ordination examination

I just thought you should know this is where I'm at right now.

I easily confuse strengths with weaknesses. So, when my professor asked what I was going to do when—not if—I fail to bring order to chaos, I panicked. I thought that surely failure to order the chaos would be a sign of profound weakness. Then this same professor asked us to describe ourselves from the perspective of a friend. I thought back to the words of one of my more observant and attentive bosses. In my exit interview he told me that when I told him I would be okay, he believed me. He said, “I’ve always known you to be sturdy.” Perhaps I shouldn’t have panicked at the thought of chaos. Perhaps the idea that I may reveal a weakness should not scare me! I have a very high tolerance for both weakness and chaos. I know them intimately and, as a result, I tend to those in my care as though chaos is durable yet endurable.
As I look back on this professor’s class in particular I see that my time under his tutelage has paralleled the trajectory of my seminary education in general. We began by trying to minimize the chaos. We set out to do the work of defining ourselves and have found that we are very confused (and confusing). We have learned that we, the weak and befuddled, do indeed have power and must steward it gently.

Over these last four and a half years I have gained some practical wisdom (summed up by the professor of this class when he said “you will never satisfy all the people all the time… if you are doing your job well”). I also gained some impractical wisdom (e.g.: postmodern or no, leading means you have to land somewhere). And then, just when I think I’ll never remember this wisdom, it always dawns on me (again and again, as sure as a sunrise) that I’m not sure how I learned any of these things because they are not the kind of things that can be taught in the usual ways. Maybe they were in me all along and I just needed someone to help me dismantle all the carefully laid and mortared, well-ordered thoughts that had them entombed.

My time in graduate school has facilitated a re-entry into church leadership as part of a larger process. “Churching” (attending church, potlucking, becoming a member of a church, tithing, voting, singing hymns you like, singing hymns you don’t like, etc., …) is a process. It is a process of discovering how much order, how much chaos is enough for each created thing to thrive and then making a commitment to searching out ways for all to access that amount of whatever is needed. It is a system of exchange: churching is not only giving time, talent and treasure, but a system of exchanging tangibles and intangibles according to our capacity for restraint and justice.
Taking a leading role in the life of the Church requires us to accept only the order that blesses, while allowing for the chaos that edifies and that means we participate in discovery, discernment, and setting boundaries. It doesn’t mean we have to be perfect already—we will be perfected. It doesn’t mean we put an end to all chaos—it means we order the chaos we can and endure the chaos that remains, for the good of all.

There is no disputing that when I accept my Master’s degree in Divinity I am taking a step toward ordination. This degree will set upon me certain rights and responsibilities, one of which is to discern next steps. I have to face the possibility of Ordination and I have discovered that for now I will settle into what I like to think of as one of two very different types of ordination. The way I see it there are two kinds of ordination: 1) Traditional Ordination: This kind of Ordination to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament is offered by the people in power. It usually comes with a title chosen from a short list of jobs. Certain rights and responsibilities are conferred on an individual after s/he has completed certain required tasks. The other kind of ordination is one I like to think of as Discerned Ordination: This ordination is realized through a process of discernment. For example, God has ordained each member of the church to accomplish a different task to the glory of God. This kind of ordination is akin to receiving a vocation that is discovered through a series of struggles and triumphs.

Each member of the body is tested, taught and otherwise prepared to live life according to the powers, rights and responsibilities only God can confer. There is plenty of power to go around but we rarely share it well. The politically inept or disenfranchised may never partake or participate in a way that would allow them to be Ordained as Ministers of Word and Sacrament in a traditional sense. The second definition of ordination, however is a broader use of the concept of ordination and so applies to those who remain socially or politically powerless or outside the narrow sphere of the mainline denominations’ influence.

You see, church is only Church when all the members of the body must come alongside one another in order to create opportunities for leaders to gain and relinquish power, to share and redistribute power for all of God’s people. For church leaders special attention should be paid to specific preparations. This should include fostering an awareness of the language and history of the God we attempt to serve and the people we live with and near—all of them. I work primarily with children who have their own ways of distributing power and so it seems only natural that I am choosing the second type of ordination.

I am choosing to answer the call to order the chaos for which I have already been prepared. Maybe one day I will do more to prepare for Traditional Ordination. But for now I do not see myself participating in the cycle of power distribution that bestows power on the few and neglects the ordination of the many.

This is my call to live in the liminal space, the space in which we may dwell so that someday we will know what to do with relationships that don’t move at the speed of Facebook; when my sense of time is different than yours; or
when industry or denominational changes keep pace with cultural changes that never seem to lead to transformation. These are not Holy Orders, but they have brought holy order to my life and so though this is not the kind of Ordination for which I thought I was preparing, it is nonetheless the orders and order I have been given.