St JOHN OF DAMASCUS & NIGEL'S ORDINATION

by Bishop David Chislett SSC

(This is an edited transcript of the sermon preached on the occasion of Nigel Zimmermann's ordination to the priesthood at Christ Church O'Halloran Hill in the Diocese of the Murray on Saturday 4th December, 2004)

“With the ever-present conviction of my own unworthiness, I ought to have kept silence and confessed my shortcomings before God, but all things are good at the right time. I see the Church which God founded on the Apostles and Prophets, its corner-stone being Christ His Son, tossed on an angry sea, beaten by rushing waves, shaken and troubled by the assaults of evil spirits. I see rents in the seamless robe of Christ, which impious men have sought to part asunder, and His body cut into pieces, that is, the word of God and the ancient tradition of the Church. Therefore I have judged it unreasonable to keep silence and to hold my tongue.”

Some of you might think that I have begun with a manifesto for Forward in Faith Australia. But, no! They are the words of St John of Damascus whose feast day it is in the Church Calendar, and whose intercession will always avail for Father Nigel. They are the opening words of St John’s amazing Apologia against those who would forbid the use of icons and images in Christian worship.

A little later on, St John, conscious of the truth of which he is a mere custodian, continues, in words that I adopt as my own for this occasion:

“In the first place, then, before speaking to you, I beseech Almighty God, to whom all things lie open, who knows my small capacity and my genuine intention, to bless the words of my mouth, and to enable me to bridle my mind and direct it to him, to walk in his presence straightly, not declining to a plausible right hand, nor knowing the left. Then I ask all God’s people ... to receive my treatise with kindness. They must not dwell on my unworthiness, nor seek for eloquence, for I am only too conscious of my shortcomings. They must consider the thoughts themselves. The kingdom of heaven is not in word but in deed. Conquest is not my object. I raise a hand which is fighting for the truth - a willing hand under the divine guidance.”

When the Muslims completed their invasion of Palestine with the capture of Jerusalem in 638, their strategy for internal peace was to allow Christians to live and worship freely despite regular conflicts with the Christian Byzantine Empire. In fact, some Christians were promoted to high positions in the civil service. It was into the family of such a Christian - who was head of the caliph’s taxation department - that St John was born around 676. He received the best education possible in secular and religious matters, studying philosophy, science, theology, and literature. He was hailed for his poetic and musical ability. On the death of his father he was called to the Court and given the post of Chief Councilor.

Around the year 700, in response to what he perceived as the call of God, St John resigned his position, disposed of his considerable wealth and set out for the monastery of St Sabas. Already his walk with God had matured, and he was integrating the different aspects of his learning, his spirituality and his natural gifts.

But one of the things about St John was that he had a far more exuberant spirituality than what was thought proper at the time, especially for those who were learning the religious life. As someone who was deeply influenced by the charismatic renewal of the 1960’s and ‘70’s I can identify with him. In fact, I can remember sharing a platform with a scholarly Roman Catholic priest from America who said to me over supper: “If you want to read something that really has the anointing on it, there are two passages from the Fathers – one is St Basil “On the Holy Spirit” and the other is St John of Damascus “On the Holy Icons.” Well, in those days we couldn’t search the net and download them, but, visiting the library, I found that what he said was true. Indeed, the exuberance of St John of Damascus makes him a favourite of charismatic-minded Eastern Orthodox Christians.

Early in his time as a monk St John began spending his spare time (with his friend Cosmas) writing books and composing songs of praise. I can just imagine him wandering around the monastery humming and singing to himself. We know that his spiritual director – echoing the criticism of some of the older monks – told him that the monastery was a place where he should be “mourning his sins, not indulging in song.”

St John agreed to stop writing and composing, and without complaint began to perform the extra grueling and humiliating duties assigned to him, which included being a kind of rubbish collector, involving trips out into the marketplace where he was laughed at by those who had been his underlings in the public service.

