for Revd Elizabeth Langton

delivered by Revd Dr Bill Loader at Armadale Uniting Church 28 April 2000

Liz

We are ordaining you as a Minister of the Word.

You join a succession of men and women across the centuries who have offered themselves to the Church for equipping for this task and to whom the Church has said: yes, we commission you to the discipline of this order and pray God’s blessing on your ministry. This is not a graduation, the celebration of levels of achievement, the attainment of a higher level of ministry. It is a reordering of your life, a commitment to serve people through carrying particular responsibilities within the life of the church.

You are to be a bearer of the Church’s tradition, an interpreter of its heritage, an expositor through whose exposition God may speak to the hearts and lives of people today. You will repeat before the people the actions of Jesus in breaking bread, giving thanks and blessing the cup. You will provide leadership that will make others strong, help the weak, and by word and action point to the vision of justice and reconciliation which that meal foreshadows.

The train is about to leave the station on a new line. It has been here before. It has huffed and puffed up those hills and twisted and turned through those valleys before. The contours will not change. Steep inclines must be taken slowly, changes of direction taken with great care. The tracks were laid long ago, but nothing is automatic. Sometimes they become very complex as you meet others on the track, sometimes travelling the same direction, sometimes opposite, sometimes crossing yours. At the points you can easily skip the tracks or find yourself jolted and jolting too harshly. People make mistakes. Take it easy in such yards. Look for the signals. Stop, if need be and wait. Your challenge is not to keep time but to keep those entrusted to you. That may sometimes include detours and delays.

Sometimes the going will be easy. You will be able to look out at the hills, the trees, the wonders of nature around you. The instrument panel will not change for your obsession with it. Rather, let it be, when the tracks run smooth. Whistle and hoot and enjoy the ride! Drivers who do not themselves relax and enjoy the ride spoil its rhythm. The joy of the pattern of living God’s way is to sing with the music and dance to its beat. This is a way of rest and renewal without which the tracks become a railroading of the spirit. You are not free to do as you like. You are free to ride, free to make the journey and to make it possible for others. You are free to serve.

Liz

We are not ordaining you to ministry; that happened at your baptism;
We are not ordaining you to be a caring person; you are already called to that;
We are not ordaining you to serve the Church in committees, planning activities, and organisation; that is already implied in your membership;
We are not ordaining you to become involved in issues of justice and peace, in the struggle, personal, social, political, against all forms of oppression and idolatry; for that is laid upon every Christian.

We are ordaining you to something smaller and less spectacular:

to read and interpret those sacred stories of our community so that they speak the Word to people today;

to remember and practice those rituals and rites of meaning which in their poetry address people at the level where change operates;

to foster in community through Word and Sacrament and pastoral care that encounter with truth which will set people free to minister as the body of Christ.

We are ordaining you to be a Minister of the Word. Amen.

Home