‘CHARGE’ TO THE ORDINAND

AT THE ORDINATION OF RHONDA DAVIS MYERS

JUNE 21, 2009

THE REV ANTHONY E ACHESON, M.DIV

Rhonda, this ‘Charge to the Ordinand’ is, by tradition, a time when advice and counsel from an older, more experienced minister are offered to one who is freshly ordained. My thoughts about what might fit this occasion spring, first, from memories of my own ordination. When the anniversaries of that date circle back, and memories of it are rekindled, I frequently feel deep wells of emotion, which often bring me to tears. Those emotions come up because being a minister matters to me. And being a minister matters, in turn, because the many experiences of these thirty one years since my ordination have soaked an awareness down into my cells that ministry is a place where we can play a real role for the good for a significant number of people.

Yes, of course, each living person is a potential minister, and that should not be forgotten. But there is a uniqueness, nonetheless, to the form of ministry that is ordained. It is unique because both the preparation for ordination, and the act of conferring it, are outward and designated signs that reverence for something high and transcendent is worth pursuing not just inwardly, but also publicly and visibly in a world that often forgets to seek it. It is not for nothing that from now to the end of your life, and indeed beyond, you will be referred to as, ‘Reverend.’ The meaning of that word is not that you as a person should be offered any special reverence. The deeper meaning is that you now hold a position from which to be a visible agent of reverence. By virtue of what took place today, how you carry yourself will be carefully watched and noticed by many people. That will be a frequent burden. But it will also be a daily opportunity to witness to the real presence of The Spirit in this universe, and explain Its real power to grow and heal real people. This world offers no higher work. The first piece of my charge to you, then, is to never forget what a privilege has just been laid upon you by that cluster of warm hands that love you and wish you well, and have now ordained you into formal ministry.

The second piece to this charge is this: as you make your way through the life of ministry, I encourage you to channel your time and energies heavily into doing the things that you yourself most deeply love. Love, to be sure, takes many forms. One aspect of loving your church, for example, will be your need to tend to many tasks you may not love greatly that you will just have to go ahead and fulfill, without having much choice about them in a given moment. There will be many people, too, who will approach you for help with their own agendas and timetables. I am certain you will endeavor to do the work of love in each such case as best you can, as you should and must.

But as you move through the longer arc of your ministry, it is essential that you keep your main focus on doing what you yourself love and enjoy. For even though there will indeed by tasks that will impinge on you without much freedom of choice, the one thing you always do have choice about is the shape of your long-term priorities. The truth is that the more you are doing what you authentically love, the more that what people are going to actually see in you is your love. The more you are doing what lights you up, what delights you, what you are enthusiastic and passionate about, the more people will receive love from you, because they will be able to see love alive in you. Someone once said, ‘I’d rather SEE a good sermon than hear one.’ How we go about our business week to week is every bit as much our sermon as the words we assemble for Sunday speaking. When you are doing what you love, your choice to do so is one of the major access points by which Love Itself can shine through you, and make its way out from you. External requirements are real, and some cannot be avoided. But within them and around them: do what you yourself love.

Finally, do your own inner work of growth and transformation. If I could leave just one thing with you today, Rhonda, that might actually be remembered in this hour’s river of words and sounds, it would be this. Please remember that being a minister has one clear, unambiguous priority: to do your own spiritual work; to do your own consciousness work; to do your own version of whatever must be undertaken to deal with your own personal limitations and weaknesses, your fears and baggage from the past, your wounds and resistances and blocks. We all have them. But only a few make significant progress to move beyond them. Be one of those few.

In ‘A Course in Miracles,’ it says, ‘This course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence.’ That is as good an articulation as I have heard of what it means to do your own spiritual work and consciousness work. Spiritual work is a kind of inner excavation. The excavation has two sides to it. The first half of the excavation is to descend deeply into our beings to identify those blocks, wounds and fears; to become conscious of their components; and to learn how to disassemble and remove those blocks piece by piece. That’s the first half of the excavation.

