10 Things I have Learned in the Year since My Ordination
I have moved to Beijing and have started assisting at the (expatriate) Congregation of the Good Shepherd there. It has been a year since I was ordained a deacon, and I am preparing for being priested on Sept. 19 (back in Hong Kong). Part of the preparation is reflection over the last year. As part of that exercise, the Diocese asked me to assemble a short article for the Chinese Language Diocesan newsletter, the Echo on things I have learned since ordination. I wrote the following in response:
1. Take the opportunities to serve that present themselves. Stretch yourself.
Given my status as a transitional deacon at St. John’s Cathedral, the Dean and several of the more experienced chaplains and members of the cathedral staff mentored me. Clergy members in other parishes, dioceses, and provinces did as well. On several occasions, they asked me to do things I would not have done on my own because I thought I knew myself and believed I was not suited for them. Among these were an anointing and prayer ministry for the ill and afflicted, as well as some alternative youth-oriented liturgies. By pushing beyond my comfort zone, I learned new areas of service and new things about myself. I grew quite a bit and realized I had skills and interests (and gifts) I was unaware of.
Given my status as a transitional deacon at St. John’s Cathedral, the Dean and several of the more experienced chaplains and members of the cathedral staff mentored me. Clergy members in other parishes, dioceses, and provinces did as well. On several occasions, they asked me to do things I would not have done on my own because I thought I knew myself and believed I was not suited for them. Among these were an anointing and prayer ministry for the ill and afflicted, as well as some alternative youth-oriented liturgies. By pushing beyond my comfort zone, I learned new areas of service and new things about myself. I grew quite a bit and realized I had skills and interests (and gifts) I was unaware of.
2. Listen, listen, listen. Talk only when necessary. Closely related to this is St. Francis’ dictum: Preach the Gospel at all times and in all places, only occasionally opening your mouth to do so.I have seen many scenes where people misunderstand people and situations around them because they were too quick to comment, compare, make suggestions, or criticize. Often the misunderstanding was mine. The more experienced and effective of my mentors always listened more than they talked.
3. Don’t assume anything about anyone. When it comes to individual human beings and individual families, there is no such thing as “normal.”
A lesson underscored by many surprises in the course of the year: you never know what people are going home to, and what hopes and fears they harbor in their hearts. Similarly, with a community as diverse as the people who attend St. John’s as their parish church, don’t make assumptions based on looks or demographics.
As people shared various things about themselves with me in my capacity as a chaplain, I realized that many of us are burdened by the shame and fear of feeling that we are different from others or worse than them, or dread falling short of their expectations for us. But surprisingly, these feelings are shared by many of the same people who provoke those fears in others. Christians have the great relief of casting such burdens on the One who can carry them, and can thus be liberated from the tyranny of the ‘normal.’ We are all unique, but we all share many of the same failings and fears. So we tend to isolate ourselves and cut ourselves off from others (this is true especially in men, I find). I have seen in case after case that the cure for isolation is taking to heart the assurance that we don’t have to be alone any more. Sharing our burdens--as embarrassing and unseemly as it might seem, is a far easier path than suffering on in isolation.
"Christ in the House of Mary and Martha," Jan Vermeer, c. 1654-1655; National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
4. Try to get the liturgy as right as possible by prior planning and reflection. But don’t worry about it once the introit bell sounds. Then it is time to worship, not worry.
The importance of proper attention to liturgical details before a service as a way of reducing stress and distractions during the worship itself has been underscored for me again and again. I think maybe this one of the things the story of Mary and Martha is about (Luke 10:38-42).
The importance of proper attention to liturgical details before a service as a way of reducing stress and distractions during the worship itself has been underscored for me again and again. I think maybe this one of the things the story of Mary and Martha is about (Luke 10:38-42).
"The Sleeping Congregation" (1728; William Hogarth;Minneapolis Institute of Arts) 5. The ears can only hear and the heart can only absorb what the bottom can endure.
Homilies should be short and to the point. A sermon’s effectiveness decreases with each minute over 12. The ideal is about 8-10. You usually can make only one point, or at best two. Anything more will be lost or confusing. Coming from an academic background, this has been a hard one for me to learn. But thanks to my wife’s repeated kind litany of “too long” and the gentle prodding of the other chaplains (who had to endure my early longer sermons), I think I have finally learned to keep it short. One of the great blessings of not having air conditioning at St. John’s is that when you are wearing an alb with stole covered with a large embroidered thick brocade Dalmatic or Tunicle (or, for the priests, a Chasuble), you have a great built-in incentive to not be overly-long in either the Ministry of the Word or the Ministry of the Table. It is even more so in the case of Morning or Evening Prayer—the woolen cassock (even tropical weight!) and long cotton surplice are even hotter than the linen Alb and silk Dalmatic.
Homilies should be short and to the point. A sermon’s effectiveness decreases with each minute over 12. The ideal is about 8-10. You usually can make only one point, or at best two. Anything more will be lost or confusing. Coming from an academic background, this has been a hard one for me to learn. But thanks to my wife’s repeated kind litany of “too long” and the gentle prodding of the other chaplains (who had to endure my early longer sermons), I think I have finally learned to keep it short. One of the great blessings of not having air conditioning at St. John’s is that when you are wearing an alb with stole covered with a large embroidered thick brocade Dalmatic or Tunicle (or, for the priests, a Chasuble), you have a great built-in incentive to not be overly-long in either the Ministry of the Word or the Ministry of the Table. It is even more so in the case of Morning or Evening Prayer—the woolen cassock (even tropical weight!) and long cotton surplice are even hotter than the linen Alb and silk Dalmatic.
