ORDINATION CHARGE TO THE REVEREND ERIN DUNIGAN

BY THE REVEREND DR. GARY A. WILBURN

ST. ANDREW’S PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA

OCTOBER 18, 2009

  What a great day this is…finally!  I bring you greetings from The Presbytery of Southern New England, where, until recently, I was Senior Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan, Connecticut.  I also bring lots of love from the seaside community of  La Mision.  I see we have a delegation from Baja here today.  Word must have gotten out that there was a party at Erin’s place!

     Two years ago I was stunned when I was diagnosed with A. L. S., or Lew Gehrig’s Disease.  I have recently lost my ability to speak.  But thanks to the marvels of modern science, I am able to speak to you today by means of a computer voice synthesizer.

            If I have learned anything over the past 24 months, it is that life is good…and beautiful…and tragic…and fragile…and sometimes shorter than we thought it would be.  So the question is, how do any of us know what God wants us to do with our life?    

     Erin, you are a great example to many of us who get up every morning and ask, “O.K., God, what are we going to accomplish together today?”. 

     My charge to you today is three-fold.  As a Presbyterian preacher, you will get used to three-fold everything!  Google has forty-nine thousand, five hundred entries for “three-fold Presbyterian”.   It would be easier if you were a Unitarian!

     Here they are:  three failsafe ways to discover God’s will for your life and ministry:

            “Follow the Gleam…

            Favor the Bent… and

            Look for the Open Door!”

     When I was in college I was taken with Bill Bright’s popular slogan, “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.”  That dates John Huffman and me!  Now, some years later, I still believe that God loves me…often against all odds…but I believe that the “wonderful plan for my life” part is up to me.

     I do not believe that God charts human destiny.  What I do believe is that our lives are lived…and our choices are made…under the sovereignty of God.  As one theologian put it, “God does have a plan for our lives!  But God may also be interested in seeing what we come up with in the way of new ideas for the plot!”  (1)

     So first, above all, “Follow the Gleam in your eye!” 

     There are all too many burnt-out ministers in the church.  Once consumed with a fiery zeal for being the best and brightest, the most accomplished and most deserving, they often end up shattered, spent, empty, angry – disappointed with God, with themselves, and with the world.

      So, Erin, I ask you this afternoon:  Where is your passion?  What is it that turns you on?  What is it that sparks your imagination…that gets your juices going…that grabs hold of you and won’t let go until you run with it? 

Follow your heart and your head will come around. 

     Second, “Favor the Bent.” 

     What comes naturally to you?  What are you good at?  What do your friends say are your best qualities?  What do you so enjoy doing that you couldn’t imagine ever making a living at it because it would be too enjoyable, too much fun?

     What is that “One Thing” that Billy Crystal needed to figure out in the movie, “City Slickers”?  “One Thing!”  Go with it.  Favor it.  Follow it.    

     Most churches install their ministers, like we are doing today.  But what we ought to be doing is installing one another, whether we are laity or clergy, to that particular, unique ministry which God has called each of us to do in and for the world.  

     As beautiful and majestic as this sanctuary is, it is not what happens inside these walls that changes the world.  It is what happens when each of us goes outside these walls to transform the “Kingdoms of This World” into “the Kingdom of God.” 

     “Favor your Bent.”

     Finally, “Look For the Open Door.”  Most doors in life are not locked.  They just haven’t had anyone bother to turn the handle!

     Frederick Beuchner, the popular Presbyterian writer, puts it this way:  “The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do, and (b) that the world most needs to have done….The place God calls [us] to is the place where [our] deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”   

     I believe that God is calling each and every one of us in this sanctuary to show up, to ‘double the heart’s might,’ to help one another build a more just and generous society at home and a genuine, viable global community abroad -  a community that hates war and holds humanity and nature in reverence.  (2)

          Finally, the Shorter Catechism tells us that our primary goal in life is “to glorify God, and enjoy God forever.”  That enjoyment is not just for ministers.  It’s for every individual.   A lot of ministers have forgotten that.  They are no longer “surprised by joy.”  They no longer see burning bushes, and hear “still small voices.”  They ought to get out of the ministry and do something they enjoy!  I can’t imagine doing the ministry of Jesus for a lifetime without having a heck of good time along the way!

 “Follow the Gleam…Favor the Bent…and Look For the Open Door!”

     Erin, I pray that you continue to find what is yours to do in the world and that you have the courage to do it with all you’ve got! 

     And as your extended family of friends, we will be right there with you!

     God Bless You All!

 Wallace M. Alston, Jr., “Does God Have A Plan for You?” Presbyterian Survey, January-February, 1986, p. 22.

William Sloane Coffin, A Passion For The Possible: A Message to U.S. Churches (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), pp. 82, 83.