The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Who We Are
    • Our History
    • Our Vision
    • Find a Church
    • Deaneries
    • The Bishop >
      • Messages from Bishop Woodliff-Stanley
    • Clergy & Staff >
      • Clergy in Good Standing
      • Clergy and Transition Ministries
    • Governance >
      • Constitution & Canons
      • Convention
      • Boards and Committees >
        • Standing Committee
        • Diocesan Council
        • Trustees of the Diocese
        • Deputies to General Convention
        • Commission on Ministry
        • Liturgical Commission
        • Visioning Committee
        • University of the South Trustees
        • Other Boards and Committees
    • Historical Timeline
    • FAQ
  • Ministry
    • Prayer Calendar
    • Diocesan Meditations
    • Outreach
    • Grants for Congregations
    • Administrative Resources
    • Clergy Resources
    • Liturgy & Worship >
      • Liturgical Commission >
        • Bishop Guerry
      • Marriage
      • The Lectionary
      • The Book of Common Prayer
      • Brother, Give Us A Word (SSJE)
      • Daily Prayer: Forward Movement
    • Education & Formation >
      • Adults
      • College Ministry
      • Youth
      • Children
    • Church Connections >
      • The Episcopal Church >
        • Province IV
      • The Anglican Communion
      • Anglicans Online >
        • The Society of Archbishop Justus
      • Daughters of the King
      • Episcopal Church Women (ECW)
      • Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross
      • Order of St. Helena
    • Ecumenical & Interfaith >
      • Racial Justice & Reconciliation
      • Fellowship of SC Bishops/Public Education Initiative
      • Charleston Area Justice Ministry
      • Christian Jewish Council
      • Gun Violence Prevention
    • Communication and Evangelism >
      • Carolina Grace
      • Social Media Sunday
      • Mission Matters Videos
  • News
    • News Blog
    • 80th General Convention 2022 >
      • 80th General Convention Blog
    • Events Calendar
    • Upcoming Events
    • Lent 2023
    • Sacred Ground 2022
    • Responding to COVID-19
    • Email Newsletter
    • Episcopal News Service
    • Anglican Communion News
  • Giving
  • Convention
    • 232nd Diocesan Convention
  • Contact Us
    • Get in touch
    • Make a donation
    • Sign up for the newsletter
    • News Submission

Sermon at the Renewal of Ordination Vows

2/20/2018

 
Calvary Episcopal Church, Charleston
February 20, 2018


View the sermon on video here.

From Exodus today: “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you.”
And from I Corinthians as well as Luke’s Gospel just read: “Do this in remembrance of me.”
 
Remembrance. The role of memory is essential in the life of faith. I would go so far as to say that one of the central responsibilities of being clergy, deacon, priest, or bishop, is to help the people of God to remember. Thus this reflection and a time for us to ponder.
 
Ritual is foundational to sustaining memory. It has been said, “When we remember, God remembers.” Examples in scripture abound. By keeping ritual, faith is re-enacted, continued, and re-membered. Jesus remembered, thereby creating an energized community rooted in a living tradition. In a world like ours, we have an invitation to keep rituals in a manner that sustain faithfulness and community, for there is a very real threat of losing our moorings, of forgetting, a kind of cultural amnesia. It is a part of our “mandatum.”
 
Rituals also help us remember the reality of pain as well as hope. Look at the ritual of the vigils in Florida the last few days. In those times we meet face to face with brokenness and evil with a recalling of God’s presence in history, all in the hope that we have not been abandoned and are being led somewhere.
 
This grounds us in our corporate memory in order to be able to move into a new future, however haltingly. In the symphony of gesture, symbol and story, memories are sustained not as past data, but as transformative possibilities. In liturgy, past, present and future are not collapsed into the present. Rather, we are drawn into the movement from the past to the future by our participation in the present. Such liturgical remembering can then have the potential to lead us to committed and reflective action.
 
In that light, Christians remember not for a nice trip down memory lane that we might call nostalgia, but in order to be transformed, as in anamnesis. We do so not mired in polyannish sentimentality, after all when Jesus remembered with his friends it was in the night he was betrayed. Right at that table we are confronted with the truth that we are broken. We see it in the example of Judas and lest we forget and solely call him out, we must not forget Peter in the courtyard. In the face of betrayal, our Lord still offered the invitation—“Do this…”
 
Staying with the theme of broken community, in the midst of the Corinthian Church’s exclusionary practices, Paul addresses the call to remember in order to remind the people of the possibility of the healing of relationships. Why is it that we so easily forget who God is, who God says we are, and who God calls us to be? There are the usual culprits like the addiction to novelty, the rate of change and so much that competes for our attention. Whatever the reasons, we do participate in the human tendency to forget the basis of our hope and become, as it were, functional atheists. The Hebrews forgot. The disciples forgot. So we engage in rituals of remembering. I trust we realize that we are one celebration away from falling into empty routine. If we lose the ability to creatively imagine with God and one another, the community Eucharistic meal, or even the liberation celebrated in the Exodus event for that matter, can be robbed of its power and transformative possibilities.
 
