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+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.

It is indeed a great honor and privilege for me to have been invited as today’s preacher for this the 119th Commencement of the Reformed Episcopal Seminary.

I have never preached at a Commencement, but have been on the receiving end of sermons and addresses when I received the M. Div., the S.T.M., and the D.Min. from three different institutions. I remember best the sermon when I received the M.Div. because it was given by the late Father Alexander Schmemann, Eastern Orthodox priest and theologian. I remember bits and pieces of what he said to us as graduates, but more so I remember how he throughout his sermon ran his fingers across the crucifix he wore around his neck. It was as if he was touching the artistic representation of Jesus on the Cross to have that same Jesus shape his soul. It was as if his hands on the cross was his echo of the words of St. Paul, “But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world”(Galatians 6:14).

At Good Shepherd, Rosemont, when one stands in the pulpit, there is a crucifix on the stone pillar behind the preacher visible to the congregation, and there is a crucifix on the stone pillar facing the pulpit which only the preacher can see. But symbols are strong reminders that the preacher is to preach Christ crucified as the central message from the pulpit.

My task today is to say something helpful to those who graduate and those who are here in thanksgiving on this occasion. I am not going to preach on the Cross, but I pray that what Jesus did on the Cross colors all I say and all that we do today, tomorrow, and the days after tomorrow.

The second lesson for this afternoon’s Evensong from the Epistle of St. James instructs us on the primacy of the Word of God. It goes without saying that for those trained and equipped for the ordained ministry, the scriptures are the very foundation for ministry in the sense of what they are to do in us, for us, and for the benefit of others.

Several years ago when I was staying in a hotel for a church conference, I realized that I had not packed my Bible. I had my Prayer Book and some other devotional materials, but no Bible. Thanks be to God for the Gideons! Before I found the lessons for that day’s Evening Office, I stumbled upon what was written at the very beginning of the Gideon Bible. Possibly some of you are familiar with this. Here is what I read:

“The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass, the soldier’s sword, and the Christian’s charter. Here Paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and gates of hell disclosed.”

Quite a statement isn’t it. If you as men take hold of the scriptures knowing that this is what they are and do, and if you let them increasingly define your character and mark your soul, and if you listen deeply to the words you read to yourselves or to others, and if you increasingly are a doer of the word, then you will be on the road to fulfilling your ministry to the glory of God and for the benefit of others.

It was St. Francis of Assisi who said, “You may be the only Gospel your neighbor ever reads,” and “Preach the Gospel. Use words if you must” – meaning that the Gospel and the whole counsel of God as revealed in the scriptures are to be self-evident in the way we think and act, and for others to learn what we think and observe how we act.

God spoke to the depths of my heart over 40 years ago in His call to me to be a priest, but what solidified that call from God was the living Christ I witnessed in different people who fascinated me, who possessed something different, strong, and compelling within them, and who exuded something that I wanted for myself. This is what Christ Jesus calls you also to manifest. People are to see and sense in you, that in the words of St. Paul, “it is no longer I live, but Christ who lives in me.”

And such a spiritual character is formed and shaped by one’s love of the scriptures daily, and a dependence upon them for ministerial identity and centering. We are to stand under the judgment of scriptural truth and authority.

When one reads the works of the great saints of the Church in every age, one sees a deep knowledge and command of scripture, and a submission to it. Obviously, beyond scripture is the sacramental life (chiefly found in the Eucharist where we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus), and in a life open to the devotional treasures and practices of Christians throughout the ages. But again, it is one’s daily rendezvous with the Word of God written that gives those called to serve Him as pastors and teachers the ingredients to speak with authority to a world hungry for Truth.

A priest cannot survive and prosper in the ministry to which He has been called and trained without the discipline of the daily reading and praying of morning and evening prayer. This is a treasure of the Anglican tradition which the 1662 Book of Common Prayer states that all of the Church’s clergy are to do. No excuses, 365 days a year, as naturally as eating, drinking, and bathing.

The Church in so many places has gone off the rails because those entrusted with leadership have failed to be under the authority of the scriptures and under the authority of how the scriptures have been understood by the larger Church. We live in a time when increasingly people declare what God is saying when He is not saying that at all.

The late Dr. J.V.Langmead Casserley, my beloved professor of philosophical theology in seminary, wrote the following in his book Christian Community:

“The greatest danger that confronts the Church, and the Church’s commissioned preachers as we proclaim the gospel, is the possibility that in practice we shall not present the gospel in its integrity to the world, but confuse it with our prejudices, ideologies, passions and fears, forging God’s signature so to speak at the foot of the scroll of merely human ideas.” He wrote that in 1960. The danger still exists.

I am convinced that churches will never be free from their own interpretation, as genuinely sincere as it may be, without a higher authority being the arbiter of what is acceptable, responsible, and consistent with the larger Church – East and West – well beyond particular denominations and jurisdictions. I pray daily for Christians who profess that the Bible is the Word of God to come together more and more to put themselves to the test as to whether their position and interpretation can and should stand.

Those whom God is calling to leadership in the Church in these present times need to be ready to move forward from the greater unity of the Church of Christ, rather than to be in any way curators of ecclesiastical museums of churches, or who build moats around themselves, or create theological ghettos to keep the status quo. Christians are to grow in unity as they treasure what should be treasured and discard what should be discarded in a time and in a world where there is strength in numbers and common commitment to what is Catholic, Apostolic, Biblical, and Evangelical.

As you move forward from this occasion with diplomas in hand and hoods to be worn to places that God has prepared for you to walk in, walk forward armed as soldiers of Christ with the sword of the spirit which is the Word of God. May it infuse your hearts more and more by your focused attention to it. May your life shine forth with the spell that it has cast on you. May your ministries be rooted in the Cross of Christ, as men who have lost your lives in and to Christ in order to find them and to be catalysts for others to find Him who is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. God bless you.

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.