Propers for Ordination to the Priesthood
Ordinations of Jenny Newman and Marie Smith
St. Andrew’s Cathedral
Jackson, Mississippi
October 30, 2021
The Rev. Marian D. Fortner+
May you live in interesting times.
I dare say that old saying has roundly achieved as we gather today.
Some say that saying is more of a curse than a blessing.
It is far easier to live in plain ole ordinary times.
But here we are, deep into our second year of a world pandemic shaping even the way we have gathered today. We have a hybrid presence: those gathered here and those tuning in online.
Priests used to ask what color our stoles need to be for ordinations.
Now we ask, what color does our mask need to be today.
It’s just a whole new ballgame.
But in spite of it all, two women of this church, Marie and Jenny, have traveled to this day to fulfill their ‘yes’. To say, Here am I, God; send me.
Jenny and Marie, you are entering the priesthood in a liminal moment. Liminal comes from the Latin, Limen, roughly meaning threshold. So this is a threshold moment.
Even the calendar reflects this reality as we gather on the eve of All Hallow’s Eve.
Our Celtic ancestors believed that in these thin times when seasons changed, and that the veil between the living and the dead was thin enough for the dead to step across and, for just one night walk the earth and see their loved ones.
The Celts spoke of thin times and thin places where we might feel closer to God, and feel God’s presence more deeply. Thin times and thin places were revealing and life-changing.
In a moment we will all experience just how thin that space is, as we lay hands on you and pray, Come, Holy Spirit, Come.
Come and fill you with the fire of Christ’s love. Let it burn brightly in them.
Marie and Jenny, I do not have to tell you that you are entering the priesthood in times of challenge and change.
Once upon a time, Sunday mornings were the unchallenged domain of every denomination.
Families put on their Sunday best, squeezed into wooden pews all in a row,
said their prayers,
listen to scripture and watched the priest as they took, bless, broke, and gave the sacred body of Christ to all who drew near.
Once upon a time, more people were of like mind, it seemed, whether it was real then, or not.
It was as if the universe was in rhythm with this pattern
and so it flowed from week to week, month to month, year to year.
But change came.
Long before this present day, we began to see that safe wall around the church begin to wear and crack.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, as Robert Frost once penned.
The societal hold we had on Sunday mornings began to show signs of age.
Perhaps it was the civil unrest of the sixties or seventies.
Maybe it was even the eighties with the lure of city sports leagues.
But somewhere in there that we began to feel a tug-o-war with Sunday morning.
And then, who could resist the feel of fall and the excitement of college football, tailgating, raising a cup of cheer with life-long friends.
But it didn’t stop there.
Along came a whole generation of GenXers seeking the spiritual life in different ways, perhaps in coffee shops gathered with a few friends, finding more in a discussion of Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, than they found in the church of their parents.
And, of course, the internet changed all of us, putting the world at our fingertips.
We are looking at a much different world and a much different church than we had even just a few years ago.
And now the pandemic has pushed us into new ways whether we like it or not.
You enter the priesthood at a time when all cards are on the table, and all the cards are being blown around by a new wind.
Who knows yet where and how they will land.
Yes, we do, indeed, live in interesting times. Liminal times. The threshold between what we have always known and the unknown.
Our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry named it for us recently. He called it a ‘Narthex Moment.’
We are currently in the Narthex: that space when we leave the world to enter the church or leave the church to enter the world.
It is neither. It is both. It is liminal.
But it is a place where phenomenal things can happen if we but take the time to pray and to listen.
It is a place for listening to both the church and the world.
A place where we might ask, what is underneath the parent yearning for her daughter to fully realize her gifts when that means missing a Sunday. What does the church need to hear from her?
A place where we might ask: What does the church need to know about deep friendships bonding over beer and football?
A place where we might ask: What do we need to learn from a generation of younger people willing to meet at a coffee shop on a quiet Sunday morning to be moved by the passionate cry of an African-American man of an older generation once locked in a cell in a southern jail?
Is there something we can learn in the Narthex if we just sit for a while and listen?
And we might also ask: what is the enduring quality of our ancient traditions? The ones that must stay, not for the sake of tradition alone, but for the sake of a world hungry for access to the living God in mystical, sacramental offerings, whether we have one at the altar or one thousand?
What are the ancient truths and rituals that never fail to show us Jesus, to offer us Jesus, to feed us Jesus.
What must we offer at all costs for the love of God in Christ to be revealed?
And what is it about the church that is the living, breathing Body of Christ that the world needs to see, feel and touch?
None of us have those full answers yet.
But, we do know this: something is astir.
Something seems to be re-forming in all of us.
Something that is as ancient as the stars and yet, as fresh as a newborn’s cry.
Indeed, as fresh and new as two women who are standing here today, even in interesting, liminal times, who are willing to say ‘yes’. Here I am, Lord. Send me.
That is bold. This is your ‘yes’, but it is also God’s ‘yes’ to the world, made manifest in you.
This is your outward and visible moment of inward and spiritual grace where, as you rise to be ordained, standing on nothing more than the grace of your baptisms, we see the act of faith boldly claiming that God’s voice still calls, God’s voice still speaks, God’s ruach still hovers over our chaos and brings forth meaning and new life.
And, Marie and Jenny, God’s ruach was hovering over you from before you were born.
Your callings began in your lives long before they were made visible to others.
Jenny, you were raised in a faithful Southern baptist home in south Mississippi. Work led you to Jackson. A friendship with a priest’s spouse led to dinner table conversations, helping you understand more and more about a loving God. More study and prayer and listening followed. You were nurtured in this very Cathedral by many of those surrounding you today. Your compassion and wisdom already serve the people of Ascension and the college students of USM, a campus that Marie also served while she was active at Trinity in Hattiesburg.
Marie, you first voiced your sense of calling to me in an email before we even met. I think I might have a calling, you wrote. Can we meet?
But your faith walk began long before that, as Jenny’s did, as you were growing up in Gadsden, Alabama. Your quizzical nature led you to St. Peter’s in Oxford, the Benedictine Convent in Alabama, and, well, eventually to some guy named Brandon.
Marie and Jenny, you both have extraordinary gifts to offer us in this liminal time and I pray you will continue to develop and offer those gifts to the church and the world for a very long time.
And now, Marie and Jenny, please stand. As your sister in Christ, I charge you with these things:
From this day forward, be among us as faithful priests. Serve, young and old, rich and poor alike.
Teach us how to pray, break open the ancient scripture, break open the sacraments.
Teach us how to love more deeply, how to forgive more completely.
Help us discern what the Spirit is saying to the churches in these changing times.
Help us to hold fast to that which is good, and release that which is passing.
Above all, show us how to love as Christ loved us.
Help us be faithful communities, where love is known to stranger and friend.
Correct us when we are going astray; encourage us when we are afraid.
Help us to seek and serve Christ in all persons, and respect the dignity of every human being.
Remember, always, that you are not alone.
The God who created and redeemed you, will continue to sustain you. Turn to God often.
And turn to your fellow pilgrims.
Develop lasting bonds with your fellow clergy.
Heed your bishop. He has much wisdom.
And Listen deeply to your flock. I daresay they will shape you in your priesthood more deeply than anything or anyone else.
And remember that God is working in you, in all of us, in these interesting, liminal, and Narthex times, far more than we can ask, far more than we can ever imagine.
