Actually, “memory” is a poor and inadequate word with which to speak of Bill Wendt. Nothing about him, for those who were privileged to know him, could ever be forgotten. Just to see his picture in the July 9, 2001, edition of the Washington Post was to hear his voice and to delight in his friendship and presence. But “priest” is a good and complete word for Bill. He re-membered this office and exercised it with reckless abandon. If “presbyter” be “priest” writ large, Bill was, and is for us who treasure him, “priest” writ very large. For this Presbyterian cleric that reality will always be both instructive and inspiring. Remembering Bill is always in fact an anamnesis, a recalling which is also an anticipation of what might be of ministry, of hope, and of what is not yet but is already prepared for by the gospel. Most of us live somewhere between our problematic past and our precarious present. But Bill continues to live, in his institutions and his friends (and in his enemies, probably) as the joyful and indefatigable advocate of God’s future, which Paul Lehmann described as “what God is doing in the world to make and to keep human life human.”
For instance, at his funeral mass there was a phalanx of women clergy, bishops, priests and deacons. And decades before, at his last paschal mass as Rector of St. Stephen and the Incarnation, by his gracious invitation this unworthy “worthy” presided at the altar, a Presbyterian episcopos vagans. (I vividly recall that on that day, when I reminded him of his bishop’s prohibition against non-episcopally ordained celebrants, he sweetly squeezed my shoulder with the comforting word, “Even if he finds out, he’ll be glad you’re a man.” And when I asked him which eucharistic prayer I should use, he gently said, “Aren’t all you Presbyterian ministers bishops? Make up your own.” And I would have to confess that if ever there was in either of our denominations a genuine “servant bishop,” it had to have been himself.)
My own association with Bill was born in the camaraderie of Associated Parishes in the ’70s when I was the “token Calvinist.” He was, of course, one of the more radical voices in the group. When talk of revising the prayer book would come up, which it certainly regularly did, his response was regularly to question whether such a book was even needed! He, Henry Breul and Vienna Anderson constituted a “left wing” Gang of Three. This Presbyterian often wondered what was happening to the Episcopal Church, but of late has come to quite a serious appreciation of such witness and boldness. And when the Proposed Book of Common Prayer appeared (1977) and Associated Parishes necessarily began rethinking its mission, it was Bill who, acknowledging that a catechetical effort would be needed, kept our feet to the fires of reform in ministry, parish life, and openness to the marginal members of society.
It was “in, with and under” this Associated Parishes relationship that I began spending many a Holy Week and Easter with Bill at St. Stephen’s. There he would press me into all manner of unfamiliar liturgical and homiletical duties–often with very little notice! In solemn procession to the altar of repose one Maundy Thursday evening, he whispered to me that I might say “a few little words there.” And the only words that came immediately to my mind were the Westminster Directory’s injunction that the sacramental elements were not “to be lifted up and carried about.” On another occasion he left me on Good Friday to preside at the veneration of the cross while he went off with the church’s thurible to exorcise the Department of Justice! As I was holding the crucifix for all to kiss, Mother Scot burst into tears and song. For this Presbyterian these were impressive and uncharted liturgical waters.
With Bill, liturgy always became a liberation...into the known past and also into the unknown future. His almost eschatological reading of tradition will always be for me the holy work and lively play of my own vocation as a practitioner and professor of liturgical studies, now at Boston and Yale Universities. This is a great debt which I owe both to Bill and to the publishers and stewards of this journal.
Coincidentally with Bill’s death at the age of 81 here at the dawn of the 21st century, I have to report, sadly, that we are probably witnessing the effective end of vital Roman Catholic participation in ecumenical liturgical reform in the English- speaking world. What is wonderfully clear to this “insider-outsider,” however, is how well Bill would have understood the meaning of such a sad development. He didn’t even need the phrases “liturgical inculturation” or “indigenization of the liturgy.” That was very simply and very powerfully the flesh and bones of his extraordinary liturgical priesthood and secret episcopacy.
And having alluded to Bill’s “twofold” office, one dare not forget that third aspect of all Christian ministry: the diaconal. This is where I would locate Bill’s compassionate and creative efforts to care for the terminally ill and those who dwell in the face of death, but also that in the presence of “our sister death” we can live in joy, faith, hope and love. That is why all the recent rites for a Christian funeral begin with a reference to the completion of our baptismal vows. And that is why, with no hesitation, I suggested to Bill Mackay, in response to his inquiry about the shape of Bill’s committal service at St. Stephen’s, that it be a baptismal renewal rite. After all, baptism is the beginning and source both of discipleship and of all three classic forms of ordained ministry (a point not yet grasped by countless Christians and even some denominations, who recoil from ordaining to certain offices fully baptized and “practicing” Christians).
The classic theologoumenon for Christ’s reconciling ministry, as brilliantly exegeted by Barth of Basel (in Church Dogmatics IV), that of “Prophet, Priest and King,” as the munus triplex of Reformed dogmatics, and as more recently described as “Prophet, Priest and Shepherd/ King,” nicely and richly describes the peculiar ministry we are calling to mind and heart. But Jesus himself once said, “I call you no more servants but friends.” How proud and grateful many of us are that Bill regarded us as friends.
In Bill’s honor, and to note the saintly and brave company he always shared, it is worth quoting in conclusion some moving words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a letter from prison to his friend Eberhard Bethge, written in January 1944: Just because friendship belongs to [the] sphere of freedom...it must be confidently defended against all the disapproving frowns of moralism... I believe that within the sphere of this freedom friendship is by far the rarest and most priceless treasure, for where else does it survive in this world of ours?
Bonhoeffer ended his darkest letters to Bethge, just after the failure of the assassination attempt against Hitler, with the confident assertion, “We shall meet again.”
Bill, we shall meet again, love.