The second half of the excavation is that as we increasingly hoist up those ‘blocks against the awareness of love’s presence’ to break up and remove them, so also are we empowered to hoist up to conscious awareness the many forms of love’s presence, in order to express and unleash them. That is a simple statement of what ministry most essentially is. Ministry is a designated and sacred way of being a bearer of love. At its best, it is an empowerment of your own being to be a clear and edifying window into both the love of God, and the Realness which is the Divine Presence.

And so, Rev. Rhonda Davis Myers, I encourage and charge you this day to these three things: to stay mindful of the great privilege of ministry that has been conferred on you this hour; to bring the joy of what you most love to the doing of it; and to keep courage to stick with the hard work which the spiritual life most assuredly is.

May you go forth in all these thing with many smiles, with much laughter, and with the heartfelt hopes and support of the many people who love you.

Godspeed. And Amen.

Today from Mark we have a story about an encounter between Jesus and a poor blind man called Bartimaeus who was seeking a cure for his blindness. The day of that encounter started out like any other day. The sun came up. The birds began to sing. And as the day began to unfold, so the people of Jericho began to unwrap from their sleep to engage in their ordinary routines. They were going to do the things that ordinary people ordinarily do–to eat, to laugh, and to work, get tired and sleep. Yes–it was a day that was like any other day.

And yet, it was also a day that was unlike any other day. The sun that did come up, though clearly seen by thousands in Jericho remained unseen to the blind Bartimaeus. Begging was all he could do to survive. And as the people passed, the most of them who could see, pretended not to see. But the best of them would share at the least the fringes of their living.

So this day that was like any other day, was also unlike any other day, because on this day, a man unlike any other man the people there had known was on his way to Jericho. His name was Jesus, whose name was spoken more and more among the people as being wonderful, a friend of all, with speech like God, a king without an army–a prince of peace.

As Bartimaeus sat beside the street and heard that this Jesus was coming he felt a tingle on the inside passing up and down between his chest and stomach, a flow of inner energy pulsing between the poles of fear and hope. He had heard of this Jesus and his deeds; how a man from another city who had been blind since birth had had his eyes opened to perfect sight. And they said that in another town a little girl had died–just twelve years old. But her life was given back with a simple touch.

It was true, of course, that many reputed healers, in that day, and some, no doubt. were frauds. But today, for some reason, he felt differently. Perhaps it was because, despite his wariness, he had never allowed to die the inner hope that someday he might see again. His friends, no doubt with kindness, had sought to quell that hope by words they spoke or failed to speak. And he, for his part, had heard their message clearly and made his own peace with the possibility that he might always remain blind. But he never allowed that inner hope to die.

And so as the crowds began to grow, that inner tingle grew as well. His excitement was fed by the wondrous things he heard about this Jesus. When people spoke about this man there was a sense of wonder, a peacefulness that words cannot describe. It was as if in the presence of this man there was magnificence and majesty that words could only lessen but (that) time seemed to magnify. It was as if in the presence of this man there was a kind of underlying power that was so strong it didn’t seem to even need itself. It was as if in the presence of this man nothing could go wrong and even what seemed to go wrong was only part of making things go right, such that death itself could now be met with strength and even joy. The miracle of mended limbs and opened eyes was miracle enough. But this–what was this strange new show of life?

After Bartimaeus came early to his accustomed spot beside the road, the crowd soon grew in size and noise and sweat. The people argued about who Jesus was and what he taught. They exchanged stories of what they had seen or heard about this worker of wonders.

The hours seemed like days to Bartimaeus. But finally as the morning turned to noon, the word began to spread like fire in the brush: ‘He’s coming–Jesus is coming.’ And soon shouts and cries erupted that the moment had arrived. The man from Nazareth was coming and soon would pass his spot.

