Bishop Lawrence's sermon at Clergy Reaffirmation of Vows: "Do the work of an evangelist"

This past Sunday, Bishop Mark Lawrence was at our parish in Grahamville to preside over the service celebrating my official institution as vicar. Unfortunately, we did not get an audio copy of his sermon from Matthew 20:1-16. However, two days later, I was at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke and St. Paul in Charleston, along with all the clergy of the Diocese of South Carolina, for the service of Reaffirmation of Ordination Vows. Here, Bishop Lawrence preached a sermon from 2 Timothy 4:1-4 (also Isaiah 55:1-13 and John 4:5-35) in which he charged us all, as Paul charged Timothy, to "do the work of an evangelist."

The audio of the sermon has been posted on the Cathedral website.

“Do the work of an Evangelist!” charged Bishop Mark Lawrence in his sermon to the 75 clergy of the Diocese of South Carolina who attended the annual Renewal of Ordination Vows service, held April 1 at the Cathedral of St. Luke and St. Paul in Charleston.

“The clock is ticking,” said the Bishop. “There are seven billion people in the world – three times as many as when I was born – Seven billion trying to eke out a living and experience a meaningful life. Can you digest a fact like that and not hear the clock ticking?”

Teaching from the Gospel passage John 4:5-35, known as “the woman at the well,” the Bishop urged the clergy to follow Jesus’ example and:

Cross Boundaries
Make Contact
Cultivate Curiosity
Touch the Deepest Need or Place of Pain
Bring People to a Place of Personal Commitment
Unleash New Converts – the Best Evangelists

“That’s our job!” said Lawrence. “We may not have the gift of evangelism but we have to lead the church to be God’s agent for evangelism. Everything else we do is like rearranging the furniture when the house is on fire—everything else pales.”

“Give us a passion and desire to reach the lost,” prayed the Bishop at the close of the service. “Set a fire within us!”

Leithart: Bring back ordination in chains

Peter J. Leithart (Against Christianity, pp. 117-118) longs for the days when pastoral candidates were not so enthusiastic about jumping into the fray.

Historically, a pastoral candidate's desires often had little to do with the Church's call to serve in pastoral office. Far from seeking out positions of leadership, the greatest of the church fathers resisted with all their strength. Augustine had to be dragged into the cathedral for his ordination to the bishopric of Hippo. When he was a deacon, John Chrysostom made a pact with a friend that they would enter the priesthood together, but when the friend went forward John was nowhere to be found. Martin of Tours was carried from his cell and conducted to his ordination under guard. Gregory the Great, so we are told by his earliest biographer, fled from Rome to hide in the woods when rumors began to circulate that he was being considered for bishop. A humble anchorite saw in a vision where Gregory was hiding, and the Romans trooped out to bring him back for ordination. Calvin was persuaded to remain in Geneva only because Farel's warnings made leaving even more terrifying than staying. So common was such resistance to ordination that as late as the nineteenth century the patriarchs-elect of Alexandria were led to their ordination wearing shackles. 

In the modern church, calling has been reduced to little more that a strong desire to hold a position of ecclesiastical leadership. The terror of responsibility for the Church described by many of the leading pastoral writers of the earlier centuries is seldom expressed during ordination exams. Candidates with even slight reservations about entering the ministry are treated with more than a little suspicion. 

This dramatic shift in the Church's understanding of calling is part and parcel of what David F. Wells had identified as the professionalization of the clergy, the reduction of ministry to technical and managerial competence. Pastoral ministry, Wells charges, has been detached from its theological moorings, and has become another career option for the upwardly mobile "helping professional." One might well recoil from a duty imposed by divine vocation; but one aggressively markets oneself for a career. It is no accident that so many pastors disdain the clerical collar, which is, after all, the collar of the slave. 

The Church will find herself in a healthier, if more intense and serious, condition when pastoral candidates begin again to appear for their ordination exams wearing chains.