Preacher:  Mr. Gabri Ferrer, All Saints Episcopal Church, Beverly Hills CA

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen.

I am grateful for so many things this afternoon.  I am grateful to be back in the City.  (I am grateful to be inside.)  I am grateful to be part of this amazing service.  And, along with all of you, I am grateful for Mary.  That Bishops and Priests and Deacons would rearrange busy schedules and travel thousands of miles to be here today is evidence of how BELOVED she is; and that, in a room filled with such spiritual elders such as this, she would ask a lay person to preach, is evidence of Mary’s pure unmitigated chutzpah.

Mary and I worked for almost 3 years together back in Los Angeles: she as the Parish Verger, I as her faithful MC (Minister of Ceremonies) where we would spend countless hours planning, rehearsing and participating in Liturgical Services.  The two of us trying our best to create — by thoughtful movement, sound, lights and wording — to create a space where God would show up.

And although I could regale you with breathtaking stories of wonder and near mishaps from those halcyon days, I stand reminded of the words my mother spoke to me as I was preparing to give my first “big” sermon at an Easter Vigil Service a few years back.  “Look,” she said.  “You just have to think of yourself as the Dead Body at an Irish Wake.  You’re an important part of the Evening, but no one really expects you to say very much.”  Right.

Preachers are fond of erecting structure where there is none.  I suppose the three-point sermon is our answer of putting some frame of creation around a “world that is without form and void.”  But without causing too much strain on the chosen texts, I’d like to look at what I see as a possible progression: from God’s CALLING TO us, to God’s PREPARATION OF us, and finally at God’s MINISTRY THROUGH us.

First, the CALLING.  Here’s this picture of the prophet Isaiah, who sees this tremendous vision, where God is SO BIG, so all encompassing, that just the Hem of God’s robe FILLS the whole temple.  And Isaiah realizes what a mess he is.  And God cleans him up.  And THEN comes the BAIT and SWITCH.

Not to be disrespectful or anything, but I’ve come to be semi-wary of God’s revelations.  It seems like any time you are overwhelmed by God’s love for you, or awestruck by the beauty of creation: a sunset or a flower, or amazed by friends or loved ones in their compassion and generosity, or comforted in the middle of the night by God’s Spirit; you can be sure that RIGHT on the heels of that will come this:

God quietly whispering to YOUR heart: “Oh.  Look over there.  There is someone I love in need.  And here.  One of my children is lonely.  And there: There is sadness.”

Then God’s voice innocently whispers inside your head: “But, gosh; who’s around?  Who can I send???”

And we can’t help it.  We take the bait.  “Here am I!!!  Send me!!!”  God’s calling to us.  VOCARE.  Vocation.  God in his infinite mercy and tender love revealing to us an area of need.

And we find that being “called” by God is very close to being “tricked” by God.  Not in a bad or malicious way.  It’s more like falling in love.

Simone Weil said that: The beauty of the world is the mouth of a labyrinth.  The unwary individual, who on entering takes a few steps, is soon unable to find the opening.  Worn out, with nothing to eat or drink, in the dark, separated from their dear ones, and from everything they love and are accustomed to, they walk on without knowing anything or hoping anything, incapable of even discovering whether they are really going forward or merely turning round on the same spot.  But this affliction is as nothing compared with the danger threatening them.  For if they does not lose courage, if they go on walking, it is absolutely certain that they will arrive at the center of the labyrinth — and there God is waiting to eat them.  Later they will go out again, but they will be changed, they will have become different, after being eaten and digested by God.  Afterward they will stay near the entrance so that they can gently push all those who come near into the opening.

From Calling we move on to PREPARATION.  (This part of the sermon is pretty much a stretch.)  Although I just keep envisioning Mary at different points in her seminary career.

Sometimes she’d call me up; and we’d commiserate.  “What do you have going on?  Oh.  Three papers and a test.  Drag.”

And I made the mistake one time of “playing Paul,” and saying, “Hey.  Three years of seminary.  Remember, you are never going to have this luxury again.  You’re never going to be able to be immersed in such a purposeful and intense way; to saturate yourself with these issues and thoughts.  Enjoy it while you can.”

I think that if she could have reached through the phone and slapped me, she would have.  I don’t blame her.  At moments of frantic preparation; we ask ourselves that question, “God, do I REALLY need this in my life?”

Who wants to hear: “You do!  Rejoice!  Don’t Worry!  You have God’s Presence.  God’s Peace.  Draw on that!”

Well, Mary, as you’ve figured out by now, you did not leave the days of intensity and stress on General’s doorstep.  There will be times when you have to prepare for two classes (which you scheduled nine months ago when it seemed like a swell idea), a sermon, counseling sessions, a premarital meeting.

And THAT’S when you’ll get a call that a parishioner is in critical care.  And I guarantee that your first response will be just like mine: “Lord, this is a very inconvenient time for someone to have a stroke.”

REJOICE.  The Lord is near.

Which of course, brings us to today’s Gospel and to MINISTRY.

