Celebration of Ministry held at St. Augustine’s for Fr. Anthony MacWhinnie

A Celebration of Ministry service was held January 26, 2011 for The Rev. Anthony MacWhinnie of St. Augustine of Canterbury Episcopal Church in Navarre, Florida. The Rev. Dr. David McDowell-Fleming gave the sermon.

Celebration of a new ministry
Sermon Preached by The Rev. Dr. David H McDowell-Fleming
St. Augustine’s January 26th, 2011

I am honored to have been asked to speak at this occasion for Fr. Anthony and St. Augustine’s.  My history with both Fr. Anthony and this congregation goes back many years.
In 1985 in the winter, I was asked by Fr. Dick Cobbs to take a service for the small group who were forming a congregation sponsored by St. Simons in Navarre.

It was one of those bitter wind driven rain mornings and I drove out to the island to old Holiday Inn. The group met in the theater and a tempory altar was set up in the front of the stage. It was a small group indeed that met in those bleak surroundings smelling of stale pop corn but we said our prayers bundled up and went on home. From there to a piece of land and a double wide to the congregation we have now that wants to celebrate a new ministry.

Now I am not going to tell Fr. Anthony stories so he can relax a little bit. Except to say he was my senior counselor at the first camp where I was dean at Beckwith a long time ago. He was also a guest speaker at my mother-in-laws 80th birthday party and he introduced us to the wonders of the marine life in the Sound in a way that infected us with his deep appreciation of marine biology of this area. We had been surrounded with these wonders all our lives yet we didn’t really see until Anthony showed us. I suspect his ministry will reflect some of this opening to new vision.

Well, where do we start in thinking about the relationship between priest and congregation?
Let me start with a story from my own background.  In the sixties I was appointed to a church in a small valley town in the Victorian Alps of Australia. Normally the population was about 900 but during the summer it could swell to many thousand as the valley was a popular camping holiday destination.

The town had one doctor, three churches, three pubs, a small hospital and a bakery that made you hungry when they were baking. If you were a visitor and became ill and asked a local where to get medical help. You would get this response from the local,  “Well how sick are you?  What are the symptoms? Can you wait until clinic hours tomorrow in the morning  9-12? Let me find you some aspirin.”

The whole local town protected their doctor.  They knew it was a grave mistake to call him out of hours. They knew they were fortunate to have any doctor to serve in such a remote spot so they looked after their Dr. Reg Woods. Certainly they were not going to allow thousands of tourists to overwhelm their doctor.

When I first came across this behavior I quietly asked a few questions and the story unfolded. Dr. Reg had been a faithful army doctor imprisoned in that infamous Changi Japanese  prison camp that was set up at the fall of Singapore  during the Second World War. Because he was faithful in trying to meet the need of the British and Australian prisoners he was made a particular target of brutal treatment especially beatings. He came back to Australia with major brain damage but was slowly able to rehabilitate to where he could function on a limited basis as a physician. He still had the most horrible tremors and when he was coming at you with an injection, you thought to yourself, “my goodness he is going to miss” but as he got closer to you his hand would become rock steady and you could see the great effort he was putting into the task. Many wonderful stories about our Dr. Reg but he is an introduction to a model of relatedness not between town and doctor but between parish and priest.

The history of this relationship has a particular American flavor. Going back to the earliest days of the American colonies it was quite obvious that the Anglican parish model was not going to be an easy fit upon the American psyche. The Church of England also retains Roman Catholicism’s hierarchical form of government: rule of its churches today rests in ascending bodies of clergy, headed by bishops and archbishops. This mode of organization also prevailed in early modern Britain, but the American colonies, lacking a bishop, entrusted enormous authority to local church vestries composed of the most eminent laymen. This was especially true in the South, which led to frequent contests for control and influence between parsons and the vestry.

The study of the role of Vestries and parish priest relationships in this country is fascinating. The English parish system simply did not fit the American colonial reality. One Virginia parish was ten miles across and one hundred and twenty miles in length. Colonists could hardly attend church at the one congregation allowed within the parish and visitation was almost impossible. But along with the failure of the parish system was the formation and development of the Vestry system.

Let me share with you the reflections of another historian..

