Within months of graduating from seminary, I was ordained to the Ministry of Word and Sacrament. I remember the first time I broke bread; I feared that I would forget the words. I remember the first time I held a baby to baptize; I feared that I would drop him. But since then, the occasions at table and font blur together, over 30 years of saying the holy phrases: “This is my body, broken for you” … “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
Now, unexpectedly, my ministry has taken me away from the pastorate. I now serve as vice president for advancement at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. For the first time in decades, I find myself back on the other side of the chancel, receiving the Word and sacraments instead of being responsible for sharing them.
I confess that I wondered (if I am honest, I even worried) how it might feel not to baptize and bury, preach the Word and pour the cup. I was afraid I would feel silenced or jealous or, worst of all, critique other worship leaders’ style.
It turns out my fears were needless. Chapel at Pittsburgh Seminary is offered four days a week, and as often as I can be, I am there. Mondays we share in a Taizé service. Other days, worship varies a lot, though it often includes a sermon, offered by a seminary professor or local pastor, a student or guest preacher — some of the finest preaching I have heard. On Thursdays, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together. Often the order of worship is attuned to the Reformed tradition. But just as often, we enjoy an interactive prayer station or an enacted sermon (e.g., a dialogue between Santa Claus and St. Nicholas!) or share prayers of lament studded by first-person testimonies of refugees. Usually, when we break bread together, we follow the Presbyterian order, but at other times, we celebrate the Eucharist according to the Episcopal or Methodist rite. While the majority of our students are PC(USA), we are a seminary for the whole church, reflecting the hospitality of Christ — and worship, under Kendra Smith’s direction, reflects that. People shall come from North and South and East and West, and gather at Christ’s table together.
If I sound fascinated, I am — but it is far more than as a spectator. Now that I am not in charge of planning worship and preaching sermons and presiding at table and font, I am participating more fully than I have in years. I did not even know that I had slipped into performing. I can only hope that my performance was not for my own glory, but to point the gathered community to the throne of grace — or, like “Babette’s Feast,” to prepare a meal that would disarm defenses so that they might taste and see just how gracious the Lord really is.
Which is exactly what happens to me now, in the nave, as I participate wholeheartedly, even vulnerably. If I had any doubt at all, it evaporated during my second week in chapel. I was praying — perhaps silently, perhaps singing, I do not recall. What I remember clearly is this: The image came to me of a tree, its trunk wide and sturdy, with arching branches full of leaves. I was that tree, solid and healthy from all appearances. And then, unexpectedly, I felt my roots, deep in the earth, pulling in water from the newly-refreshed ground, feeling sated, secure in the replenishment to come. I had not even known that my roots were dry. Now I know my need — and I am deeply grateful to be invited to the throne of grace, knowing that I will be refreshed at the font, well fed at the joyful feast of the people of God.