Fortunately Our Lady thought this was a bit much; she appeared to the spiritual director in a dream and rebuked him so severely that he changed his mind. (I have often wished that she would do the same with spiritual directors I have had down through the years!) From then on St John and Cosmas were actually encouraged to write and compose. As a result, the exuberance of St John’s spiritual life is captured in his startling poetry, much of which entered the hymnody of the Eastern Church.

St John spent most of his life in the monastery, coming out occasionally to preach. He was praying, studying, writing, singing God’s praises and guiding those who came to him for encouragement and spiritual advice. His major work: Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, is a summary of the Greek Fathers, which gives him the standing in the East that St Thomas Aquinas has in the West. But, as I have previously noted, he is best known for his writing against the iconoclasts.

Led by Byzantine Emperor, Leo III, an attack had been made on the use of images in Christian worship. Orthodox Christians were accused of idolatry, and the iconoclasts demanded that, in obedience to the Ten Commandments, the use of images should cease. Leo carried many people with him; it is said that to them his message seemed simple, sincere and honest.

To the orthodox, however, who were then a minority in Palestine, iconoclasm was an attack on the basics of the Christian Faith. For one thing it turned the clock back to the Old Testament, making Christianity a religion of rules and not of salvation through grace.

Furthermore, the orthodox knew that they could appeal to centuries of practice. They also knew full well that the honour they gave to the icons was quite different from their worship of the Holy Trinity.

After explaining this very beautifully, and with many, many, Spirit anointed illustrations from Scripture, St John points out that the Incarnation – the stupendous event that divides human history in which God takes flesh upon himself - not only transforms our understanding of God’s relationship with creation; it also transforms the Commandment against idolatry. God’s people weren’t allowed to make images and representations of God before the Incarnation, because nobody knew what God looked like. It might seem a trite point – it is so simple – but we now know what God looks like. He looks like a man! He took human flesh.

St John writes:

“In earlier times God, who is without form or body, could never be depicted. But now, when God is seen in the flesh conversing with men, I make an image of the God I see. I do not worship matter: I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake. Who willed to take his abode in matter: Who worked out my salvation through matter. Never will I cease honouring the matter which wrought my salvation. I honour it, but not as God . . . Because of this I salute all remaining matter with reverence, because God has filled it with grace and power.”

He goes on in that wonderful treatise to say that to attack the use of images denies both the Incarnation and the sacramental way, given to us in Scripture, in which we draw on the new life that Jesus has given to us. In the words of Kallistos Ware,

“Iconoclasts underestimate the spirit-bearing potentialities of material things.”

Isn’t that wonderful! I'll read it again in case you missed it:

“Iconoclasts underestimate the spirit-bearing potentialities of material things.”

Kallistos Ware continues:

“God is not worshipped only through the mind and with words. Matter is used as well to glorify God”.

And so, Kallistos Ware, with St John of Damascus and Catholic Christians down through the ages want to say that “heaven AND EARTH are full of his glory!” St John makes the point that Christians, in a sense, are the only true materialists. (Those of you who go back to that era will remember that Archbishop William Temple said something very similar. He said that the Christian Faith is the most materialistic religion the world has ever seen.) The Word becomes Flesh; spirit and matter are one; in Jesus God and man are joined in order to bring about our salvation.

Well, poor old St John had a hard time of it. Thankfully, in terms of civil life he had “alternative oversight” because he actually lived in a land run by Muslims – and like his father before him he was popular among them and respected by them. Paradoxically that protected him from the venom of successive Emperors who tried hard to stamp out his teaching, which nevertheless in the end won the day at the Seventh Ecumenical Council at Nicea in 787. So, he is doubly relevant for us now!

We are gathered in this place because Father Nigel is not just going to be a preacher of the Word of God. Of course he’s going to be that – and, indeed, one of the most exalted callings is to be a preacher of the Word of God. But today Father Nigel is being caught up into the reality of the sacramental priesthood of the Church so that from now on at his hands the continuation of the Incarnation is to take place.

