Those who would become priests in the Episcopal Church are selected according to the canons, asked to live lives that are suitable examples, to have satisfied specific requirements, and to be deemed qualified by persons they may never meet. Aspirants to Holy Orders are not affirmed simply because they can assert things to be true about themselves or if they supply sufficiently glowing language about their personal sense of call.

The vocation of the priesthood is centered in the community, not in the individual. It is the church that determines whether an individual who believes they may be called to serve in the church is in fact called to serve as a priest and not as something else. Anyone with strong feelings can stand up a declare themselves an end-times prophet and then go thunder on a mountain or rant on a street corner - but you cannot simply declare yourself a priest in the Episcopal Church.

Aspirants to Holy Orders are sorted like grain and weighed against criteria. There is discernment by various parts of the community and examination by the church. This is not a process for the faint hearted, the weak minded, or the theologically immature.

A call to the priesthood is not a personal accomplishment. If we look more deeply into what is going on we will see that ordination to the priesthood is the end result of a process of discernment and recognition that includes the individual but makes use not only of the current community's discernment but of the opinions of people who died in the first and second century. Why do I claim this? Because the attempts of our distant ancestors in the faith to discover how, when and why to set people apart for specific work in God's name, helps form our understanding of what we are doing with Laura this very day.

We may find this community centered premise hard to believe as we sing hymns full of first person personal pronouns, stand in small groups around the candidate, give gifts and generally focus on Laura a whole lot. But let us all try to remember that it is God in whom we live and move and have our being, not this ordination liturgy. This rite is a sign that points to something larger. It is not meant to be a destination in and of itself.

Today is just one day in the flow of time from the day we were raised up out of the water of baptism to that day we will be lowered into the earth from which we were made. Even our lives together are just one stretch of that stream of living water that carries Noah and Jonah, Jesus and John, Popes and peasants in medieval Europe, and our grandchildren's grandchildren who may live on other continents or even other planets. The point at which Bishop Rabb will lay his hands on Laura and ask God to "Make her a priest" is just one small splash in a vast river of holiness that flows to the throne of God. Do these pronouncements mean that Laura shouldn't believe something special is taking place- that she shouldn't enjoy it and feel empowered by it? Heaven Forbid!

The work of a faithful priest is impossible to do unless you truly believe God and the Church have called you. The whole process, including this liturgy, is designed to help us test a call, then, if discovered, affirm its presence strongly, so that the candidate can become a priest who is rightly focused on nourishing and strengthening others to glorify God in this life and the next. One cannot have that focus if one has not absorbed and accepted that this rite does what it says and that we truly believe that those we present are indeed called.

Ordination is like the final firing of a booster rocket that moves a communications satellite into a high enough orbit and then releases it, so that the power of word and image may reach to the ends of the earth. We send up satellites not so that there can be another star in the firmament but to facilitate more fluid communication from on high and among ourselves. We raise up priests so that they might be both a sign and a means to see ourselves as more connected to each other and to God.

We already know that whether one speaks of the work of NASA or the mission of the Church we are speaking of work that is too large and complex to be done in a corner powered only by the wisdom and strength found within any single individual. Just as the launching of satellites requires rockets, launch pads and people who work in mission control, the mission of the church requires far more than just good priests. In fact as Episcopalians we believe it takes four orders to properly explore the heavens- lay persons, deacons, priests and bishops. We are all called to seek lights by which to steer, to listen for instruction and to be willing to be launched - into the harvest, into the mission field, into that space that God has prepared for us to soar in. The larger question, then, that this ordination points to is not "who is called", we all are. The question for each person present today is "to what is God calling me, now?"

In the lesson from Isaiah the pivots on the threshold shake and the house is filled with smoke, a seraph rockets forth carrying a coal full of fire that purifies and commissions. Isaiah is examined in the light but then he is launched into the darkness- not to fly solo, not for his own pleasure, but to "go for us," to go for the benefit of God's people.

Paul reminds the Philippians, and us, that we need to choose the stars we'll steer by as we move through time and space. If we fix on lights that are true, honorable, just, pure, commendable and worthy we will avoid fatal collisions with space junk that would otherwise knock us out of orbit. How can we tell the difference between a navigation aid and an accident waiting to happen? Paul says we already know- keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen from me, Paul says.

Then there is the harvest to which Jesus points, an abundance of lost sheep more plentiful than sand by the sea or stars in the sky. Christ says to His disciples- that would be Bishop Rabb, Laura, you and me- "therefore ask the Lord to send laborers out into his harvest."

And we can hear the music of the spheres in the background as an echo from the Book of Isaiah bounces off some distant planet and carries back that ancient question- "whom shall I send, send, send…who will go for us, go for us, go for us?"

Isaiah is silent, still and gone, back to the earth from which he came.
We are the ones who live and move.
Shall we acknowledge that we hear the question?
Shall we answer God this day?
AMEN.