The Formation of the Vestry
Virginians soon grew weary of English incompetents in their pulpits. They eventually took matters in their own hands and simply failed to inform England of vacancies. Anglican churches could and did survive without ordained clergy by relying on “readers” who directed worship. Although the church couldn’t baptize or conduct communion services, they could still worship. American churches would rather do without some services to avoid English misfits.
Many Anglican churches appointed a board of 12 congregationally selected men to act as trustees. This board then selected the readers. As their power grew, they nominated and presented new preachers to the Virginia governor for approval. This is the vestry and gradually it’s power expanded. Since they called ministers to one congregation for life, the vestry tended to be extremely careful. Vestries discovered that, while the state set the basic salary requirements for ministers, they could pay an interim minister whatever they deemed proper. The vestry could appoint a reader pay them a pittance. The state of the Virginia church depended entirely on the quality of its vestry. A good vestry selected ministers carefully. Others simply chose men from convenience or careless choice.

Historians see the vestry system as the beginning of American republicanism. In some ways that’s true. The vestry often served as a training ground for representatives to the House of Burgesses.

Hence, our situation today in the Episcopal Church is shaped from our earliest beginnings of our country. We could go on a look at how the American Revolution impacted our denomination but let us come to Navarre in the year of our Lord 2011.

Because of an unfortunate congregationalism, relationships vary from parish to parish. Yet we are a Diocese and father Anthony is not only to be rector of this parish he remains very much a priest of the Diocese under the guidance of our Bishop.  Also in recent years there has grown up the development of a very useful tool in the relationship of priest to parish.
This is called a letter of agreement some might say a contract but it has a far more pastoral shape than a legal contract.

When these first came into common use I brought it forward to the parish in which I served. But not only the idea of the letter, but a careful analysis of how I spent my time in the parish after some eight years, but not only in the parish but also in the Diocese and representing that parish to the community at large.

What I needed was feedback on what I was doing to see how well there was a fit between the parish and myself. I was surprised that there was almost no interest in the issue at all. Indeed there was some antagonism to me even raising the issue. Well eventually we signed a document and I think live together under its terms for seventeen years.

Having a relationship discussed and clarified in this way is a wise way to proceed.
Yet like Moses in the desert there is no way clergy leadership can avoid human nature.
The passage we read comes after the people had done a lot of complaining
God had provided manna, food to eat in the desert. But they wanted, meat and fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.

Then it becomes obvious to God that Moses is not handling this very well and he needs help Thus in establishing good management theory God requires the appointment of the seventy and Moses has to delegate. He now has a vestry of seventy.    People sometimes get distressed when human nature shows it bad side in the church. But then you discover they have the odd idea that the church is a community of elect perfect Christ like people.

I have found that a more helpful image is that of the church being a hospital or even a first aid station. Within whose walls is found to be the medicine of salvation. Hence it stands to reason that, from time to time, folk who have flaws of all sorts will be found sitting in the pews.
Please don’t expect your rector to fix them! Perhaps together you can come up with some strategies.

For eleven years I ran a crisis agency in Durham North Carolina. We were warned from our National leadership that six chronic /repeat callers could ruin an agency thus each month we had a workers meeting and together on a black board we established a strategy we all agreed to and would be consistent in applying to each of these cases. We kept these strategies on file in front of the workers and over the years we were able to track change.
Hence the Christian climate of this church is a shared responsibility. Father Anthony may lead, share a vision, inspire, teach, preach and celebrate at this Altar. But like Moses he is going to need his seventy.

If I had one major point to leave with you for this celebration it would be to ask you to create time and space for Father Anthony to be your scholar. At one point in my directing that Crisis agency I was responsible for producing a monthly news letter. I had a teaching editorial each month. Well things got very busy when we moved into Child Abuse prevention work. I simply didn’t put the time into those editorials. The Newsletter was full of wonderful busy work of all the grand things we were doing.

I was approached by one of my most senior, respected workers. She said to me, “David you are not feeding us anymore.” We that set me back because “busy” did not take the place of reflective leadership and that meant thinking and study on my part. Wonderful feedback and an important correction.

I was raised in a tradition where sermon preparation was taken very seriously. One of our authorities was perhaps the greatest English preacher of his time  claimed we must put one hour of sermon preparation into every minute of sermon preached. Along with this he admitted during the blitz in London during the Second World War he preached some of the best sermons he offered yet he had no time to prepare. Yet he suggested  the Holy Spirit is not there to bail us out of sloppy work  but there are times when deep personal faith is all we have to go on.

Tonight is a celebration but I think of it more as commissioning event. When a new naval ship is ready after extensive trials and test, certainly as Father Anthony has experienced, the crew are in full dress and take command of their vessel. A most moving event but the ship is commissioned for a task not for status or even a ritual moment of passage. A task, and thus this new ministry have the task of, together priest and people are about the business of the Kingdom of God. This ministry is validated in the service it renders. May your mutual ministry graciously enrich the work of the Diocese and it Bishop and above all advance the Kingdom of God and Lord Jesus Christ in this place. Amen.