How I Learned to Be a Priest

             I went to a wonderful seminary.  At Virginia Seminary, I was taught by excellent professors who understood the Old and New Testaments, who spoke Hebrew and Greek as well as English and who taught me the subtleties of theology.  I listened sometimes with awe to their lectures and at the end of it, understood a great deal about our religion.  In Church history, I heard about the conflicts that troubled us from the beginning and the way that we handled our work in the world.  I came to understand how difficult it was to talk about the Lord Jesus to a world that was always in the middle of pain and suffering, yet that was the audience to whom we were sent.  It troubles me that the church’s riches have accumulated over the centuries and the mission to those who are in trouble has seemed to diminish.  God has been with us in all of this and continues to stretch all of us to be servants to those who are impoverished and to those who are enamored of their wealth.  Both of these groups have a great need of God’s presence in their lives.  The poor need to know God’s love simply for sustenance and the rich because they are worshipping the wrong God.

            I finished seminary, was ordained to the priesthood and began my ministry.  It didn’t take me long to discover that while seminary had taught me theology, biblical studies, church history, and lots of other things, they neglected to teach me how to be a priest.  That was what I was taught by my parishes. The people of God taught me more than I ever learned in seminary.  God was with me through all of this.  If I thought that I was perfected in seminary, it soon became obvious to me that I wasn’t.  I needed to learn what my people stood ready to teach me.  And they did.  Through their pain and their conflicts, I came to understand the difficulties that life brings to every one of us.  I visited people in hospitals, saw families in crisis, began a long ministry in Western Penitentiary, did counseling with people who were sometimes overwhelmed by life.  And came to know God’s presence in all of this, working through me to help people make sense of what was going on around them, even when what was going on was extremely difficult.     

                I am touched by Jeremiah’s prophecy when God says:  Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you. God has a mission for Jeremiah, even before he was born.  God had a reason for creating him.  There was a message that God wanted to be sent.  Jeremiah was to be a “prophet to the nations”.  I feel a kinship with Jeremiah.  I know that God has been a part of my life since my birth.  God always had a plan for me, even when I rejected any part of it.  I was constantly led and nourished, particularly when I had no comprehension of what it was that I was supposed to do.  God brought me back to it over and over again.  God has a plan for all of us.  God’s presence has been with us from our beginning and we need always to remember that.  When we lose our way, we need to rely on God to get us back on track.

            Jesus, in Luke’s Gospel is described as teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath when a crippled woman comes before him.  Jesus has compassion for her, lays on his hands and he heals her.  She stands up straight and began to praise God.  But the leader of the synagogue is outraged by this.  “You have six days to do this kind of work,” he tells Jesus, “but you can’t do this on the Sabbath day.”  Jesus responds to the synagogue leader by calling him a hypocrite and talking about how people tend to their animals on the Sabbath when that is needed.  “Why can’t I also heal on the Sabbath?” he asks.  Rules!  We impose rules to keep us all straight.  The only problem with this is that the rules sometimes contradict our mission. 

            We need always to be straight about what it is that we are trying to do.  Our mission is to bring the Word of God to people who need it very much.  Who these people are has already been defined for us: to take care of the poor and the outcast and those without hope.  That is about as clear as God can make it.  It is what Jesus did, and was doing in this Gospel passage.  It is why we are here, and why God led me through seminary, through the learning in my parishes and why I am here today.  May God continue to bless us as we get on with this work.