6. Dress the part.Wearing clericals (including collar) is a sign that God’s Kingdom is open for business; wear them if appropriate whenever doing Church work. But overdoing it is a bit ridiculous. Good-hearted jokes in the vestry teasing the higher-than-the-himalayas Anglo-catholics on their sartorial tastes showed for me that were was a real "laugh test" here: a chaplain returning from a pilgrimage to Rome at one point brought a gift to one of our staff people as a gag-- a beautiful new biretta, complete with pom-pom.
7. The “authority thing” can work for or against your ministry. The trick in effective outreach is recognizing early which dynamic is at work.
Early on, I was wearing a clergy shirt on the way to a Thursday staff meeting. On the street, several complete strangers asked me for directions. (People never ask me for directions when I’m in a business suit.) I realized people felt comfortable asking a minister for directions. Several weeks later on a bus, I had the opposite experience—the clericals I was wearing elicited sullen stares from a couple who obviously had some issue with the Church.
A clerical collar can make a person on the street or the MTR (subway) give you the cold shoulder, a bitter scowl, or treat you as a tool of oppression. But a collar can also help strangers open up, pour out their hearts to you, or smile and ask for help.
8. Life is a sacrament, and a priest’s life one that embodies grace in the Church.
A sacrament is a visible sign of an inward grace and power from God. Though there are only two sacraments instituted by the Lord in the Gospels (Baptism and Eucharist), the larger Church tradition of seven sacraments is rooted in the earliest Church practice. Orders is one of these, as is matrimony. All the baptized are “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:19) and a “kingdom, priests to God” (Revelation 1:6). Their lives, rightly lived, are formed and structured by these gifts from God, and themselves become sacramental. I have seen and felt the expectation of others for priests to set the example. The lives of those specifically trained and set apart for the ministry of the word and table must be a beacon for grace, a sacrament showing God is always near.
9. The last should be first, and the first last.
Try to serve the marginalized and forgotten first. One of my mentors after hearing one of my early homilies casually remarked, “You know, some clergy here use the word ‘we' carelessly. They mean only people who are like them, who are of a similar social, economic, and educational background. When you say ‘we’ in talking about the congregation, look at the congregation and speak for everyone there. You have to include the non-native speakers of English, the domestic helpers, the prominent and the anonymous, the Council members and regular congregants as well as people who are visiting for the first time. Remember ‘we’ means everyone present.” This was his gentle way of chiding me for having used ‘we’ in too restricted a fashion. I have since tried hard to include everyone, especially those who might be “invisible” elsewhere in this very rank- and prestige-conscious city.
One of my mentors takes the phrase "last first, first last" literally when celebrating mass-- he serves the servers and as celebrant lets himself be served the bread and the wine only after the congregation has communed. This same priest also liturgically commissions and sends out lay teams with the eucharist for shut-ins at the end of each service, just before the blessing and the dismissal.
10. An open heart and mind trump a closed heart and mind, regardless of what one “believes” or “disbelieves.”
One of the priest’s major jobs is helping people get rid of “bad religion” in their lives and replace it with “good religion.” Sometimes those who doubt or openly disbelieve, or those who sin grievously, are closer to God than those who profess religion openly because they at least feel a need for change and for power beyond themselves. What matters is our openness, how willing we are to learn and change, and how we treat others. What is on our lips and what group we affiliate with—religious, political, economic, or otherwise—are not of first importance. In Jesus’ day, people tried to identify people who were on the right track by asking whether they kept God's rules--the Law of Moses. In our day, we tend to ask whether they keep moral laws and whether they "believe in God" or profess true religion. But Jesus said again and again that “religious people” might not be as close to God as “sinners” and “law-breakers” if their hearts were not in the right place. Whether you think you're a believer, an agnostic, or a down-right atheist matters less in the long run than whether you recognize your own limitations, are open to learning and changing your opinions, questioning your own motives and actions, and taking suggestions from others.
10. An open heart and mind trump a closed heart and mind, regardless of what one “believes” or “disbelieves.”
One of the priest’s major jobs is helping people get rid of “bad religion” in their lives and replace it with “good religion.” Sometimes those who doubt or openly disbelieve, or those who sin grievously, are closer to God than those who profess religion openly because they at least feel a need for change and for power beyond themselves. What matters is our openness, how willing we are to learn and change, and how we treat others. What is on our lips and what group we affiliate with—religious, political, economic, or otherwise—are not of first importance. In Jesus’ day, people tried to identify people who were on the right track by asking whether they kept God's rules--the Law of Moses. In our day, we tend to ask whether they keep moral laws and whether they "believe in God" or profess true religion. But Jesus said again and again that “religious people” might not be as close to God as “sinners” and “law-breakers” if their hearts were not in the right place. Whether you think you're a believer, an agnostic, or a down-right atheist matters less in the long run than whether you recognize your own limitations, are open to learning and changing your opinions, questioning your own motives and actions, and taking suggestions from others.
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