The following sermon was preached by the Rt. Rev. Dr. John Bauerschmidt at the ordination and consecration of the Very Rev’d Rob Price as Bishop Coadjutor of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas, September 6, 2025.
“When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (John 20:22).
Our Gospel reading for this service of ordination and consecration is from the twentieth chapter of the Gospel of John: the so-called “Johannine Pentecost” because it gives us John’s account of the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out on the disciples. You may remember that in Luke’s Gospel, the resurrected Lord tells his disciples to stay in Jerusalem until they have been clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49); the Book of Acts then tells how at the feast of Pentecost, at a time certain, the Holy Spirit descends upon them, confirming that Jesus is Lord and Messiah and inaugurating a new age. Now is the time of mission, in which the Church is swept forward in the power of the Spirit.
So today we have John’s version, which makes the connection between Jesus’ resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit clear in one succinct encounter. It’s the evening of the Day of Resurrection, and the traumatized and fearful disciples are gathered in Jerusalem, when suddenly the resurrected Lord stands among them. Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). It’s a missionary moment, an occasion of dispatch, for Jesus’ followers. They will be following in the footsteps of their Lord and Master, the One who now calls them “friends” (John 15:15).
They will only be able to engage in this mission, however, by the power of the Spirit. With his next breath (literally), Jesus says to them, “‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’” (John 20:22-23). Jesus began by telling them “Peace be with you” (John 20:21); now with the mention of the forgiveness of sins, Jesus heralds the inauguration of a new age in which restoration, freedom, and peace, are possible. All of this comes from the Spirit, whom Jesus breathes forth upon the disciples as they are sent into the world.
I’ve heard it said before (even from pulpits!) that Jesus never meant to start a Church, and I think I know what that means. In other words, Jesus never went down to the courthouse at Caesarea to register his movement with the Roman governor: that is, Holy Catholic Church, Inc., with a lawyerly set of canons, by-laws, property and what not. Jesus’ movement was never “institutionalized” in that sense; the Holy Spirit was never permanently pegged down.
Let’s think about this for a moment. Institutions today get a bad rap, and sometimes that’s warranted; though it’s also true that some of us have come to see their utility. Institutions can incarnate values and ways of being, even wisdom (on occasion): what are sometimes called in the Church “traditions.” These “ways of doing things” handed down over time insulate us from the vagaries of the individual and the “cult of personality”; from the arbitrary exercise of executive whimsey and caprice, among other things. So maybe there is some value in institutions, after all. Those of us who grew up in the anti-institutionalism of the 1960s have something to learn.
Though Jesus, in this sense, never had a corporate identity, he did make us “very members incorporate” in his mystical body the Church, as the old prayer says. In selecting twelve apostles to follow him, a company who mirrored the twelve tribes of Israel, he connected his movement with the formation of a renewed community of faith. Remember that in Luke’s account of Pentecost, the disciples spent a good deal of their time between Jesus’ ascension and the descent of the Spirit in discerning who would make up the number of the Twelve. They were working on the institution, if you will. Our Gospel reading, for its part, makes clear the connection between Jesus and the gift of the Spirit, and the sending of the disciples in mission. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jo. 20:21). It’s not the first board meeting of Holy Catholic Church, Inc., but it is the inauguration of a definite community: a Church, a sign of the kingdom, with a particular form and task before it.
There’s no doubt that we are participating in a Pentecostal event this morning, as we ordain and consecrate our beloved brother Rob Price as a bishop in Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. In the course of our liturgy, we will invoke the Holy Spirit over and over again. The Spirit, of course, “blows where it wills” (Jo. 3:8), as Jesus says, but we believe that it is blowing today in the Diocese of Dallas, stirring things up and preparing our friend Rob and all of us for what lies ahead. Jesus today is breathing forth the same Spirit that dispatched the apostles for their work and for the task that was set before them. Today we pray that God will equip us for the work that is at hand.
But at this Pentecostal moment, we especially need to pray for our brother Rob. The central prayer of our liturgy today, the prayer of consecration of the new bishop, will invoke upon him the power of the Father’s “princely Spirit,” the same Spirit bestowed upon Christ himself, and upon his apostles. This is quite an audacious petition, if you think about it! It will be said by all the bishops in unison (very impressive): maybe so that God will be sure to hear it, and our friend Rob as well.
