A Celebration of New Ministry: The Rev. Martha S. Sipe

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the Word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

I am tempted to call on my boss here, Bishop Fisher, because he loves these two verses almost as much as he loves the story of the feeding of the five thousand and Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising. In fact, to be more precise, what I have heard him say is that they may well be the most important verses in the Bible.

I love them, too, and I think for the same reason. Let me see if I can channel Doug for just a moment. These words situate the birth of John the Baptist, preceding even more familiar words we will hear about in less than three weeks about the birth of his cousin: “in those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered…this was the first registration, when Quirinius was governor of Syria…” These words insist that what we believe, what we claim about the Incarnation is not a fairy tale. It’s not “once upon a time” stuff.

Ministry is not a fairy tale either. Ministry is not “once upon a time.” Context matters. Always. Martha you know this – you’ve been at it a while. And Christ the King/Epiphany, you know it too. You’ve been at it a while as well, first separately and then together and now through COVID years which I think count like dog years. Many of us first hear and follow a call to ordained or lay ministry with wide-open eyes. But the world is too dangerous right now for anything but truth and too small for anything but love, so we need to be real. It requires our all and there are not many easy days.  

And so we gather at then end of the first year of the Biden Presidency, when Charlie Baker was governor of Massachusetts, and Jim Hazelwood was bishop of the New England Synod of the ELCA and Doug Fisher was bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Mass, still in the midst of a global pandemic that has taken lives and sapped our energy. We gather here during the first year of the ministry of The Rev. Martha Sipe at Christ the King – Epiphany when the Word of God came to God’s people in Wilbraham. 

Now what? What is the narrative that will be written by you, together? What is the "good news" that comes next?

For decades we mainline Protestant types have been talking about the end of Christendom. But it seems to me that a global pandemic has finally made that real. Really real. There is no going back: not to the 1950s nor to the 1980s nor even to Advent 2019. We are called to be the Church in this precarious moment as we light that second candle and as we wait in hope. Like John the Baptist it is now our time to prepare the way for what lies ahead.

Martha didn’t exactly get to pick this day. It’s a challenge to coordinate two bishops’ calendars, so you get what you get. But I admire her decision to lean into it and embrace it. It’s Advent which is not Lent. It has a different vibe. It’s short and quiet and intense. We try to train our eyes to see better in the dark as we light those candles, one by one, looking for signs of hope and peace and joy and love in this congregation (and others like it) and in the neighborhood and in our homes.

Before 2020, I resisted Zoom meetings. Honestly, I loathed them. I wanted to be in the room where things were happening and I would prefer to drive some distance than sit at my computer. I have had to adapt just as the leaders here who worked on a profile and then on calling Martha here had to adapt. We have had to figure it out together and before I go further let me just say that as close as we Lutherans and Episcopalians are to each other our call processes are not the same. I’m so grateful for my colleague Steven Wilco and for the ways we remained flexible with each other from beginning to end. And thanks to the leaders here for bearing with us with patience and kindness and gentleness. We had to figure out a lot of it as it unfolded. You did well, good and faithful servants.

I think that it can be tempting to see an occasion like this as an ending. All that hard work after Karen’s death and through the bridge ministry of Barbara. Thanks be to God for both of their ministries and for the many signs of hope and joy and peace and love through it all, even in difficult times. But in truth, we gather today to begin again, with God’s help. It seems to me that today is exactly the right time for this particular celebration of new ministry: this Second Sunday of Advent in the year of our Lord 2021. We dare to see (or at least to look for) new beginnings in the signs of endings all around us. To explore new possibilities, with God’s help.

I don’t know the politics here about singing Christmas hymns in Advent. I have never felt called to be the Chief of the Liturgical Police Department. But what I love about Advent is that those hymns are to me just about the most beautiful ones in the church’s repertoire. Silent Night on Christmas Eve is great; I’ll give you that. But for my money that deep yearning of Advent literally does prepare us for the dear savior’s birth and without them we lose our way.

• Creator of the stars of night, your people’s everlasting light…
• Sleepers, awake!
• Come, thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free…
• There’s a voice in the wilderness crying, a call from the ways untrod...
• Comfort, comfort ye my people, speak ye peace, thus saith our Lord.
• Prepare the way, O Zion, your Christ is drawing near!
• The king shall come when morning dawns... 
• Come, O Come, Emmanuel...

