A sermon preached by the Rev. Meredyth Ward on June 2, 2012

at Christ Church Cathedral, Springfield, MA

on the occasion of the election of our Ninth Bishop

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts, be always acceptable to you, O Lord our Rock and our salvation.

My name is Meredyth Ward.  I am President of the Standing Committee here in the Diocese, and I serve at Church of the Epiphany in Wilbraham.  The bishop and I are sharing the sermon this morning. 

A little more than a week ago we were blessed to have the candidates for bishop with us in the Diocese.  One of the places we brought the candidates was the Museum of Russian Icons in Clinton.  Thursday afternoon, near the end of a long week, we had the opportunity to stop and pray and surround ourselves with beauty.  We were all a bit tired and worn, and we were deeply grateful for the opportunity for quiet rest and refreshment.

One of my favorite icons at the museum pictures an old monk at prayer.  He’s holding a sheaf of papers, or maybe a scroll, but that’s not what has his attention.  He’s looking at the upper corner of the icon, where there is a tiny image of the nativity.  There’s Mary and Joseph and the baby, a being covered in so much gold that it could only be an angel, and, in the back, in the midst of a group of figures there is a miniature image of the monk himself.  He was so immersed in praying the text, so transformed by the experience of meditation, that he himself was fully present at the Incarnation, fully participating in the mystery of the Word made flesh.

One of the things about icons is that while they are pictures, when we use them in prayer we’re not supposed to focus on the image itself.  They are often beautiful.  Some of them are even encrusted with silver filigree and jewels.  But rather than looking AT the icons, we are supposed to look THROUGH them, in order to see God.  They are spiritual windows—windows into mystery.  The surface is lovely, but we are asked, no, CALLED, to look through them into the deep mystery of God.

Over the past few weeks we have been engaged in a process of coming to know the candidates for bishop.  We have read their profiles, as they have read ours.  We have checked out websites and read blog entries and sermons and resumes.  They have been looking at ours as well. But our task and theirs has been to see beyond the words and images, and like the monk at prayer in my favorite icon, come into the presence of the Word made flesh, and see the presence of God and God’s work among us.

It is not easy to hear God’s voice clearly.  In our first lesson today, Samuel knew that SOMEONE was calling him, but he wasn’t quite sure about who or how or why.  He needed the help of Eli, his mentor and friend, in order to be certain that it was God’s voice that he heard.

All of our candidates for bishop have been called by God.  Some, like Samuel, heard God’s voice as a child.  Others became attuned to God’s voice later in life.  But no matter when they heard the voice of God, there is no doubt that they are beloved of God and are called to God’s service.  They have answered the call before.  Like all of us they were marked as Christ’s own forever in Baptism.  They tested their call again as they were ordained deacon and then priest.  At each step along the way there were others, friends and family and mentors and community members, who helped them hear and understand their call.  “This is what I hear God saying to me—does this match what you see and hear?”

Whatever the outcome today, it is likely that one or more of these fine priests will be ordained a bishop someday.  They are gifted, prayerful and dynamic.  They have prayed and studied and thought and hoped.  They’ve even convinced their spouses that this bishop thing might at least be an OK idea.  The question before us, though, is not should they be bishops, but which one is called to be OUR bishop, HERE in Western Massachusetts, at THIS time in our history.

Our task today is to prayerfully cooperate with the Holy Spirit.  We are called to view these candidates the way we view icons.  Our task is to open our eyes to see THROUGH these priests to God’s presence within them.  We are asked to focus not the on the surface of the words they have written and spoken, nor on their style of speech or appearance, but to see THROUGH these to notice what God would have us know of them.

One of these candidates is to be our shepherd.  One will be chosen not only to plead with the Lord of the Harvest on our behalf, but to help us learn to recognize the harvest which is all around us.  We need fresh eyes.  We need fresh ears.  We need a fresh heart.

We need these, but not because we have been without a shepherd.  We all know that that is not true.  We have been blessed with a shepherd who knows us and has had compassion on us.  One who knows our names and the names of our children and grandchildren.  One who loves us and has rejoiced at our joys and wept at our sorrows.  One who has held us in prayer and will continue to do so, long after he retires.

So we know what it is like to have a good shepherd.  What we need to be careful about is confusing the PERSON of the shepherd with the work of God WITHIN the shepherd.  Looking at the icon itself, rather than looking through it to see the work of God in our midst.

In the next few hours we are embarking on a work of mystery.  We ask the Holy Spirit to be with us, to change our hearts, to challenge our assumptions, to lift our hopes and encourage us to embrace new possibilities.  There are new pastures to be tended, new harvests to explore, new voices to hear and new visions to capture.  All for the love of God.  All for the work of the Kingdom.  All as a glimpse of the Incarnation.  All as a vision of the love and work of God among us that will drop us to our knees in prayer and send us out in love and service.