Seminary Journal 2008 (August) - Virginia Theological Seminary

Love in our Christian context is
defi ned by the cross: it is patient and
kind; it is not envious or boastful or
arrogant or rude. Love does not insist
on its own way. Love leads by consensus,
with attention to all the voices in
the community and with imagination
to hear the voices that have been excluded.
Love is not irritable or resentful.
It doesn’t get itself into a snit, even
in a faculty meeting, which may be the
ultimate test of genuine love. Love is
patient because it knows that all these
things we do are temporary. They will
pass away, like the grass and fl ower
of the fi eld, just as childhood passes
away, just as our imperfect vision will
one day pass away. Then we shall
see clearly, face to face; then we shall
know in full, even as we have been
fully known by God.
Thank you, Paul, says the Noisy Gong
and Clanging Cymbals Committee chair,
it’s always good to hear from you about
how love plays itself out in the concrete
details of things, in the decisions we
make even about minor matters, such as
whether to stick with the lessons for the
day or to try to smuggle in some other
short text of seven words that probably
should not even be mentioned here. So
we’ll just go on.
Because, now, fi nally, Pontius Pilate
has a question. We’ll use him today to
represent that constituency, sometimes
outside the Seminary, sometimes inside
it, sometimes in each of us, that is
impatient with truth claims, skeptical
that the church can do anything right,
doubtful that we can ever reach signifi
cant clarity on important matters,
cynical that “might makes right” and
that theological discourse is quaint at
best and self-deluded at worst. Pilate
wrote the post-modern agenda long
VIRGINIA SEMINARY JOURNAL AUGUST 2007
before the word itself was coined: he
wants to know, since everybody has
their bit of truth, “What is Truth?”
And here every one of the biblical witnesses
points, each in its own way, in
the same direction, to the same reality:
the Unity in Trinity incarnate in Jesus
Christ our Lord, crucifi ed, risen, and
poured out in the life of the community
that bears his Name. When
Christians attempt to answer Pilate’s
question, we think not of a series of
propositions but of a person. It is his
story that we recite in the words of the
ancient creed, which is why it is singularly
appropriate for our Dean and
President to lead us in saying these
words, as she will do in just a very few
minutes now.
All of our truths and our disputes
about truths pass away like the grass,
like the years. “Time, like an ever-rolling
stream bears all its sons away;
they fl y forgotten as a dream dies at
the opening day.” But the word of
the Lord; the wisdom of the ancestors;
faith, hope, and especially love;
and the wonderful Truth we know in
Christ Jesus, that God’s forgiving and
renewing love is more powerful than
sin and death—these things abide.
They last forever.
Martha Horne was the fi rst woman
to be called to the offi ce of Dean and
President of any seminary in the Anglican
Communion, and before she made
a move or said a word, she was already
famous, or infamous, depending on
your point of view. Many of us remember
that at her installation she was
presented with the usual gifts and then
also presented with two gifts in particular
that were somewhat unusual.
The fi rst was an eleven-foot pole, for
things you wouldn’t want to touch
with a ten-foot pole. It stands in a
corner of her offi ce to remind all of
us to think and act boldly for Christ. I
hope she will leave it to her successor.
The other unusual gift she received
that day was a cross, a copy of the one
that stands on the top of the Seminary
Chapel. It serves both as a point of
reference for the community and as a
lightning rod. If there’s heat to take, it
is the Dean and President who takes
the heat.
The vocation of Dean and President
is not an easy one. And many of the
people who talk about servant leadership
have no idea what it is, or, if they
do, they personally want no part of it.
But Martha’s tenure among us as Dean
and President has taken the pattern of
a long faithfulness, a decision made
each and every day, and on some days
probably several times during the day,
to embody a certain kind of leadership,
in spite of substantial pressures
from many quarters to slide into some
other kind of pattern that would have
been considerably easier for her.
There are so many things we want
to say to her and there will be time
this afternoon and evening and in
the days to come to say at least some
of these things, but I wonder if there
might be one thing that the community
assembled here would want
to say in unison to our Dean and
President. Not a long statement, really,
only seven words, it won’t take
long, but we’d better hurry up and
do it quickly before she puts a stop to
all this and moves us into the Creed.
And so, Martha Horne, “Well done,
thou good and faithful servant!”
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