritual people who try to explain away the distinctive claims of the religious communities to which they belong in the hopes of broader public acceptance.  We are compelled to resort to civil law to defend our commitments to justice, peace and the dignity of every human being.

         For a time such as ours, God provides the leadership we need.

         Will, the distinctive order that you are being called to exercise as a deacon is older than the one you will eventually exercise as a presbyter.  In preparation for that ministry, the church requires you to serve, for a time, as a prophet, an interpreter, an animator of the church’s ministry beyond its self-identified boundaries, so that we might respond to the needs, concerns and hopes of the world.  Your leadership in diakonia is even more vital in such a time as this when it is tempting for the church to withdraw within itself and tend to its perceived wounds rather than courageously proclaiming good news to the oppressed, binding up the broken-hearted, proclaiming liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners.

         Let me re-tell a familiar parable.  There once was a village on the banks of a large river.  One day the villagers spotted a body in the river.  They recovered the body and were able to revive the person, but that person never recovered her memory as to how she had come to be in the river.  Day after day, more bodies floated by, sometimes one, sometimes more than one, some recovered living, others dead.  None of the survivors could remember how they had come to be in the river, but it was clear from their dress and accents that they all belonged to the same community.

         Finally the elders summoned all the villagers to a council.  A small group of the villagers were given the task of helping the survivors integrate into the life of the village.  Another group was given the task of watching the river, day and night, to rescue bodies and to bury with reverence the dead.  Then five young people were called before the elders.  “We entrust to you,” the elders said, “the most important task.  Go upstream.  Find the community these people come from.  Find out why they ended up in the river.  Then make sure it stops.”

         Will, you will join, for a short time, your diaconal colleagues in a ministry of agency rather than servanthood.  While it is important to attend to the symptoms of the ills of our society, whether those are poverty, homelessness, hunger, despair, your most important task, as the church’s agent, is in discovering the causes of such ills and marshalling the church’s resources to change the structures keep the poor poor, the hungry hungry, the homeless homeless and the despairing despairing.  You are to join the deacons in going upstream to find out why we keep finding bodies floating past our village.

         As a transitional deacon and, later, as a presbyter, you will share with your diaconal and presbyteral colleagues in the ministry of Christ the good shepherd.  There are times for the flock to remain close together and time for the flock to move on to new and greener pastures.  Christ, the shepherd of the flock, will need both its presbyters and its deacons, one to maintain the unity and integrity of the flock, the other to help us move into new places.  Like sheep dogs you may even have to nip a few heels and growl convincingly when necessary.

         In all that you do remember that the church is the ekklēsia, ‘a public assembly of free citizens summoned from their daily pursuits to take counsel and to take action for the common good of all’.  The ekklēsia is called to be a ‘thin place’ where God’s presence and purposes for the whole of creation can become evident to all, whether of our faith or another faith or none.  The ekklēsia is called to speak God’s wisdom to the powerful foolish and to risk critique and even condemnation when we dare to say that this is not always ‘the best place on earth’ for many of its residents.

         So I say to all who are gathered in this church of Saint George the Martyr and especially to you, Will,

• speak persuasively of God;
• speak boldly for God and
• nurture the ekklēsia with all the skill, wisdom and strength you possess.

         Whether this is the best of times or the worst, whether this is an age of wisdom or of foolishness, whether this is an epoch of belief or incredulity, whether this is a season of light or of darkness, whether this is the spring of hope or the winter of despair, I cannot say.  It is never for those who live in a given time to judge its quality or to name its character.  We are called to live as best as we can and as faithfully as we can using all our heart, all our soul, all our mind and all our strength to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, to trust that God’s power is greater than our fragile vessels and to care for all of God’s people, whether of our household or not.

         One thing, however, is certain.  God does not leave us bereft of the leadership we need for the facing of our times.  Today, Will, you will join  that leadership and kneel before the bishop to make solemn promises that will bind you to the public exercise of accountable and responsible ministry. Today there may be others, sitting in front of us, sitting to our right and to our left or perhaps behind us who will also hear the same call.  Knowing this I might even dare to say that this moment is the best of times.

         May Wisdom pass into our souls and make us friends of God and prophets.  May we speak God’s word in the best of times and the worst of times.  May we share God’s love in darkness and in light.  May we do so knowing that all will be well and all manner of things shall be well.  Amen.