Priestly practice

A Sermon preached at Pentecost 22 June 2025 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

1 Kings 19:1-4, 8-15a, Psalm 43, Galatians 3:23-29, Luke 8:26-39

As you have heard, today we celebrate the 25^th anniversary of Fr. Hanns ordination to the priesthood. He was ordained deacon here on 7.6.1999, the second ever ordination to have taken place in Wiesbaden and then priest just over a year later on 17.6.2000 in Karlsruhe. This was the culmination of a long journey. He first encountered Anglicanism in Frankfurt, when – out of curiosity – he attended a service at St. Christopher’s, as the Episcopal Church there was then known. From the beginning he was attracted to the liturgy … and the comfortable kneelers! In Frankfurt he was a judge at the Amtsgericht, a magistrate’s court as I would call it. By the time he moved to Lüneburg, to work at the Verwaltungsgericht (Administrative court), he had caught the Anglican bug and would travel to Hamburg, to the church of St. Thomas á Becket to worship there, but not just passively. He was licensed as a lay assistant and later as a lay reader. And then, as a judge at the German supreme court (BGH) in Karlsruhe, where he served from 1978 – 1996, he initially lived in Wiesbaden and worshipped and served at our church! During his time in Karlsruhe, he was involved in a German/British friendship association and, recognizing and meeting a need, began to offer Anglican worship there – for the first time since the original Anglican chaplaincy had closed on the eve of the 1^st world war. Our then rector, Karl Bell, would come to Karlsruhe from time to time to provide Eucharistic worship until, after discussions with Bishop Jeffrey Rowthorn, Hanns was encouraged to seek ordination and became the first minister of the Mission Church of St. Colomban, a position he held until his retirement in 2020. So there has always been a close connection between that mission and St. Augustine’s and following Hanns’ retirement, first our curate at that time Steve McPeek and then our associate Robert Vukovic took on the role as vicar! And so, we are honored that Hanns wanted to celebrate this anniversary here!

The readings were, however, not chosen for this occasion, they are simply the readings of the day. And that is a good thing. While I am sure that Hanns is “very zealous for the Lord,” I am equally sure that he has no desire to throw down and destroy the altars of other faiths, let alone kill their prophets and priests with the sword. (1 Kings 19) Nor, to my knowledge, has he driven out demons or drowned a herd of swine. (Luke 8) None of those roles are in any way constitutive of Anglican clergy. We might possibly be tempted to hear echoes of Hanns’ own transition from judge to priest, from law to faith in the Epistle, Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: “Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed.” (Gal. 3:23) But I don’t think Hanns sees any contradiction between the law, as he administered it, and faith. And a passion for justice can be expressed both as a judge and as a priest.

In fact, of all the readings it is Psalm 43 that seems most appropriate. In Latin it begins with the Judica, from which we get judge or judgment. But I think it also speaks to some aspects of the life and work of a priest. That may come as surprise, as it clearly portrays a person oscillating between hope and despair. I hate to disappoint you, but priests are not without doubt and despair. There is much to lament and to despair about the state of the world, especially right now, and sometimes even the state of the church, and we get to share not only in your good times, but also in the bad ones: in loss, pain, and sickness. Yet the psalmist, like a good priest, does not lose hope, sure in the knowledge that in the end it is on God that we depend, and not on ourselves.

When I was in my ordination process, one of my favorite and most instructive “how to” books was: “The Life and Work of a Priest” by John Pritchard, a former bishop of Oxford. He identifies just three things he believes need be of concern for a priest: the glory of God, the pain of the world, and the renewal of the Church. All of the other – many – roles of a priest flow from these, he wrote.

When Prichard talks about the Glory of God, he is referring to worship and leading worship is at the center of a priest’s life, especially sacramental worship. I have already spoken of Hanns’ love of liturgy, especially of the beautiful, traditional language of Rite I that we are using today. In worship, we tell stories, we interpret, we learn, and we teach. We bring people to a place, not the only one of course, where they can encounter God. The psalmist too yearns to be surrounded by a believing and worshiping community. It is by participating in the worship services of the Temple and celebrating the presence of God in the midst of the gathered people that they find hope.

The Psalmist is searching for God. In Psalm 42, which many commentators think was originally one half of a single psalm together with Psalm 43, we hear them pray: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” (42:1) In Psalm 43 they answer the question, the when and where: In worship and in God’s house: “Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and I will praise you with the harp, O God, my God.” (43:3-4)

The psalmist is someone with deep and rich spiritual experience. They have lived with God, they know God and they love God, even if some event, some pain has separated them and led them – briefly – to doubt. To be confronted with the pain of the world is not uniquely priestly. The priest’s function is to help the congregation deal with that pain, and to structure and focus their response. It includes prayer and intercession, the priest’s own and that of the community, pastoring those within the community, sharing their pain – Prichard calls a priest a “wounded companion,” forming and strengthening community, and challenging the structures that cause or prolong the pain of the world, what we call the prophetic role. None of these are solitary functions, the priest just helps the people channel their passion and energy and skills into transforming those structures into the ones God intends for us.

We do not know if the pain the psalmist references is just their own or something shared by the people of Israel or just their community. But we hear them cry to God for justice: “Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; from those who are deceitful and unjust deliver me!” (43:1)

I cannot claim that Prichard’s third theme of “renewing the Church” – one which includes the roles of leader, teacher, creative witness, and risk taker - plays a big role in this psalm. But it certainly has in Hanns’ ministry. Founding, leading and growing a new mission church is a genuinely creative and also risky task. Renewing the church is a constant need. St. Augustine (of Hippo) and some of the reformers talked about “ecclesia semper reformanda” (the Church must always be reformed). This is what we are all called to do, knowing that today’s expression of faith and worship may not be what is needed tomorrow.

