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The three - the Revs. Helen Jones, Karl Lusk and Alice Nichols - were ordained on Oct. 20 during a service at Christ Church Cathedral in Louisville. Lusk is the vicar of St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Campbellsville, and Nichols, rector of Christ Episcopal Church, Elizabethtown. They were ordained deacons in May. Jones, a deacon for 20 years, serves at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Louisville. [Profiles of Lusk and Nichols were published in the May issue of Episcopal News; a profile of Jones may be found in this issue on page 3k.]
In the sermon, the bishop was sending them back to their ministries in Louisville, Campbellsville and Elizabethtown, not to continue as deacons charged with being servants of the church, but as priests who recruit and coach compassionate workers to be the hands and heart of Jesus.
The seed for his sermon, he indicated, came from a "disturbing fact" he had learned at a recent clergy meeting: the State of California projects its prison expansion on a formula derived from the number of fourth-graders scoring below average on reading tests.
Although his initial response to the new information was to want to do something personally to help remedy the situation, he said, he came to realize as he reflected on the gospel reading that personal involvement was not necessarily the charge for priests. "Even though Jesus has preached and healed in response to the need, even though Jesus points out to his closest followers, his disciples, that the harvest is great, he does not ask them to wade into the harvest.... He does not ask them to engage in ministry or service - yet. He asks them to pray. Pray to the Creator of the opportunity for service that laborers will be sent."
Priests, therefore, are charged to pray for "an abundance of laborers" and to become their coaches, he said. "Pastoral care is essential. However, if it is not coupled with compassionate recruitment it is simply an exercise in fostering the spiritual narcissism that so blocks ministry. What a priest should do about the fourth graders who can't read is to convince every teacher in the congregation that his or her ministry is the transforming ministry of Jesus Christ."
Acknowledging that "there will be some going into the harvest," the bishop specifically noted the different paths to the priesthood taken by Jones, Lusk and Nichols, who have gone, respectively, "from St. Francis to the cathedral to Louisville Seminary to Norton Hospital to St. Matthew's ... the funeral home to Paris to Bardstown to Campbellsville to the seminary ... a clinical practice in Nashville to Vanderbilt to Russellville, Hopkinsville and Elizabethtown. "We priests are on the move, but only after transforming, conforming, heart-breaking, open-to-compassion prayer opens us up to mission and saves us from compulsive, ego-driven, spastic attempts to be God substitutes, exhausted and defeated. The harvest is plentiful. For God's sake, Pray!"
Click here or on the photos above to view more photos by Donald Vish
