A homily for an ordination

I am prone to waking up with ear worms. Sometimes I have no idea where the song has come from. But lately, because I have a two year old grand daughter, I wake up with songs like “Elmo’s World” or “When you learn something you new you do the happy dance.” But this morning I work with a song in my head and I knew exactly why it was there - it’s the ever of Pentecost and we’ve come here today to witness and celebrate the ordination of Anthony and Mitch:

Breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what thou does love, and do what thou wouldst do. 

Like everyone who is ordained, these two have travelled a long journey. In this diocese that means going  through EYSJ, parish discernment, seminary, field education, and more, which has culminated in this day. 

So now Anthony and Mitch have completed seminary and are ready for this big day. if their seminary formation was anything like mine, they learned a whole new language, church language of theology, ethics, pastoral care. Words like justification, righteousness, and transubstantiation, among many words that were often used differently by different authors making it all a little confusing at first.

What I remember most about my seminary formation was the concept of ontological change - a concept that my class became obsessed with in the weeks leading up to each of our ordinations. 

Ontology is the philosophical discussion about the nature of being, including the nature of God. Ontological change is thought of as an internal change that happens to people when they are ordained - some essence of God resides in a particular way in a person who has been ordained. My classmates and I thought it might be like a change in our DNA, like structurally we’d somehow know and feel differently. 

So it was rather disappointing when one by one as we were ordained each of us felt absolutely no different. Exactly same the day after ordination as the day of ordination. 

But here’s the thing. On the night of my ordination my friends and I did not know how to put the collar on, and we didn’t know how to use the collar stays, so we ended up putting them in backward. Collar stays have a flat end that goes against the skin, and a round end that goes through the collar stay and is tucked inside. But my friends put mine on backward, so that the round end was against my neck and poked into my neck all night, leaving a tiny bruise the next morning. I thought to myself even then that this bruise from the collar was a curious, perhaps significant metaphor for the life of a parish priest. 

Still, aside from the bruise, I felt no different. Until one day, a few months later, I was driving in crazy traffic in Chicago and someone cut me off, almost causing an accident. I started to do exactly what I had always done, shout an expletive and use a hand gesture to tell them off. Just as my mouth opened and my hand started to rise up I suddenly felt that collar around my neck, and the collar stay pressing in, and I stopped. I wasn’t actually wearing the collar, I was just in jeans and t-shirt, but I felt that collar as powerfully as if it were there. 

I thought, this Ontological change is a real thing. 

But I’m not sure it begins at ordination. I actually wonder if it begins at baptism, when we are imbued with the Holy Spirit and marked as Christ’s own forever. Most of us are baptized as infants which may be why we don’t notice in baptism, how we feel the day before baptism from the day after. 

My baptism took place when I was nine. I was standing in a large pool, full immersion baptism. And just before my uncle was about to dip me three time under the water I had this sense that once under water I would slip out of my uncle’s hands and drown. I thought I’d die in my baptism. But before I could change my mind he dipped me under the water three times, and suddenly I standing there dripping wet, hair in my face, and I thought, I’m alive!

Breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew…

Baptism unites each of us in our common life in Christ. Baptism is the beginning of our call to discipleship, our ministries in the world. For some of us our ministry is as lay people -  teachers, massage therapists, office administrators, lawyers, doctors, nurses, however it is that we our strengths become our life vocation and work. 

For others of us our ministry takes on a call that the church recognizes as particular, puts us through years of study and discernment, background checks and psychological exams, and if all goes well, ordains us. Ordination defines our baptismal life in a particular way. 

Now Anthony and Mitch, I don’t know if you will  feel any different tomorrow than you felt yesterday, except a little relief that the bishop has finally laid hands on you and the ordination has happened. But I guarantee that as you live your life as priest, as you care for God’s people, as you break open the word, share the Good News, absolve people of sin, bless people, and consecrate the bread and wine, as you do all of that over and over and over, you will begin to notice how God is working in you in particular ways. You will in fact feel that ontological change, over time. 

But even as you feel that, remember this, it began with your baptism. That is when God breathed God’s spirit on you, began to work on you and change you. And this, ordination, is how you are living out your baptismal covenant. It will not be easy, in fact some days you’ll wonder why you ever thought you were called. Some days you might think, like my mentor did, that God called you into ordination so that God could save you from yourself. Some days you will feel truly blessed and centered. Relish those days, they may feel far and few between. 

So take a moment to breathe. Check in and see how you are feeling. And open yourself up to the Spirit. 

Breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew, that I may love what thou does love, and do what thou wouldst do. 

a reflection on the readings for the eve of Pentecost and the ordination of Mitch Yudasz, seminary intern that I've mentored for 3.5 years.