So here is the deal, my siblings in Christ: I don’t care if you are wearing blue or purple or even rose. Or if you didn’t get the memo and have on a white or red stole or even if you are a proper Episcopalian wearing cassock, surplice and tippet – it’s all good. We are in this together in this time, for better or worse, to wait. Not anxiously but expectantly. Not in fear, but in hope. Come, Lord Jesus.

There is an Advent prayer offered to the Church by Walter Brueggemann. It’s called “The Grace and the Impatience to Wait.” I commend the whole prayer to you but it’s that use of the word “impatience” that I want us to consider for just a moment this afternoon. I would likely write an Advent prayer asking for the grace and the patience to wait. That’s because I’m no Walter Brueggemann! And also because I am not very patient, so I’m always asking God for any help I can get on that.

But patience is a luxury of privilege, I know, when it comes to seeking justice in the world. The grace and the impatience to wait suggests something else, I think. It suggests a sense of urgency, yet without the freneticism and anxiety that can take us off the rails. It suggests something like the ministry of John the Baptist and for that matter of Jesus of Nazareth – the urgency of Mark’s Gospel, maybe – where everything is happening immediately. Episcopalians (and I am guessing Lutherans too) don’t always embrace impatient waiting which it seems to me is a kind of active waiting. It means a willingness to do the work God has given us to do, now, rather than kick the can down the road for someone else to deal with. And so we tend to have yet another meeting about how we might someday have another meeting to consider the possibility of perhaps having one more meeting and then appoint a committee to work on a plan. Against that grain, Walter prays for us all:

Look upon your church and its pastors
in this season of hope
which runs so quickly to fatigue
and in this season of yearning
which becomes so easily quarrelsome.
Give us the grace and the impatience
to wait for your coming to the bottom of our toes,
to the edges of our finger tips.

Martha, I’m a Pennsylvania boy, born and bred. But for 35 years I’ve been a New Englander and for the past 25 of those I’ve lived in Central Massachusetts. Welcome. We are all so very glad that you and Tricia are here. We are grateful that you said yes. It’s a good place to live and to serve.

The work ahead is in some ways very new and exceedingly difficult. We are all beginners again, I think, even those of us who rely on decades of pastoral experience. Because context is everything and because you are now called to this particular work in this particular place as we prepare for the second year of the Biden Presidency when Hazelwood is still bishop of the New England Synod and Fisher is still bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Mass. (And Lord have mercy upon you having to deal with not one, but two bishops!)

But in other ways, I think, the work to which we who are called is also still familiar, as familiar as it was on the last night of Jesus’ life when he took a towel and poured water in a basin and commanded us to love one another. Love these people, Martha. They are a mixed bag as you have no doubt already discovered. Some of them are hard to like. Even so, love them all. Love them because Jesus told you that you have to. Love them because it’s the only way to prepare for a heavenly banquet where all are welcome. Love them not because they deserve it, but because they need to be reminded of their Baptismal Promises and because God loved them first. Love them enough to also set clear boundaries.  

Christ the King/Epiphany. Love Martha and love Tricia, too. Not because they are perfect. But because this work has always been so very hard and is so much harder these days. Love them because some among you will make it even harder than it needs to be. And Martha especially will carry that in her body, all that emotional work of leading a congregation: the anger, the fear, the grief, the disappointment, the yearning and the possibilities. All of it. Love her because what keeps clergy going is not the paycheck, but knowing that somebody notices. When you decide that you must write a note to Martha to “speak the truth in love” please let it be a word of gratitude and not an anonymous nastygram left under her door. 

I had a senior warden when I was a parish priest who used to tell me, “we need you well.” She was a wise woman and she still is and she had no problem telling me when I was wrong. But I always knew that she really was speaking the truth in love and not hiding passive aggressive behavior behind those words. All of you do your part in helping Martha to stay well in doing this good work. 

There is a song – I think of it as more of a hymn – by Ingrid Michaelson that goes like this:

Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts
Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
So it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
And to stop the muscle that makes us confess
And we are so fragile
And our cracking bones make noise
And we are just
Breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys

So my friends: be gentle with each other, in brittle times. That goes in both directions. Love one another through it all. Be patient and kind – not arrogant or rude. The world can be a brutal place; let this congregation be a laboratory where First Corinthians 13 is embodied – where it takes on flesh. Why? So that the neighbors will know you are Christians by your love.

And so that the light will keep shining in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.