Full circle

I am conducting my first ordination service Sunday evening. In our faith community, the privilege of laying hands on men and ordaining them to the ministry is reserved for the bishops.

Last November, following a vote by the U. S. House of Bishops, I was consecrated as a bishop and now serve as an auxiliary bishop of the Southeast Province with current responsibility for Georgia and Tennessee.

I thought that my first service of ordination was going to be in August when I will ordain to the diaconate two seminarians from our diocese but, a few weeks ago, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of the Armed Forces called me and asked if I would ordain a recent seminary graduate and chaplain candidate to the priesthood. In September, the man I am to ordain this Sunday evening will enter the United States Army as a chaplain.

There is a certain irony that the first person that I will ordain is to become a military chaplain. It brings the story — my story — full circle.

In February 1970, I reported to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot at Parris Island, S.C., where I would find myself in Platoon 223, 2nd Recruit Battalion. I was a just-turned 19-year-old who had joined the Marine Corps partially to avoid the draft (I never claimed to be a genius) and partially because my father told me I would never be able to hack Marine Corps boot camp.

We were at war then, as we are now, and a number of my friends had already been sent to Vietnam. My next-door neighbor, a year or two older than me, had been horribly wounded and two of my school friends, one a marine, the other a soldier, had been killed. It was a serious time.

The thought of going to war, of having to possibly go into combat against another human being, and of being maimed or killed often will cause one to search out the meaning of life. I suppose that’s why, one afternoon, I was in the chaplain’s office trying to figure out who I was and what I believed about life, death, war, killing, and other pressing questions.

I don’t remember much about that meeting, but I do remember that the Navy chaplain gave me a New Testament and a small, green booklet entitled “The Serviceman’s Guide.”

That encounter led, on March 3, 1970, to my giving my life to Jesus Christ and becoming a committed Christian. Everything in my life changed on that night. Everything about my life can be traced back to the meeting with the chaplain.

After completing my tour, I went to college and seminary, entered the ministry, raised a family, and, for over 35 years, have been a pastor or an assistant to a pastor.

For 19 of those years, I have been a police chaplain trying, in some small measure, to be to others, who put their lives on the line, what that Navy chaplain was to me over 38 years ago.

In fact, when I left the military, I thought that I would become a chaplain and serve those men and women who serve our nation — but it wasn’t to be.

Now, in the irony that is often experienced in the lives of those who serve God, the very first person I will ordain will be a man who is a chaplain candidate and will soon be a chaplain in the United States Army.

William Rian Adams is his name. I have a charismatic/Pentecostal background, having served as an ordained minister in the Assemblies of God. So does he, having served as an associate pastor in the Church of God.

I served for a few years as a United Methodist local pastor. John Wesley was the founder of Methodism. Soon-to-be Father Adams received his Master of Divinity from Wesley Biblical Seminary. Irony upon irony.

I have long ago stopped trying to understand “mystery.” Now I simply embrace and stand in wonder at the mysteries that God brings into our lives.

This coming Sunday night I will lay my hands on Rian Adams and ordain him to the priesthood. Soon, at a military base somewhere or in a combat zone in some faraway nation, he will be praying and counseling with soldiers — some of whom will be changed forever.

Maybe some of these young soldiers will even become ministers someday and — just maybe — some will become bishops and ordain men to be chaplains. I wouldn’t be surprised at all.