In the ordinations that I have attended a district superintendent says to the newly ordained person ‘take the yoke of Christ’. Then places the stole with all of its weight of history, tradition, and responsibility yoked with it. Being not yet ordained I can not where the traditional stole, I don’t have vestments, or a collar none of what one might think are the traditional trappings of the outward appearance for ministry. But in the past few months I have been yoked with a stole of sorts.
In working at the hospital I was issued a badge on a lanyard that I wear around my neck that gets me into the places that I need to get to be present for my patients. Often especially at the start I felt like this responsibility was all to much and not for me. But I started to gradually feel that maybe somehow I sort of was figuring out what I was doing. And I was building relationships with patients, and important relationships too. Then I got hit.
I was devastated and deflated and traumatized. But my more prevailing feeling was anger that getting hit had given me reason to not see the patients who asked to see me. Over that weekend with the consul of a good friend I realized that that lanyard issued to me was a sign of something else demanded of you at ordination ‘take thou authority’. My authority as a representative of God was more important then my fear. Because fear is easy but courage is more of a statement of the character of the God I know. It might seem silly to see this badge and lanyard as a sacred object, the first of many vestments to come. But with it I come with the knowledge, wisdom, tradition and faith that has sustained people for millennia. That God is with us and loves all.