St John of Damascus himself made great play on the fact that as the Holy Spirit overshadowed the womb of Our Lady to bring forth the body of Christ, that same Holy Spirit overshadows the bread and wine on the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer to bring forth the body of Christ for the nourishment and transformation of the faithful. What a stupendous miracle! What an astonishing thing, that a priest in the apostolic succession can hold out his hands over bread and wine, invoking the Holy Spirit, and therefore be sure of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

Every now and then at a weekday lunchtime Mass at All Saints’ there is only one person mumbling the responses in the back seat of the Lady Chapel. But there have been times at those Masses, every bit as much as at our great Sunday High Mass, when I have been totally overwhelmed at the amazing mystery in which God has called me to participate. I’m allowed to think like that for only five minutes. Bishop John Hazlewood said after five minutes I’d best remember that the reason God called me to be a priest is that he probably couldn’t get me to heaven any other way!

Father Nigel is here, partly because of his family who have provided him to be an instrument of God’s grace. In the little biography that appears on the back of the order of service for his First Mass, Father Nigel himself signals that.

In that context my mind goes back to Father John Hope (whom I only knew in retirement) saying that there are three dimensions to authentic Christianity that we would need to be anchored in if we were going to be effective priests.

The first is the Catholic dimension, witnessing to the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us, for the Catholic religion is the context in which everything else finds its proper proportion.

Then he said that there is the Evangelical dimension, and he told us that in our priestly ministries some Anglo-Catholics would laugh at us for being as committed to the evangelical gospel as to the Catholic faith. (In this priest’s life that prophecy came true, and it is still coming true today. I can’t work out whether my enemies hate me more for teaching the Catholic faith or preaching the evangelical gospel!)

Then Father John Hope said that the third dimension that we would neglect to our peril is the Pentecostal dimension. He believed that fervently. And he said it stands to reason that if you get up in the morning determined to do what God has called you to do, consciously relying on the Holy Spirit, living on the edge of miracles, then you will be far more effective for God than if you get up in the morning determined to do it all in your own strength, lest anyone think you are a charismatic! I still believe that.

By the latter part of his life when I knew him, Father Hope had joined those three dimensions together in himself, hence the magnet he was for all who were searching for God and his love. I often wish that I had been a little bit older so as to have known him for longer! He enriched my life, and in those conversations in my teenage years he helped to orientate my future ministry in spite of the stmbles along the way.

Father Nigel, I know, has received from his family and his upbringing a great sense of the evangelical gospel. When I first got to know Father Nigel, I kept saying to him, “Never lose what they gave you . . . just add to it the other dimensions.” Indeed, who is it now, who is always quoted on the internet as saying that the Church must not get so top heavy as to forget her basic message that it is an encounter with Jesus Christ that can change your life . . . who says that on the internet? Cardinal Ratzinger! God is doing something in his Church today – he is bringing the bits together, the orthodox bits, the bits that belong together.

I can see that this is also a process that has been taking place in Father Nigel’s life, and I say praise God for his Baptist upbringing that gave him a sense of the urgency of the Gospel, without which Catholics can only be fifty per cent the priests that God wants us to be.

Then Nigel wandered into the bells and smells and became addicted.

I fed him various books by Dr Mascall. Indeed, when he began his theological degree, a wonderful blessing transpired: the once orthodox St Francis’ Theological College in Brisbane decided to put its collection of Mascall texts on the freebies table by the library door to be taken by anyone who wanted them. I don’t know if Nigel borrowed a trailer, but he took a goodly number home, and, unlike some priests who have Dr Mascall’s books on their shelves, he’s actually read them all! Writers like Dr Mascall have informed Father Nigel’s synthesis of evangelicalism, catholicism, and his sense of expectancy of the power of the Holy Spirit.

