Following a recent conversation via Twitter I am pondering ordination. I am due to be ordained as a Methodist Presbyter on the 3rd July this year (there are still a few more days for the church to rumble me then). Interestingly many of the folk I began training with were ordained 3 years ago as Deacons and 2 years ago as Priests in the Church of England. Another friend has been ordained 4 times, he left the Church of England for the Roman Catholic Ordinariate, a tough decision but one through which he has found peace and integrity.
Interestingly, and challengingly for some of my Anglican friends, I have been granted a dispensation to preside at the Eucharist for the last nineteen months, in fact as soon as I was Stationed the dispensation was granted. Some of my Anglican friends find that problematic...
So what are we saying then? I am personally not, as my friend Mark puts it, a rabid sacramentalist, but I do believe that the sacraments are important and even essential. I have said before that I see through the sacraments the creation of a thin place where earth and heaven meet, in broken bread and poured out wine, in the water of baptism, through the marriage vows and even in the commendation of the departed we find a touching place with the divine...
Do I believe that some folk are called (set apart) o facilitate that touching place? Well yes I do, and that is one of the reasons why ordination is important to me, and why the confirmation of what I see as my call is essential...
But I hold to this lightly, with so many denominations and so many different interpretations it is easy to become embroiled in a bitter argument. As a Methodist and as a woman I am aware that some of the folk I trained with will not accept my ordination as valid, but although that saddens me I refuse to allow it to make me bitter. As I quoted earlier this week the Scriptures remind us " by their fruit you will recognise them." (Matthew 7:20) and so I will press on prayerfully....
What saddens me most however is the way that disputes over calling, and arguments over practice make the press headlines, I am saddened that the gospel is veiled by our silliness, and that we forget the central call to make disciples because we want to be right. But there is hope, another friend who struggles both with women priests and Methodism sums it up beautifully he says: "I have to hold all that I believe lightly, I have to be prepared to stand before St Peter at the pearly gates and to hear the words; " X, you were a chump, but still, you are loved, welcome good and faithful servant..."
Being a chump suits me, and I suspect that I will find myself in good company!
