Canon Jim Pether RIP

From Wellington Cathedral of St Paul

Iesus Huios Soter – IHS – Jesus Son Saviour

Strictly speaking the IHS symbol, or Christogramme, sometimes given to mean “In His Service”, is made up of the first three Greek letters of the name Jesus: iota eta sigma

As a theological student I was drilled by the head sacristan of our college on the proper way to lay out the vestments for mass. The way the vestments were lovingly and carefully laid out every bit as important a part of priestly life as the study of scripture, the crafting of a sermon, the pastoral care offered to people. The way you took care of your vestments and the holy instruments used in worship, reflected, we were taught, the sort of priest you were – one committed to detail even when no one was watching.

For the past seven years I have had the privilege of celebrating the Eucharist first thing on Wednesday morning in the Lady Chapel in this Cathedral. For most of that time I would arrive to find the vestments meticulously laid out in the sacristy; the amice and apparel, stole and girdle forming a perfect IHS. I knew that Canon Jim Pether had been on duty the day before. I knew too that as he shaped those items of clothing into the ancient letters they will have meant something to him, and reminded him of his calling to be both deacon and priest – in every way a servant leader who fashioned his life on that modelled by Jesus Christ himself.

There is much talk today about servant leadership – perhaps too much talk, and not enough doing. Ours is an incarnational faith, one in which we celebrate, at the great Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter, that God became a human being – a tiny vulnerable baby in need of his mother’s milk and father’s protection, and a battered bleeding hurting body dying on a cross. Whether Christmas or Easter, Emmanuel or the suffering servant, the words of the ancient hymn found in Philippians speak to us today: Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God,

  did not regard equality with God
  as something to be exploited, 

but emptied himself,

  taking the form of a slave,
  being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

  he humbled himself
  and became obedient to the point of death—
  even death on a cross. 

This servant calling of the ordained is illustrated by an email I received very early this morning from someone who is a stranger to me. The writer served as Jim’s curate in 1983. After acknowledging that it was to prove to be ‘an unhappy ministry time for us all’, he goes on to talk about some of the lessons he learned from Jim all those years ago. Among them much that he has been able to take into the training of his own curates, and he offers this gem. I quote: ‘Of all else, Jim taught me one pastoral saying that I have tried to live with and instil in my own curates - "never back someone in a dispute so far into a corner that you must both come out fighting."’ The writer of the email is David Biggs, Vicar of the Chapel Royal, Brighton in the Diocese of Chichester.

We sometimes forget the order of this hymn from Philippians – that the self-emptying comes first, the incarnation, the giving, the serving, the dying – and only then the resurrection and the glory. In its wisdom the Church has seen fit to keep as central to the celebration of the Eucharist the words of institution: on the night before he died Jesus took bread… and after supper he took the cup … he gave them to his disciples saying: this is my body, this is my blood. It is the privilege, joy and responsibility of a priest to do this – to proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes in glory. That Christ will come in glory is the second part of the Gospel enunciated in the Philippian hymn. Therefore God also highly exalted him

  and gave him the name
  that is above every name, 

so that at the name of Jesus

  every knee should bend,
  in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 

and every tongue should confess

  that Jesus Christ is Lord,
  to the glory of God the Father. 

In recent years, as clerical garb changed and albs took on high built-in collars, the amice and apparel largely dropped away. It took a while, but Jim adapted to a new way of laying out the vestments, shaping, as beautifully as ever, the stole and girdle into an alpha and omega. It is this symbol of Christ, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, that I want to leave with you today as we give thanks for the life and ministry of Canon Jim Pether – deacon and priest.

Today, for the last time, Jim is dressed in his alb, the stole of office around his neck.

Rest eternal grant unto him O Lord. Let light perpetual rest upon him.

Frank Nelson (Dean of Wellington) 19th September 2011