I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD.  I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR THE SHEEP.  There’s only one small observation I want to make.  And at first it might seem quite at odds with everything that has led up to it.

It is this:  Remember, whenever you minister:  YOU ARE NOT THE GOOD SHEPHERD.  There is only ONE Good Shepherd.  We don’t lay our life down for the sheep.  There is only ONE that came into the world that lays HIS life down for the sheep.

WE lay OUR life down at the feet of JESUS.  Whatever God requires us to give of our life to others, we do it.  Out of Love.  Out of Obedience.

Are we dealing with semantics here?  I don’t think so.  The Church can be a bottomless pit of needs.  Of wants.  Of people pulling at us from every side.  And it can all look urgent.  It can all look worthwhile.  It can all look like MINISTRY.  We could give a THOUSAND lives to it, and it wouldn’t be enough.

We can’t go out and save the world.  That’s been done already.  Our main job is to LEAD them to JESUS.  The one whose yoke is easy.  Whose burden is light.  Where sheep can find still waters and green pastures.  To the one who is the RESTORER of SOULS.

Leading sheep.  Going first.  Which means being the first to be hit with the blows of loneliness, of doubt, the first in valleys of shadow, of death.  But able to lead others through.  Teaching them to hear the voice of the Shepherd for themselves.  Not giving them the “quick fix.”

This will be a tough one for you, Mary.  You will always think of five great solutions to a problem, before the other person can muddle through one mediocre answer.  Learn to keep your mouth shut.

You will not love the Sheep with Perfect Love.  You’re not called to.  You love the ones given into your care BECAUSE YOU BELONG TO THE SHEPHERD.  Just like them.  And the SHEPHERD loves the sheep.

“Peter, do you LOVE me?”

“Yes, Lord, You KNOW I love you.”

“Feed my sheep.”

Listen to the words of William Countryman:  I cannot tell anyone how to accomplish YOUR particular priesthood.  That is because it is yours and not mine.  You are a priest.  You learn your priesthood as you practice it in conversation with the Holy One and with your world and with the other priests around you.  I can say only what the Gospels say: that the priesthood of Jesus was a priesthood of generous reconciliation.  It was rejected by some and accepted by others.  Both within the Church and outside it, there is a great need for human beings to overcome our suspicion of one another, our isolation from one another, and the fear and hostility that arise from them.  We need to “share food” with even the most impossible of our fellow humans.  This does not mean producing some single, homogenized humanity.  It means rather that we form priestly bonds across the lines that have separated us, so that we understand that we share one humanity in the presence of God, even if it is diverse almost beyond our ability to tell.  We share the love of God that created us and calls us into priesthood.  We share our ability to give gifts.  We share that ability to grow and mature.  We share, alas, our ability to sin and to harm and to destroy.  We share a common fear of death and a common hope of resurrection, which is our true life even in this world.  Everyone was welcome to eat with Jesus.  Will we dare extend the same welcome?

I must digress here with a short story.

It was the midnight service, Christmas Eve, 1995.  The choir and organ had performed an amazing musical prelude, all the ministers had filed into position (me wearing a shnazzy red tunicle borrowed from the diocese), and to the familiar strains of  “O Come All Ye Faithful” we began the festival procession.

Everything was going swimmingly, until on the fourth verse I reached the chancel steps, reverenced and went to my seat.  I found it occupied.  By a visiting clergy person.  He was not supposed to be there.  We had rehearsed this.  I looked over to my rector Carol for support.  She would set him straight.  Carol glanced over her hymnal.  She muttered two syllables: “UH-OH.” I can’t tell you WHY what happened next did, I can only describe what happened in me.

Something long dormant broke like a floodgate.  That “uh-oh” which Carol meant as, “You’ve got a problem, go fix it,” to me resonated in the depths of my being as: “Uh-oh: There’s been a mistake.  Uh-oh: You’ve been found out.  Uh-oh: You don’t belong up here.”

I felt absolutely undone.  I wandered off to the side in shell shock; wondering if anyone would really miss a missing MC for the rest of the service.  Mary caught my eye from across the chancel.  She lifted her eyebrows with a look: “What’s wrong?”

I motioned pitifully that I had no seat.  With that, Mary puts down her hymnal, strides purposefully over to the choir area, picks up a heavy oak mission style chair, lugs it over to where I am, plunks it down and says, “THERE’S your seat.”

And so it was that as the last verse started, “Yea Lord we greet thee, born this happy morning,” and the choir sang their soaring descant, that I found I DID have a place at the table.  And as we sang, “Word of the Father now in flesh appearing,” that I had been shown that there WAS a place for me.

Mary, I believe that your ministry in a large part will be PROVIDING a seat for those that feel there’s no place at the table for them.  Becoming a Word made flesh.  A word that says, “There IS a place for you.”  Bringing others to the Good Shepherd.  Bringing broken people together at the feet of Jesus.  One flock.  One shepherd.  There IS a place for you.

Still creating spaces where God can show up.  Creating spaces IN people.  Spaces where people can find, and hear and experience God.  And be changed.  And in turn change others.

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