Prophets, Priests and Poets

Sermon for Ordination Service – Irish Methodist Conference

June 2019

What is this calling that you are joining in with?

(Story about an endless harvest supper planning meeting – brocollie quiche)

Ministry is not all about keeping the roof on the church or organizing the harvest supper. It is those things, and many more similar things but it is perhaps also to be a prophet, a priest and a poet.

All that I’m saying to the three Ordinands today, is also for every church member and for the whole church – we are part of the priesthood of all believers and we are the body of Christ – so this sermon is not an exercise in eavesdropping!

So to begin with – what does it mean to be a prophet? We heard in our Old Testament reading the wonderful passage when Isaiah encounters the full glory of God in the temple and through that encounter is given all that he needs in order to be God’s messenger.

If I were to give a job description to Isaiah or any of the prophets of old, it would be to do two key task – firstly to paint pictures and, secondly, to hold up a mirror.

Firstly, to paint in people’s minds a picture of what God longs the world to be – a picture of a place where the widow, the orphan and the refugee have the seats of honour. A new reality in which justice flows like rivers and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Painting a picture of a promised land, not for a chosen few but for all God’s children.

In this picture, the principalities and powers of this world are temporary – they will blow away, like dry grass before a storm. It’s a picture that brings comfort to the people, a hint of hope in a landscape of oppression, exile and loss.

Isaiah paints a picture of the God who set out the heavens and made the earth a home in which we dwell, every nation and every person called by name.

The second role of the prophet is to hold up a mirror – to two groups. First the prophet holds up a mirror to the people of god – reminding them who they are, that they are God’s people and helping them to see for themselves where they have fallen short of living out their full calling to live as God’s people in the world.

For the prophets of old the task was often to call out people for idolatry – the worship of false gods – my word, they would have plenty of material today. That list of that which distracts us from love of God and love of neighbour has never been so long! Yet the things that do distract us are from the same mould – love of wealth, love of power, love of self – that is not a healthy understanding of our own worth before God but leads to an empty narcissism that sees us as the centre of the universe and pays little attention to the care of creation and the love of our neighbour.

The second group of people that the prophet holds a mirror to is the powerful – the rulers and power players, those who abuse power, who rule by fear and ignore righteousness and justice.

This leads to trouble! Most of the prophets spent time on the run, their lives threatened by the powerful who did not want to be shown a mirror in which they could see themselves as God sees them.

So perhaps your calling is to be a prophet? To paint a picture for your people and the world of God’s longing for how things should be and to hold up a mirror that shows the world as it is and reminds us as disciples and a church of the things we need to chaing in ourselves and makes the powerful uncomfortable, sufficient to change?

Or perhaps you believe that your calling is to be a priest – that is one who represents Christ to the Church and represents the Church to the world?

If we are to truly embody Christ we need to accept that the role comes with a bucket load of risk – it will involve spending time with those that society and good church folk find unacceptable. We cannot model Christ if we only spend time with people who moderate their behavior to fit into patterns that are deemed appropriate or acceptable.

Jesus spent time with those that Charles Wesley described as harlots and publicans and thieves! Who are those that society rejects and the church condemns today? To model Christ is to move beyond the walls of the church, to leave our comfort zones and to be alongside those who would no sooner enter a church than they would enter a bear pit.

To model Christ is to be broken, as we break bread in communion; to give of ourselves sacrificially and to share in the brokenness of the world in which we live. Bala, the Vice President and I visited a project in Stamford called Second Helpings. Each Saturday over 120 people are fed a three course meal – with choices – and no charge is made. People can leave a donation if they wish. Babies in high chairs sit next to people in their nineties; people on Universal Credit sit next to millionaires – all are welcome. Not only is the food providing a service but the company and new relationships are changing lives. The food used to make the meals is donated by supermarkets in the town – it is food that would have been thrown away. Here is one example of a living sacrament – taking that which the world has rejected and transforming it through love into a feast that all can share.

To model Jesus is also to enjoy a good party! To spend time laughing with family and friends and to take time away in prayer and to be quiet.

To model Christ is to walk the way of the cross, to turn over the tables of injustice, to challenge false religion and to be those who bring healing to people in pain.

So is that your calling? To be a priest – to model Christ, sharing in his mission in and to a broken world?

Or perhaps your calling is to be a poet?

As disciples and ministers we are people of the Word and in words we see and hear God’s love made real. These words are the words of scripture and The Word (capital W!), Logos – the cosmic Christ who was part of God at the very beginning of all things.

We are called to be God’s word embodied. Why does that make us poets?

Poets are those who play with words – respect the power of words – look for the patterns within and between words and have an instinctive or honed talent for seeing and creating rhythm.

Those who lead worship, preachers, worship leaders, liturgists and musicians all have a role as poets – playfully, respectfully and creatively using words to describe God. To offer praise, to acknowledge weakness and heartbreak; we use words to offer assurance, promising absolution, giving thanks and re-membering Jesus and recalling all God’s marvelous acts.

All human words about God are metaphors, even the word ‘God’ is a metaphor – a human shorthand for that which we cannot possibly describe in our inadequate language.

The job of the poet is to play with metaphors, to make connections, to surprise, enlighten and provoke the reader.

The role of the minister is to be a poet – to play with the metaphors for God that sing in our scripture, our tradition and our experience and to cast those metaphors into new poems. Poems that make connections, surprise, enlighten and provoke God’s people and all who want to know more of this world and all that makes human beings who we are.

We do not only compose our poems through words, we cast them in our actions, by our living and our loving people will catch the cadences and the rhythms of God’s love.

In our discipleship, our move towards Christian perfection, it may be that we move beyond being the poets that live and speak God’s love – in fact we become the poems and God the author.

This calling to be prophets, priests and poets is not only for the ordained – it is the calling of all God’s people.

We are to paint a picture of the world God longs for, to hold a mirror up to the church and to those in power, showing how things are. We too, all of us are to model Christ – to be the priesthood of all believers.

And, through our words and our lives we are to be the poets that tell again the story of God’s love for the world.

In telling that story, may God transform us into those who become the poem of God’s grace.

Amen.