On Saturday, December 16, 2023, the Rev. Zachary Settle, PhD was ordained to the sacred order of priests at Grace Episcopal Church in Chattanooga. Many were in attendance from across East Tennessee and out of state. You can find a copy of the sermon by The Rev. Claire Brown below and photos taken by Mr. Jon Humber below that.
Sermon by The Rev. Claire Brown
Oh Zac, you’ve been looking for your path of authentic service in the world, as Parker Palmer put it, and here you are. Here we are. We see where that path has led and we have, too, some sense of where it will continue to lead, as today you become a priest in God’s church. And we’re so glad.
And don’t we love an advent ordination?
The themes of the season are so on point! (Well, there are a lot of metaphors or spiritual lenses for this thing you’ve gotten yourself into, but anyway, advent’s not a bad one.)
This active keeping watch and journey of hope and peacemaking, receiving joy and growing in love…not a bad season for this rite. These commitments are critical for the whole body of Christ, and they are critical for the heart of priesthood.
Today Zac and the church affirm each other as he steps into this call to keep watch for God’s coming, to prepare for divine encounter and, like the prophets, invite his community to turn our hearts toward love. Zac has agreed to partner with God, like Mary, and through the ministry of word and sacrament, remind all the rest of us to do the same, again and again.
Advent and an ordination are both real and symbolic, manifesting something into our lives and time and honoring something that is always true and ongoing.
So today, you’re priested, and something new and powerful happens… and today we affirm what has already been underway.
You have been stepping into this call already, here at Grace and in your classrooms and in your family and friendships and communities.
You’ve already begun, you’ve already said yes, and…
As you continue to grow and deepen this ministry, it will take you to new places and new questions that call for your open heart and thoughtful mind to discern again and again. This is also very advent. It’s already been happening, is happening now, it will really be here in a few minutes, and will continue to be happening as you go.
So one thing that’s very helpful in this becoming is that your earliest pondering of ordination and the questions and conclusions of your heart years ago don’t get left behind, but can continue to guide you if you’ll let them.
You started off by asking, if I remember our phone call right, more or less…
Is this call reasonable?
And could I really do this, really become a priest?
Well, first, of course it’s not reasonable. Priesthood? In this economy?
In so many ways it is odd and inadvisable to uproot your life in this way, to give your professional work and your family rhythms and your habits of the mind and heart to this sort of vocation.
It is deeply unreasonable to pledge to a life of service and impartiality. It is unreasonable to proclaim forgiveness and blessing all the time. It is unreasonable to sing the songs of Zion in a strange land.
But this is the gospel we’re talking about. This is a vocation that ties your whole being to the most absurd and beautiful, necessary and unrealistic thing that has ever happened: “Veiled in flesh the godhead see?” No, this is not reasonable.
And you say yes, and the church says yes, anyway.
And then the question: can you really do this?
Of course you can! You’re Zac Settle for heaven’s sake. You’re so qualified and capable and kind. Great priest material.
And of course you can’t.
This is a difficult way to make a living, to make a life. Grace filled, yes. Beautiful, yes. And impossibly difficult.
This path will require patience and honestly? It’s often boring.
Then, on other days it’s full of drama, uncertain and unpredictable.
Sometimes thrilling. You can’t believe they’re paying for this! Amazing!
And sometimes it will be devastating.
All of these highs and lows, the strangeness and service… well, You, alone, can’t do it. Impossible.
This call, yes, is certainly about you and the gifts and preparation and heart and labor you will bring to your priesthood. But most of all it is a call that will ask you to lean on the grace of God, your family, your fellow ministers and friends. Even more than you think, more than you can know today.
Again, this is the gospel we’re talking about. Vowed living witness to the gospel could never be a one man show or the result of hustle and preparedness. It is the tender art of showing up ready as can be, but most of all willing, willing to join into the conditions around you and listen deeply to God and God’s people.
The images of this service’s readings invite you to be a shepherd of sheep and a fieldworker. The deep labor of agricultural work starts with the light touch of keeping watch: care for critters and plants is grounded in attending and noticing, radically accepting the conditions, then responding and cultivating from there. You know. Y’all have garden plots and little girls at your house.
So in this call you must respond to the neighborhood and city you’re in, this parish and its buildings and legacies, the scenarios that pop up week to week. You’ll be leading a class or a liturgy, planning a youth event or prepping a sermon, responding to what is.
You’ll find yourself in these places, and as you do the tasks and make sense of what’s unfolding around you, you’ll operate under the vows you make today and as the man you already have been becoming. You’ll respond to these things as a gardener or shepherd, bringing fruitfulness and care to the work.
But the most daunting environments and conditions you must accept and respond to in your priesthood are the wildernesses of sorrow and struggle within the people you serve and those within yourself.
(Zac offered me this idea, by the way, of our wildernesses. It comes from a poet he and I both love, Ross Gay.)
To paraphrase, it’s the notion that…
The body, the life, might carry a wilderness, an unexpected territory, and that yours and mine might somewhere, somehow, meet. Might, even, join. And what if the wilderness – perhaps the densest wild in there – thickets, bogs, swamps… is our sorrow?… everyone, regardless of everything… lives with some profound personal sorrow… So What if we joined our sorrow… What if that is joy?”
How beautifully hopeful, that our inner wilds of sorrow can be transformed to joy in their joining. And how presumptuous, how unreasonable, how impossible to try and bridge the wilderness of human suffering for the sake of a hoped-for joy.
Yes, exactly.
This is exactly your path of authentic service in the world, the path of incarnation and resurrection. And it is more than your service to them. Your wilderness may be transformed from sorrow to joy as well.
Is this reasonable? Can you really be a priest for God’s church? No, of course not. And yes, you will.
By God’s grace, the whole people, and you leading and serving along with them, will walk the path together.
And there on the way, we find ourselves imperfectly and adequately wise and able to join our lives for the sake of love, to find joy in the sorrow, to embrace life abundant.
Unreasonable. Impossible. And we will with God’s help. You will with God’s help.
Photos Many thanks to Jon Humber for taking these great photos.
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