Fr Bert Rivett

 

The current church of St Mark, Red Cliffs.
This building was erected after Fr Bert’s time.

SERMON PREACHED at HOLY TRINITY,
RINGWOOD EAST

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

 (December 17^th) 1989

 

READINGS

Isaiah 35:1-10
Psalm 146:5-10
James 5:7-10
Matthew 11:2-11
 

(SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY of the ORDINATION to PRIESTHOOD
of Fr BERT RIVETT)

 

When I arrived in this parish I flicked through the Register of Services and saw there, for the week before Christmas in 1979, the signature of Fr Bert Rivett at the celebration of his fiftieth anniversary of priesting. So we are together today celebrating with Bert Rivett a rare but significant occasion, the likes of which that we see far too few.  

I have, after seeing that Register entry, mused how quickly the years must have flown by for Bert since that priesting on St. Thomas’ Day, 1929. 

To give some indication of the years of Bert’s priesthood, I will celebrate my 60^th anniversary – if God wills – late in the year 2047. We could do worse than to ask the question, “what is a priest?” 

There is a sense in which, by virtue of our baptism, we are all priests. But what is this ordained priesthood into which Bert entered in 1929?

It is many things. But I wish briefly to dwell on three.

The priest is a shepherd or pastor.

The priest is shepherd or deacon.

But, primarily, the priest is an icon, a reminder, an image.

The priest is a shepherd. In fact, as those of you who attended the recent ordination service will be aware, it is primarily the bishop who is the shepherd, who carries the crook, the crozier. But early in the Church’s history it became clear that the bishop could not care for and pastor all his people individually, and so the Church appointed presbyters to care for God’s people in extension of the bishop’s pastoral ministry.

In the charge to candidates at an ordination service the bishop commands the candidates to, in Book of Common Prayer language,

feed and provide for the Lord’s family; to seek for Christ’s sheep who are scattered abroad, and for his children who are surrounded by temptation in this world, that they may be saved through Christ for ever.

It is a task of caring – caring for the people of Red Cliffs or Qumabatook 0r Natimuk or Gisborne or Spotswood – wherever God sends his servants to feed his people.

Secondly, the priest is a deacon. Bert was made a deacon in 1928, and that calling to be a servant was then taken into andbthrough all his years as a priest. Bert is still both priest and deacon, a reminder to us all of Christ the Servant, and of our responsibility to serve one another.

 At his deaconing Bert was charged,

to assist the Priest in the divine service, and especially when he ministereth the Holy Communion, and to help in the distribution thereof; and to read Holy Scripture and Homilies in the church; and to instruct the youth in the Catechism.

We may yet employ him to train our confirmees!

Finally, and I believe primarily, the priest’s task is one of imaging, of being the image of Christ in the world. For this reason, the priest presides at the Eucharist, reminding us of Christ’s presiding at his own last supper, and to make present again and again the Last Supper and the Crucifixion of Christ in our midst.

For that reason it is the priest who takes on the Old Testament priest’s role of offering the prayers of the people, to remind us of Christ’s role as both priest and victim at the ultimate sacrifice.

The priest stands in the Church as a reminder to us of Christ – Christ the Shepherd, Christ the Servant, Christ the Priest. He or she stands to remind us of our own vocation to be priests in the New Testament relationship to God, of our own responsibility to offer prayers and thanksgiving to God for God’s people and God’s world.

It was to this task and privilege that Bert – Father Bert – was ordained in 1929, and in which, despite being retired, he is still able to stand among us today.

The time for congratulatory speeches is not during a sermon. But this is the time to give thanks to God tor the priesthood, and to celebrate with Bert 60 years signifying to the world something of Christ’s love for it.

silent, holy ...

SERMON PREACHED at HOLY TRINITY,
RINGWOOD EAST

Christmas Eve

(December 24^th) 1989

READINGS

Isaiah 7:10-16
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25
 

Silent night, holy night. A night far removed from our experience of Christmas. We celebrate the birth of our Saviour by cluttering our lives with noise, and tinsel, and expense, and money, money, money. We destroy ourselves and our loved ones on the road, and again and again fail to heed the warnings of police – and common sense.

We celebrate less the birth of a gentle saviour than a frenzied demon. The god of commerce masquerading as the God of love, making a parody of the Saviour whose birth we rejoice in, the Saviour who cried out, “How blessed are you who are poor.”

The Children of Israel had crushed God out of their lives. Consideration of all that God had desired for them had been given away. Love of neighbour, love of God – love of God above all – love and consideration for the poor and the have-nots, the down-trodden. All was forgotten in a orgy of self-importance.

This had been a decade of fraud. The demise of the televangelists and the continuing exposé of Queensland’s God-fearing but corrupt leaders[1] become useful symbols of all that Isaiah despised and mourned as he looked at his people. He – and he was at least three people spanning 225 years – saw all that his people had done to neglect the longings of God, and sought to tell of impending downfall, and yet of God’s continued love.

Jerusalem fell. The city was sacked, the women pillaged and raped, the males slaughtered, and the survivors carried off into exile. Sometimes it seems as if we have approached, in the last decade, similar disaster. Afghanistan, the Falklands, Eritrea, Iran and Iraq, are all global nightmares revisited.

But the greatest nightmare is the damage we have done to our planet. Chernobyl, and countless lesser ecological disasters, demonstrate clearly that we no more listen to our prophets than did the Jewish people to Isaiah. And the televangelists and moral majorities continue to make their millions.

We have begun to pull back from the brink of ecological collapse.[2] It may be too late. While we cry out “How can God let this happen?” we continue to ignore God, ignore God’s tears for us.

Silent night, holy night. The Child-God was born unwanted, lived primarily unwanted, an embarrassment to his family and his people, and died unwanted. Even the miracle of his resurrection was seen at first only by a few timid women.

There is no glamour in Christianity. In the ’80s we have sought gloss and glamour, a Christianity of signs and wonders, of Kodachrome and hi-tech. If we are to be effective witnesses to Christ in the 1990s we must touch those who are born in a manger and those who die on a cross, and must be part of the movement that seeks to pull humanity back from disaster.

Silent night, holy night. Silent because holy. The other kind of silent is silent only because all is dead.

Let us be still, now, and know the silence of the God who is about to be born in our midst.

 

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[1] The Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct (the Fitzgerald Inquiry, 1987–1989) released its findings in July 1989. Premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen resigned in disgrace. Three former state cabinet ministers and a police commissioner were jailed.

[2] Or so it seemed as the 1980s came to a close.