The final chapter of Prichard’s book on ministry focuses on something that is not unique to a priest - simply being a Christian. This is a ministry we all share in by virtue of our baptism. The psalmist is not a Christian of course, but a good Jew. And yet we can still be inspired by their expression of trust and faith and gratitude. These are the fruits of a regular practice of prayer, worship and service. Then, even when the soul is cast down and disquieted, the psalmist and we can say: “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help (or savior) and my God.” (43:6)

Amen.

Building, Connecting, Calling

A Sermon preached at Pentecost 8 June 2025 at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Acts 2:1-21, Romans 8:14-17, John 14:8-17

This year is the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. Its most famous product being the Nicene Creed that we recite as an affirmation of faith almost every Sunday, though exceptionally not today as we have the Reaffirmation of our Baptismal Vows with its own creedal statement. And the creed we recite on Sundays is actually a version finalized some 56 years later at a second council in Constantinople. It is Trinitarian both in content and structure, with three sections each one focusing on one person of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But in the original AD 325 creed, The Holy Spirit only got a very brief mention: That third and last section just read “We believe in the Holy Spirit.” Nothing more. Is that all we know about her? I’m using the female form as the original Hebrew word ruach is feminine and it does us good to be reminded that God is not male (and not female either – God is God)!)

Today is the feast of Pentecost (Shavuot), an ancient Jewish harvest festival coming 50 days after Passover, which later took on the additional meaning of a festival of thanksgiving for the gift of the Torah, the Law. It is sometimes also referred to as the birthday of the church, as Pentecost is that moment when that small group of men and women left their hiding places and, filled with the Holy Spirit, went out among the people and began spreading Jesus’ message, thus establishing the beginning of the Church. But most of all Pentecost is the feast day of the Holy Spirit, and there would be no church without her.

Today’s readings tell us a lot about who this mysterious Holy Spirit is, the third person of the Trinity, and how she acts. There are lots of words and phrases that have been used to describe the role and function of the Holy Spirit, but I want to summarize them today with three: Construction, Connection, and Vocation.

Why Construction? As the empowering gift of God’s creative presence, the Holy Spirit enables the building of the Church. The building blocks, if you like, are us – the church is first and foremost an assembly of people with a single purpose. The Pentecost event focuses on two constructive gifts, first on the ability to speak in other languages so that everyone can hear about and understand God’s deeds of power. On that day the purpose of that gift was so that all the devout Jews who had come for the festival to Jerusalem from the Jewish diaspora around the Mediterranean, and who were often more comfortable in the language of their home cities, could hear that message in their own language. In our reading of that passage today in nineteen different languages we had a taste of this. But in today’s world, enabling the Gospel message to be understood might not mean using a different language, but using terms and concepts that those without any religious background can understand, showing them how the relationship with God that we share is both relevant and necessary.

The other gift was the gift of prophecy – for sons and daughters, young and old, slave and free. Prophecy in the Biblical sense is not fortune telling, not predicting the future, but describing a future that is possible if we live as God intended for us, if we were to live out our calling as beings made in God’s image. And that is what the Holy Spirit makes possible. Elsewhere in Scripture, for example in Paul’s letters, other gifts of the Spirit are described as “each given … for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7) or more specifically to “build up the church.” (1 Cor. 14:4)

My second descriptor was Connection. We already share in a common humanity, and we share one Creator with all of Creation. The Spirit, abiding within us all, strengthens and reinforces that bond. It is so close that we can be described, as Paul puts it in his Letter to the Romans, as children of God. Ideally – and sadly we know that not all families are ideal – a family is the closest connection we can have both with our siblings and with our parents and our own children. It relies on shared experiences, shared joys and shared sorrows, just as being a child of God and a joint heir with Christ, as our sibling, entails sharing in all of his redemptive activity, including the suffering, and ultimately in his glory and bounty.

And finally, Vocation – which is our response. As I said, the gifts of the Spirit are given with a purpose, they are not for us to enjoy on our own or for our own advantage, but to be used for the common good. Responding to God’s calling to act on God’s behalf – because that is what being an heir of God and a joint heir with Christ means – takes courage. We heard in the Acts passage that people did not just respond positively to Peter and the disciples. Some were amazed and perplexed, curious and excited, but others sneered and jeered and rejected them and their message. The Holy Spirit helps us overcome our fear: “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption,” Paul writes reminding the Christians in Romen and us, that we can call on God as our Father. And the last verse of the Gospel reading this morning, that I left out of the bulletin, but read out loud, also references our fears: “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid!”

The fear that Jesus and Paul are referring to is not just the fear of others, of how the world will react, of what might happen, but also the fear of what sounds like an enormous responsibility – am I up to it? To be joint heirs with Christ, to hear that “the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these,” is frightening. But only if we try and do them on our own and not with the help and the support and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. One term used for Jesus is Emmanuel, meaning “God with us.” The Holy Spirit is God in us.

In just a moment, when we renew our Baptismal Vows, we will promise to do all sorts of works of God: worshiping, proclaiming, serving, and transforming – but never alone, always as a Christian community built and connected by the Holy Spirit, and only and always with God’s help.   

Amen.