Monday Night - Ordination ServiceListen to Bishop Kammerer's sermon
Bishop Kammerer's sermon title was "The Lord of the Harvest" based on Matthew 9:35-38. "June and December, and December and June, and June and December... were the harvest months." Bishop Kammerer's family owned a citrus farm in the 1950s and 1960s upon what is now the back door of Disney. She recalled riding on the back of a tractor, barefoot, pigtails flying, drinking in the elixir of orange blossoms. There were always many workers in the grove. In the winter, they would sometimes put out smudge pots of kerosene to keep the trees from freezing. Kids could get out of high school if the temperature threatened to fall below freezing to keep the smudge pots burning. "It sounds like fun, staying up all night, but it was a lot of hard work and not so much pay," the bishop said. "Jesus knew about sowing seeds," she said. Harvest scenes are used throughout the Bible. In Jesus' day a fig tree was distinctive because of the way the leaves were fashioned. The leaves looked dead. It was a miracle when the sap did its work and the fig tree takes on new life. "So, too, a small orange tree is shrouded in lackluster promise," Bishop Kammerer said. It takes seven years for a tree to mature. But every tree was planted with the possiblity that the tree would grow making a strong trunk and a profusion of leaves and blossoms, and then the beginning of green fruit. It would then turn yellow, then orange. "When I was 5 or 6, I told my grandfather I wanted to pick fruit. He gave me this big, old, ugly canvas sack and placed a ladder by a tree obviously overladen with very bright fruit. He showed me how to get the oranges off the tree without bruising the fruit. You were to put each one very gently in the bottom if this 50-pound bag that was taller than me. "I started up the ladder stretching out as far as I could, picking each orange and putting it gently in the sack. I remember moving the ladder when I needed to and I got very hot and sweaty, covered the grime, sap, and leaking oranges. I kept insisting I could do it myself. Several hours later I had filled the bag. Sunburned, exhausted, blisters on my lipa, I could hardly move. I remember my grandfather lifting me and leading me to an overturned orange crate. He sat me down, wiped my face with his handkerchief and went and got a fresh orange for me. He took a pocket knife and began to work on the orange, peeling it back into six even pieces. I remember sitting there with orange juice running down my chin and I can still taste that divine nectar. It was the perfect reward for helping to bring in the harvest," the bishop remembered.
Everyone here for ordination has heard a deep calling from God, the bishop said. "Jesus has promised a bountiful harvest. All we do is follow him and he will deliver. The way is long and requires discipline and perseverance. It asks great patience to be sowers of the Gospel. It asks sacrifice. We are even called to be thankful for the privilege to suffer with Jesus. "We are the disciples today," she said. "You will be fruit bearers. My heart leaps for joy when I think about the possibilities for fruitfulness in you and in all of us. What I didn't know when I spent the hours picking the fruit, my grandfather had arranged for several workers that I never saw to help me. They had watched me to make sure I hadn't fallen off the ladder and they were even helping me pick the fruit. My grandfather guaranteed I would be successful. The Lord of the harvest is with you and cannot fail if you make him the Lord of your heart." The bishop's sermon was followed the licensing of the local pastors (31 persons), the recognition of an associate member (one person), the commissioning of the probationary members (22 persons), and the ordaining of elders (23 persons).
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