Theological Reflection: Priesthood of the Believer

The views on Ordination here in do not speak to the realities of ordination in the PCA. Instead it is an introduction to conversation on the nature of ordination and its role in the our lives.

1. Toward a Theology of the Laity

I am often asked by my seminary and church colleagues if I feel limited in my calling by not pursuing the path of ordination. The tragedy of such a question is that it misses an important reality of the life of the laity in the church: they are already ordained by their faith and the identity named as their reality in baptism (if by water or Holy Spirit is of no concern). Any limitation I may feel in my calling originates in the institution of the church and not with the Holy Spirit. In fact when I turn my attention to the holy gospels and to that radical troublemaker and Holy One of God, Jesus Christ, then I am more than able to recognize that I am, as a believer, a member of the Priesthood of All Believers which is the highest form of ordination the church has to offer.

That last statement may cause some to pause and scratch their heads. The ordained priest is a member of the laity who has been forced into a restricted ministry. The community appoints – ordains – this one person to exercise Word, Sacrament and Mercy ministries in such a way that his/her ministry is restrained from participating in the full life of the Ordained Believer. This person is set aside and restricted in their ministry as a visible example of the true reality of those of us who sit in the pew. The ordained priest takes on the symbolic ministries, the light on the hill so to speak, of the realities that the laity must live.

2. The Eucharist and Agape Meals

For example we have set aside the role of the priest to perform the Eucharist in public worship. In seminary we jokingly refer to this as receiving the ‘magic hands’ in ordination, the ability to bless the elements. I must recognize here that I am speaking for my own Anglican/Lutheran tradition and that other traditions have other realties. Please bear with my argument as I feel that in the long run there are trans-denominational implications. The assumption then by many is that the priest and the priest alone has the ability to name the grace of God that is a reality in the Eucharist. This is so far from the truth that it would be funny if it were not a common assumption. The priest is the enactor of the symbol of what the community of Priests lives. What the priest does on a Sunday to the elements is the summation of what we are called to do. This is not to say that the Sunday Eucharist is not the Real Presence, but it is to say that the Real Presence of the Sunday Eucharist functions as a powerful narrative symbol of the reality that the Priesthood of Believer is called to live everyday.

While the priest can preside over this one meal and use it to surmise what all members of the Priesthood are called to do, we the regular Ordained Believers are given the holy task of naming all meals as holy meals. Every time we gather with family, friends, strangers we are called upon to name that meal as ministry and as a place where we can encounter the Real Presence of Christ in the world. This is even more radical as we come to recognize international food crisis’s, poverty and hunger in the world and our own dependence on foods designed to be unhealthy. To share a meal in radical welcome is to share that bounty without regard to persons is to name the real presence of God in Christ in that meal.

The Priesthood of the Believer, unlike the ordinary priest who is limited in his or her task, needs no words of institution to perform this sacrament. The Ordinary Believer may choose to bless a meal or activity but that is of no regard. It is by participating in a radical welcome and ministry of hospitality that we name the Real Presence. Here again the ordinary priest is limited in their work. They must perform a ritual in order to do what I can do by making a sandwich, lending an ear and advocating for justice.

3. Examples

I would now like to name two examples of what I mean by this. The first example comes to us from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver and the Lutheran Urban Mission Society, or LUMS. The other comes from my own congregation, Christ Lutheran. I should point out that I am providing an interpretation of their work and the members of these organizations may not completely agree with my view.

LUMS: After the Eucharist Pr. Brian often tells us to extend the table of welcome to all of our guests who gather to be feed. The Eucharist meal we participate in as a group of believers is not ended with us, but instead opens out into a form of radical welcome. The meal continues, and we continue to participate in it with every act of hospitality at our disposal. The community Eucharist summarizes and empowers the ministry we live daily.

CHRIST LUTHERAN: Is Christ Lutheran a congregation that meets in the corner of a low-income housing unit and celebrates the Eucharist? Or are we a congregation living a Eucharistic ministry of hospitality and welcome and with a special ministry to low-income people who are fed and inspired by the Eucharist, but who live the Eucharist daily? In this latter view we can see how out special ministry and identity is its self a practice of Eucharist, of being the real presence of feeding the soul through food we share and the food of our time. If we restrict the presence of God to bread and wine then we are denying reality. To live a Eucharistic world view to encounter the Real Presence in all people and in all acts of hospitality and welcome.

4. A Dangerous Laity

This is the danger of having and empowered laity. Living into my ordination is to make this danger real, to name all meals that are shared together as Eucharistic events, Agape Meals, in which we proclaim the unconditional welcome and acceptance of God. The early church knew itself as being engaged in the making of families, where women, men, children, slaves and foreigners by their faith belonged to each other in a new type of family. The equality that society could not share the church lived. In our own world where so many must eat alone due to poverty, illness, war, drug abuse, addiction and relationship disconnection, where so many are rendered unequal the task of the Priesthood of Believers is kick doors open and name the overlooked holy spaces of our world. Not only do we make meals holy we also name all places where people gather as holy, we enact Mercy and Pastoral Care with each other and we proclaim the Word-As-Event in bible study and public witness. We are able to engage in what Gustavo Guttierreze calls the ‘sacrament of the neighbor’ and what I call the ‘sacrament of the ordinary’ – we are called to participate in the ordinariness of the world and name it as holy, as places of grace and real presence.

5. FutureChurch

I am grateful for those people who choose to have their ministries restricted by official ordination, but to be honest I do not fully understand it. To be a member of the Priesthood of the Believer is to celebrate sacrament while the priest who is officially ordained can only enact a reminder, a symbol, a summary of what has happened during the week. There is power in that symbol and there is a mighty strength in it but it is nothing compared to what the true Priesthood is able to do.

In the future I hope this Empowered Laity will take up the call of Priesthood wherever they will be. I hope we will always welcome people to our tables, will engage in acts of mercy and justice. We are too dependent on those people whose roles are limited by official ordination. It is not up to Bishops, Congregations and Synods (or what have you) to engage in ministry. It is the task of the Priesthood of The Believer to live into their ordinations and to work as priests in the world. I am hopeful that we will see more small groups, house churches and worship parties as well as Priesthood Teams who will take on the roles of Pastoral Care, Preaching and Ministry. I hope we will see the rise of the Agape Meal in both public worship and private use as a true sacrament that belongs to the Ordained Believer.

If we face with honesty the fact that the church is dying and numbers are shrinking then we must also recognize that the role and function of the church is also changing. I am hopeful that the true ordained, the Ordinary Believer, will recognize this for the incredible possibility it is and the ways in which it contains the future of the church. We cannot let the fears of the Officially Ordained and the institution of the church get in the way of us naming the gift of our faith and acting it out in the world. It is up to the Priesthood of the Believer to not save the church but to find new ways of being church, to recognize that no matter the size of the church or its financial situation the call of Christ and the Holy Spirit must go on even if that means redefining what the gift of the church is in the world. It is up to the priests who sit in the pews to make this happen.

I hope others will join me and in placing the letters POTB (Priesthood of the Believer) behind their name. For we are all members of this great religious order.

Jason Derr, POTB (Priesthood Of The Believer).
Jason Derr is an MA student at the Vancouver School of Theology, a former Lay Campus Minister and a Theologian-In-Affiliation with the PCA.