It’s an ancient prayer, and many things might come to mind as we pray. One significant liturgical gloss of “princely Spirit” is “governing spirit,” though to my mind this is not quite the thing by way of translation: too utilitarian, too administrative. “Princely” comes from the Latin “principium,” or “beginning,” as in “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jo. 1:1), or “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth… and the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:1-2). The “princely Spirit” is a Spirit of ordering, of bringing things into right relationship with each other, and all things into relationship with God. Then again, the “princely Spirit” is creative, continuing to blow where it wills, beginning new work and bringing new things into being.
There is some truth, however, in the utilitarian and administrative gloss. So much of the bishop’s task is behind the scenes, and back of the house. It’s ecclesiastical scut work, and not glamorous at all, in spite of its public face. It’s humble work, so our brother Rob will need God’s “princely Spirit” as he goes about the task of ordering God’s messy Church. Someone once told me that on the great steamships it was always the engine room crew below the waterline who became the most seasick. Likewise, on the ark of salvation that is the Church, the bishop will need to get up on deck on occasion and see the horizon. God’s horizon is how we stay oriented, without being buffeted too much by what the Spirit has cooked up. The alternative to orientation, of course, is nothing less than nausea.
So here, Bishop Rob, is my prescription, passed on from two spiritual giants, leaders of the nineteenth century Oxford Movement, that’s left its imprint on the Diocese of Dallas. The first is supplied by Edmund Bouverie Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University, in an open letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, published in 1842. “To feel what the Church should be, is to long that it be so.” Dr. Pusey wrote at a time of crisis and under the pressure of events: that pressure yielded this diamond, that to keep in view what the Church is called to be, by its Divine Master, is to invite our longing for it.
Longing makes the heart deep, as St. Augustine says, but it also means taking risks. Longing makes us vulnerable to disappointment, but dare we risk ceasing to feel what the Church should be? “To feel what the Church should be, is to long that it be so.” It is this great longing for what God calls us to that will propel us forward in action. Your challenge, our beloved brother, will be to keep what the Church should be in view, on the horizon, and to long for it, not only for yourself but for us.
The second prescription comes from Dr. Pusey’s gifted student, Richard Meux Benson, the founder of the Cowley Fathers, and a leader in the monastic revival in the Church of England. I love this quote from a collection of his retreat meditations: if I could, I would put it where it would be seen by every church leader on a daily basis. “We have not to maintain the truth, but to live in the truth so that it may maintain us” (Followers of the Lamb). Bishops are called, in our liturgy today, to be guardians of the faith; but the prior reality is that it is the truth of faith that sustain us.
Nothing we are able to accomplish, as leaders in the Church, will usher in the kingdom, and we would be lunatics to try. We can aim for faithfulness, which is task enough, and tough enough, as well. Bishoping is a loose end business, never completed. The schedule is full of both the urgent and the important, and we never wrap it up and put a bow on it. Never forget that God and his grace is the reality that undergirds all our striving. “We have not to maintain the truth” (thank God!), but to live in the truth so that it may maintain us.” In the anxious moments that fall to the bishop, and will fall to you, never forget that it is Christ who has claimed you, and Christ himself who will sustain you..
Bishop Rob, God has chosen you for this task at this time. We were the ones who cast the lots, in our various ways, but providence guided how they fell! This is a Pentecostal moment, and the Holy Spirit is active and present today. The wind of the Spirit is blowing in the Diocese of Dallas; Christ is commissioning us anew for the work. In all our striving, it is the risen Christ who stands in our midst, and who will stand with you and all of us at the last day. In the meantime, there is work ahead. May God give you the grace and power, in these days, to accomplish it.
The Rt. Rev. John Bauerschmidt, D.Phil. is Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee, having served parishes in Western Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Louisiana. He served in the Church of England from 1987 to 1991 while a student at Oxford. His writings span patristics, especially Augustine, the Caroline Divines, and the Oxford Movement. Bishop John is married to Caroline, and they are the parents of three adult children.
