On Saturday, June 3, Bishop Brian Cole ordained Zachary Thomas Settle to the sacred order of deacons at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Chattanooga. He will soon be placed at Grace Episcopal Church, Chattanooga, for his curacy.
Transcript of Bishop Brian Cole’s Sermon
Deacon’s Ordination for Zac Settle
Acts 6:2-7
Luke 22:24-27
St. Paul’s Chattanooga
The Right Rev. Brian L. Cole
“A dispute also arose among them…” AMEN.
This morning, both in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Gospel of St. Luke, we hear about conflict and dispute.
You see, when humans gather, seeking to be a community formed by Jesus, things are bound to get messy. They are bound to get messy because when humans interact with each other, believing their life together is in response to a call from God, when differences or disagreements arise, it’s so tempting to say God is on my side, not yours. Things are awesome, until they are not.
According to Church tradition, the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke and the writer of the Acts of the Apostles is thought to be one writer, crafting a two-volume work. This writer does not try to cover up the presence of conflict and dispute. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, we are told by Jesus that where two or more gather in his name, he will be present. The writer of Luke-Acts might say amen to that, and along with Jesus, don’t be surprised if hurt feelings or a misunderstanding is close by, too.
This lesson about Christian community and conflict, about it being a matter of when, not if, is one you think we might only have to experience and learn once. Yet, if the Christian life is a call to remember, to remember the story of God’s presence and abiding Spirit, we also are a people who like to forget things. The conflicts were at my last church. The next place, the next call, will be the Promised Land. In Elvis’s early days, he sang a song, I Forgot to Remember to Forget. When it comes to the unlearning the lesson about Christian community and conflict, we might sing, I Remembered to Forget to Remember.
When it comes to lessons and learning them, Zac Settle is an exceptional pupil. A Bachelor of Arts in theology and philosophy from Union University, a Master of Arts in religious studies from the University of Denver, a Master of Theology from Vanderbilt Divinity, a Doctorate of Philosophy from the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt, and, finally, a Diploma of Anglican Studies from Sewanee. Zac has learned some lessons, and we know he has learned them well.
Along with lessons learned in the academy, Zac has learned lessons in Christian community, with family and friends. In ordaining Zac today, the Church invites him to embody the lessons of the Christian life and to teach them.
“A dispute arose among them…” The dispute arose among not just any community, but among Jesus’ first followers. These followers, his inner circle, had been with him since the early days of his public ministry. At this point in St. Luke’s Gospel, there are few lessons left to learn or time left to learn them. The cross is drawing near.
At this point, it would be much more satisfying to hear that Jesus’s first followers have mastered the lessons of Jesus about servanthood. Have they been listening to anything that Jesus has been teaching? Is Jesus still the Wise Teacher if all his disciples flunk Gospel 101?
Jesus, with the cross drawing near, with a dispute over the very essence of Christian community about greatness and rank among his inner circle emerging, repeats the heart of the Gospel life one more time. For one more time, he tells them we discover greatness in service, we discover salvation in self-emptying, we discover true life by not avoiding the true cross which is approaching.
When community breaks in the Christian life, we are invited to consider that the true heart of the Christian life may also be emerging. This is not the time to leave. This is the time to go deeper, both within the community gathered and within our own interior landscape.
Zac, no Christian community becomes truly real without conflict. Before the conflict, we are simply being polite, well-mannered, living together at the surface of things.
In entering Christian community, we are taught that Jesus meets us in the living waters of baptism, and then plunges us well below the surface. We, along with Jesus, enter the deep water, losing a life we believe we can live on our own, to emerge with a real life that is lived together, by God’s grace, in community. It is imperfect, yet made stronger and more real by God’s grace, and not by our desperate longing for greatness.
Zac, now that you have studied many things, engaged the life of the mind and the life of the Spirit in many institutions, sitting with many professors and fellow students, writing countless words, completing assignment after assignment after assignment, might it be this lesson about community and conflict is the heart of the matter for the Church now?
What if this lesson is the central lesson to teach and to embody?
As Christians, we are called to seek community. Upon finding it, before too long, a dispute will arise. When it does, instead of seeking to win, what if we sought to learn how God, through Christ Jesus, is moving in our midst, preparing us to go to a deeper level of communion, of knowing and unknowing, of learning and unlearning, of loving more and forgiving more and finding more in us and in the community, both broken and being made one again.
It’s about the community, gathered by the Wisdom Way of Jesus. It’s about the imperfect community. It’s about the imperfect community, made mature and whole by seeking to serve each other, to outdo each other in love and service and mercy offered and received. Through God’s grace, this work is possible, this lesson can be learned. And then unlearned. And then learned again. Again, and again and again.
It is a lesson that requires real people, who are willing for real conflicts to be transformed by the real presence of Christ Jesus, found both in the Eucharist and in the presence of each other, found both in the Church’s ancient wisdom and in the new insights we discover about ourselves when we admit we need help, and each other.
As a clergy person, Zac, you are called to teach this lesson. More importantly, you are called to embody this lesson.
As a deacon, you are called to a critical ministry of listening. Too often, we speak of the diaconate as all action, all gestures of service and care for the other.
But before the deacon acts with gestures of service and care and justice, the first act of a deacon is to listen. Listen. Listen to God, listen to the story of Scripture, listen to the community, and listen to what is inside you, in that most remarkable landscape of your interior life.
In both the Gospel of St. Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus and the early Christian community were able to respond rightly because they listened deeply to what was before them. Before you can teach, you must know what lesson is called for.
So, Zac, listen, listen, listen. Continue to enter Christian communities.
Remember, if they are real, then they are also imperfect. Remember, also, if you are real, you are also imperfect. It is in the imperfection, both as individuals and as communities, where God’s grace meets us and shows us another way, a deeper way, a way only found when we allow God to teach us the next lesson about ourselves and our community.
In the breaking and in the fracture, if we are willing to receive it, God’s wisdom and grace can flow and grow in us, something new, something healed, something mature, something only found when God shows us the way to true community.