To Bartimaeus it was as if for all his blindness, he could already see him, if only through the raw energies of those around. It was as if sight unseen on the very road before him was not just a person but a Presence; a presence with a radiating vitality stronger than the strongest summer sun.

And now the shouts and cries announced that Jesus was right there. Suddenly, Bartimaeus began to shout at the top of his lungs, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.’ As he called out, even Bartimaeus himself was only half aware of his own shouting, as he allowed his deepest yearnings the freedom to stretch out every nerve toward their last best hope. The people around him tried to silence him. But he would not BE silenced. ‘Jesus, Son of David,’, once again he cried, ‘have mercy on me, I beg you.’

And then, even as those around rebuked, Jesus stopped. This was not a man in the business of silencing people. He turned to look at the ragged Bartimaeus. And suddenly, there came a kind of hush across the crowd. And now even more than before, the blind man could feel that Presence, as pervasive as only silence has when truly heard.

Then came the voice, that rich, marvelous voice. ‘Call him to me.’ Throwing off his cloak, Bartimaeus leapt to his feet. How much kindness there was in that voice as it gently asked, ‘What do you want me to do for you?’ What do I want, he wondered to himself. He cares about what I want. And then he said, ‘Master my sight. O Master, just my sight. With all that is in me I beg you for my sight.’

And suddenly, he felt those hands upon his head, their fingers strong and sure probing on those eyeballs long since dead of sight, pressing them, massaging them. And as his fingers moved, softly he spoke, ‘As you have trusted it to be, my child, so now it is. Enjoy again the miracle of sight.’

As you have trusted. Yes, Bartimaeus had kept alive in his heart of hearts that someday, somehow, his eyes might see again. And now, see they did. It was all so blurred at first–and painful as when long darkness turns into a flash of light. The people first appeared like moving trees. But soon it all came clear: the people crowding around with wonder in their eyes; the glorious blueness of the sky; and then overwhelmingly, the face, the face of this master, with a gaze unlike any other gaze. It was as if as he looked in the wideness of those eyes, he was looking not just into a human soul, but into the very soul of Life Itself, a soul which said without a single sound, ‘Here you are at home and will always be.’ And as he opened himself to that gaze, he felt now without a single touch as once he felt when nestled in his mother’s arms. Then, simply, Jesus touched him and said, ‘Peace, my child, may our God be with you,’ then quickly slipped away.

It was all so brief. The few words spoken, the loving look and touch, they lasted but a few moments. And yet, to Bartimaeus, it seemed those few spare moments were as long as the decades of his blindness.

He had yearned for years to see, and now he had received not only sight but more than that life as well, the life that came from knowing he was loved, not just by this one life, but by the everlasting arms of Life Itself.

And now, as that moment changed to memory, he learned that his eyes were opened not alone to see but also to weep, to unloose the rivers of the pain and love he kept so tightly bound within him all those years. And AS he wept, he was only half aware of his own sobbing as he gave those deepest sighings of his soul the freedom to stretch out every nerve toward their release. Now there were other arms around him, human arms to comfort and assist, to weep and laugh with him, and help rebuild a life.

And then, after time, life just went on: the same, but different; new now but ever old. And indeed after time, the years took their normal toll on Bartimaeus. His body slowed, and finally even his eyes once again grew dim, and poor in sight.

But it didn’t matter now. It was only for a time, one brief bend in the river. But he now knew that whatever happened to his eyes he would always see; whatever happened to his life, he would always live.

Yes, that day had been a day like any other day. The sun came up, the birds began to sing. And yet, it was a day that was unlike any other day. Because on that day, Bartimaeus came to meet the Presence, a presence as pervasive as only silence has when heard. He had yearned for years to see. But now he had received both sight and life, the life that came from knowing he was loved not just by that one life but by the everlasting arms of Life Itself.

May we also have our inner spiritual sight opened more and more to see the grace and glory of the living God. May it be richly so for today and for always. Amen.