As clergy, we are called to remember on behalf of our people. The point is not personal comfort with our rituals. It is not merely a collection of historical moments of nations, dates or heroes as important as some of that is. We are being invited to remember in a particular way that is formative, communal, and life-giving. The model is of course the Passover where Jewish identity is rehearsed and shaped by the saving hands of God. There is a reason for their being, their very existence!
 
Each time the Exodus saving event is remembered, the Jewish people of every generation, place and time, are invited to remember, not as if they were at the Exodus as observer, but that they were actually a part of the Exodus. This fires the synapses in the brain and forms a memory—once bound, now free, belonging to the God who saves them.
 
So for us, we remember not merely as if we were present by looking on the Last Supper with Jesus and his disciples, but that we were at the table with them and are now! We, once bound, are now free and belong to the God who saves us. “On the night he was betrayed,” we are invited to remember. When we betrayed him, Jesus offers us his life, and not just when we are charming, or clever, or worthy, or faithful or successful. We are invited to join him at table even and perhaps especially when we are at our worst.
 
“This is my body broken for you.” We remember not merely an idea or a philosophy or a feeling of well-being, we don’t seek a spiritual experience or a good teaching, but his life laid down, freeing us from slavery to sin and death. “This cup is the new covenant in my blood,” inviting us to remember not a thoughtful gesture or a passing promise, but a divine, eternal vow made to us by God that is unbreakable by human failure.
 
So we remember. Gathering the people. Reading the sacred texts. Praying the prayers. Setting the Table. Celebrating the great prayer of the Church—the Great Thanksgiving. There is life. There is liberation. There is hope. For there is Christ, who died that we and all the creation might live.  We remember in here, in order to remember out there.
 
Bishop Skip

Comments are closed.

    Bishop Skip Adams

    The Right Reverend Gladstone B. Adams III was elected and invested as our Bishop on September 10, 2016. Read more about him here.

    Archives

    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017

    Categories

    All
    Immigration
    Refugees
    Sermons

    RSS Feed

Copyright © 2023 The Diocese of South Carolina
P.O. Box 20485, Charleston, SC 29413 - ​843.259.2016 - info@episcopalchurchsc.org
Make A Donation
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Who We Are
    • Our History
    • Our Vision
    • Find a Church
    • Deaneries
    • The Bishop >
      • Messages from Bishop Woodliff-Stanley
    • Clergy & Staff >
      • Clergy in Good Standing
      • Clergy and Transition Ministries
    • Governance >
      • Constitution & Canons
      • Convention
      • Boards and Committees >
        • Standing Committee
        • Diocesan Council
        • Trustees of the Diocese
        • Deputies to General Convention
        • Commission on Ministry
        • Liturgical Commission
        • Visioning Committee
        • University of the South Trustees
        • Other Boards and Committees
    • Historical Timeline
    • FAQ
  • Ministry
    • Prayer Calendar
    • Diocesan Meditations
    • Outreach
    • Grants for Congregations
    • Administrative Resources
    • Clergy Resources
    • Liturgy & Worship >
      • Liturgical Commission >
        • Bishop Guerry
      • Marriage
      • The Lectionary
      • The Book of Common Prayer
      • Brother, Give Us A Word (SSJE)
      • Daily Prayer: Forward Movement
    • Education & Formation >
      • Adults
      • College Ministry
      • Youth
      • Children
    • Church Connections >
      • The Episcopal Church >
        • Province IV
      • The Anglican Communion
      • Anglicans Online >
        • The Society of Archbishop Justus
      • Daughters of the King
      • Episcopal Church Women (ECW)
      • Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross
      • Order of St. Helena
    • Ecumenical & Interfaith >
      • Racial Justice & Reconciliation
      • Fellowship of SC Bishops/Public Education Initiative
      • Charleston Area Justice Ministry
      • Christian Jewish Council
      • Gun Violence Prevention
    • Communication and Evangelism >
      • Carolina Grace
      • Social Media Sunday
      • Mission Matters Videos
  • News
    • News Blog
    • 80th General Convention 2022 >
      • 80th General Convention Blog
    • Events Calendar
    • Upcoming Events
    • Lent 2023
    • Sacred Ground 2022
    • Responding to COVID-19
    • Email Newsletter
    • Episcopal News Service
    • Anglican Communion News
  • Giving
  • Convention
    • 232nd Diocesan Convention
  • Contact Us
    • Get in touch
    • Make a donation
    • Sign up for the newsletter
    • News Submission