The Bishop of Beverley - Sermon for the Northern Provincial Festival

Sermon for the Ordination of Barry Birch to the Priesthood

16th December 2007

I tell you solemnly, of all the children born of women, a greater than John the Baptist has never been seen; yet the least in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he is. Matthew 11, v11.

You and I might easily be forgiven for thinking that we have just heard a story about John the Baptist. There he languishes, in prison, wondering whether or not he has lived his life in vain, when he suddenly hears all the exciting things that he has done. So John sends messengers to Jesus to demand whether Jesus is truly the Messiah, the one John has proclaimed and sought throughout his ministry.

The Gospel writer, S Matthew, on the other hand, might be puzzled as to why you and I could think that the story to which we have just listened is about S John the Baptist. For S Matthew is writing the Gospel of Jesus. Jesus is the subject of Matthew’s story and not John the Baptist. John the Baptist, for S Matthew, is but one more person, however significant, who is won over by Jesus, who now comes conclusively to see that Jesus is the true Messiah, the person around whom ultimately all other stories must revolve.

Barry, you and everyone else in church might be forgiven this morning for thinking that you are the centre of the proceedings. And, yes, in a very important sense you are. But you would be the first to say that, like S John the Baptist, you are only important insofar as you point to Jesus. Your task, Barry, is to make present for people all that Jesus is and does. That is the awesome responsibility God entrusts to you this morning. That is the daunting sense in which you are the centre of the proceedings.

Jesus, the great High Priest, brings men and women to God and God to men and women. That is the task of the priest. Insofar as you are conformed to Jesus, Barry, you will do that same thing. You will do it in Jesus’ name and in Jesus’ strength. That is the heart of the meaning contained in the ordination service that we celebrate this morning.

Like Jesus, you, Barry, are to be a prophet. That means you are to speak God’s Word. It will be a great help to you in your ministry that you are trained as a teacher. The good pastor is one who can share with his people an ever greater understanding of the Christian Faith. The prophet, though, does more than teach. The prophet feeds back to people what is happening in the world. The prophet sometimes points to where God is working. The prophet sometimes points to where human beings are being foolish. That can make you very unpopular at times. For instance, the prophet to day is probably pointing to God’s work in bringing people of different races, cultural backgrounds and even religious differences closer and closer together in mutual understanding, in order to live in peace. Tell that to those who are instinctively terrified of difference and you will not be very popular. Or it might be that in a world where we human beings are gruadually warming the planet out of existence everyone will love your green message until you mention the word ‘sin’. You might not be so popular a prophet when you say that excessive petrol-guzzling or unhealthy diets are judged by God to be just as selfish and therefore sinful as many of the other seemingly more straightforward matters over which we Christians have traditionally concerned ourselves across the years.

And then, like Jesus, you are to be a prest in the sense that He is a priest. Priests offer sacrifices. The distinctive thing about Jesus is that he did not offer anyone or anything else as a sacrifice. Jesus offered Himself. Jesus is both priest and victim. For the Christian priest, for you Barry, that means especially two things. First you must make Jesus’ sacrifice available for all who would share in it, for it is the only sacrifice to God that carries any weight or meaning it its own right. That, of course, is what you will be doing every time you celebrate the Mass. You will, in S Paul’s words, be showing the Lord’s death until He comes again. And you will be doing that thing in a very special way. Jesus, Himself, is commissioning you this morning to act in His name and to make available for us, through your ministry, all that He shares with us, in signs, at the Last Supper and, in reality, on the Cross of Calvary.

And secondly, Barry, like Christ you must be prepared not only to be the priest but also to be the victim, someone spent with Christ and for Christ. Jesus’ life and ministry are what must now matter to you and not your own life and ministry except, that is, insofar as you want to conform your life to His. Dare I say, on this joyful day, that such a ministry is bound to bring you, Barry, not only happiness, but also a degree of pain and suffering. For the more you are brought into the heart of Christ the more you will experience the world as He does. Somewhere in every priest there will always fall the shadow of the Cross.

Jesus is not only our perfect prophet and priest. Jesus is also our king. There is always a temptation for us priests to think of ourselves as rulers over the Church. Father knows best is still a ruling maxim in some of our churches and woe betide anyone who disagrees with Father. Yes, Jesus Christ is King but His Kingship is one exercised in service. Jesus is the one who leaves His Father’s throne for you, for me, for all of us. Jesus, as Charles Wesley so movingly puts it, emptied Himself of all but love. There is the model for the kingly priest you, Barry, are called to be. You must wear not a crown but, rather, the towel that Jesus wore as He washed His disciples’ feet at the Last Supper. How appropriate that the stole, that long piece of ornate cloth that you wear around your neck, has as its origin the towel once used to wash the sacred vessels of the Church. Once again, we are not far from the theme of the priest also being the victim. Those of us who are called to ordination are called togive our all in service of others, in service of the Christ who is to be found in others. That is costly, yet it will bring the joy of knowing that we are spent in Christ’s service.

I tell you solemnly, of all the children born of women, a great that John the Baptist has never been seen; yet the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he is.

Barry, you and I, every Christian priest, could never be in the same league as that holy man, S John the Baptist. Save but for one thing. Once you and I are taken into God’s Kingdom, everyone of us, ordained or lay, is taken up into the life of Jesus Christ. We are transformed by His grace to be the people we are destined to be, Each of us in Christ has, then, an infinite capacity to live and serve in the way Jesus intends for us. Yes, that is to be every greater in the Kingdom of God even than John the Baptist as he points to its coming. That grace is what each of us celebrates as we draw near to Holy Communion this morning and are enabled to be even more the particular people Christ calls us to be. And that, supremely, is what we celebrate with Barry as he answers now Christ’s call and comes forward to receive the gift of ordination this morning.