I have some words here from Pope John Paul II. (Nigel would kill me if I didn’t quote from the Pope at some stage during this sermon!) John Paul II said:

“The priestly vocation is a mystery. It is a mystery of a ‘wondrous exchange’ - admirable commercium - between God and man. A man offers his humanity to Christ so Christ may use him as an instrument of salvation, making him as it were into another Christ.”

The Holy Father also said in another place:

“It is not just any commitment which is asked of us, but the consecration of our whole existence, after the example of Jesus, who consecrated himself through his sacrificial offering. The gift which is asked of us is not an intermittent one, but a daily one because of it we follow a path which progressively draws nearer to the Redeemer through participation in the mystery of the cross, a path which makes us experience the joy of the Lord, friendship in fidelity, love, and interior dialogues.”

Father Nigel, I now have four things to say to you in these moments before the Bishop lays his hands upon you:

First: Never become so happy with this day that you forget it is a stage along the way. Make sure you nurture your daily relationship with the Lord Jesus.

Second: Never forget that you have been chosen to play a vital role in God’s ultimate purpose of bringing all things in heaven and earth together in a marvelous unity through the peace that was won by Jesus when he shed his blood upon the cross. That means maintaining an ecclesial vision slightly wider than mere Anglicanism!

Third: be vigilant because from this day on you will be plunged into spiritual warfare to a degree that you have never thought possible. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers. Where God is working, there the enemy will work overtime. And the powers of darkness will do all sorts of things to try and derail a priest who wants to serve God with all his heart.

Fourth: Never lose your sense of wonder at what God has done . . . even if it means taking time off to go and walk down by the beach to commune with him, or up a mountain to gaze out at his creation. If you’ve grown so stale that nothing takes your breath away, if you get to the stage where you are never blown away by things you read in the Scriptures, then you’ve got to do something about that, because for priests to lose our sense of wonder at what God has done renders us useless in infectiously communicating the Faith to others.

St John of Damascus is going to have the last word today. It’s a prayer that he prayed about his own priestly ministry. This is – as we say – a blockbuster! St John writes:

“Lord, you led me from my father’s loins and formed me in my mother’s womb. You brought me, a naked babe, into the light of day, for nature’s laws always obey your commands.

“By the blessing of the Holy Spirit, you prepared my creation and my existence, not because man willed it or flesh desired it, but by your ineffable grace. The birth you prepared for me was such that it surpassed the laws of our nature. You sent me forth into the light by adopting me as your son and you enrolled me among the children of your holy and spotless Church.

“You nursed me with the spiritual milk of your divine utterances. You kept me alive with the solid food of the body of Jesus Christ, your only-begotten Son and our God; you let me drink from the chalice of his life-giving blood, poured out to save the whole world.

“You loved us, O Lord, and gave up your only-begotten Son for our redemption. And he undertook the task willingly and did not shrink from it. Indeed, he applied himself to it as though destined for sacrifice, like an innocent lamb. Although he was God, he became man, and in his human will, became obedient to you, God his Father, unto death, even death on a cross.

“In this way you have humbled yourself, Christ my God, so that you might carry me, your stray sheep, on your shoulders. You let me graze in green pastures, refreshing me with the waters of orthodox teaching at the hands of your shepherds. You pastured these shepherds, and now they in turn tend your chosen and special flock. Now you have called me, Lord, by the hand of your bishop to minister to your people. I do not know why you have done so, for you alone know that. Lord, lighten the heavy burden of the sins through which I have seriously transgressed. Purify my mind and heart. Like a shining lamp, lead me along the straight path. When I open my mouth, tell me what I should say. By the fiery tongue of your Spirit make my own tongue ready. Stay with me always and keep me in your sight.

“Lead me to pastures, Lord, and graze there with me. Do not let my heart lean either to the right or to the left, but let your good Spirit guide me along the straight path. Whatever I do, let it be in accordance with your will, now until the end.”

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.