On the Occasion of the Ordination of Francisco Castro Machado to the Sacred Order of Priests

Trinity Cathedral, San Jose, CA

December 7, 2007

Preacher: The Very Rev. David Bird 

A former archbishop of Canterbury loved to tell this story:

A famous preacher was sent to preach in another country where a translator was to translate his words to the congregation.  After ten minutes he stopped and for the first time the translator spoke–about three or four words. The famous preacher began again.  Still the translator said nothing so after about ten minutes the famous preacher stopped again.  The translator then spoke about three or four words again. The famous preacher began for the last time and after ten minutes finally finished preaching.  The translator spoke a few words and everyone laughed and applauded. 

The famous preacher now felt much better.  “How did you manage to translate my sermon into so few words?” he asked.  “It was easy said,” said the translator.  “The first time I said, ‘he hasn’t said anything yet.’  The second time I said, ‘I don’t think he is going to say anything.’  Then, at the end, I said, ‘I told you so.” 

Francisco, you are called to be a representative of Christ as you accept a call to priesthood, and call it is. Isaiah's call, in our first reading, is one of the most dramatic depictions of call in Holy Scripture. Among clouds of incense and rituals, the prophet has a soul-shaking encounter with God.  He immediately knows he is unworthy.  "Woe is me! For I am undone; because I am a person of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips."  But God will have nothing of this.  God has only us, the sinful, to choose from, and Isaiah has the great gift of knowing his sinfulness.  In a moment of inspiration Isaiah accepts his calling:  "Here I am. Send me." 

What are you sent to do?  First you are called to listen to God.  Part of that will be listening to the conflicting opinions of your parishioners.  Some of it will be in the silence of the church or chapel. But a word of warning: show me a priest who is constantly on retreat to discern God's next move for the parish and I will show you a priest listening only to him or herself.  One of the ways God speaks to us is through others, when we listen attentively. 

Listen with discernment.  Bill Vanstone, a wonderfully kind, brilliant but sickly theologian, who burned himself out by insisting on serving the most demanding of parishes, observed before he died:  "The church is like a swimming pool.  Most of the noise comes from the shallow end." 

But priests don’t just listen they forgive.  Priests are representatives of a man who last recorded words included the cry, “Father, forgive them.  They don’t know what they are doing.”  Our task is to forgive, forgive and forgive. We forgive, though, for a purpose.  We forgive people so that they can become calm in Christ.  When people know that God loves them, truly know that God loves them, they are changed.  The Christian life is a way, a journey, and part of the journey is becoming the kind of people God is calling us to be.   

Lenny Bruce once remarked that "Every day, people are straying away from the church and going back to God."  One of our tasks is to make the church more obviously a place of welcome and hospitality. Archbishop Donald Coggan put it very well: “Hospitality is the art of making people feel at home when you wish they were at home.”  

Priesthood means leading people through times of stress.  During my ministry, I have witnessed the breakdown of the family as my parents knew it; a complete reversal of the church's teaching on divorce and remarriage; the ordination of women; unity with the Lutheran churches; Eucharistic fellowship with American Methodists; wars and rumors of wars; a bitter assault upon this nation in both New York and Washington; and breakaway groups forming in the Episcopal Church.  In all of this, we witness to a God who will not let us go and who commands us to stay and be together. 

I am convinced that when John’s Gospel says “in my Father’s house there are many rooms" it means two things.  It means there is room for everyone.  It also means there will enough rooms for us to be put in with those people we most want to avoid so that we can cleanse our souls and live more fully with God. 

Once, co-chairing the writing of a book on Roman Catholic-Episcopalian relations, one of the Roman Catholic theologians suddenly shouted, "The trouble with you Episcopalians is you won't excommunicate anyone!"  “But that,” I replied, “is to give up on people.”   Anyway, most people excommunicate themselves, either by withdrawing from the church or living lives so out of synch with God that finally they step off and away.  They may do that, but we represent a God who will not let us go: the father in the story of the Prodigal son; the woman who searches diligently for the one lost coin. 

Francisco, will you please stand. 

In a few minutes you will have been made a priest.  You will be a priest, however, only when you do the work of a priest. This is what lay behind the old ordination services of our church. We were commissioned to take authority for the office and work of a priest in the church of God. We serve not ourselves. We serve Christ. When we serve ourselves we are not priests but sinners. 

In all you do, be a priest for your people. Love them—for they will love you; love you, that is, in the only way they know how, and it may not always be what you consider Christian love.  Love them and they will love you. Some will love you with good cause and sometimes some will love only because they are loving people.

 
Treat them as family—for they will treat you as family. But remember they may treat you as family in the way that they have experienced family.

 
Forgive them. It is your job. Forgive them; forgive them as much as you can.  Some will criticize you without cause. Some will criticize you with cause. No matter. Forgive them. It is Christ’s command.  

In all you do, seek to lead them more closely to God and help them to live more like Christ.  It will be a wonderful and unpredictable journey.  Take courage: you will be in God’s hands.  Take care: it is a dangerous thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 

Amen.

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