Last weekend, I had the honor of preaching at the ordination of Garrett Lane to the Sacred Order of Priests. Garrett is a Princeton Seminary graduate who is now serving at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Waco, TX. (Ironically enough, one of Meg’s former students is the Organ Scholar at St. Alban’s, so the Trinity ties abound!) Ordinations, like weddings, are events where overwhelming joy comes along with nervous anticipation. Is everything going to go right? Is everyone going to get here OK? What on earth am I signing myself up for?
After the rehearsal, I told Garrett the same thing that I tell all my students: All you have to do at this point is show up and say yes.
That message was especially appropriate this weekend, as Saturday was the commemoration of St. Fabian in the church calendar. In 236 AD, Fabian was hanging out in the crowd and watching during the election of a new Pope. The historian Eusebius describes the scene this way in his Ecclesiastical History: “when the brethren were all assembled for the purpose of appointing him who should succeed to the episcopate, and very many notable and distinguished persons were in the thoughts of many, Fabian, who was there, came into nobody’s mind. But all of a sudden… a dove flew down from above and settled on his head… whereupon the whole people, as if moved by one divine inspiration, with all eagerness and with one soul cried out “worthy,” and without more ado took him and placed him on the episcopal throne.”
To summarize, a pigeon landed on a random guy’s head, so they made him Pope. Fabian showed up, and when the call came he said “yes” to the whole thing – and to God.
Even though Fabian wasn’t even a priest when he was elected Pope, he turned out to be an able administrator, dividing the churches in Rome into districts supervised by deacons. He sent seven bishops out as apostle to the Gauls. He worked against the emergence of new heresies. And most importantly, he was known for his holiness of life – a life that ended in prison during the persecutions of the emperor Decius.
We might not think we’re qualified to serve God, and we may not think we “have what it takes” to do a particular ministry, whether in the church or outside of it. But God chooses. God calls. And God is the one who makes all of our work – as clergy and as lay people - possible.
Where is God calling you to show up today? Are you ready to say yes?
Yours in Christ,
Kara
P.S. See below for a photo gallery from my trip